09/02/2026
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The pain is not your enemy.
The intense sensations of labor have a physiological purpose. How amazing that before research could even verify the hormonal blueprint of labor and pinpoint the importance of oxytocin, this old pope (and many other people) knew that the pain served a divine purpose. We know now that the hormonal biofeedback loop of labor increases oxytocin as the sensations of labor grow stronger. That oxytocin increases bonding with your baby (and the people in the room!) and triggers an endorphin release with every contraction.
Interesting that he stated this around the very same time it had become routine in America to completely sedate women in birth. What that did to their motherhood and the attachment to their babies and impacted those families and future generations we will never fully know.
When you are in the thick of it, remember this: Every contraction brings me closer to my baby...not just in time, though very true and encouraging! But it also serves to increase the bond you feel with that child and turns on that mother-bear instinct. God knew what He was doing and His design matters.
“Even the pains which, after original sin, a mother has to suffer to give birth to her child only make her draw tighter the bond which unites them: the more the pain has cost her, so much the more is her love for her child. He who formed mothers’ hearts, expressed this thought with moving and profound simplicity: “A woman about to give birth has sorrow, because her hour has come. But when she has brought forth the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for her joy that a man is born into the world.”
Through the pen of the Apostle, St. Paul, the Holy Ghost also points out the greatness and joy of motherhood: God gives the child to the mother, but, together with the gift, He makes her cooperate effectively at the opening of the flower, of which He has deposited the germ in her womb, and this cooperation becomes a way which leads her to her eternal salvation: “Yet women will be saved by child bearing”.”
Pope Pius XII, Allocution to Midwives
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doula | pregnant | midwife | motherhood | catholic | quotes | postpartum
