10/12/2026
Everyone deserves EVIDENCE-BASED care 🙌🏼
Have you heard of twilight birth? Did your grandparents, great grandparents, experience this?
Once upon a time, THIS was normal. Intially, preferred by some women because the ability to birth without pain is appealing. However, the reality wasn't actually birthing without pain, it was birthing without memory.
What was once celebrated as an advancement, shifted to a fight for autonomy in birth.
For those with positive experiences, they simply had no memory of the birth. For others, they woke with marks on their wrists from being restrained. Restraining garments like the one pictured were used to keep women from harming themselves and staff.
Twilight birth wasn't a calm pain free birth. Twilight birth was being restrained because women were blacked out while still moving, having no way to consciously find ways to cope with labor.
Twilight birth meant restraint. It meant no support people. It meant no personal comfort, support or autonomy. Forceps, episiotomies, etc., became necessary and impacted obstetrical practices long after twilight birth ended.
Morphine and scopolamine were used to induce a state of semiconscious, amnesic labor as late as the 1960s.
What does this mean for birthing people today? It's a reminder that it is not just okay but important to ask questions. It's okay to not accept policy or status quo. It is about asking for EVIDENCE-BASED care and practices.
Autonomy in birth matters.
