All expectant parents want the same thing: a healthy baby. But what are the steps to having a healthy baby? Lamaze International believes that a healthy baby begins with a healthy pregnancy and normal birth. Our mission is to promote, support and protect normal birth through education and advocacy. The Lamaze vision is “a world of confident women choosing normal birth.” A normal birth is nature’s simple plan to let birth unfold naturally, free from unnecessary interventions.

A woman’s body is designed to grow a baby during pregnancy, to birth her baby, and to nurture her baby at the breast. The changes that take place in a woman’s body during pregnancy seem miraculous. Some of these changes prepare a woman’s body for the challenges that lie ahead. Hormones sustain her pregnancy, orchestrate the events of labor and birth, and enable her to open and give birth. Any intervention in birth, no matter how harmless it may seem, may disrupt these precise hormonal shifts and create problems that must be managed with further medical interferences.

When nature is allowed to take its course during birth, the process of labor often is smoother and mother and baby have healthier outcomes. However, there are high-risk birth situations that do require interventions to ensure the safety and health of both mother and baby, but these represent a small percentage of all births.