Dear Pregnant Ladies: Dolphins Are Not Magic And Do Not Want To Attend Your Water Birth
(Photo: iStockPhoto/Getty Images/LdR)
Even the crunchiest of us would probably be a bit displeased to come home and find a dolphin giving birth in the middle our apartments, so just imagine how the poor dolphins must feel when random crazy ladies insist on delivering human babies in their oceans and dolphin enclosures.
Dolphin-assisted birth is not a new idea, but it is a terrible one. In a new article wonderfully titled, “Dolphin-Assisted Childbirth Is a Bad Idea,” Newsweek’s Jessica Firger points out that there are still people today trying to birth their children with the help of unpaid dolphin doula, either in addition to or instead of professional human assistants. Dorina Rosin and her husband Maika Suneagle said they planned to give birth in the Pacific Ocean. There isn’t an appointment or a process for that. The couple–who runs a spiritual healing center in Hawaii–just planned to go dunk Rosin in the ocean as soon as she went into labor and trust the magic of dolphins to bring them to her side to help escort their child into this world. For some reason, they thought the dolphins would be eager to help, and also that the process would enable their newborn to “speak dolphin.”
If that were true, I expect he’d hear a conversation something like this:
Dolphinius the Dolphin: “What is she doing? I have to swim there! Eugh, it got in my mouth! It’s everywhere! Does this lady not understand how water works?”
Dolphinia: “With all that blood, it’s obvious she doesn’t understand how sharks work, let alone Brownian motion. Let’s get out of here before she makes us bless her placenta.”
Luckily for the baby and the dolphins, Rosin went into labor in the middle of the night and delivered on land. I feel a bit sorry for Rosin that she did not have her dream delivery, but I want to high-five that baby, because I’m pretty sure he heard his parents’ plans and made a concerted effort to get out early and avoid being birthed into the grinning maw of a 500-pound cetacean.
Dolphins are beautiful, magical creatures. Well, they’re not actually magical. They’re mammals. But they’re very nice, non-magical mammals. According to Newsweek, the number of people seeking out dolphin-assisted births is actually growing, despite the fact that that is ridiculous and pretty unsanitary. Some of these dolphin births are intended to occur in dolphin therapy suites with dolphins in little saltwater pools, and in other cases the laboring mothers are just eased straight into the sea. All of these ideas are terrible. Babies like to be born in clean, sanitary places, not random bodies of water full of God only knows what. And dolphins don’t like to be involved at all. Dolphins have dolphin business going on, and they do not want to be bothered having their faces rubbed all over babies whose parents think they’re magic.
Please do not make a dolphin deliver your baby. Have your baby at LegoLand instead. It’s a cooler birth story, and less likely that a shark–or a random, sea-borne bacteria–will show up.
