Birthing Stool

Apparently, in the Netherlands, women are encouraged to give birth the natural way, at home, and with the help of midwives (who's trained and will get you to the hospital if there is a medical reason).

And that thing to the left is the standard equipment: a birthing stool. (But this one is special.) Amazone of Farqmazone blog explains:

These days most midwives carry one standard with them at deliveries. Sitting on it the birthing woman can make good use of gravity to help getting the child out. It also helps a little preventing a disaster zone down there…
But this is not a regular birthing stool.
The in-laws used to have a milk farm, so when the use of birthing stools came in use, a home made one was soon provided for the births of the third and fourth child.
Kneeling on it helps bearing the labour contractions better before, and after the birth, catching the placenta.

Link (Photo: Amazing Amazone [Flickr])

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Ob is a surgical specialty. All they really know how to do is surgery. They ARENT TRAINED for any of the normal variances of childbirth. Some hospitals even limit a mother to 30 mins in which to labor before they insist on a c section. Baby breach? Gotta have a c section. Baby breech and already have a foot hanging out when you reach the hospital? Gotta SHOVE that baby BACK up through the birth canal and have an emergency c section. Is anyone here REALLY stupid enough to think that that was safer for the baby OR mother than just reaching up, taking the baby by the other heel and letting him be born? He'd already DONE 98% of the work himself....but nope....no breech deliveries allowed. And believe it or not...babies AND mothers DO die from c sections. C sections have a much higher rate of infection than do vaginal births. Imagine being 23 and having a c section, and having SO MUCH scar tissue that sex is painful for THE REST of your life. They do NOT tell you all the things that could go wrong. They dont tell you how easy it is to screw up your back by having an epidural. You find that out yourself when youre walking through the grocery store and suddenly your back spasms and you hit the floor. The drugs they give you for the pain actually slow down or stop contractions, making labor last much longer (as in you wind up being in more pain, longer), and the drugs they give you to induce you gives you strong contractions before your body is ready for them. Women have been taught by Hollywood that labor is a terrifying painful experience to be feared. In labor? PANIC!!! (which CAUSES you to be in SO much more pain). In reality that stage only lasts (on average) approximately 2 hours. What sane KNOWLEDGEABLE woman would RISK that if unless she was high risk? What woman WANTS to put herself THROUGH that? You ask why not go to the hospital first? I ask WHY you think you NEED to go to the hospital? It sounds like fear. We, as a nation, have been taught to fear birth and trust doctors blindly. Currently OBs arent being taught HOW to handle the MANY variations of birth that midwives see all the time. Which means in all reality, where normal birth is concerned, the average midwife has MORE training than your average Ob. Kinda a scary thought. So hey go to a hospital if you are high risk, or think you can relax while having unnecessary interventions foisted on you by overworked panicky doctors and bitchy nurses. That's YOUR right. Just as much as it's MY right to have a beautiful, calm, SAFE delivery at HOME.
As to this particular birthing "bucket". It doesnt really look close enough to the ground to allow for a useful squatting position, but hey if nothing else it's a cute family heirloom.