I just read this great passage in Birthing from within (Pam England and Rob Horowitz 1998, p. 8) that I wanted to share:

We seldom hear of a mother dying in labour...so learning that some mothers have fleeting fears of dying surprises and perhaps unnerves us. Interestingly mothers tell me that when the thought of dying surfaced near the end of labour, they were simply aware of the thought or feeling, perhaps surprised, but not disturbed by it.
Why does [the] thought of dying come up in a healthy labour, often just before giving birth? The mounting intensity of labour forces complete surrender of our body and will, dissolving our egos, ideas and familiar sense of self. We're not afraid of dying because there is no "self" left to resist and fear. At that transcendent moment we have become birth itself. This is the spiritual birth of woman into mother.
This just speaks exactly to my own feelings just as DD was moving down the birth canal. I honestly felt like I was going to tear in two, and that would die in the process. Acknowledging that feeling and moving past it gave me the inner strength to really push her out. It was as if I had been holding her back because I was scared of what might happen to me, but a total surrender of myself meant she could finally be born.

Birth is such an amazing process, and I truly feel it is like walking a precipice between life and death- the moment of transformation and transfiguration.

Anyway, just needed to share.