Feminism is for everybody

An article in the Lancet earlier this month explained how Feminism is for everybody

The article quoted bell hooks, who said “to be ‘feminist’ in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.”

Women and men are held in a negative pattern of behaviour by the dominant paradigm of patriarchy. That pattern of behaviour is so normal, people can't perceive it until they become more mindful and aware. Even then, it is easy to slip back into unconsciousness and the same pattern of behaviour. There is a concept that 'fish can't see water' and that applies to us humans too and the dominant patriarchal paradigm. Not only is it hard to perceive without education and questionning, some people will argue for their limitations and to maintain their inability to perceive the socially transmitted invisible structures that contain and shape us.  Neither women nor men can truly be all they are capable of being until they throw off the shackles of sexist role patterns and become aware of the subliminal messages that support and cultivate the behaviours that enable dominantion and suppression.

This video, shared on Twitter this morning, has been watched by 4.48 million people across the world and demonstrates all too clearly how 'normal' violence against women is. The comments are enlightening. I encourage you to read them and think about why bell hooks wrote about feminism in the way she did and how it essential for everybody.

Childbirth is an area where women are even more vulnerable than usual. In pregnancy, women need to be cared for and supported as their mind/bodies are fully engaged in growing the next generation. Women need a safe environment for their bodies to work well.  However, pregnancy is a time when domestic violence can erupt for the first time or worsen. Not only are women damaged and murdered by violence in the home, living with violence irreparably damages children. The immediate and long-term consequences on children of living  with violence is becoming more understood and increasingly talked about in the media.

There is also recognition that too many women's wants, needs and desires for birthing their babies are ignored and dismissed by the people working in the system.  More and more women are emerging from childbirth shattered, their belief in themselves torn to shreds. A term used to describe this phenomenon is 'obstetric violence'.  Many health care professionals are horrified by that term, claiming that they care about women and their babies and their work is designed to keep the woman and her baby safe. The fact that so many women feel damaged by the very system that has been created to keep them safe means we have a problem - the question is, has the disrespect and invisible negative pattern of behaviour that signals the patriarchal paradigm caused a blindspot in the health sytem's perspective?  Women want to birth normally and need to have the support to do it.  WHO is recommending that labour,if everyone is well  and healthy, to be enabled to progress at it's own pace. Despite this call for change, intervention rates are increasing. A new book by a gastroenterologist from Cork provides a scathing attack on modern medicine, calling it “an industrialised culture of excess” and a threat to health". Certainly, along with the way women feel following childbirth, the distress and rate of death by suicide in the medical profession indicates that things need to change. Some are calling for a Royal Commission into Obsetric Care in Australia - perhaps the time has come to look deeply, with fresh eyes, at what we are doing to women and babies during childbearing.

After 68 women were murdered last year in Australia, the majority murdered by someone they loved, a northern rivers' musician, Ilona Harker, herself a survior of domestic violence experienced as a child, gathered other musicians from around the area to create a moving tribute to the women who had been murdered and to end violence against women, using Valentine's Day as the framework.

Ilona called to all of us to make a difference:

 "I would also like people to feel compelled to speak up when they see micro-aggression acts or anyone who has any hate speech towards women or children.

"And I'd really like men to stand up because without men we're not going to change this."

It's time for a new normal. As bell hooks wrote so compellingly, if we "want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.”  then feminism is for everybody.


https://twitter.com/JIMINSPROMlSE/status/1096449763111854080

Natural Births A Major Cause Of Post-Traumatic Stress? Wrong!

A Tel Aviv University researcher has linked natural birth with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Natural Births A Major Cause Of Post-Traumatic Stress

Interestingly, some people consider that PTSD is a very modern trauma

According to the Tel Aviv study, 1 in 3 postnatal women in their study sample showed signs of PTSD while a small percentage were severely affected.

What causes PTSD?  A posting on medical news today in 2009 states that PTSD is triggered by a traumatic event and that:

"The sufferer of PTSD may have experienced or seen an event that caused extreme fear, shock and/or a feeling of helplessness".

"a woman is four times more likely to develop PTSD than a man. Psychiatrists say this is probably because women run a higher risk of experiencing interpersonal violence, such as sexual violence"
Traumatic events that commonly trigger PTSD in women - these include rape, sexual molestation, physical attack, being threatened with a weapon, childhood physical abuse.

Given that labour and birth are innately highly emotional, vulnerable times for women - and that is to enable the liberation of the 'love hormone' oxytocin - the emotional 'fixative' for attachment, bonding and breastfeeding - the feeling is a natural 'high' - the reward for labour and birth;  care needs to be respectful, supportive, kind and competent for labour to go well.  Women need to feel in control, to have agency and feel safe during labour and birth.   Numerous studies have found that women labour and birth well when they have caregivers they know and trust.

Photo of joy filled mother with newborn

Women who have their emotional needs met in labour and birth enter motherhood feeling awesome!

Feeling good after giving birth is not about whether it was natural or not, it is not about whether you coped with the pain or not, although labour is much harder to handle when you are not in a good environment or in control of what's happening to you - it's about how you are treated, how well supported you are, how protected and private your birth territory is and how well you feel in control of what's done to you.

I think the good doctors need to investigate what is going on in their hospitals! They are 'barking up the wrong tree'.

Healing from Birth Trauma

A very important post on birth trauma was posted by a guest blogger on the wonderful Rachel Reed's  Midwife Thinking blog the other day.  As I read the post and then the comments, I was taken by a young woman's story of her two births; one traumatic and one healing.  I emailed Amber and asked her if she would allow me to publish her stories on my blog because there are many powerful lessons to be learned from her experiences. Amber kindly agreed and here are her stories.  The posts are long, but well worth reading in depth to gather and savour the illuminations she gives us. For those of us who are pregnant parents and those of us who are midwives or other health care practitioners working with birthing women, her words are precious invitations into the world of birth and what women need.

The headings provide links to Amber's blog.

Tale of Two Birth Stories, Part 1

I wish to share my birth stories because becoming a mother is where this journey began. I cannot tell the one without the other—it would only be telling half the story of how I came to be the woman I am today. The birth of my son, now almost three years ago, is still very fresh and vivid in my mind…and deeply painful. I have been repeatedly reminded that I am so fortunate, a hemorrhage is such a little thing; and indeed, as I commented recently, “on paper” it looks like a wonderfully successful natural birth, but to me, it was a nightmare, and one I’ve lived repeatedly over the years. It was only recently that I realized I have truly been grieving over this birth and, allowing myself to go through that process, I believe I have finally arrived at a peace and even a gratitude for that day: for without it I would never had had the courage to take my first step into this wonderful adventure God is unfolding before me now.

I made the choice to birth in hospital as a compromise. I had wanted a homebirth from the time that I knew they were still an option—I’m an introvert and deeply sensitive when it comes to privacy—but due to fear of confrontation and concern for my mother (who is not well and unable to handle stress), I convinced myself that a CNM in hospital wouldn’t be horrible: I still had a midwife and my mom wouldn’t have to worry unduly. I had also convinced myself that Mom had to be a part of the birth of her first grandchild (how could I deny her that?) even though I knew she’s never been able to handle any situation in which I’ve been ill or in pain.

My heart screamed it was a mistake throughout all my prenatal care, but I stuck to my choice even though I was becoming increasingly unwell. Because I was perfectly healthy in all the numbers, my concerns were repeatedly ignored and downplayed as mere complaining. I was frustrated, determined, hopeful, and excited all at once. Thus sets the stage for that eventful day…

Raising birthing consciousness: moving beyond cruelty to women and babies

I met a friend for breakfast this morning at a lovely little cafe on the shores of a local lake.  My friend is a Calmbirth practitioner and I have had 30 years in private midwifery practice. We are both passionate about sharing information and exploring ideas about birth and parenting with couples.  Our conversation involved a lot of animated discussion on the subjects dear to our hearts, including why women chose the care they do.

How women and their partners think about the birth of their babies and choose their care provider and their birth place is intriguing.  Women who sought out my midwifery care wanted to know who was going to be with them during their labour and birth, so building trust and understanding during pregnancy was an integral part of their plan. They wanted to ensure privacy and be in control of what happened to them and their baby.  They wanted continuity of care into the postnatal period for support. How their baby was born was something they considered deeply; they wanted their babies to be born gently, into a loving environment and for themselves to be as involved as possible.  These parents desired to be the first to touch their babies; they sought minimal intervention and to discover the sex of their children themselves.  They were fully aware that their baby was a conscious being who participated fully in the labour and birth experience.

According to my friend,  women who access her services don't realise there is any other choice but private or public medical care. They didn't consider public maternity care and didn't generally know about midwifery models of care. As they are generally privately insured, they want to "get their monies worth" by employing an obstetrician and having a private room in the hospital.  We discussed the way that employing a surgeon usually means you will end up with interventions and surgery.


I told my friend about a video on birth trauma that Gloria Lemay had shared on Facebook (see below) and a post Birth Abuse by Navel Gazing midwife.  Routine obstetric management of birth is shown in the video. The video is a compilation of clips are from women's own birth videos collected by a chiropractor and made into this short film. For those not habituated to medical care at birth, these scenes may be distressing, so please take care of yourself when watching this information.
 
Warning: If you are pregnant, it may be best to give this video a miss as you are better off watching beautiful birth films that inspire and support your birth vision.



Birth Trauma from Centre Quiropràctic Molins on Vimeo.


Both those items and the accompanying comments have really troubled me. That women still emerge from their birthing experiences feeling like they have been abused is a dreadful and indefensible underbelly of maternity care. I left the public system thirty years ago to go into private midwifery practice because of the abuse I'd observed. I've written about that in my master's dissertation.
 
My friend told me she had been very roughly examined vaginally during the birth of her first baby and how devasted she had felt after that experience.  She told me that she felt it was the beginning of her slide into severe postnatal depression with that child and the source of the tremendous fear that she felt with her second pregnancy.  My friend said that she didn't stand up for herself at the time and as she was a midwife she 'should have'.  Then she said something that really illuminated the whole issue of birth trauma and abuse for me. She said "I should have stood up for myself, but I didn't have the words to do it..."
 
I thought about the way that women trust their health care practitioner to do the right thing by them and believe their practitioner has their best interests at heart.  Obviously, when the practitioner is rough, or behaves differently to what the woman expects, the woman goes into a shock-like biobehavioural state and has a cognitive dissonance experience. Cognitive dissonance experiences are usually difficult to put into words at the time.

A comment on Navel Gazing midwife's blog explored the Roots of birth abuse. The comment sheds some light on the reasons why birth abuse occurs.  The big question is how do people (partners, family members, midwives, obstetric nurses, doulas, registrars, paediatricians etc) accept these atrocities committed in the name of obstetric 'care'? Mind you, there is conversation in the various tea rooms across the land that revolves around these issues and I know many doulas lament what they observe in labour wards.

Perhaps in the main, the focus of wanting the baby 'out' and 'alive' means the 'how' and the 'why' pales into insignificance until we 'wake up' to the actual brutality of what is accepted as routine obstetrical management. Until we wake up, we are blind to that reality. Blindness to anything other than that which the person is focused on is called 'inattentional blindness'.  An explanation for inattentional blindness can be found in the latest research on how certain neurons actively suppress visual data streaming into the brain. This research informs us that we are only aware of approximately 1% of what's going on around us.


My friend and I discussed ways to provide information to women and men about birth options and ways to raise consciousness about birth choices and effects. How do we help this generation of parents to understand that abdominal birth and vaginal birth are not equal; that the choices they make for their care will have profound effects on the outcomes and their experiences?  How do we create a culture where violence against women and babies, even that form of violence couched in terms of 'obstetric care' is unacceptable? How do we lay the foundation of kind, respectful woman centred care in maternity services? How women are treated in their most vulnerable state during childbearing provides a template for how society treats women generally. How do we help parents recognise and engage with the spirit and consciousness of the child that is embodying and being born?