In my toolkit of experiences, I’ve had a few run in’s with homebirthing
midwives that were less than empowering, and a few with doctors and hospitals
as well. I’ve read books from the
Christian fundamentalist right wing about unassisted birth, and how midwives,
doctors and all other birth workers just get in the way of what should
naturally be a magical experience shared by the mum and dad alone. And I really related to what was
written. When the books drew attention
to the observation that many women focused their oxytocic love, thanks and
bonding on the midwife, rather than their mate, I could really see what they
were talking about. There’s so many
birth stories I’ve read, where women talk in loving and glowing terms about
their midwives, and all their other family members kinda take a back seat to the
show. And there’s a lot of intervention
that some midwives get into that is totally unnecessary and just gets in the
way, like giving internals, and cutting cords quickly, and catching the baby
and ‘giving’ it to the mamma. And after
having a less than positive experience with homebirthing midwives, I really got
into this way of looking at midwife led births for a while…….only to get
pregnant again, cleanse a lot of my negative juju about midwives by meeting one
who listened to me rant and agreed with me, and then was present at our birth
in the most unobtrusive way possible, and gave me the gift of ‘catching’ my own
baby. I then went on to become a bit of
a homebirthing and midwife advocate, till Balthazar came a long and introduced
me to the blessings of western medicine.
And of course in my most recent and publicised birth of twins, Lisa was
an integral, necessary, and much loved part of the process, and I definitely had
a lot to say about her in my writings.
And while I know the statistics of caesareans in hospitals is
incredibly alarming, and I get the whole interventionist dance that often leads
to caesareans, as well as the scare mongering that happens from doctor folks
when homebirth or natural birth is suggested…..I’ve had some really empowering,
respectful, and peaceful births in hospitals too. My main beef with hospitals has been their
overwhelming attitude that birth is fraught with danger, and that birth belongs
in the same corridors as deathly illnesses, physical trauma, great sickness and
slow death. I’ve got a bit of a problem
too, with how the trend in hospitals at the moment is to separate mamma’s and
babies, and that whole invasive separation they do with cleaning, testing,
jabbing needles etc. Kinda doesn’t
really aid in a gentle welcome, compassion for a little being who’s been living
in a controlled, peaceful and watery womb, and bonding. Also, how it’s really hard to feel safe and
cave like, and tap into a woman’s mammalian brain, in the sterile and bright
environment of a hospital ward. But then again, if a woman is really afraid of
birth and what might happen, maybe for her a hospital is the safe place that
she needs to be able to fully relax into the birthing process? Afterall, even though much ado is made of
interventionist practices in hospital, there are still a huge amount of women
who birth naturally and without drugs in them.
To be brutally honest, I don’t think either camp has all the
answers, or even all the questions, and I think that both homebirthing midwives
and their supporters, and hospital birth workers and their supporters are two
halves of the same whole. Very
antagonistic and despising of each other halves, but halves nonetheless. And while they’re stuck in this anti each
other and polarising dance for the soul of birth, a lot of women, children,
families and individuals on both sides of the track are being overlooked,
seriously neglected, and damaged in the process. On the one side we have the birth trusting, all
women have been beautifully designed to birth naturally, and by the way we’ve
been doing it for thousands of years, so hospitals and doctors should just get
back in their boxes, and take their hands off birth, and leave us all to do it
peacefully at home approach, that also makes a fair deal about the
scaremongering of doctors and obstetricians, and how a lot of their ‘facts’ are
lies. And then on the other side we have
the medical approach that points to the harm that can come to unprepared women
and families facing an emergency situation at home, and perhaps a long way from
a hospital, as well as some of the dangers that can be faced when there’s an
un-regulated body of birth workers attending births at home. There’s also the body of information they hold
about the dangers of birth, and how fraught birth HAS been in our history. Yes many women pushed out babes on the fields
and kept going, but a lot of them experienced babies getting stuck, and dying,
and cords around necks stopping them from being born, and a hundred other
possibilities that can and do happen even in these days of improved diet and
hygiene and birth trusting. But
unfortunately, it’s the mainstream medical model that has the weight of the
government and legal practitioners behind them, willing to send the horses of
the apocalypse after homebirthers, and resulting in an unfairly balanced war
effort on behalf of the hospital birthing scene.
And the result of this antagonistic polarising dance in my
opinion anyway, is causing many a casualty in the self esteem and bonding of
families and birthing women across the board.
Unsuprisingly, with the amount of kids bounding around us every time
we’re in public, a lot of my conversations with people we come across revolve
around birth and kids. And I’m really
saddened that a lot of women respond to my stories with half ashamed accounts
of how they weren’t brave enough to try birthing at home, or they tried and
just couldn’t cut it, or they used every drug they possibly could because they
were so afraid, or they didn’t have any option because their pelvis was too
small, or they had health complications, or they had a natural birth and it
traumatised them, or they suffered post natal depression, or a million other
reasons why they didn’t give birth in either the wholistic, alternative
accepted manner, or the hospital, mainstream accepted manner. And these women all take it onto themselves,
as their own fault, as their own body failing them in birth, as their inability
to birth ‘properly’ being all their own doing, as an experience that happened
to them that was less than they hoped, the result of which, can put some
serious bricks in the wall of their lack of self esteem and body confidence,
which then leeches from their parenting confidence, and sense of connection
with their families, and becomes part of the general body of stories around
birth that go unacknowledged from either side of the polarised fence, as it
doesn’t fit appropriately into their accepted picture of what birth is.
I see so many women and families in pain around their
birthing experiences, that I’ve taken to saying something like this to
them…..
“Ya know what darlin?
There is no ‘perfect’ birth, birth just is what it is. Every one is different, and every birth is
perfect if you let it be, no matter whether it was at home or in the
hospital. And we haven’t been designed
perfectly to give birth, cause we CHANGED OUR DESIGN!! When we decided to grow our frontal lobes and
walk upright we changed our design from the less problematic mammalian birth
canals that were straight, and we turned them into this twisty birth canal that
can really cause problems. And babies had to be born a year premature,
which meant they couldn’t walk like all the other mammal babies, so mother
nature had to create a tricksy system of oxytocic rewards if we held them to us
and fed them when they were hungry, so they weren’t eaten by dogs or stolen by
other tribes. You just need to be true
to yourself and do what feels good for you, cause that’s all that counts
really. Trying to birth or parent in any
kind of way because that’s what you’ve been told is ‘right’ is never gonna
work, cause it doesn’t carry the weight of your belief and life
experience. Don’t let anyone tell you
what to do, and listen to yourself and your new baby whose instincts haven’t
been convinced otherwise yet, and all will be fine…”
Or something like that anyway.
Cause the biggest casualty in the war over birth is birth
itself. And it is a war, and quite a
vicious one at times. Nastiness and
personal attacks are hurled by both sides, personalities especially associated
with either camp singled out for horrific attention, and it seems that no-one’s
getting the law of attraction proven by quantum physics, that you get more of
what you focus on! And my own personal
experience that you become what you hate is also coming into this
equation. No one is winning anything,
except for long drawn out battle plans being enacted, and a lot of energy being
spent on the fight. And a whole lot of
people are losing, their integrity, their passions, their experiences being
validated, and their sense of self worth.
Sometimes it seems to me that the fight just takes up too much space.
In an ideal world, both halves of birth would come together
and hold hands instead. Doctors and
obstetricians would study their own sciences, especially that of
Ethnopaediatrics and the beautiful works of Dr Sarah Buckley, Leboyer, Michel
Odent, and all the others who’ve championed gentle and welcoming births, and
provide birthing centres all over the world that allowed lesser and greater
influences of homebirth and hospital birth depending on the blend required by
the families that use them. And homebirthing
midwives who feel drawn to the trade, will work co-operatively with them in
partnership and backup, so that all the potentialities of birth can be dealt
with effectively and cohesively. And the
women and families entering the mysterious world of birth will have equal
access to all the different perspectives and possibilities available, and have
free access to whatever option works for them, based on their life experience
and deeply held beliefs. And imagine what
we could do with all the energy focused on this war if the war dissolved!! If the polarity that exists melted into a
whole, there would be no ‘taboo’ subjects left anymore, so women walking into
birth for the first time could explore the possibilities of natural caesareans
for example, and alternative forms of pain relief, and maybe, just maybe, we
could also focus our attention on what happens AFTER birth, a largely ignored
realm in many birthing circles. We focus
on the conception, the pregnancy, the hormones, the birth and all it’s possibilities,
but what happens after? What about the
importance of bonding? The exhaustion
many women feel after entertaining family hours after birthing? How to fold
cloth nappies? How to deal with sibling
rivalry? How to deal with the issues of
step parenting? How to address problems
that occurred during the birth and set up patterns that aren’t life
enhancing? How to ‘unlearn’ survival
skills that we’ve been taught by our parents that don’t help us survive, and in
fact may be really stuffing us up? I can
think of worlds that we could be spending our collective energy on that would
be far more rewarding than the argy bargy between hospital and home birthing.
So to get back to the original question, I guess that on deep
contemplation, I’d have to say that I trust birth implicitly metaphysically,
but not completely physically. I’m aware
of the things that can go wrong, and that HAVE gone sideways for me in my
experiences, and when I’m in that intensely vulnerable and ‘elsewhere’ state of
engaging in the age old dance of birth, I really like someone around to hold my
hand, and who I know will cover my back.
Someone who isn’t Currawong and my family, who are caught up with their
own experience, but who is there to just focus on me and the baby inside me
coming out safely. Someone who knows
enough about the intricacies of birth to be able to fix any solvable problems
at home, and also to get us the hell out of there and to a hospital on time if
that’s what is needed. And I’m so greatful
for the folk that spend years in university learning how to help me and others
when we really need them in hospitals, as well as the midwives who dig into the
past to find old ways of birthing, as well as making alternative information
available as well. I’m greatful for all
birthworkers really, and see the value in all their work and ideas. I just wish it was something that they and
others could see mutually and in themselves as well.
But that’s just my perception of birth, and the best way to
do it, and when it comes down to it, I’d argue for anyone else’s perceptions
till I’m blue in the face, cause that’s what it’s all about to me. The combination of all our experiences and
perceptions are equally valid and enhancing if taken that way, to the whole. And if we put em all together and respect
them all, we have a really healthy blueprint for the evolution of us all and
our consciousness so we can USE those frontal lobes we traded easier births
for, to help our planet and ourselves move beyond this warring and fighting
over who’s right and wrong that happens in every sector, and move into an
evolution of love, respect, peace and freedom for every single thing in the
universe. I’ll keep dreaming it up………
