|
Dear hospital Birth Worker,
All over the internet there are groups starting up to support women who have sustained birth trauma. These groups meet in person as well, all across the world. Their goal is to help women come to terms with the way they were treated when they were trying to give birth. Many of these women have written to hospitals to complain about the way they were treated, most have been ignored and hospitals continue to justify the over medicalisation of birth. Women's dissatisfaction is growing, our voices are getting louder, here's what we'd like you to know.
If we say no to an intervention we actually mean no. We don't mean send someone else in to try and scare us into saying yes. We don't mean no but yeah. We mean NO. Saying no to a medical intervention during labour doesn't mean we're difficult. It means we've done our research and we're comfortable with things the way they are, or alternatively it could just mean that we're uncomfortable allowing people to touch us in places that are extremely sensitive, private, and intimate to us. Sure, something might go wrong because we declined your intervention but it's us who will wear the burden of that. If our baby dies we will live with that pain for the rest of our lives.
If you coerce us or manipulate us to choose something that is against our wishes it's unethical. If you hold us down and force procedures on us it's assault. It's just another day at work for you but to us it's the day that makes us a mother, possibly the most important day in our adult lives. It's not your job to make us take your advice or medical assistance, it's your job to offer us all the options - not just the ones that suit you - and accept our decision whatever that may be. Performing medical procedures on women that are unnecessary simply because you are concerned we might sue you if you don't is no longer a good enough reason. At the end of the day it's our life and our baby's life that we hold at the helm of every decision, believe me we don't take it lightly.
When you speak to us in labour - or any time for that matter - it's polite to wait until there is no contraction. It's polite to knock on the door and introduce yourself as well. Don't speak to our support people as if we are incompetent, don't separate us from our support people to tell them why we must consent to your interventions, they are OUR support people not yours. Don't speak to us like we are naughty children, we are adults and only we know what we want. Speak to us as if we are your mother. If you wouldn't say/do it to YOUR mother, don't say/do it to someone else's mother.
It's not our job to make your job easy. You get paid to be there when we're in labour we are your clients. Without pregnant women you will be unemployed. Think of us as customers. If one of us is loud put up with it, if one of us argues with you, put up with it, if one of us is rude to you don't be rude back, be professional!
Read some studies on the interventions, pain relief, and pregnancy testing you routinely recommend and/or perform, maybe then you'll see why we are all beginning to decline them. Start at the Cochrane review, try the World Health Organisation. Have a look at the way birth centres are operating, attend a homebirth, see why most women prefer this type of birth to the type of stuff that happens in hospitals. Read some birth stories and watch some birth videos on youtube. See what empowers women and what leaves us naked captives at the mercy of fully clothed strangers with concealed faces.
Answer questions honestly. If we ask how many caesareans you have performed this year, we deserve the answer! If you're afraid we won't be satisfied with your answer work on reducing the number of caesareans you do not on concealing the truth from us. If you don't know the answer to a question be honest, tell us that you'll find out and get back to us. If you do know the answer tell us your source as though you were handing in an assignment at university. "According to a study published in the British Medical Journal .....". Just like a university professor, women are entitled to check your sources and find our own information if we choose.
And finally, stop wondering why women are choosing homebirth or birth centre birth when the caesarean rate is sky high and the VBAC rate is so low I think we tripped over it in the gutter yesterday. Women go to hospital bright eyed and optimistic, eager to meet their babies and to face the challenges of labour, but far too many are leaving your work place traumatised and broken. Your medical oath states that you will "First, do no harm". After we give birth we want to feel whole, empowered, we want to leave hospital with our dignity intact, and sure we want to be alive but there's more to birth than simply having a pulse at the end of it.
Kind regards
Whole Women
|
