Dear All
You know there are
times when I get tired of hearing all this sanctimonious pretensiousness about
women trusting their bodies to birth etc etc. For generations our bodies have
been letting us down.
actually mostly our bodies have not let us
down. the majority of women, even in our hospitals are still having 'normal'
vaginal births! if we were not good at childbirth then we would not have
overpopulated this earth but rather died out as a
species!
If they didn't there would be no
need for Catherine Hamlins Fistula Hospital in Addis Abbaba,
correct me if I am wrong.. female genital
mutilation a factor here??
or for those women of our great
grandmothers era where they had many pregnancies and few living
children to show for them. Sure
we have come a long way with sanitation and clean water etc, but our bodies do
go off the rails sometimes, and it is through no fault of our own, so
let's keep some sanity going.
now I am not saying that
hospitals are not necessary and in fact part of essential preparation for
homebirth, in my humble opinion, is to realise that sometime unexpected things happen
and then one accesses appropriate
intervention.
The medicalisation of
birth is of plague proportions, but let's be fair there is a role. It's just
getting the balance / getting the roles right!
And, yes I am a
midwife who practices in a
hospital, and I admire you independent practitioners, but I get very
frustrated with the imbalances. The negativity around the obstetric model of
birth and the perennial rosey glow painted around the
homebirth. Where is the truth?
Truth is
a perspective thing. The rosy glow around homebirth is completely
deserved!! Women in their own power, babies treated with respect,
families honoured and intervention used appropriately. Isn't this
what we all want. This is how I practice. This is my
truth.
Somewhere in between
where there is mutual respect for the skills of both
methinks?
Now I have been working
for the past months in the hospital setting after 10 years home birthing and I
am in awe of the midwives who work tirelessly advocating for women within the
hospital. I could not endure the constant conflict that I see in the hospital
nor the lack of empowerment for both the women and their midwives.
I feel like there are so many problem
with the hospital system, the difficulties vast, it breaks my
heart.
BUT until the hospital's have controlled
themselves to only use intervention appropriately and practise in an evidence
based, research based way then I will continue to criticize. For a really
simple example. How many people are doing CTG's on admission, or in a routine
way. When research shows that this increases intervention without improving
outcomes??
There, I've stuck my
head out of the closet ... it's all this Christmas madness that's getting to
me!
I'm glad you stuck your
head out. We need to be gentle with each other and I feel a vast
responsibility to keep encouraging and supporting the hospital based
midwives to enact change after working with the lovely midwives at my local
hospital of late. To feed and nurture each
other.
Regards ...
Vaal
