Dear Megan, Julie, Liz and listers - (sisters and brothers), I have just returned after three weeks away, exploring midwifery, mothering/fathering, love and workplace/relationship issues such as spiritual and emotional intelligence and competence with many wonderful people.
Part of my journey meant I had the delight and pleasure of experiencing Nic and Vicki's beautiful, soulfull, moving (and every other meaningful adjective) - "love in action" at the CAPERS conference in Noosa and encourage each and everyone of you who can, to get to the workshops, these women work magic. (Kahlil Gibran in The Prophet said "work is love in action"). I've read Sue Cookson's email - Sue, words are inadequate to express the feelings this story evokes - it is a tragedy and the website will be a testimony to the child's mother and will help her know what sort of woman her mother was and what she stood for. My thoughts and prayers, like all of us here, are with you, please ring if I can help in any way (0243893919). There is more, much, much more to this life than the physical body and it is up to each of us to help the modern medical world wake up to that fact. Thankfully there are many who are awakened and awakening - the research from the Royal Free Hospital in London on consciousness and brain death is just one example - the medicos there have had to conclude that consciousness is independent of the brain following research on those who awoke from medically diagnosed brain death and remembered everything that had happened. Megan wrote that her friend: "described the ARM as what she imagines being raped would feel like, (I guess physically and emotionally) this will also not be passed on to him. I feel that she was raped and there is nothing I can do about it". and Julie and Liz wrote, describing their stories of abusive treatment. Thank you both for sharing your story. Aviva wrote to - thanks Aviva and thanks for the work you do, your plays sound wonderful. And Sally? Your photography? The art exhibition? How could we support as a collective the art show? Andrea, this sounds like a great accompanyment to the tours? As others have already said, this situation is far too common. Relatively recent research (Fisher, Smith & Astbury 1995) demonstrated that women who are articulate, have good relationships with their husbands, are intelligent and well educated (and know what they want) are MORE likely to have interventions and surgical births than their more compliant sisters. It appears that with such women, some obstetricians are compelled (albeit unconsciously) to "put them in their place". In 1992 at the International Homebirth Conference in Sydney, Sheila Kitzinger talked about the slang language of obstetrics and it's similarity to porn language and the way words used by women to describe their treatment and how they felt following birth echoed language used by rape survivors 'slabs of meat' etc. One of Sheila's daughters is a rape crisis counsellor and Sheila became aware of the parallels through the discussions she had with her daughter. Sheila asked a packed room for a show of hands of those who felt they had been a witness to an abusive medical rape situation in a labour ward. There were very few hands down One medico spoke up explaining that he left obstetrics because of the language and brutalising treatment and it's implications. A group of Melbourne midwives (who were they???) started a group to address these issues, but they were subject to vilification (is this right?) and the group dissipated (this is my take on this - does anyone know the full story??). Any one remember the name of this group? One of the big outcomes from a medicalised rape situation is that the men/partners/husbands feel absolutely powerless and have a legacy of deep trauma around their failure to protect "their women" - a stone age biologically driven impulse and imperative - this unacknowledged and deep wound has great impact on their relationships, both with their partners and their children. For the women, there often is a (usually unconscious)sense of betrayal, also not articulated or acknowledged in many instances, another powerful disruptor of healthy relationships and attachments. Our socialisation as 'good girls' and the power structures inherent in the health services ensure that we midwives become the token torturers of women, or the handmaidens of the torturers (and I can say that because I have done it - and kept my mouth shut and I have spoken up and seen women treated even more badly because of my 'advocacy' grrr). Michel Foucault and Paulo Freire are excellent to read about power issues and how the powerless when elevated take on the role of the oppressor and become worse than the oppressor. We now know that many women have been sexually abused in childhood and many of the practices that pass for normal obstetrics trigger flashbacks and reinforce women's feelings of abuse and self blame. "It must be my fault" and "It must be me" - I'm weak, just a wuss etc. Yes, we have to speak up and yes, we need more education for women about their rights and our responsibilites as health professionals. We also need a lot of work to overcome our own socialisation to hospital culture and our deeply ingrained allegiance to the medical profession and our organisations. Millette (1993) talked about moral development and advocacy and discussed the challenges associated with advocacy and why nurses tend to advocate for the doctors and the institutions OR the patients - this is a similar situation in Midwifery. I was in a tertiary referral hospital recently and a woman came from a birth centre, she had been pushing for a while with no progress. The baby's head was moulded significantly. The midwife accompaning her thought she needed an epidural and reassessment and most likely forceps/ventouse. The registrar thought better and proceeded to do a failed ventouse and three applications of forceps without anaesthetic of any kind. The woman had a history of childhood abuse and said nothing during the procedure and said thank you to the doctor after. I spoke to the registrar who agreed to disagree about the whole issue, saying there was fetal distress and she didn't have time. The woman was flat on her back and she (registrar) didn't 'choose' to do a scalp ph even though all the equipment was present. She walked in as the anaesthetist was putting in the IV to do the epidural and stopped him, because she wanted to assess "the situation" first. The fetal heart was fine at that time. Grrr. The registrar even said that the woman had already chosen not to have pain relief because she went to the birth centre and that it was strange for me to be advocating for pain relief at that stage when the woman had already had so long without it. Grrr. The degree of dissociation of the female doctor to the difference between normal birth in an upright position and the sensations of cold hard steel and scissors in someone's genitals in a stranded beetle position is both fascinating and horrific. Interesting also the stranded beetle position in dogs indicates total surrender and lack of power - same for us human females - surrender and acquiescence and one is far less likely to complain or dissent in such a position. The humanisation of birth is long overdue. Until mothering is seen as the incredibly important career path it is and until we develop our strength and courage and forge our links with each other and women/partners/families and medicos who are compassionate and care deeply about birthing women and what happens to babies (and have a clear understanding of perinatal issues and attachment dynamics), we have a long uphill struggle. I'm amazed at how deep seated my own sense of powerlessness is and how much work it takes to overcome it to speak up in a way that exudes confidence and charm and avoids put downs and blame (and belligerance and judgement). It is so important that when we do seek to address the issues that we come from a place of genuine willingness to explore and to seek clarification. I have finally come to understand that all people really believe they are right and that they do what they do for what they think are the right reasons, it's those darn unconscious patterns that get in the way of kindness, compassion, love and consideration. The two biggies are defense of ego and self preservation. Nobody likes to look like an idiot - or worse - and so people will go to endless pains, including all the classic mental defense mechanims, to make themselves right. Hitler and Martin Bryant believed they were right. You have only got to look at our refugee policy and the war on terrorism and terrorism of any kind to see how faulty and damaging righteousness is, we humans are capable of anything and when we believe we are right - watch out. I would love to do research on obstetricians relationships with their mothers and their perinatal experience and match it with a profile on their obstetric care style and outcomes - I reckon we would get some amazing, interesting and disturbing results. Graham Farrant, a Melbourne medico who did rebirthing and was amazing with perinatal issues, was very interesting on why we choose the professions we do (it's all to play out our psychic scripts). I like the idea of the Wicked Women site very much and look forward to it with great enthusiasm. We all need to get a whole lot naughtier and a whole lot more uppity and a whole lot more wild. Roll on NMAP! In solidarity, Carolyn Hastie Fisher J, Smith A, Astbury J. 1995, � Private health insurance and a healthy personality: new risk factors for obstetric intervention.� Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and Gynecology, 16: 1-9. Millette, B. 1993, Client Advocacy and the Moral Orientation of Nurses, Sage Publications, Inc. USA. -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
