‘Taking away this amazing opportunity for empowerment.
BIRTH ENVY?’ I LOVE this term – Birth Envy. I have a little theory going on in my own mind that this is the
very reason that extreme sport is mainly male domain. The rush, the empowerment
and the absolute feelings of success can only be obtained by men when placing themselves
in extreme situations. There is nothing that naturally occurs in the male makeup
that could even remotely take them to the place that women need to go in order to
intuitively give birth. No man could fully understand it, in the same way a woman
who has never experienced birth first hand can truly understand it. Nothing will EVER match my birth experiences (Ooooh, maybe catching
my grandchildren one day) I’d love to be pregnant and give birth another 10
times – I just don’t want anymore kids – 4’s enough for
me! Cheers Jo From: owner- I love that you use the word mysogony Justine, and
hi and thankyou to you Penny too. I was talking to a fellow midwife at my hosp about it the
other day. Sometimes we wanted to give the benefit of the doubt...at worst
that the actions of some Drs was paternalistic - wanting to help the
poor ladies from their suffering (while of course making life litigiously
safer for themselves and getting paid more). Then i also considered it was just ignorance on the part of
some doctors, unware of the amazing beuaty and awesome transedence of anything
worldly in natural birth and the power that this gives women. They rarely
get to see beautiful birth (which is why i love working with student
doctors in birth and getting in their ears). Maybe they don't understand
how good
it can be for women, is it too spiritual, too unscientific for them to get
their head around? But I am more and more convinced that there is some
phsycological women hate going on as well. And wanting to claim birth into the
male relm. Taking away this amazing opportunity for empowerment. BIRTH
ENVY? Or thinking that most women are too weak to be able to
birth without intervention. Or too stupid to understand the details
so he'll make the desicion for them. Or too smarty pants and asking too
many questions and taking up too much time so needs to be put into place with
some condeseding remark - if that doesnt stop her she's too dangerous
and needs to be told to go elsewhere. We spoke about a doctor with a very high c/section rate. If
according to him you are too short, too old , too Asian etc- you are
convinced through the course of antenatal "care" that you can't
possibly vaginally birth and an "elective" ("elective" for
whom?) c/s is booked on a day suitable to him. By the time we are meeting the
women - for shave and catheter they are absolutly convinced they are doing
the right thing. Which puts us in a really difficult possition. 1/2 an hour
before surgery is not a great time to talk to women about their alternative
options. One woman - a 40 yr old Philipino primip was told her baby
was breech and needed to have a c/s - but it wasn't breech, and the Dr knew it.
But she was so sold on the idea that she couldnt birth vaginally that she didnt
really mind about where the baby was lying. THIS WAS NOT HIS CHOICE TO
MAKE. We need to keep working on UNIVERSAL (mainstream, free,
accessable) opportunities for women to find information and care and
reduce the fear. In that town right now the alternative voices women get
to hear are only soft squeeks amongst the bellow of the monolith. Maybe we are scared sometimes to speak up in our workplace
if we want to keep our job and dont want to rock the boat, but the women are
free to say what they want and demand complete informed consent, and we can
help them navigate that rocky terrain. And isn't it great when you get to work
with a women who is making those demands, and get to advocate for them - its
very safe territory because we are doing what our midwifery competancies
demand. Love Suzi |
- Re: [ozmidwifery] Orly Sachar Lynne Staff
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- RE: Re: [ozmidwifery] Fw: E-News 8:11 - Postda... Mary Murphy
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- Re: [ozmidwifery] Fw: E-News ... diane
- [ozmidwifery] informed consen... Mary Murphy
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