I get quite a few messages every week, with questions about pregnancy, birth, parenting and food, and I’d like to publish some of them here, anonymously, and with your permission, of course. If you have a question, send me an email at sasamat.clark@gmail.com. I’ve made every parenting mistake under the sun, so I’m right with you. Please indicate in your letter whether or not I can use your question for the blog. I will prioritize those for publication, because I do take time to respond genuinely, and often our concerns are shared with other parents. It’s a gift for me to be able share my thoughts with everyone here, and keep this blog going!
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Good afternoon!
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Your latest blog post inspired me to write you (though, I have wanted to draft an email for a few weeks now. This just gave me the extra little push that I needed to reach out to you).
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I’m 11 weeks pregnant; an unplanned but very welcomed surprise.
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I have a very strong view against North American medicine and have practiced a more natural approach to my own health for some time now.
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Midwifery has recently been legislated here and as a result, waiting lists are absurd. I’ve emailed all of them about 10 times now to no avail. Going in that direction is obviously my first option and I hold out hope every day that I’ll hear from one of them. I’m also feeling this strong desire to be “checking in on things” – getting blood work, ultrasounds etc etc. (Not sure if this is cultural or self induced or what but I’m fairly sure it has something to do with the hope that any one of these check-in’s would allow me to connect with the baby somehow.) So .. having not heard from a Midwife and feeling this internal itch, I bit the bullet and went to see my medical doctor (haven’t seen the man in over 7 years – he barely knew who I was). I was so excited for yesterday’s appointment – I think, in my heart, I wanted someone – ANYONE – to ask me how I’m feeling, how I’m doing and to reassure me that all is ok/ healthy. I was just really excited to start talking
about a plan. Sadly, my experience was less than exciting. My doctor barely looked at me. We filled out a few charts, he took my weight, gave me a bunch of requisition forms and sent me on my way. I was taken aback and asked if he was going to check me? Touch me? Ask me anything about the baby or myself? He told me that I was still too early for any of that. I felt like an idiot for not knowing a more appropriate timing for these sort of things and empty because he gave me no form of reassurance whatsoever. Worth noting that I had started the visit by saying that this pregnancy still felt a bit surreal to me. I had hoped he would have seen that as queue or to add in a bit of reassurance at the end of the appointment. Even IF it was too early to listen for a heartbeat.
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Suffice to say I left there in a hysterical state of mixed emotions. Angry, sad, mistreated What the actual hell happened to a little bit of bedside manner?! Definitely know why I haven’t seen Mr. “let’s fill you out a prescription” in a while!!
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Am feeling a bit lost right now without having heard back from a Midwife and not ever wanting to go see my medical doctor ever again. But wanting – NEEDING – some form of confirmation that my baby is ok. Am I crazy?!?! I live in a first-world country and am feeling like compassionate prenatal care is the farthest thing from my reach.
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I think I feel mostly disappointed that our medical system has become so clinical. And sad that we have such a shortage of Midwives that it’s not a viable first option for me. A referral to an OBGYN is my next plan. But I need a doctor to write that referral … Oh brother!
Besides that, what other options are there for me?!
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Knew you would appreciate my story and would welcome your thoughts on my next steps.
More than anything, I want someone to give me a hug and tell me that if i’m feeling X,Y or Z then things are probably on track.
My partner was a great support last night in my few hours of emotional turmoil and then I had a bath and tried to connect with the wee-one on a more spiritual level. I’m such an a-type control freak that not being able to feel/see/hear it is driving me wild. Clearly.
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Thank you for taking time to read this.
All the best to you and your family.
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Cheers,
New Mother
Hi there,
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Thank you so much for your message, and I apologize for taking a while to reply. We are getting ready for a big woodfiring (I’m a potter), and everything is a bit crazy right now!
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First of all, Congratulations! What a wonderful, exciting, thrilling, strange, wild time this is–for every new mother, I think–certainly for me each time I find out I’m pregnant! But there is something especially magical about the first time, because everything is so completely unknown! I absolutely remember that, and I remember a very similar feeling to what you’re describing: wanting affirmation, needing to be cared for, nurtured, and I think, a strong desire for a supportive community of people who DO know what it is like to experience this very personal, and yet universal miracle of life…
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And yes, the medical community does tend to miss the emotional and feelings-aspect of pregnancy and birth entirely.
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Which, in my view is not just unfortunate, but a tragedy. Because the fact is, that most women have excellent nutrition, and are fundamentally very healthy, and most women in our culture will have completely normal, totally straightforward pregnancies and very healthy babies. The *real* work of pregnancy, is the work of our heads and our hearts, and taking the 10 months of pregnancy to learn to relax, surrender, and tune into our bodies like never before.
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I definitely hear what you’re saying, and I’m so sorry that your first prenatal visit wasn’t hours long, sitting in your own living room with a new friend who loves birth, and who is committing to loving you and your baby for the journey of pregnancy and birth, and who encourages you talk about your life and your feelings, and then who gently palpates your belly, measuring your still-tiny uterus with her hands–yup, about the size of a grapefruit!, perfect!–and who takes your blood pressure and then makes you tea, and then tells you her own birth story, and then asks you to share your beautiful, perfect vision, of how you want your precious baby to come into the world.
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I’m sorry it was so clinical and cold and…wrong!
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So, yes. I’m totally with you. Your instincts are absolutely bang-on.
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I think that this is what tends to happen: when women–you, me, everyone–end up with this kind of alienating “care” experience during pregnancy, we have the totally legitimate feeling that something is missing–that we are not getting the message of really being acknowledged in this incredible time of ripeness and potency and power. There is no celebration in a 10 minute visit with a doc who doesn’t even make eye contact. We want something–we need something–that will make this real.
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But what does our culture offer us, that makes pregnancy “real”? That acknowledges the burgeoning life in our bodies? Well, we have the doppler. And ultrasound. And amniocentesis. And the rest of the litany of clinical prenatal testing methodologies.
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But when you start to research the risks and benefits associated with this kind of technological approach to pregnancy and birth, (and I know you will!) you will find that there is really very little to indicate that there is much benefit to these forms of testing, and that there is actually NO evidence (in the case of ultrasound) to show that it is safe for your baby–in fact, much evidence, in my view, that suggests that there may be risks.
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And I think this technology ends up being quite a poor stand-in for what real woman-with-woman care should be–and actually *must* be, for women to be properly supported, and properly exalted, and properly loved so that she can move confidently through her pregnancy with a sense of thrilled anticipation for the fantastic and miraculous birth experience, and so that she is supported in having a truly spontaneous, drug-free birth, so that her body and her baby’s body are working in concert, sending each other the essential hormonal messages–more potent than any synthetic drug–which *ensure* the kind of absolute total bliss that guarantees that breastfeeding is bliss, which guarantees that the mother falls completely in love with her baby, which in turn protects her from postpartum depression, nursing problems, attachment issues, everything. Now, this might sound like hippie craziness, but I promise you (and you will discover this in your readings over the next few weeks and months), that this is actually what the most recent science tells us about birth, birth hormones, and attachment.
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And because you watched my birth video, you will have seen the *crazy* ecstasy that I was in, immediately after Felix was born. That is a very pure example of birth hormones. The effusive, adoration and ecstatic love that I was clearly feeling after Felix was born was not melodrama! It was a total high, the most intense, radical, astounding high anyone can ever experience. And when women give birth in a quiet, safe, familiar environment in which the mother is completely in control of what is going on, *every woman will feel the way I felt*!
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So while your instincts for care and confirmation are completely correct, I also have to say this: Pregnancy and birth are a mystery. Even the most high-tech diagnostic imaging technologies cannot reveal to any of us (even doctors) whether or not your baby is healthy, or who your baby is, or how your birth will proceed. This is really just illusion. And when your doctor tells you that you need to have an ultrasound so that he can determine the size of your baby, you must know that a good birth attendant will be able to *more accurately* determine baby’s size through palpation. And when your doctor tells you that he can offer for you to hear your baby’s heartbeat with the doppler at 10 weeks, you must know that dopplers actually emit a higher degree of ultrasonic radiation than the large ultrasound machines, and that dopplers have not been proven to be safe. There is no need to hear your baby’s heartbeat at 10 weeks. But there is absolutely a very real and valid need to be heard and seen as a 10-week pregnant mother. And when you finally reach 20 weeks, after having waited eagerly, and you strain to hear your baby’s heartbeat through the foetoscope after your midwife or birth attendant has massaged your belly, and found your baby’s positioning, and tried and tried again to find the heartbeat..and then there it is! The faint bop-bop-bop…This will have been worth the wait, because the sound is deep, and real, and intimate, and…heartbreakingly beautiful!
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In our culture, we have made a terrible exchange: We have traded compassion, and touch, and talk and story and conversation, for a 5 minute clinical exchange, and a 20 minute ultrasound session: marks on a computer screen. We have traded the real security of human connection and love, for what is only the perception of assurance and security that technology brings.
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It is absolutely true that in a minute number of cases, technology and tools from the hospital can save lives. But the likelihood that you are healthy and that your baby is healthy, is extremely high. And I recommend that every single pregnant woman think very deeply about what she is giving up, when she submits to the barrage of technological interventions that have become standard throughout pregnancy and birth. Because it is, absolutely, a trade-off. And often, women who began their pregnancies with every intention of having a natural, drug-free, low-intervention pregnancy and birth, end up spiralling into what feels like a cascade of interventions that feed into each other, and can lead to the kind of birth that they never wanted.
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And as you probably know from reading my blog, I believe that birth does matter. It matters so much, because it really sets the tone–emotionally, psychologically, as well as chemically and hormonally–for the entire experience of mothering that child. And of course, any drugs or interventions that the mother receives also have ramifications on a physical level, for that baby.
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Anyway. I’ve written you a novel here! But in a nutshell, you need to become a detective right now, and go out into your community, and find the traditional birth attendants, find the women who have had ecstatic births, find the doulas, find the mothers who have had unassisted births! find the underground illegal midwives–and talk to them all. There are always women in every community who believe in independent birth, and I bet there are resources in your area. Even if you end up going with an OB, it is a good idea just to *really* know your options.
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I am not a personal fan of registered midwifery, because I find that the registered model of care looks a heck of a lot like the hospital, when you get right down to it. But it works for some women–as does the hospital. My main concern is that women are given accurate information, and that they are respected in their choices, and that they are treated with compassion and dignity during birth.
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I also recommend that you read everything you can get your hands on. The very best book for newly pregnant women is Dr. Sarah Buckley’s book, “Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering”. Sarah Buckley is an obstetrician who has had 4 home births, and her book is absolutely 100% science-based, and excellent. Read it cover-to-cover, then go from there.
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I wish you the very best!
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Sincerely,
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Yolande
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(PS: Oh, I also wanted to say, that if you are feeling like a crazy person, and totally losing your mind, and crying, and then angry, and then frustrated, and then crying again…Then this is a sign that you are pregnant, and that you are normal, and that everything is ok. I am never more INSANE than in my first trimester of pregnancy. This is such an intense time, and I promise, you will feel yourself again in a couple of months! Pregnancy and birth and motherhood=wild wild wild. 🙂
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