*
I attended a birth recently, and yesterday I posted the following on my Facebook page:
*
“In the very early hours of this morning, a tiny, perfect, gorgeous little boy joined the world, in the peace and quiet of his home. I find it both wonderful and a little sad, that this little boy is only among a handful of babies born in New Brunswick, whose first hours and days of life involve *only* the touch and presence of his mother: no bright lights, no assault by syringe, no strangers hands, no tests or shots, no voices that aren’t his people, no trauma of any kind. It is such an incredible privilege to witness, from some distance, a tiny human being’s first unfurling, and then his first taste of milk from his mother’s breast, on his own time, at his own pace, in bliss, as is the brilliant design of birth.”
*
No mention of the hospital. No mention of how paternalistic and degrading hospital birth so often is. No mention of the medical birth industry being predicated on the systemic hatred of women. And yet, as is often the case, almost without fail, the moment that I even infer my preference for home birth (Apparently I’m not supposed to talk about my shameless biases, oops) a chorus ensues, of well-meaning women who feel compelled to stand up to defend their hospital birth—not unlike the reaction I get whenever I deign to discuss the systemic marginalization of women in the wider culture (*I* have a great husband! Sexism doesn’t exist! poor men!).
*
I am absolutely aware that some women have hospital birth experiences that they find empowering, and wonderful. And I sincerely think this is great. I want to celebrate this, and I want to see more of it, because it is such a rarity. But I also think it is important to acknowledge that whether or not a woman has a wonderful hospital birth, in many ways comes down to a combination of blind-luck, and privilege. Luck, because women have almost no control or authority over their bodies or their births in the hospital. It is luck that determines whether or not the sadist is on-call when your water breaks, or that respectful and compassionate obstetrician you’re hoping for. And of course, if your birth-plan, or your expectations of hospital birth involve frequent vaginal exams, doppler exposure, a “delay” of a whole 5 minutes before your baby’s cord is clamped, etc.—then hurray! You might get the birth of your dreams—especially if you are seen as “compliant”, and as long as your OB doesn’t arbitrarily decide there is an emergency that requires that she cut your genitals while you scream NO. In other words, if what you want falls within the “scope” of what the professionals deem to be “safe” and “acceptable”, then that’s great. But let’s not pretend that the mother is in charge. Doctors perform their craft on women’s birthing bodies with impunity. At any point in the birth process, for any reason, under whatever pretext, a doctor can withdraw their agreements with a woman, even while she screams her withdrawal of consent. But then again, what is the significance of “consent” in a world where abuse and coercion have been normalized? And what is the significance of “consent”, when women are lied to, outright, to by their professional care-providers?
*
Lucky for you again, if you have the means to hire a doula for your hospital birth. Having a doula will increase the possibility that you will escape surgery. And while many know that doulas have little-to-no power or authority at the hospital, they can often serve as effective witnesses, and can absorb some of the disorientation that results from constantly having to decline procedures, or fend off nurses and docs who haven’t read the birth plan (or just don’t care). But it remains difficult for me to get too gung-ho about reducing your “chances” of having a c-section by [insert number here] by hiring a doula, when maybe 95% of all women and babies who end up with surgical births undergo that pain and trauma unnecessarily.
*
Yes, there are beautiful hospital births. They are few and far-between. Why?
*
In our culture, sexism underpins all of social and public life (the justice system, the medical system, the education system, corporate systems). And sexism is amplified during birth: women, especially women who are pregnant or birthing, are not viewed, or treated, as fully human. Birth in western culture, is a male institution. Everything about industrial birth is masculine—broken in order to be fixed, measured, timed, cut, stitched. Birth, in a patriarchal culture, is *enacted* upon women. Even in the gentlest of hospital births, women are monitored, observed, treated, “delivered”. Women predominantly give birth in the hospital, because birth is seen, culture-wide, and by women themselves, as a medical event, rather than as an inherently sovereign and private biological act.
*
The hospital is the right place to give birth for many women. The hospital is right for women whose births have become medical, (because sometimes there are problems that require medical attention), and the hospital is right for women who… simply want to be in the hospital. I support women, and I support women who choose to have hospital births—even though it is my conviction, after being involved in the birth industry for 14 years, that birthing at home (with your plumber in attendance for goodness sake) is far far safer than being at the hospital could ever be. I genuinely believe that women should do whatever they want. And I want every women who chooses hospital birth, for whatever reason, to be able to expect to show up there and be treated with compassion, respect and dignity, and to be the authority, the sole decider. She *should* expect to be given factual information, with which to make truly informed decisions. Hospital “protocol” *should* reflect what science and common sense tells us about how birth actually works, and hospital staff *should* be promoting practices that support what we know mothers and babies need to thrive. Unfortunately, the opposite is the reality, and I don’t see the point in pretending otherwise. There is no way to fix a problem, unless the root of the problem is identified. We cannot fix hospital birth by sugar-coating the abuse that happens there, or by putting the responsibility for achieving an “empowering” birth on the shoulders of individual women (did you hire a doula? Did you educate yourself? Did you inform yourself?). Hospital birth might be fixable if the patriarchal structures integral to that institution are dismantled…But of course, the foundation of the entire edifice, intertwined with discrimination against women as a sex, is the myth that birth is always medical, so make of that what you will.
*
Homebirth, unassisted birth, and free birth, in our culture, are marginalized choices. Women who choose an independent birth path are *constantly* under attack from the majority of the world, who would proclaim our choices unsafe, selfish, foolhardy, insane, and this includes frequent threats to our families and our liberty, from doctors and other figures of authority. And yet, posting a glorious story about a human baby born-wild is almost guaranteed to incite defensiveness, and a debate from those who are, it seems, seeking further validation for their hospital experiences. Don’t worry. Pretty much the rest of the world is happy to validate just how supremely reasonable. intelligent, and responsible it is to give birth in the hospital.
*
My celebration of spontaneous, independent, physiological birth at home, is not a comment on, or a condemnation of your choices.
Get the Newsletter
Bauhauswife ideas & insight, weekly.
I haven’t seen the replies to your post the other day, but I did see and “like” it. Heh…
Each to their own, you know. I personally get worried for friends when they say they’re having a hospital birth, but I keep that to myself. My partner on the other hand, after having our daughter unassisted, haha, it makes me laugh to think about it. He’s suck a homebirth advocate now. He even has all the statistics about doctor-caused complications. And he wasn’t even awake for most of Z’s birth until I needed help staying in a squatting position because that’s what my body wanted. I won’t get started about his anti/delayed vax’ing advocacy now too but I have to actually stop him from talking peoples’ ears off about birth and parental vs medical ideals.
With my son I was forced to lie on an uncomfortable plastic covered bed that was covered in paper in a room full of mean-spirited strangers, hooked up to an IV even though my doctor said I didn’t need it, getting pumped with who knows what, and when my body told me to push out my son on my side, I had people pulling me onto my back. Luckily my son always gets his way and I pushed him out so fast the medical a**holes didn’t know what to do. But I was so traumatized from his birth in the hospital and the days that follwoed that we never even told anyone but MY parents, that we were having a baby when we planned our 2nd. To be honest, I always knew before I had my son that he should have been born at home. But I was 19 when i was pregnant the first time and I didn’t know it was legal, otherwise both of my babies would have been freebirths. I thought you HAD to have a hospital birth or midwife birth (no money for that).
Anyways, I think part of the reason I had the guts to go with my instincts was watching your birth video of Felix, Yo. I’ve probably told you all of this before sometime in the past couple of years.
And lots of information, educating myself for preparation, online forums and birth stories, online support, the unassisted reading group for more information… etc. But your video was so important to me, your history of your homebirths and the guts you have to speak openly about it all. And I’ll never get to meet you but you’ve been a great inspiration to me.
But I think the coolest thing was how proud of me my mom was, for doing what I wanted, not letting anyone talk me out of it, having a baby at home, completely on my own. The looks people give me out of astonishment, and I’ve even had a couple of women say, “You’re my hero.” after hearing about our homebirth. Idk if that’s ‘oh you didn’t have drugs’ thing or a ‘you go girl, do what you believe in’ compliment.
I don’t think of homebirth as an empowerment thing, overall I think of it as a safety thing. I’m going to have a baby in the safest place I can think of, the place where I feel most secure, safe, loved, etc. Home.
Being proud of following my convictions, protecting my baby and myself, is just a nice extra, all parents are proud, no matter how they had their babies.
Wow. You just fuckin SAY it don’t you? Sorry for the swearing. That was amazing.
Thank you for always sharing.
I had 2 beautiful and simple home births. I am so grateful. I often hold my tongue in sharing my experience because it is so often ill received and unintentionally triggers comparison and defense.
I love this space of straight up truth that you have created.
Love to you and yours, Ella.