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Who gave you permission to give birth? Were you “allowed” to give birth at home?
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According to this pathetic little article with the odious title of “Women Want It”, published at the end of September in Nova Scotia’s Halifax metro news (and I use this as an example but it is similar to so many other pieces of “journalism” on the subject of homebirth) “until [two new midwives were hired by their department of health] women were only *able* (emphasis mine) to give birth in the hospital…We are very pleased to have this option available.”
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Correction. Women are *able* to give birth at the gas station, in a tree-house, on the flat-bed of a pickup truck, and while swimming with dolphins in a grotto off the coast of a tropical island (which apparently is quite an experience).
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Becoming pregnant is what confers upon the vast majority of female human animals the *ability* to give birth. Do you have a uterus? You are *able* to give birth wherever you damned well please.
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Of course, as the fabulous obstetrician (and freebirthing mother of 4) Sarah Buckley points out, the most important conditions for the safest and most optimal birth experience include being in a quiet, stress-free, familiar place in which the mother is unobserved. Which, in my personal view, makes the hospital the least appropriate and least safe place for women to give birth (give me a gas station, a tree-house or the back of my truck any day). But by all means, the “option” to give birth in the hospital should certainly be available to whomever feels safest there.
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Isn’t it nice that the Halifax health authority has hired 2 new midwives. Isn’t it thrilling that Nova Scotia “women with low-risk pregnancies who live within 30 minutes of the hospital [can] now give birth at home”. Too bad for those mothers who live 35 minutes from the hospital, or mothers who might be slightly heavier than what we have deemed acceptable, or older mums, or mums whose babies decide to arrive at 43 weeks of pregnancy. The authorities have decided that homebirth just isn’t the right choice for you. It’s alright dear, we know best.
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In a country that purports to be egalitarian, where human rights and the rights of the individual are supposedly protected under charters and laws, and where the term “informed consent” is tossed around ad nauseum, I simply cannot get my head around the extent to which the infantilization of women during pregnancy and childbirth is standard, accepted, normal and constant. The language of victimhood and dependency is ubiquitous when it comes to women and birth, as evidenced by the article I reference above, and thousands of others like it, and by the way women talk about their own bodies and their own birth experiences:
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My midwife said I had to…
My doctor didn’t want me to…
I couldn’t have a home birth because…
I wasn’t allowed to have a waterbirth…
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As I have said so may *trillions* of times before, there are a tiny percentage of women and babies whose lives can be saved by hospital technology. And there are many more women who will simply choose to give birth at the hospital because the technocratic model suits their worldview. I accept this, and I respect it as a completely valid choice. But there are too many mothers and babies that I encounter everyday, who have been indelibly scarred by the what I have come to see as the overall hegemony of the system over women’s bodies during birth.
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Here in New Brunswick (our neighbouring provinces are Quebec to the west and Nova Scotia to the east), the vast majority of babies are born in the hospital, under what I think are appalling conditions. Mothers are condescended to, cut, threatened and coerced. Babies are still taken away from their mothers at birth.
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Enter the “New Brunswick Midwives Association” and their supporters who are pressuring the government to fund the regulation and institution of registered midwifery in the province. Their hope is that university/obstetrician-educated “certified” midwives will be hired under a similar model to that of Nova Scotia’s (and the rest of Canada). New Brunswick women will then (finally!) have the “option” to give birth at home, we can all feel secure knowing there is a consistent “standard of care”, and everything will be rosy. (I can’t even get into what kind of drastic collective amnesia has allowed us to forget that prior to 80 years ago *all* babies were born at home in New Brunswick farmhouses, and yes some of them died, but here we all are. My husband is the 10th generation in his family to be born in Western New Brunswick along the Saint John River valley but nevermind about that).
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I don’t have a problem with government-sanctioned medical midwives in theory. What I do have a problem with is the fact that the New Brunswick midwifery act (like the midwifery regulations in all other Canadian provinces) prohibits anyone except registered, certified, institutionally employed “midwives” from attending births. The midwifery act forces women to submit to the supposed authority of medical midwives and doctors who will determine the parameters of the birth experience rather than mothers themselves. The midwifery at criminalizes independent birth workers. Why is this unacceptable? Because a woman must have the right to decide who will be present at her birth. Women have the authority–because they are human animals who possess reproductive organs–to decide the circumstances of her birth. Women are smart enough to make judgements and decisions about their care and their caregivers.
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As I have said before, it *astounds* me, and saddens me, that it is women themselves who are at the forefront of agitating for the institution of this restrictive form of government midwifery which violates our own human rights (under the European convention of human rights, by the way).
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All this hard work to design our own enslavement.
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You’re a superstar. We need more analysis of the language we use around birth. “I couldn’t have a home birth” is something I hear so often from people who, obviously, didn’t try.
ha 🙂 Thanks so much Hayley–best to you.
ah yes.. i cringe at my own naivety in my first pregnancy ‘my doctor ‘let’ me go to 42 weeks before inducing me’
my own words.. someone ‘letting’ me be pregnant. what the fuck was i thinking? how did i come to respond in that way to his authority, or anyone else’s..
and then as i approached the 42 week cut off with my second babe, the point where i would ‘not be allowed’ to give birth at home with a skilled attendant. else face penalties.
a mother here recently took to the high courts, heavily pregnant – asking for the right to be assessed individually to be attended by her midwife at home for a VBAC. she lost.. not allowed. and now will be a birth refugee, travelling from her home in Ireland with her husband and child – to the UK to give birth in a rented ‘home’ with a midwife.
i bow down to her, fighting for herself, for her babe, for all of us..
but how fucking disgusting for a woman to spend her pregnancy in the high courts, battling with idiots to be ‘allowed’ to give birth wherever she chooses.
this world is fucking insane.
Erin, the story of the Irish mother is *astounding*. All of the bs about the great strides we as women have made for equality, feminism, mean jack all if we don’t own our bodies, our births, our humanity. The world is, I agree, totally insane. Heartened to know there are others out there who see through the crazy. Very best to you Erin, and thanks for your comment.
I wasn’t allowed to give birth at home because I went past 41 weeks and the Dr declared “calcified placenta and low fluid”. No midwife was legally allowed to assist me outside of a hospital. Then I wasn’t allowed to labor in water because the next doctor who came on ” didn’t do that”. I was told ” If you were my daughter I would have handcuffed you to the bed and forced you to induce by now” after spending 3 days hooked to monitors (no distress from baby), refusing pitocin and cytotech numerous times. I did, in desperation try cervadil on 3 occasions attempting to stop the harassing and start labor. I also tried acupuncture, walking, castor oil, semen, everything. I was told to “stop reading things on the Internet” when i questioned the use of cytotech – NOT approved to start labor by the way. This is supposedly the best Dr in NJ with (because of having?) the lowest rate of c/s. I never went into labor, I never dilated, so at 43.5 I asked to just go to c/s, I told them if I took pitocin I would end up there any way and then baby would be in distress. They stalled, trying to talk me out of it. “don’t you want to try for your vaginal birth?” MY vaginal birth!! As if that was what it was about. And then I wasn’t allowed prolonged cord clamping, skin to skin, nothing. Against policy. I was allowed to see him an hour after. They did say he was curled in a ball and his head was tucked under his shoulders with his shoulders down, which is why he would have never descended… I still don’t know though. I have been through a lot of shit but I was honestly so depressed that week in hospital, being harassed and told what I may and may not do, being belittled. It’s the only time it ever crossed my mind that I wished I were dead. I’ve been raped, beaten and traumatized but this was worse somehow. Oh, and I got to pay the midwife in full ($6000) who only showed for a half hour after he was born, plus now I owe the hospital almost ten thousand. This is not okay. None of it.
No, it’s not ok. None of it. It takes a lot of courage to share this Natasha, I am so appreciative. I think many women have gone through similar experiences and in openly talking about it, maybe other mothers too, can help each other, get angry, make changes. Thank you. You’re in my thoughts, and I am wishing you and your family the very best. Sincerely, yo
Your article is so true Yolande! I’ve been also under the pressure of hospital when Joy was born. I’ve seen hospital make mistakes of diagnosis with lots of my friends and family. Actually Guillaume’s sister just gave birth in a hospital. She had planned a birth with a midwife in a birthing house( Quebec) . She was thirty eight week pregnant when she went for an echography and the doctors told her that her baby would have a malformation of her belly and that they would induce her the next day at the hospital. They told her the midwifes made a mistake by not getting her to consult a doctor earlier.
Her baby was healthy and gaining weight and her heart was strong. I was mad at them to take her away from her natural birth by scaring her.
And guess what? Her little sweet baby girl has no malformation at all!!!She’s healthy. They induced her for nothing. Agathe, that’s her baby’s name, could’ve stay in her uterus for couple of weeks more. At birth she was weighing five pounds.
Anyways this type of birth experience leaves a bitter taste from my point of view. It’s almost like if doctors are looking for problems everywhere. They do not trust the human body to have the ability to give birth.
Thank you Yolande For your blog and post on freebirth. I always enjoys reading you!!
Oh Mai-Li, the story of Guillaume’s sister is absolutely shocking! I hear quite a lot about maternity care in Quebec that fills me with dread. In many ways, we have it pretty good here in New Brunswick. I’m so sorry for that sweet little girl, but I’m sure Agathe is thriving now. Lots of love to you, Guillaume and Joy <3
I typed out this whole long rant…but I decided that a simple “Yes!” works as well. 🙂 I completely agree.
Ha! (I think I probably need to learn the art of editing some of my rants..) 🙂 Thanks for the yes Elizabeth. Take good care.
You take the thoughts right out of my mind and transform them into this intelligent commentary. You are so right and so bright….keep lighting the way 🙂
🙂 Love you.
I like your mindset. I had a baby nearly two years ago and it was traumatizing. I had gestational diabetes and was followed by a nutritionist the entire time; it was under control. However, the medical doctor indicated I should be induced at 40 weeks to avoid having a ” big baby”. I understand the risks however they have the technology to see how large the baby really is and I was induced regardless. While in labor the attending doctor said to me “the baby isn’t that big”. I was so upset! Prior to induction I went to a acupuncturist friend who tried to induce me in order to avoid medical induction and two rounds of that did nothing. My baby wasn’t ready to come, it’s that simple.
The induction lasted 3 days total and ended up in an emergency C-section. I was traumatized by the whole ordeal and although I doubt I will have another child, if I do, I will definitely consider home birth so the baby can come when it’s ready, not when it’s convenient for the medical doctor (because I’m positive that is why I was really induced – it’s just more predictable and no ones dinner gets interrupted that way, right?!).
Thanks for posting your thoughts!
Paula
Thanks so much for sharing your experience Paula. I’m so sorry you went through this, and your experience is sadly familiar to so many women. Best wishes to you and your family. Sincerely,
Yolande
A friend of mine recently delivered her baby through Caesarian section. I wanted to check out the current prevalence rates and I was blown away. While I was reading, I thought “I have to share this with Yolande!” Be careful though, your head might explode.
https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/Childbirth_Highlights_2010-11_EN.pdf
PS. I was very surprised and rather disheartened.