Radical Doula

The event that I helped to organize was an apparent success! We had a good turn out, a got quite a few birthday wishes and we hopefully made good money for the DC Abortion Fund. Jill Morrison, from the National Women’s Law Center graciously put her comments into a blog post. She’s great. She spoke about the connections between abortion rights and birthing rights, and really brought it home with her discussion of two court cases (she is a lawyer, after all).

I am thrilled that the DC Abortion Fund is hosting an event to celebrate a book that enhances women’s ability to make pregnancy and birthing decisions.  Let’s face it, some don’t think that abortion supporters can be all rah-rah about the childbirth thing, but we really are. But this isn’t just because we think pregnant women are incredibly gorgeous and we’re the first in line to coochie-coo. It’s because we share common goals with those who support a woman’s pregnancy and birthing choices. Sometimes it is really difficult to make the connection between abortion, pregnancy and birth, but I think one case really brings home the point.

Read the full post here.

I finally did what I’ve been meaning to do for a long time now, I’ve edited the Radical Doula??? page. I’m going to repost it here, so you can all read my new description of what this blog is all about. Things haven’t changed radically, but I’ve tweaked a few things here and there to reflect the way I talk about what it means to be a radical doula (particularly from a personal perspective). The new page is after the jump!

I’ve also updated and expanded my blog roll. I decided I wanted something more comprehensive and that actually reflects what blogs I am reading on a frequent basis. (Thanks Google Reader!) You can see that I now have broken it up into categories (look to your right!). I will try to keep it updated, but bare with me. Also, if you have a blog you think I would want to read, email it to me or link to it in the comments! I promise I will check it out, and maybe you will even make it to my google reader.

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Hi everyone! I’m on a two week vacation (from my day job at least), in Seattle and San Fransisco. Hopefully it will give me some time to catch up on blogging, and make some much needed changes here at Radical Doula! Stay tuned for an overhaul of my blog roll, as well as my Radical Doula?!?! page revisited.

I’ve had this article in my drafts for a while, and while it’s a piece from last year that ran at Alternet.org I wanted to highlight it anyway.

In The Disturbing Truth About Doctors and Your Medical Safety Atul Gawande discusses the spread of disease in hospitals, partially caused by providers not washing their hands enough.

Each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, two million Americans acquire an infection while they are in the hospital. Ninety thousand die of that infection. The hardest part of the infection-control team’s job, Yokoe says, is not coping with the variety of contagions they encounter or the panic that sometimes occurs among patients and staff. Instead, their greatest difficulty is getting clinicians like me to do the one thing that consistently halts the spread of infections: wash our hands.

Those of you who know anything about the history of obstetrics in the United States are probably familiar with puerperal fever, which was a major cause of death of pregnant women when birth was first brought into the hospital. (Side note: this is a great thing to bring up as a counter to the “but so many women used to die in childbirth before hospitals argument”) Basically, doctors at the time didn’t understand bacteria and how disease was spread. They also believed that hand washing wasn’t necessary for gentlemen. This meant that doctors went from birthing mother to birthing mother without washing their hands or using gloves, and passed infections between them.

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I’m excited to announce this upcoming Washington DC event for three reasons. One, I helped to organize it. Two, it brings together two of my favorite topics, birth and abortion. Three, it happens to fall on my birthday! If you are in the DC area, you should come to the event, and wish me a happy birthday.

Intentional Motherhood: Connecting Abortion, Pregnancy, and Birth
Considering the full range of women’s reproductive rights:

The right to affordable birth control.
The right to parent.
The right to choose abortion.
The right to midwifery care.
The right to determine a birth plan.
The right to prenatal care.

Our Bodies Ourselves has provided indispensable information on women’s health and sexuality for more than 40 years. Their newest book, Our Bodies, Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth addresses the questions and needs of women during pregnancy, childbirth, and the “fourth trimester” of early motherhood.

The DC Abortion Fund is excited to host a a book signing and discussion to explore the many connections between these issues.

Featuring
Judy Norsigian, Executive Director, Our Bodies Ourselves
Alexis Zepeda, Board Member, DC Abortion Fund
Jill Morrison, Senior Counsel, National Women’s Law Center

Wednesday May 28, 6:30 pm
Hawk ‘n’ Dove, 329 Pennsylvania Ave SE
Capital South Metro

Suggested Donation: $20

All Proceeds Benefit the DC Abortion Fund

If you have questions or are interested in co-sponsoring this event, please contact Betsy Illingworth at betsyillingworth@yahoo.com or Dina Morad at dinamorad@gmail.com

I have yet to read the new OBOS book, but so far I have heard good things about it. After reading What to Expect When You’re Expecting during my thesis work in college, I know we are in desperate need of good pregnancy books that don’t scare women. It’s also a good book because its pretty affordable–only $15! We will be raffling off some books at the event, and Judy Norsigian will be there to sign copies.

Hope you can make it!

I hope all you mother’s out there enjoyed this weekend. I recently joined an anti-shackling coalition spearheaded by the Rebecca Project for Human Rights (shackling of incarcerated women during childbirth, that is). They have been putting out some great materials, including this op-ed, for mother’s day. From the piece:

In most state prisons and jails, restraints are routinely used on pregnant women, including when they are in labor and when they deliver their babies. Only three states — California, Illinois and Vermont — have legislation regulating the use of restraints on pregnant women. In the other 47 states and the District of Columbia, no such laws exist. The use of restraints on pregnant women, particularly on women in labor and giving birth, constitutes a cruel, inhumane and degrading practice that rarely can be justified in terms of security concerns during the delivery process. In the three states that outlawed shackling pregnant inmates, there have been no cases of mothers in labor or delivery escaping or causing harm to themselves, security guards or medical staff.

I’m very excited to be part of this coalition and hope to keep all the RD readers updated on their work.

Ok, so if you ignore the cheesy uplifting pop music (so you wanna change the world…), in addition to the not-so-great graphics (the entering text made my head hurt after a while) the video has a great point. Multiple births (twins, triplets, etc) shouldn’t have to be c-sections. Women can and do birth multiples naturally (even at home! unassisted! in water!) and this video just reiterates that.

What also struck me about the film is the great providers who must have been behind many of those births. Some people might accuse me of being a doctor-basher generally, but from what i know of hospitals and insurance policies, any doctor who is willing to fight for a woman’s right to deliver twins naturally rocks. Same for the midwives too.

And damn, aren’t some of those bellies huge!

via Bellies and Babies

I hope everyone is enjoying some time off from their hectic lives to enjoy some time with family and friends. Happy Holidays everyone!

This story comes from Andy Ternay, who has been writing and blogging about this situation to help the Pretty Bird Woman House, a woman’s shelter raise enough money to rebuild. The shelter was kept open by donations from the online community last May, and recently it was ravaged by arson and ruined. The shelter is on the Standing Rock reservation, part of the Lakota Native community.

The community and the shelter have a long history that you can read about here, but the bottom line is that they need more money to reach their goal of $70,000 that they need for the house and security system. They are more than half way there, and today Andy and others are pushing for the last portion. See the bottom for how to donate.

Here is an exerpt from his post about the shelter:

A frightened woman on the Standing Rock Reservation feels her pregnant belly and checks the weather. It’s below freezing. Should she stay and get beaten again or flee? There’s no money for a hotel. She can’t stay but she can’t risk the lethal cold.

She has called Pretty Bird Woman House women’s shelter, but their building was destroyed by arson. They have no place for her. Georgia Little Shield, Director of Pretty Bird Woman House promised to try shelters on neighboring reservations and see if there was room. The woman feels the baby kick as she stares at the phone, not daring to hope. It rings.

“It’s Georgia,” says the lady on the phone.

“There’s room in another shelter?” asks the woman.

A long silence follows,then Georgia says, “We’ll work something out. Let’s get you safe. Okay?”

Another Christmas; and a expectant mother with nowhere to go. But there is good news: The ending to this story has not been written. You will write the ending.

Georgia Little Shield can’t keep pulling miracles out of thin air. She needs help and we can give it. This is all about what we fight for: giving power to the powerless. Helping women and minorities gain equal treatment. Making wrongs right.

As it stands, we have just over $50,000. Enough that Pretty Bird Woman House is putting in a bid on a house across the street from the police station. We are almost there, just a mere $20,000 short. I told you that the ending had not been written for this Christmas story; now is the time we write that ending. Will the expectant mother find a sanctuary or not?

Now is your chance to write that ending. Now is your chance to give sanctuary, not just to this one hypothetical woman, but to thousands of women, throughout the years that Pretty Bird Woman House will serve this community. Let’s make this ending a happy one.

So, please, if you can DONATE.

Pretty Bird Woman House is a 501 (c) 3 charitable organization.

Don’t do it if you can’t afford it ‐ only if you can. There are other ways you can help, if you can’t donate or if you want to do more.

You can blog about it and spread the word. Feel free to take any material from this diary or the Pretty Bird Woman House Blog that you need.

Finally, for those of you who need more info, here are Links:

Pretty Bird Woman House Blog - many more resources and links here!!

Amnesty International Report-Maze of Injustice: The failure to protect Indigenous women from sexual violence in the USA

Why traditional fundraising avenues are closed to Pretty Bird Woman House

One important final note: men are also victims of domestic violence. Since we are discussing a women’s shelter, the examples I have given are of men abusing women. I don’t want to detract from male victims; they too deserve recognition and support. This isn’t about hating men; it’s about helping people.

Thank you so much for your generosity and kindness this holiday season. Blessings to you and yours.

Ok, so that title is a little bit much. I have trouble avoiding some good alliteration sometimes.

I just read an interesting article in the Washington Post about one woman’s experience with hysterectomy. Another issue that is not really on the radar of midwives and doulas, let alone reproductive rights groups.

Stephanie Weiss discusses how she had to do a lot of badgering, as well as her own research to finally find a doctor who was willing to do a minimally invasive laparoscopic hysterectomy. And she didn’t get her entire system removed either, just the uterus and her melon sized fibroid (non-cancerous growth).

A surgeon removed my uterus — then the size of a 20-week pregnancy — through a quarter-inch hole near my belly button, leaving my ovaries and cervix intact.

From her perspective, the procedure she received was nothing compared to how most women still get their hysterectomies, what she calls “her mother’s hysterectomy,” through a large horizontal incision in the belly.

Old myths — including the one about minimally invasive surgery being excessively risky — die hard. Research shows that, in experienced hands, the risk of minimally invasive procedures is the same as or less than the risk of abdominal hysterectomy, Streicher said. But George says that 80 percent of the hysterectomies now done abdominally could be done laparoscopically.

Another instance in reproductive health care where women may not be getting the information they need to make the best options.

This card was sent out near Mother’s Day, but I thought I would share it now. The campaign was organized by the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, with a lot of other organizational partners.

The card was sent to legislators in Washington, DC. Here’s the main text of the card: GIVING BIRTH IN SHACKLES: ONE MOTHER’S STORY

In September 2000, the state of Ohio sentenced Arnita to sixty months at the Franklin County Correctional Center in Columbus, Ohio forconspiracy to distribute, a nonviolent drug offense. Nine months afterarriving in prison, Arnita gave birth to her son, Waki. Waki was born inshackles. Federal Marshals placed shackles on Arnita when she lefther cell to travel to the hospital, and these shackles were notremoved until she returned to the correctional facility two dayslater. During Arnita’s C-section, her leg was in metal shackles, chainedto the bed. Arnita remembers the attending physician asking theMarshal, “Do you really have to keep these shackles on?” The Marshalresponded, “Yes, it’s procedure.” Arnita stated that “during my two-daystay at the hospital, the handcuffs were always on, even when I went to the bathroom.”

Ending the cruel practice of shackling pregnant women in labor and childbirth is a Mother’s Day gift that we can give to honor all mothers and their struggles, to ensure that women give birth with safety, and to allow all our children to come into the world safe, healthy and with dignity. Please support the effort to end this cruel practice in our federal and state prisons.