“This baby will never fit in your pelvis” and other absurd statements by providers

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Just found this site called My OB said WHAT?!? with alternately sad/funny/appalling things that OBs have told their patients about birth. Despite the title, it’s not just OBs, but also nurses and midwives as well. It’s a testament to the fact that no provider is perfect, all of them are human, and many of them are pushing some really problematic ideas about birth.

A few choice ones:

“Oh, honey, it’s too late for that!” – L&D nurse handing the mother a bedpan when the mother asked if she could go to to the bathroom.  The mother was 5 cm dilated at the time.

“You’re much too small. This baby will never fit in your pelvis. I can’t believe someone told you you’d be able to birth a baby vaginally.” -OB to a mother, upon meeting her for the first time, without an exam or medical history.

“Listen, if you don’t trust me to make decisions, you need to find another Doctor.”- OB to patient when asked about flexibility around options for delivery.

“Oh come on, stop that. Suck it up!” – midwife to a mother shivering from the cold and epidural while being strapped to the bed, shaved, and prepped for an emergency c-section.

About the site:

The purpose of this site is to capture the crazy but true comments said to birthing women by doctors, midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, and childbirth educators when they are having their babies! Got a “My OB Said WHAT?!?” to share?? Send them to submissions@myobsaidwhat.com. And watch this site for more unbelievable but true comments said to women as they birth their babies!

Check it out here.

Birth blog round-up

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This 50 Best Blogs for Midwives round-up includes Radical Doula in the “Doulas” section, but it’s seems to be a pretty good survey of all sorts of birth blogs around the web.

Check it out here.

Radical Doula Profiles: Laurel Ripple Carpenter

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Laurel, wearing black headband and hoop earringsLaurel Ripple Carpenter is a radical doula, reproductive rights activist, abortion advocate, maker of feminist art, anarchist, partner, and mama to the fiestiest red-headed toddler ever. She publishes the CUNTastic Zine, is founder of The Doula Partnership, and lives at the Black Diaper Collective in Grand Junction, Colorado. Contact her at laurel@cuntastic.org.

Websites are: blog & zine, doula non-profit, feminist art, and doula website.

RD: What inspired you to become a doula?

LRC: My own experience with an unplanned pregnancy sent me on a journey of discovering reproductive health. I began studying reproductive rights and pro-choice politics, and became passionately committed. When I independently designed my Bachelor’s degree as the Anthropology of Reproduction, I began to understand reproductive rights as a continuum, from pregnancy and birthing to abortion and birth control, rather than one end of a spectrum. Being a doula is one way for me to support women in their choices about their bodies, and is a great addition to my other reproductive rights work.

RD: What is your doula philosophy and how does it fit into your broader political beliefs?

LRC: As a doula, I advocate for the birth that the mother desires, whether that’s medicated or unmedicated, at home or in the hospital. I am particularly committed to serving marginalized populations, including teen moms, survivors of abuse & assault, recent immigrants, incarcerated women, non-English speakers, and non-traditional families. Doing this work, and doing the work of raising my own child in our non-traditional family, are the most radical acts I could ever enagage in.

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What organizations work with feminist mothers?

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I often get questions from readers via email, and figured that some of you might have the same questions. So I’m going to share them here if I think they might be useful.

A question from a soon to be mom last week:

Can [you] point me in the directions of any organizations that work with feminist mothers? Most of my activist work has been with victim/survivor rights of sexual assault, and now that I’m going to be a mother I am interested in working with other feminist mothers on important issues. If you have any advice I’d really appreciate it!

My answer:

Two that came to mind were the Big Push for Midwives and Moms Rising. The Big Push is national, and great if you are interested in midwifery advocacy. They are pushing legislation around the country to increase access to Certified Professional Midwives, who focus on out of hospital birth. They are working with coalitions around the country. http://www.thebigpushformidwives.org/

The other that came to mind was Moms Rising. I don’t know if they identify specifically as “feminist” but they seem to do cool work on a slew of mom-related things (like toxic toy campaigns for example). They are also national. http://www.momsrising.org/

Lovely Radical Doula readers, do you have any additions? Leave them in comments! And feel free to include orgs that work with parents more generally, and not just moms.

Washington state anti-shackling bill signed by Governor

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Via Seattle Times:

Gov. Chris Gregoire on Tuesday signed a bill that will forbid state prisons, county jails and juvenile correctional facilities from shackling nearly all female inmates who are in labor or recovering from labor.

The law, which goes into effect June 10, also bans the use of waist chains and leg irons at any point in pregnancy and limits restraints on pregnant inmates who are being transported during their third trimester of pregnancy.

Sweet!

Maternal mortality and c-sections on the rise

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Cross-posted from Feministing.com

This is a post I wrote for Feministing that I wanted to cross-post here. It’s a bit broader (and less political!) than what I write for Radical Doula because of the audience there.

Birth has been making national news lately because of the release of recent data indicating continuing upward trends in maternal mortality and c-section rates.

Jessica mentioned the recent California report that exposed the rise in maternal morality in the state. But this problem isn’t just in CA, it’s national.

The New York Times reported this week that the US c-section rate has reached an all-time high of 32%. That’s more than 1 in 3 women giving birth via surgery. C-section has been the most common surgical procedure in US hospitals for a while now, and the increases don’t seem to be slowing down.

I often get flack for being anti-doctor when I write about birth politics here, but pretty much everyone can get behind a concern about this rate of surgical birth.

The increases — documented in a report published Tuesday — have caused debate and concern for years. When needed, a Caesarean can save the mother and her child from injury or death, but most experts doubt that one in three women need surgery to give birth. Critics say the operation is being performed too often, needlessly exposing women and babies to the risks of major surgery. The ideal rate is not known, but the World Health Organization and health agencies in the United States have suggested 15 percent.

The risks to c-sections are numerous. It’s major abdominal surgery, with it’s resulting possibilities for complications. It presents problems for subsequent pregnancies, and it can be really difficult to find a hospital that will allow you to try a vaginal birth after a c-section (VBAC), meaning once a c-section, always a c-section.

Amnesty International recently released a report entitled Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the US. Amnesty, an organization often focused on highlighting the stark situation of countries around the world, found itself examining what is a crisis among maternal health in the US.

The report exposes the fact that the risk of dying during childbirth is greater here than in 40 other countries, putting us at the bottom of the developing world when it comes to maternal mortality.

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Radical Doula Profiles: Nicole Webb

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This is a series highlighting folks who identify as Radical Doulas. Are you interested in being part of the series? Email me.

Shoulders and up picture of Nicole Webb

Nicole Webb, this week’s Radical Doula, can be reached at NicolaLaDoula@activist.com.

RD: What inspired you to become a Doula?

NW: Like so many Doulas, my own birth experiences led me to this path. I experienced a normal hospital birth when my first son was born. I was not unsatisfied with the birth, because I was so extremely grateful not to have had a surgical birth. I had an epidural, too many IV pokes, failed forceps, sucessful vacuumed birth. The hospital staff allowed me to push for over 3 hours, numb, before using the tools. I didn’t feel anything until the day and weeks following the birth. That’s when all that missed pain and missed signals to move came back to haunt me. After this birth, I learned the vast importance of the transition to motherhood because of my own needs and my own mother helping me. It is a huge rite of passage and we rarely treat is as such.

It was when my second was born that I realized what had been missed with my first. I had an unmedicated birth, on hands and knees in a sports bra, with a hospital midwife. I learned that the pain of birth is only the movement of the baby and it completely ends when the job is over. It doesn’t last for weeks like an epidural and too much inneffective pushing might cause. I never even needed a pain reliever after this birth. After the birth, I had that bonding experience I had read about. I had the “runners high” and feelings of incredible power, energy and pride in my abilities. I felt and still feel that I can do anything. And it feels like an unintended consequence of hospital birth is robbing women of this empowering experience. It feels like hospitals birth robs women and children of the intense bodning that should occur immediately after birth, an imprinting of sort.

RD: What is your Doula philosophy and how does it fit into your broader political beliefs?

NW: As a doula, I want to allow women to learn enough to make informed choices. I want to assist women to build the kind of birth that empowers them and thier choices. Not a birth that leaves them feeling drained, emotionally and physically, that seems to prevail our society. Politically I feel the same; we should not uphold (pay for via taxes) a government that treats us like incompetent morons, limits our choices and eliminates responsibility altogether. I believe it’s time for a huge change, politically, and I think that those changes would be the first step to eliminating corporate control of government that leads to corporate government control of health care and limitations in choice.

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Immigrant woman reunited with child after losing custody

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A story I wrote about last June, looks like it finally has a happy ending. A year later, Cirila Baltazar Cruz has been reunited with her daughter.

Cirila gave birth in a Mississippi hospital, and initial reports indicated that the hospital staff deemed her unfit to be a parent because she couldn’t communicate with an interpreter. Cirila speaks an indigenous language from Oaxaca, explaining the  inability to communicate with a Spanish language interpreter.

So sad it took a year, but so happy for this mother and daughter to be reunited. According to the Native American Times, they are headed back to Mexico and the Mexican government has gotten involved.

A news release from Mexico’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs said Cruz’ situation was “a clear case of discrimination and violation of the most basic human rights of a Mexican citizen.”

Seriously.

Via VivirLatino

Radical Doula Profiles: Jill Wodnick

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This is a series highlighting folks who identify as Radical Doulas. Are you interested in being part of the series? Email me.

headshot, shoulder length dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a suitIntroducing Jill Wodnick, this week’s radical doula:

RD: What inspired you to become a doula?

JW: Being a doula seemed a natural outlet for my myriad of passions: women’s studies, healing arts/body work and public policy. As soon as I found out what a doula was, the calling was clear. I truly love that my doula care enables me to share chants, mantras, recipes, and work in the wise woman tradition AND be part of improving maternity care by knowing evidence based practices and policies that are essential for maternal infant health.

RD: What is your Doula philosophy and how does it fit into your broader political beliefs?

JW: Working one on one, my philosophy is very compassionate and seeks to awaken one’s deep intuition and instincts for labor and life as a mother. My broader political belief encompasses that social justice begins with birth (access to prenatal care, reducing racial perinatal disparities, legislative policies to support breastfeeding intiation and retention). Seeing birth as a reproductive rights issue really is meaningful. I am inspired by the cogent and clear policy messages of ‘MomsRising.org’ to create legislative reform.

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ICTC Northwest doula conference this weekend

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This Saturday, the International Center for Traditional Childbearing is hosting a doula conference in Oregon City.

One of their staff, Brooke, emailed me about the conference. She had this to say:

We will also be holding a required plenary session that will feature doulas working across diverse communities, including Black, Native American, and queer doulas. I would love it if you could mention this conference in your blog! It is so important that doulas attend this conference to learn about working with diverse communities and get the latest information on prenatal and postpartum care.

Awesome! Details below.

‘A Doula for Every Woman’
March 20, 2010, 8:00 AM – 4:30 PM
Speaker’s Reception, 4:30 PM – 6:00 PM
Community Health Education Center, 519 15th Street, Oregon City, OR 97045
Register online here today!
Register by mail/fax here.
Dowload a Vendor/Exhibitor application.