I was on a Frontier Airlines flight to Denver yesterday, and out of boredom I started flipping through the onboard magazine, GO Wild. To my great surprise there was a short piece under their “Thrive!” section entitled: Resolve Isn’t A Swear Word: These remedies are just what the doctor, the doula and the debutante ordered. Are doulas reaching the mainstream? The remedy they mention in the piece is Erbaviva’s Organic Quease-Ease Lip Balm, something originally created to help women with morning sickness. Not so doula relevant. So maybe they just picked doula cause it went with the alliteration, but still! The more visibility the better, I’d say.
Adoption Dialogues
Last week I attended the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Annual Conference, Creating Change. It was a really interesting week, with tons of panels and workshops on a wide range of issues. I was a little bit disappointed to see the lack of workshops on the topic of family creation.I would think that for the LGBT community how we create our families (and what related rights we have) would be of the utmost importance. Part of this absence may have been a backlash to the many marriage-only conversations that occur in gay activism as well. But there are a wide range of topics that I think could be important to the LGBT community around family creation. For example, surrogacy, adoption, do-it-yourself inseminations and coparenting with non-romantic partners.
I did attend one workshop that focused on the issue of intercountry adoption, and I wanted to share some of the issues brought up in that workshop with all of you. Pauline Park facilitated the workshop, a woman who is herself a korean transnational adoptee.
The topic brought up some interesting discussion. I learned that the history of intercountry adoption began after the Korean War, when Christian missionaries set up shop in Korea and facilitated the adoption of Korean children by white Christian parents from the US. This process had its roots in the ideology of salvation, that these families were saving the Korean children (as well as showing them the way of Christ). Since those days the international adoption market (as some people would call it) has exploded, and children are adopted from a wide array of countries, including most popularly China, Guatemala and Russia.
Some questions posed by this issue:
–What kind of regulations should be put in place to regulate this market? Is it the responsibility of the adoptive parents country or the childrens?
–Is it okay for this to be (in some cases) a for-profit industry? If so, who should be making the money? The birth parents or the adoption agencies?
–What about the cultural competence of the parents? How can we ensure that the (mostly white) parents will be able to raise the child in a way that recognizes their background?
–What about race?
–What about the rights of the birth parents? Are the women giving up their children in these developing countries really given a choice? Or are the economic circumstances overly influencing that choice?
–What about abortion? For many anti-choice people, adoption is seen as the perfect alternative to abortion. Is it really?
–And finally, what about the desires of some people to become parents, in many cases without the “biological option”?
I unfortunately don’t have the answers to any of these questions, but here is a great piece by Elizabeth Larson in Mother Jones which grapples with some of these important issues from a personal perspective. It’s called Did I Steal My Daughter? The Tribulations of Global Adoption.
An inspiring birth story to start off your day
This birth story was sent to a doula listserve I am on, and its a definite must-read. In it a woman shares her battle to have the childbirth she wanted even after premature rupture of membranes, 4 weeks of bed rest in a hospital and countless attempts at intervention.
I have to admit I got a little teary-eyed toward the end.
She is my lesson in surrender. She is an exercise in determination and grace. She showed Mark and I how to work together again in ways that were instinctually natural. To come together in ways that we have not been, in entirely too long. A friend said it was magick the way that by surrendering some things, standing firm on others and in facing one of my absolute worst fears and turning myself over to it, we were given the gift of a perfect birth.
Natural Birth only hospital unit in UK
From the BBC, information about a hospital unit run by midwives that promotes “natural birth.”
It is run by midwives with doctors, allowed in only by invitation, and if a problem occurs mothers are moved. The ethos on the ward is that the birth process must be allowed to take its natural course, although pain relief drugs are given. Midwife Doreen Brunton, who is part of the team which runs the unit, told the BBC Scotland news website: “If you intervene too soon, labours get augmented, they end up with problems with the babies, sections or forceps.
What I like best about it is the emphasis on non-intervention, which is so important as a reaction to the highly interventionist obstretrical environment. We need something like this in the US. The other piece of good news is that the number of women using this unit has doubled in the last year. I wonder if they have doulas in this unit? But once again, we see natural birth being equated with epidural usage. Sigh. I’m not against epidurals, but they definitely have affects on the labor that need to be taken into consideration.
Also, the Royal College of Midwives (also in the UK) has a great campaign called the Campaign for Normal Birth.
Together, we can change the way childbirth happens. The Campaign aims to inspire and support normal birth practice. It’s a reminder that good birth experiences can happen despite the challenges. Intervention and caesarean shouldn’t be the first choice – they should be the last.
Wanna move to the UK anyone?
A New Campaign for Midwives
On January 24, 2008–“Push day” a new campaign to promote midwives, The Big Push for Midwives, was launched. It’s a campaign coordinated by a group of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) to promote the midwifery model of care.
Our goals are to fully integrate the Midwives Model of Care into the health care systems of our states, to highlight the importance of family healthcare choices and to defend the ability of CPMs to provide legal and safe prenatal, birth and postpartum care to families in every state.
Sounds good to me. There is a great map which explains what states allow the licensing of CPMs and which do not. I also appreciate coordinated advocacy campaigns, where different groups can learn from each others mistakes and accomplishments. It’s also really good timing–The Business of Being Born is getting a lot of attention and bringing new people to this issue and the crisis in maternity care continues to escalate.
CPMs differ from CNMs (certified nurse midwives) in that they aren’t registered nurses and don’t go through the same type of schooling and training. The laws and types of certification vary, but we’re not talking about little old ladies with no training at all. CPMs learn midwifery techniques through apprenticeship, coursework and lots of experience. They are also frequently required to pass certification exams.
I think this type of midwifery is important because I have fundamental problems with the modern medical education, particularly when it comes to birth. Even CNMs have to start their education as nurses, who learn the scientific model of birth that has created the maternity crisis we’re in today. They practice in hospitals and are forced to follow hospital regulations which are bad for birth,. Some of the reasons I have yet to become a midwife stem from this–I’m afraid to begin my education with the modern medical logic. But being a CPM, or a lay midwife, is difficult because of varying state regulations that determine where and how you can practice. That’s what this campaign is trying to change.
Great interview with a midwife from the campaign website.
ch-ch-changes
So there a few new and exciting developments that I want to share with all of you Radical Doula readers. The first is that I am in the process of uprooting my life (and my uhaul worth of junk) and moving it to another US city, not too far away, but far enough to make it a lot of work! I am excited about my new environment and apologize for the less than robust blogging over the last few weeks. Bear with me as I get myself settled.
The other big development is that I will be joining the crew over at Feministing.com! Jessica and the other awesome women have graciously invited me to start writing for them and I’m really excited about it. Feministing is one of my favorite blogs and they are constantly producing awesome and interesting content. I’m honored to join their team (sniff). Check out a vlog from Jessica to learn more about their history.
I will still be blogging over here at Radical Doula and at Feministing I will broaden my scope somewhat and write about some new things. So stay tuned!
On the lighter side
I’ve been feeling very bogged down lately by intense and somewhat depressing news and blog posts. Maybe it was the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade…who knows. So today something a little fluffier to write about.
I’m not generally a huge celebrity stalker, but lately it seems like there is a lot of news about famous people giving birth.
Nicole Richie, the pseudo-actress best known for her stint on The Simple Life with Paris Hilton, gave birth on January 11th.
‘The Simple Life’ star, who delivered Harlow Winter Kate Madden naturally two weeks ago, was keen to get a clear view of the moment her little girl entered the world at Los Angeles Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
Following the birth, Nicole – who had had an epidural injection to help her with the immense pain – then sent a note to Christina Aguilera, who was in a nearby ward awaiting the arrival of her son.
Since when did epidural births become natural births? Okay, so I said this would be a lighter post–but are c-sections becoming so common that going natural just means not delivering your baby surgically?!?! Come on! The article ends by recounting Christina Aguilera’s birth by c-section the next day.
More studies to scare pregnant women
The New York Times had an article yesterday about a recently released study that claims that caffeine can double the risk of miscarriage. This is just another study to throw on the pile of “you’re going to harm your baby if” studies.
Research on pregnant women is a difficult issue. As it stands, due to ethics guidelines and a strict Institutional Review Board policy it’s very difficult to get permission to do studies on pregnant women. They are placed into the same special category as minors and incarcerated people–they are considered unable to give consent.
Now there are a few reasons why this might be. Minors are not considered capable of giving consent because of their age–it’s difficult to involve them in medical studies, particularly things like clinical trials, and their parents usually have to consent for them. People in prison are not allowed to give consent because of the history of abuses they have faced at the hands of medical research–it is also likely that they might feel coerced because of their incarceration. I think the most likely reason pregnant women aren’t considered able to give consent really lies in the ideas of fetal personhood–the unborn child she is carrying can’t give consent, therefore she can’t. That takes us down a slippery slope that most reproductive rights advocates are afraid of because it gives the fetus rights.
But what does this all mean for pregnant women and birthing mothers? What it means is that the research on pregnancy and obstretrical practices is not all that scientific. The studies can’t be set up in the rigorous ways they traditionally are. There can’t be control groups, you simply can’t test things out the way you normally do. Which means that studies like this one rely on data from women who are making their own decisions about how much caffeine to intake, so there are a lot of variable that are hard to factor out.
But most importantly what it means is that obstetrical technologies are used anecdotally. No one can run a study on the effects of pitocin in labor, except to look back at cases that already happened and try to compare. Same thing with epidurals, with fetal monitors, with cytotec. So instead doctors learn the hard way, and the SLOW way, by trial and error. But at whose expense? Just looking at the short obstetric history we see a lot of these mistakes:
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Thalidomide babies: Birth defects caused by a drug to avoid morning sickness;
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Twilight sleep: a drug used in the 1950s which erased all memory of childbirth but resulted in women being restrained and having rages and fits, in addition to affects on the baby
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Episiotomies: It was once believed that cutting the perineum (skin and tissue between the vagina and anus) was preferrable to natural tearing. After a lot of years of routine episiotomies, they figured out that women were more likely to have really serious tears (and all sorts of other nasty problems) as a result of the episiotomy, and that natural tearing (with its jagged edges) healed faster.
Feel free to add your own to the list in the comments!
Blog for Choice Day!
So today is the anniversary of Roe vs Wade. If any of you are in DC, unfortunately you will notice that it’s also a huge day for the anti-choice community. Tons of people come from all over the country on this anniversary to lobby Congress and rally for the rights of fetuses. Meanwhile the members of the pro-choice community celebrate today as a milestone in the fight for women’s reproductive rights, since the Roe vs. Wade Supreme court case decriminalized abortion in the United States.
So in honor of the anniversary of Roe vs Wade, I’m blogging today about a new Guttmacher report that was just released about the status of abortion today. Abortion levels have now fallen to back to 1974 rates, continuing a decline from the spike in 1981. The steady decline in abortion providers is also leveling off, in part due to the increased provision of early medication abortions (like RU-486) which many providers are only offering.
It’s hard to know if this is good news or bad. Are women getting less abortions because they have better access to things like emergency contraception and birth control? Or are they getting fewer abortions because 83% of counties have no abortion provider, restrictions like the Hyde Amendment prevent low-income women from obtaining abortions (the report said that the average cost for a 10 week abortion was $413), and anti-choice sentiment around the country is making women feel shamed into carrying these unwanted pregnancies to term? Not to mention recent clinic violence, increases in medically inaccurate abstinence only education funding as well as a rise in crisis pregnancy centers–now two for every one abortion provider.
The answer is I don’t know. The jury is still out on this one–it’s a really hard thing to determine. We know that 1 in 5 pregnancies in still ending in abortion, and that half of all pregnancies are still unintended. What we don’t know if if those unintended pregnancies are also unwanted. No one is asking women as they give birth, “Oh, by the way, did you want to have an abortion but weren’t able to?” and who knows if they would provide an honest answer.
So until then, I say we need to continue to fight for wider access to services for all women–both “prevention” focused things like birth control, comprehensive sex ed, and emergency contraception as well as abortion services. My hope is that the abortion rate will one day reflect exactly that–how many women need and want that form of pregnancy termination.
PS If you want to go to a Roe vs Wade anniversary event, look here for a sampling of whats going on in your city.
Step forward for home births in New Hampshire
Via Feministing.
The New Hampshire house just voted to make insurance companies who cover in-hospital births also cover home births for women who want them. The primary argument is financial, as a home birth costs usually less than a third of what a hospital birth costs. Definitely good news!
Check out the comment thread on Vanessa’s feministing post about this. Very interesting.
Radical Doula 