UK takes step toward recognizing home births

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While the US College of Obstetrics and Gynecology continues to deny that home births are a safe and viable option, our friends in the UK are finally seeing the light.

The National Childbirth Trust said the research which concluded home births were not safe and dated back to the 1970s and was flawed. In fact, it said there was a pool of evidence to suggest that home births were at least as safe as giving birth in hospital. Patient satisfaction levels were higher for home births, and simply booking a home birth led to a halving of the Caesarean section rate, it claimed. On hearing of the Government’s plans to change policy, a NCT spokeswoman said: “It has taken 30 years for the Government to realise that the policy of pushing every woman giving birth into hospital was misguided.”

It’s nice to hear somebody’s government saying it! How long until the US catches on? Unfortunately for UK midwives, the government also wants to require them all to have malpractice insurance–a costly and sometimes impossible feat for home birth midwives.

Caroline in the City Actress also a Doula

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So this is just a cheesy piece of gossip, but according to the Wilmington Star, actress Amy Pietz (best known for her role on Caroline in the City) is also a doula! Ok, so she wasn’t even the title character, and the show only ran for four seasons–but still! Yay for famous doulas.

Apparently she became interested in doula/midwifery work after her own experience giving birth at 23 and giving up the child for adoption. She then pursued being a doula as a back-up career for acting.

She is also this year’s Azalea Queen.

More midwifery/doula news

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Illinois Senate approves licensing of home-birth midwives.

Another article about the closing of two DC area birthing centers.

Pennsylvania Governor Rendell proposes expanding the rights of non-physician medical providers, including nurse-midwives, to do things like write perscriptions, in an attempt to bring down healthcare costs.

A Toronto group provides doulas for new parents with infant sleep problems.

Just a nice article about midwives.

Gay and lesbian families suffer from laws that don’t protect their parenting rights in North Carolina.

From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: “Do you know what you need?”

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I attended another cool conference this weekend–sponsored by Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program and Hampshire College, it was called From Abortion Rights to Social Justice: The Fight for Reproductive Freedom.

“Do you know what you need?” A presenter on a panel about family creation shared this really powerful point in reference to social work–that we need to be asking this question constantly. I think this is a center piece of the doula/midwifery philosophy, and it is based in the idea that a person’s self-knowledge must be put at the center.

If we cannot ask what a woman wants, or ask if she knows what she needs, then we cannot begin to support her. It also emphasizes the idea that a person knows best what they need to improve their situation. Too frequently we come at these situations with our own agenda, or our own idea of what someone else needs, and do not do a good enough job of listening. Even doulas and midwives are guilty of this sometimes. Also this philosophy reinforces the idea that a woman should speak up with her desires and make demands, particularly in health care settings.

I think its a great slogan–let’s make some radical doula t-shirts (no making fun of my elementary photoshop artwork above).

The next few posts will be on things I heard there that sparked my thinking, so stay tuned.

My Feministing Post about the commercialization of gay marriage

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Check out my post on Feministing about the commercialization of gay marriage. I highly recommend looking at the comments, it stirred up some really interesting discussion.

Midwifery/Doula News Round-up

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Here is a quick summary of recent news about midwives and doulas in the US:

Story about an infant fatality at a homebirth in Massachusetts and the politics surrounding the home vs. hospital debate.

Births with midwives increasing!

Colorado midwifery group going strong with 9000th birth.

Advocates are trying to pass a bill to legalize homebirth in Alabama.

Two midwifery centers in the Washington, DC metropolitan area closing because of financial problems due to the high cost of insurance. Sad.

Spotlight on cool doulas in Albuquerque, NM. This one has a ridiculous intro:

When Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, God told Eve that she and all women to come would bear their children in pain. It’s too bad Eve didn’t have a doula to help her in labor.

Comments welcome!

Facing Race: Define Justice. Make Change.

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I participated in a really interesting conference last week, entitled Facing Race. Sponsored by the Applied Research Center, it brought together academics, politicians, organizers and activists to discuss racial justice.

I was psyched to participate, particularly because I love talking about reproductive justice work outside of the reproductive rights spaces. The whole point of what we’re trying to do is emphasize the connections between movements, and moving beyond the world of single issue activism. The other side has gotten it right–they’ve figured out how to all be on the same team: the anti-immigrant people, the anti-choice people, the anti-peace people, the anti-sex people and the anti-gay rights people. And the big problem is: we’re not. Instead, we progressives fight for airtime for OUR issue (which has to be THE issue), and the other side wins.

So this conference brought together people from different worlds, with a focus on race and racial disparities. I participated in an awesome panel about sexual health and communities of color, and we were able to have a really dynamic conversation about some key issues. What does the pro-choice movement look like in communities of color? How can we organize around sexual health in these communities? How can we broaden the conversation beyond just abortion rights, to talk about things like the rights of welfare mothers, HIV/AIDs, research, new technologies and birth rights? How can we include people who don’t identify as feminist, or pro-choice?

The other great thing about the conference was the discussion of the war in Iraq. While obviously a progressive issue, it’s not one that gets any airtime in reproductive rights spaces. The speakers at this conference were really intent on talking about the war as a racialized one, and emphasizing that social justice movements will go nowhere without an end to the war in Iraq. That’s a pretty strong statement but a powerful one. We really do have to keep in mind how the foreign policy decisions our government makes influence progressive movements in this country. Like the Global Gag Rule and domestic abortion advocacy.

One important thing I learned: it’s not enough to simply TALK about people of color, or women of color, and how their experiences differ. We have to continually highlight the moments where racism is a motivating factor–and call it out as such. Theories about the biological differences between races and individualism are used by the other side to de-emphasize the role that institutional racism plays in shaping our communities, in holding our communities back, and we have to combat this by continually calling it like it is–particularly when it comes to the racist policies that are being implemented by our current administration.  

Check out the comment from radical doula/midwife Rebecca!

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Just wanted to point you all to the comment made by fellow radical doula/midwife Rebecca. Click on the Radical doula??? page above, or click here (scroll to bottom).

Thanks Rebecca! It’s great to here from other radical women out there, and I appreciate your comment about how your own birthing experience has changed your ideas about birth and your doula work. I, being childless (with no current plans for motherhood), think about this issue alot and try to approach my ideas about birth with a openness and flexibility that reflects my understanding that my ideas are not the only ideas. I can only work from what my own lived experience has taught me, while appreciating the lived experiences of others, and attempting to facilitate an open dialogue for these issues.

Are you a radical doula or midwife? Post something and let me know you’re out there!

Did this actually happen?

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(I apologize that this is not directly related to the topics I usually cover here. I just had to write about this.)

True story: I am riding a particular downtown subway home, late on a Thursday evening (around 2:30am), all the way from one far-away borough to my home in another. Due to exhaustion and a long subway ride, I fall asleep. Because the subway is almost empty (there are maybe 5 other passengers in the car), I stretch my legs out across the seats next to me.

About five stops from my destination, I am awoken by a tall male cop telling me that “I can’t do that.” In my sleepy state of confusion, I quickly sit up, not knowing what is going on. The police officer then asks me to stand up and step off the train (this is not my final destination). I say with confusion, “Can’t I just go home? I’m only a few stops away.” He repeats, “Please step off the train.”

As I leave the train car and enter the station, I hear a series of gasps behind me, presumably other passengers who are as astonished as I am. The police officer then proceeds to interrogate me, without really explaining the reason I have been removed from the train. As the doors close and the train moves on, I sigh, knowing that this altercation has just added at least 30 minutes to my already long trip home. But my situation only gets worse, as I sit down on a bench and continue to answer the police officers questions: “Where are you going? Where do you live? Do you have identification?”

He begins to talk over his radio, and I still have no idea what is really going on. Three more uniformed police officers come over, and at this point I am surrounded. Now, let me just clarify that I was neither intoxicated nor doing anything more threatening than sleeping on the subway, apparently taking up too much space. Apparently this was enough to warrant the involvement of FOUR police officers.

The cop proceeded with what turned out to be a background check, to see if I had any warrants for my arrest or outstanding tickets. Since when does sleeping on the subway correlate with criminal behavior? I felt completely belittled and distrusted, being treated as a criminal for doing something that I was not even aware was a violation. I finally ask for clarification about what my crime was, and one of the other three cops standing around me shows me his violation book with a paragraph highlighted about taking up more than one subway seat. Never before had I seen anything of the sort listed.

After what felt like a ridiculously long amount of time (and reassurance that in fact, there were no outstanding warrants for my arrest), the cop gave me what he called a “summons,” which amounted to a $50 ticket or an appearance in court. For taking up more than one seat on a mostly empty train at 3am on a weekday. I asked if there was any type of warning for this, since it was my first offense. The cop gruffly responded, this is the warning, it’s either this or arrest. Apparently my offense was agregious enough to merit handcuffs and a lock up.

An hour later, I finally arrive at my apartment, frazzled and full of questions.

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Shout out for a cool book: Nobody Passes

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I went to a reading yesterday at Bluestockings (awesome radical feminist bookstore) by the editor and some of the contributors to this new book called Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Comformity, published by Seal Press.

Not only was there an awesome crowd, but Rocko Bulldagger and Helen Boyd  (author of My Husband Betty) both read from their pieces about passing and gender. What’s very cool about the book is that it tries to talk about passing outside the context of gender as well as within it, including articles about ability, race and immigration status among other things. Oh yeah, and Mattilda Bernstein, the editor of the book, is also a radical rockstar.  (She even has her own blog about the book and tour)