Question: You don’t encourage the right kind of attitude in women regarding childbirth.
Answer: What is the right kind of attitude in your mind? Do you feel you have the right or the expertise or the arrogance to dictate what a right attitude is and what a wrong attitude is? Because we don’t. Nor do we have any aspirations in that direction. Whatever attitude a woman has is the right one to us and we are offended for ourselves and all women at the suggestion that we are all same-thinking clones that should have the same attitude. We are all individuals and we have the right to have that simple fact respected.
Question: I learned the hard way that midwives are interventionists. Could you tell your readers what ‘finger forceps’ are?
Answer: Midwives are interventionists. The myth that they aren’t is a self-serving one perpetuated by midwives themselves and by those who agree with their biases or by those who wish it was true. Midwives intervene for the same reasons other obstetrical caregivers intervene. Some are cruel and sadistic and they intervene unnecessarily because they can and because no one stops them. Some intervene unnecessarily because they believe they have the right to use a woman’s body as a teaching tool. It is never informed consent if you are asking for permission to do anything if the woman isn’t made aware of the possibility of it happening before hand or if you are asking in situations where she is under duress. It is never informed consent if the woman says NO. It is never informed consent if the woman feels she will be punished or subjected to substandard care if she says NO.
Some do it to speed up labour or to make a vaginal delivery possible in the first place. Without these medical interventions by nurses, midwives and doctors more women would lose their lives in childbirth than already do. Ditto for their babies. Many midwives feel their interventions reduce maternal morbidity – both physical and psychological (it doesn’t). We hear hundreds of stories (literally) from women with horror stories about their midwife-attended births, just as we do doctor attended ones.
Finger forceps are when the attending midwife (or doctor – but we have only heard stories about midwives doing this) inserts both hands into the mother’s vagina with her hands positioned so the knuckles meet (for leverage). She then uses her fingers (and fingernails) to pry open the pelvic area and tear away maternal flesh and tissue. It is cruel, barbaric, extremely painful on top of the excruciating pain women are already in and it results in extensive damage to the mother. All the stories we have heard are from women who had this done to them by midwives and without pain relief.
Question: Is it true that women have bowel movements as they have babies?
Answer: Yes, about 80-85% of women giving birth vaginally will. Enemas don’t prevent that. One of the hospital staff in the labour and/or delivery room with you will clean this up quickly and often women find the pain and the birth so traumatizing they are unaware of this. You have the right to know this if you choose to give birth vaginally because it is your right and because it will influence who you choose to have as a support person(s) (they will be aware of it) or whether you choose to have a support person. We have heard many stories of immature support persons thinking this is a funny story to tell friends, relatives and drinking buddies. One husband we are aware of used his continued silence on this subject as a means of controlling his wife when she asked for money and to prevent her from leaving him.
Make wise choices when deciding who (if anyone) you want with you. They are there as an advocate, as support and to speak for you when you can’t. When you grant them the privilege of being with you they should always treat you with the respect you deserve. If you have any doubts about this they are not the right choice.
Question: I found dealing with people after my traumatic birth was almost as traumatizing as the birth itself. You helped me understand how harmful this secondary wounding is and how it makes healing and coping harder. I’ve seen lots of references to it in the comments from other women but I think you need to talk about this more.
Answer: You are right and I’ll do that right now. It is a sad truth that often people do more harm than good. They are dismissive, indifferent, blaming and shaming and it is often done by people who should know better. Secondary wounding or re-traumatization involves many of the same behaviours encountered during pregnancy, labour and delivery and occurs when the trauma survivor turns to people, institutions, caregivers, family, mental health or medical professionals for emotional, legal, financial, medical, or other assistance and is met with:
1) Disbelief, denial, discounting. [You are told you didn’t suffer near as much as so and so and she isn’t complaining/ What do you have to complain about?/ Don’t be so ungrateful/ You have a healthy baby so get over it/ Why do you want your medical records/ You can’t have your medical records/ Oops, we can’t find your medical records/ You are lying/ You can’t remember properly/ and on and on.]
2) Blaming the victim. [You are told you deserved what you got because you were too fat, too old, too weak, not cooperative, too cooperative, too aware, not aware enough, too drugged, not drugged enough, took fertility drugs, didn’t use contraception, didn’t use a doula, didn’t have the right attitude, you are stupid, you are selfish, you aren’t selfish enough, you chose the wrong midwife or doctor, you made your nurse(s) hate you, you chose the wrong support person, you are a hippy-dippy granola-cruncher earth mother, you are not a hippy-dippy granola-cruncher earth mother, you didn’t have a husband, you did have a husband, you need to be punished because you are a woman, you have too much education, you don’t have enough education, you wouldn’t be able to bond properly with your baby if we didn’t treat you like that, you are too rich, you are too poor, etc. ad nauseum.]
3) Stigmatization occurs when others judge the victim negatively for normal reactions to the traumatic event. It can be in the form of ridicule and condescension (Come on it’s funny, You couldn’t sit for weeks – how hilarious, How could you be so stupid not to know that would happen? Etc,etc,). It can be about misinterpretation of the survivors’ psychological distress as a sign of mental illness or moral or mental deficiencies (She has hormone problems, I’m sure she must have had mental problems before, Are you sure you haven’t been raped or had depression before?, You must be crazy, I’ll bet you are poor and have poor social skills, etc., etc.). It can involve implications and accusations that the survivor’s symptoms are all part of her desire for attention, unwarranted sympathy and financial gain. Stigmatization is about punishing the victim, rather than the offender or the system and in the process denying the victim justice.
4) Denial of Assistance. [In my opinion you didn’t need pain relief; No one can help you now; It’s not our fault the anesthesiologist went for a long coffee/We were busy and never called them; You needed to suffer to be a good Mom; You can sue us but you won’t win; No one will believe you anyways; If we give you money will you shut up?]
Secondary wounding has a number of causes. Ignorance, human cruelty, insensitivity, misogyny, burn out*, a belief that people get what they deserve and the cultural belief that everyone is the master of their own fate all play a role.
* Burn out is indicative of full or partial PTSD in many medical workers and emergency responders. Unfortunately, it is either unrecognized or ignored, by them and by the systems that should be working for them. The cost of that to patients, to the medical workers themselves and to the business of medicine is staggering.