superstition

"Research has shone bright lights on what women have always known: Dynamic systems are sensitive to start-up conditions. Thus, a gentle birth is life enhancing for the human organism."
~ Robin Lim

I spent some time in May with Elena Tonetti, a Russian birth activist who was in South Africa for a lecture/workshop tour partly sponsored by one of my current employers (yes... I have several jobs, all of which I am giving up when I start school). Elena is pretty well known in the birthing world, mostly because of an astonishing documentary film she created called Birth As We Know It. She described herself to me as "a champion for the human rights of infants", and she talked to many midwives and birth professionals while she was here, about the psychological effects of traumatic births for babies (and mothers). Elena showed her film at the Sensitive Midwifery Symposium in Cape Town and in Jo'burg. I was part of a group of doulas/student midwives/activists who helped bring Elena over to this country, to try to put some sparks onto the tiny little fire we have burning here in the name of 'sane', normal, woman-centred birth.

It was wonderful to talk to Elena, and be in her presence - she has a warmth and grace and openness of spirit that positively radiate out of her. She is full of compassion and love for mothers and fathers and babies, and speaks about newborns in a way that only a true 'Earth Mother' could. And her film is remarkable in its depiction of birth as an act of devotion, an act of love and strength and courage, and yet one that does not require constant medical surveillance.

But I've been thinking, about this dichotomy we've created between 'earthy', so-called alternative birth (that takes place usually at home, or at least in a birth centre, attended by midwives), and 'scientific', 'rational', medical birth (that takes place without exception in the hospital, attended by doctors - specifically, obstetricians). I think it's been incredibly harmful to the profession of midwifery that we have been presented in popular culture as the 'Birkenstock' clan, almost unanimously vegan and 'radical', not predisposed to scientific thinking, and certainly not partial to the streamlined efficiency of the modern labour ward. Sometimes, we ourselves are guilty of perpetuating this stereotype.

It's a dangerous stereotype, for midwives and mothers alike, because it is false (as stereotypes so often are). Midwifery is a self-reflective profession whose practices are based on sound evidence. It is not a throwback to a 'primitive', superstitious past before obstetrics came along to save the day. Indeed, it is obstetrics that so often practices superstitiously, and with greater consideration for its own reputation than for what is in the best interests of the mother and baby. Obstetrical practice is based on a false notion of inescapable, predictable pathology that medicine believes is inherent in birth. It is the old story that medicine tells itself, that women and babies would surely all die during birth if it were not for hospitals and foetal monitors and IVs. And obstetricians practice in sadomasochistic institutions, namely hospitals, whose overarching protocols (based on fear of malpractice lawsuits) entrap even those doctors who would like to change the 'system', who see how often it harms otherwise healthy mothers and babies, who are not interventionist, and who are indeed midwives in disguise.

"We midwives will only dethrone the obstetricians when we get up off our knees." ~ Anonymous