In my humble opinion:
Many people wonder why birth professionals (childbirth
educators, doulas, midwives, nurses, lactation consultants) are so passionate
about their profession. Unlike other
professions, childbirth (and breastfeeding) evoke great emotion and energy in
many workers. What is the underlying
cause of this emotional energy and has it changed over the years?
I think it is safe to say that in the 1970s when I began
teaching became a nurse and subsequently also became involved in childbirth
education, the push of childbirth education was
to come along side women who
desired less interventions and a more natural (or physiologic/non-interventive)
childbirth. Educators taught women that
their gut feelings about physiologic birth were not wrong, what the evidence said,
and gave them the tools to achieve that goal.
The empowerment of women in the 70s enabled educators to thrive and
achieve those goals.
Somewhere in the mid-1980s, childbirth education relaxed the
emotional energy expended and reaped the benefits of the past. But in sitting back, this allowed a more
interventive style of childbirth to emerge and then we were looking at the
1990s with an increase in epidurals, assistive deliveries (forceps and the
miti-vacuum extractor), and an increase in cesarean rates. By the 2000s, we tried to catch up and began
movements such as “evidence based information” in childbirth education and
later, in social media, but it was too late.
The perception that “drive thru” deliveries that were scheduled,
induced, medicated and sometime surgical became the optimum. Few were mindful of what all of this was
doing to moms, babies and future generations.
Women just wanted the uncomfortable last 3 weeks of pregnancy to end, to
hold their babies after little/no pain, and to get back to work.
Questions began to arise in 2010. Why is the cesarean rate so high? If women are designed physically to give
birth, what is the reason for the 32.8%+ cesarean rate? Why are only 33% of women attending
childbirth education class? What is the
medication given during labor/birth doing to our mothers and babies? Can we curb elective early birth – why don’t
we wait the full 40 weeks? Are future
generations going to be affected by birth practices now? Will women lose their gut instincts about
labor and birth? Will women lose their physical ability to give birth
(epigenetics)?
Many birth organizations such as AWHONN, ACNM, MANA, APPPAH,
Lamaze and ICEA began asking these questions.
Forward thinkers such as Marsden Wagner and Michel Odent wrote landmark
books explaining the research and forecasting the future. Videos and movies such as “The Business of
Being Born”, “Pregnant in America”, “Laboring Under An Illusion” and “Birth by
the Numbers” allowed the public to be exposed to the questions we birth professionals
were also asking. And this year, “Microbirth”,
put it all in perspective: if how we are born affects how our health manifests
itself, we must take that as a mandate to let birth alone and allow humans to
reach the potential for which they are destined.
The answer then, is yes – the focus of birth professional
has changed. We have gone from “freedom
fighter” to someone “sounding the alarm”.
Birth is much more than having a mother choose her position during
labor. How we treat mothers and babies
during pregnancy, labor, birth and the postpartum will forever change us as
human beings. It can be a change for the
positive or the negative. Right now, we
are on a slippery slope to the negative.
It is time for a change.
It is time for a change.
It is time for those of us who know the research, the facts,
the truth – whatever you want to call it – to come together in one strong
voice. Does that mean we become the
protectors of future generations?
Become informed. You
be the judge.