Here's the video written out for those of you who might have sleeping babes and don't dare turn on the sound!
This is an Open Letter to ACOG on their recent abortion legislation statement. I was intrigued today to discover, albeit a couple of days late, that ACOG, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, released a public statement regarding the abortion issues happening in Texas right now. They also have another statement about a month old now denouncing legislation regarding patient care basically, which included certified midwives which was interesting. I’ll be honest up front: This is not about abortion. I don’t touch that debate in public with a ten-foot pole. I actually thought the statement was quite great from a professional standpoint. Before you jump up all in arms, we need to remember that ACOG is more of a labor union type organization. So they were appropriately trying to stick their necks out for providers in their own professional group who might be in the practice of providing abortions as a part of their well-woman care programs. I get it. What I found interesting was that they used some key phrases and terms that those of us in the natural childbirth and human rights in childbirth communities commonly use when speaking out against some of ACOG’s policies or providers. I found the statement to be very contradictory to their usual stances on issues. It was very double-standard-ish. Like, these statements are okay to use when it protects their physicians but not when we’re talking patients. Of course the first thing to stick out was the title, “Open Letter to Texas Legislators: Get Out of Our Exam Rooms.” Again, I get it. These are your providers that might be losing a chunk of business if the Texas law passes. ACOG wants legislators out of the exam room so their providers can continue to do their thing. It’s their job. But, when and where do we draw the line? Our medical care is so removed from the legal realm there is next to no possibility of recourse against negligent actions beyond filing formal complaints through local medical boards. Thank God for those boards handling these tough situations, but what about times when a fine or even license suspension or removal isn’t enough? What about those times when the providers under your union act in such a negligent or abusive manner that police, lawyers and legislators are warranted? Unfortunately, many of those situations remain unresolved because no one wants to even fathom bringing a doctor into a courtroom. They’re untouchable, didn’t you know! On the same token, while you don’t want legislators in your exam rooms, many of us don’t want legislators or doctors in our homes. Or, frankly. doctors in our vaginas or anything else for that matter unless we specifically consent to that and believe it or not, showing up at an office or hospital does not automatically give that consent and we may revoke it at any point. Many moms refuse to birth in a hospital for many reasons (more often than not the very way your physicians handle their patients and their care is to blame) and those moms have the right to birth at home with qualified providers if they desire. And we’ve been under, as you have called it, “relentless legislative assault on the patient-physician” relationship for quite some time now, too. But I know homebirths would jeopardize some of the business of your physicians, so I understand that you had to send lobbyists on your behalf to California recently *against* the idea of home births, despite scientific evidence stating that planned home births are as safe if not safer than planned hospital births. And even despite your own recent public statement against legislative interference which included certified midwives, therefore inferring that ACOG is working towards a better maternity care system to include home births, which coincides with a lot of the statements I heard at this year’s ACOG conference in New Orleans. Interesting, that you would continue to lobby against homebirths after all that. But I understand your position, because your first and foremost concern is for your physicians rather than the women and families they serve. Even though in this most recent statement against the Texas legislation you state: “…we must draw a hard line against insidious legislation that threatens women’s health…” Wouldn’t you say denying a woman her choice in care providers through legal efforts is actually “insidious legislation that threatens women’s health…?” Interesting. You also state, “Women must have access to all needed health care—from mammograms to prenatal visits to reproductive care—based on scientific facts, not political ideology.” Oh. Yes. I totally agree with this one! Wait… I think I’m confused ACOG. Do you only speak out when your providers are affected? Your organization says: “ACOG advocates for quality care for women.” But do you advocate for that care when women are affected? Or just your providers? Again, I get it. You’re a labor-type group, you need to advocate for your providers. I’m just trying to set the record straight. Because you tout quality care for the women your doctor’s serve and now apparently scientific evidence which is great, yet the very idea of actively managing a childbirth is not evidence based at all and it’s certainly not “quality care.” In fact, it can cause a whole slew of extra problems for the mother and baby they would not have encountered otherwise.(Among a list of other poor protocols lacking scientific evidence) We’ll not even get into the use of Cytotec , the stomach ulcer drug not authorized by any organizations for use in labor, that many of your providers continue to use and have even killed mothers in the even recent past? Which brings me to my next point: Scientific evidence in “quality care.” It’s a proven fact that the majority of our maternity care within the medical model which your providers offer actually is not conceived from scientific evidence. Convenience, Overloaded doctors, Opinions, The need to retain as much business as possible, these are all reasons for the unsound protocols currently in place in our maternity system. Yet, you state in your public statement: “Facts are very important, especially when discussing the health of women and the American public.” *blink blink* You also say this: “The sanctity of the patient-physician relationship is central to good medicine, a critical tenet embraced by ACOG and other medical societies…” But… Okay does this mean the five-ten minute heartbeat sessions we get with our OB/GYNs for prenatals is growing a relationship? Because I think I missed the “growing” part of that. If we could have better access to the midwifery model of care across the country and the world, we would be able to achieve that relationship in our low-risk moms, which is a critical tenet of care for our midwives, too. And our high-risk moms would have a better chance of achieving that relationship with their doctors as they wouldn’t be so overloaded. Frankly, I know you know this from what I’ve heard of your recent conference and seen from your statements. Words are great, but we need actions now. ACOG, as always, I’m dismayed by this recent public statement. Not because it wasn’t good! Not because I didn’t agree with what you had to say, but because it was totally contradictory to how you as an organization and how your physicians have been behaving as of late. Get it together, would ya? ACOG statements referenced: Open Letter to Texas Legislators: Get Out of Our Exam Rooms Legislative Interference with Patient Care, Medical Decisions and the Patient-Physician Relationship
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Zombie Prep Dad is my usual sounding board, poor guy hears all about my blog and activism work all..the...time... So I was, of course, divulging plans for my next blog post today when he says, "You know what you need? You need a fun post. Like a HEY I'm a real person and this is what I did this week kind of post." So.... This one is for you, Zombie Prep Dad! I figured since I've been so busy advocating for our midwives lately here in Delaware and being with family that I would do like a month and a half to two month in one shot. What has been keeping Momma Trauma so busy? First, you see, we just had to stop and smell the flowers. Even in the middle of the store. We also had to go to the park a few times to swing and sit with our fellow kind, the Dinosaurs!
We love being outside, so we try to do that *a lot.* Party hair, picnics, logs and all! And then, when all was quiet, we relaxed. We 'nuggled with Petey and practiced music with Momma to prepare for awesome church services. What a great time we have had as a family. Ah, that was fun. I hope you enjoyed the family photo session, too. I could tell you stories upon stories from our kids this past month or two. Here's a funny one for you: So the other night, Zombie Prep Dad and I had *just* got comfy and snuggly in bed, you know how it goes. As soon as that happened, our son yells out from their room (ready?) POOP! |
My baby had outstanding Apgar scores and ate well. I cried constantly, ate little, and could not sleep even when he dozed. Like many HBC mothers I was aching on the inside, waiting for someone to validate my feelings of loss amidst what was supposed to be a happy event in my life. I struggled with feelings of inadequacy and craved someone to tell me that I did all I could. I wanted someone to tell me that even though I had not pushed my baby out of my vagina, I was still an authentic mother. | I wanted someone to tell me that even though I had not pushed my baby out of my vagina, I was still an authentic mother. |
But mostly, in those early days, I needed to tell my story to someone who would truly listen, as many times as I needed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was in mourning for my lost birth. My homebirth was more than a means to get my baby out. It was a dream that I nurtured as carefully and lovingly as I did the baby growing inside me. When it died, I grieved.
Homebirth cesarean mothers do not complete their births the way they planned, worked for, meditated on, and dreamed of. As a result, their births as mothers are left unfinished. As I told my therapist when my son was six months old, “His birth was finished but my birth, into being a mother, that’s been left hanging."
By speaking out about homebirth cesarean, I found a community of mothers and learned I was not alone. By working with HBC as a volunteer and talking to hundreds of HBC mothers around the world, I learned that healing was possible. Through loving words, suggestions, and heartfelt tears, my fellow homebirth cesarean mothers have helped me continue my journey into motherhood, midwifing my passage into this new person I have become.
Healing Paths
Our organization offers solace for homebirth cesarean mothers as well as research-based guidelines and classes for birth professionals to help them better serve mothers who must pass from home to hospital, often one of the longest most alienating journeys of their lives. We also advocate for the mitigation of trauma in the prenatal period by helping providers initiate fearless conversations about the possibility of cesarean with their clients before birth begins.
Ultimately, we believe that women can birth with dignity and power anywhere, so long as they are given information and the respect to do so. The journey from home to operating room will never feel ideal for many mothers, but it need not be coupled with a sense of shame, failure, and isolation that prevents far too many mothers from finding wholeness.
Are you a Homebirth Cesarean mom? What was the most difficult part of your healing journey (whether HBC or other birth trauma)?
Homebirth cesarean mothers do not complete their births the way they planned, worked for, meditated on, and dreamed of. As a result, their births as mothers are left unfinished. As I told my therapist when my son was six months old, “His birth was finished but my birth, into being a mother, that’s been left hanging."
By speaking out about homebirth cesarean, I found a community of mothers and learned I was not alone. By working with HBC as a volunteer and talking to hundreds of HBC mothers around the world, I learned that healing was possible. Through loving words, suggestions, and heartfelt tears, my fellow homebirth cesarean mothers have helped me continue my journey into motherhood, midwifing my passage into this new person I have become.
Healing Paths
Our organization offers solace for homebirth cesarean mothers as well as research-based guidelines and classes for birth professionals to help them better serve mothers who must pass from home to hospital, often one of the longest most alienating journeys of their lives. We also advocate for the mitigation of trauma in the prenatal period by helping providers initiate fearless conversations about the possibility of cesarean with their clients before birth begins.
Ultimately, we believe that women can birth with dignity and power anywhere, so long as they are given information and the respect to do so. The journey from home to operating room will never feel ideal for many mothers, but it need not be coupled with a sense of shame, failure, and isolation that prevents far too many mothers from finding wholeness.
Are you a Homebirth Cesarean mom? What was the most difficult part of your healing journey (whether HBC or other birth trauma)?
Women birthing in the United States have seemingly lost a lot of freedoms to do so how they choose, as have women all over.
We enjoy certain freedoms here (United States centric today, sorry out of country friends). We can expect freedom from terrorism as much as possible, participate in government, or protest the government, believe in any deity we wish, or not, own guns, or use baseball bats instead… We can smoke around our kids despite evidence stating how detrimental that could be for them. We can put drugs and alcohol in our bodies. We can move, get a job, be a bum, or be perpetual college students. We can own our own businesses. We can be as promiscuous or prudish as we desire.
We can do all that… but sometimes we aren’t given our freedoms to birth how, with whom and where we please. Birth. Something so natural. We can do all that stuff, but we can’t ask someone to get their hands off of OUR bodies to allow us to birth naturally, nor can we invite just anyone we desire in some areas of our country such as my state, Delaware.
I’ve been advocating for human rights in childbirth for a while now, and natural birth. And I still don’t understand the need for professionals to control birth, especially through the medical model of care. I must be an old soul with a midwifery model of care at heart. Childbirth is natural. It’s normal. And it’s okay to make our own healthcare decisions, regardless of whether that decision goes against the grain of the physiological process of childbirth or not. It’s MY decision.
I often think: What would I say if I could ever bring myself to face the doctor who abused me during labor and actually discuss the freedoms he stripped from me with his fingers? It changes each time I think about it, sometimes the dialogue is an anger-fueled one, other times it’s rational. This is what I came up with tonight:
My body, My freedoms
This body you are “working” on? This patient on your table/bed? This is ME. I am a person. This is MY body. Not yours. It doesn’t reside in a textbook; its home is far from Friedman’s Curve. It is real, and it is mine. I don’t lose my freedoms and rights the moment I step into your office or get wheeled into the maternity floor. You may have gone to medical school, but I have lived in this body far longer. When I tell you what’s going on with my body, you need to shut up and listen. When I tell you to stop touching me, you need to shut up and listen. This is MY body. I have full rights over this body, you may only do to this body that which I consent.
You may not:
Ah, but maybe that’s thinking too positively. When will they understand that our bodies mean our freedoms? Their education doesn’t automatically strip our rights to our bodies.
(As always, yes, I know there are awesome doctors and staff out there. This post is not for them.)
What would you add to these lists?
We enjoy certain freedoms here (United States centric today, sorry out of country friends). We can expect freedom from terrorism as much as possible, participate in government, or protest the government, believe in any deity we wish, or not, own guns, or use baseball bats instead… We can smoke around our kids despite evidence stating how detrimental that could be for them. We can put drugs and alcohol in our bodies. We can move, get a job, be a bum, or be perpetual college students. We can own our own businesses. We can be as promiscuous or prudish as we desire.
We can do all that… but sometimes we aren’t given our freedoms to birth how, with whom and where we please. Birth. Something so natural. We can do all that stuff, but we can’t ask someone to get their hands off of OUR bodies to allow us to birth naturally, nor can we invite just anyone we desire in some areas of our country such as my state, Delaware.
I’ve been advocating for human rights in childbirth for a while now, and natural birth. And I still don’t understand the need for professionals to control birth, especially through the medical model of care. I must be an old soul with a midwifery model of care at heart. Childbirth is natural. It’s normal. And it’s okay to make our own healthcare decisions, regardless of whether that decision goes against the grain of the physiological process of childbirth or not. It’s MY decision.
I often think: What would I say if I could ever bring myself to face the doctor who abused me during labor and actually discuss the freedoms he stripped from me with his fingers? It changes each time I think about it, sometimes the dialogue is an anger-fueled one, other times it’s rational. This is what I came up with tonight:
My body, My freedoms
This body you are “working” on? This patient on your table/bed? This is ME. I am a person. This is MY body. Not yours. It doesn’t reside in a textbook; its home is far from Friedman’s Curve. It is real, and it is mine. I don’t lose my freedoms and rights the moment I step into your office or get wheeled into the maternity floor. You may have gone to medical school, but I have lived in this body far longer. When I tell you what’s going on with my body, you need to shut up and listen. When I tell you to stop touching me, you need to shut up and listen. This is MY body. I have full rights over this body, you may only do to this body that which I consent.
You may not:
- Be: Emotionally abusive. Coercive. Physically violent.
- Say Whoops, look at that. Your bag of waters broke while I was in there. If I want my membranes ruptured early, I’ll let you know.
- Take control over my vagina and insert your hand whenever you walk into the room.
- Lie to me about the condition of my body or my baby.
- Tell me I cannot get up and move or that I must birth in a certain position.
- Make decisions for me or my baby.
- Wisk my baby away for anything other than a true emergency.
- Be supportive of the informed choice process, which includes giving me all necessary information and time to make that decision free from coercion.
- Recognize that I am the owner of this body you call “patient,” and I am the parent to the baby you will soon see. I, as parent, have the right to make any and all decisions for his/her healthcare.
- Be kind to any birth support persons I bring with me and support the idea of creating a relaxing and calming environment in which to birth along with other decisions I may make.
- Respect me. Trust me. Talk to me.
Ah, but maybe that’s thinking too positively. When will they understand that our bodies mean our freedoms? Their education doesn’t automatically strip our rights to our bodies.
(As always, yes, I know there are awesome doctors and staff out there. This post is not for them.)
What would you add to these lists?
Do you feel regulating a profession automatically makes it safer? That question has been bogging me down since Delaware Senator Bethany Hall-Long made that assumption on the senate floor the other night.
It made me think of times when I get my hair cut by an unlicensed hairdresser (yes, they license that profession here) and had great outcomes! It also made me think of the bad outcomes we often speak of from nurses and doctors in terms of childbirth especially. Let's get this out of the way now: Yes. There are marvelous doctors out there. But there are not so great doctors, also. The bottom line here is that any profession, at any regulation level, can encounter bad outcomes.
We feel it so much here on this blog. Medical staff, midwives sometimes even, who lost all respect for their patient and the physiologic nature of childbirth and choose force, coercion or other forms of abuse instead of respect, dignity and allowing the mom to make her own healthcare decisions.
So I ask you to think about this with me. Does the idea of having a profession regulated automatically make that profession safer? Even when that profession is so regulated that no one can obtain the permits necessary to practice as midwifery is here in Delaware?
It made me think of times when I get my hair cut by an unlicensed hairdresser (yes, they license that profession here) and had great outcomes! It also made me think of the bad outcomes we often speak of from nurses and doctors in terms of childbirth especially. Let's get this out of the way now: Yes. There are marvelous doctors out there. But there are not so great doctors, also. The bottom line here is that any profession, at any regulation level, can encounter bad outcomes.
We feel it so much here on this blog. Medical staff, midwives sometimes even, who lost all respect for their patient and the physiologic nature of childbirth and choose force, coercion or other forms of abuse instead of respect, dignity and allowing the mom to make her own healthcare decisions.
So I ask you to think about this with me. Does the idea of having a profession regulated automatically make that profession safer? Even when that profession is so regulated that no one can obtain the permits necessary to practice as midwifery is here in Delaware?
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