Abuse during childbirth. Disrespectful care. PTSD. These are things we've been trying to explain for years, while others try to explain them away saying they're just not possible. Today, the World Health Organization released a statement that says just what we've been trying to say: "Every woman has the right to the highest attainable standard of health, including the right to dignified, respectful care during pregnancy and childbirth. However, across the world many women experience disrespectful, abusive, or neglectful treatment during childbirth in facilities. These practices can violate women’s rights, deter women from seeking and using maternal health care services and can have implications for their health and well-being." The WHO joins the White Ribbon Alliance, Human Rights in Childbirth, the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics and so many more organizations to stand up and say that disrespect directed to pregnant and laboring moms happens by care providers, sometimes even abuse. It happens, and it's not okay. How long have we been hanging on to a thread, hoping someone in a high enough power will listen to us? Is this that power? I don't know. They're pretty powerful. It might just be another nudge in the right direction and frankly, every nudge helps! We deserve to be heard and change made! For ourselves, our friends, our sisters, our daughters.... Every woman deserves respectful care regardless of where that care is found. What do you think about the WHO's newest statement? Find it here! "Reports of disrespectful and abusive treatment during childbirth in facilities have included outright physical abuse, profound humiliation and verbal abuse, coercive or unconsented medical procedures (including sterilization), lack of confidentiality, failure to get fully informed consent, refusal to give pain medication, gross violations of privacy, refusal of admission to health facilities, neglecting women during childbirth to suffer life-threatening, avoidable complications, and detention of women and their newborns in facilities after childbirth due to an inability to pay.(5)"
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Before you ask, I'm still processing. Regulars here will tell you that I just birthed our third little one just two months ago. They may also tell you that I haven't written out my birth story yet. I know a lot of people are waiting impatiently to hear it, but I'm just not ready to come off of it yet. But, I want to tap into the Carry The Weight campaign a bit, as that really hits home.
The phrase "Carry The Weight" is really what got me. It immediately got me thinking about how I carry the weight of my birth trauma around, sometimes on my sleeve with my advocacy and other times quietly stuffed inside. The weight from birth trauma has been carried into my parenting, my bed, my relationships, my professional activities, every bit of my life. It certainly didn't help me get rid of depression any after our second born. Going into this third pregnancy, I knew I was still harboring the weight of my trauma to some degree, although I've done a lot of healing, too. But a conversation with the doctor who attended the birth really caught me off guard. Our new baby had gotten stuck during delivery, a true shoulder dystocia. She was my biggest baby out of all of them! (I hear this is normal, for them to just keep getting bigger?) She was 8 lbs., 15.5 ounces and 21" long. The doctor we had was phenomenal, I'll tell you more about her later. She really did wonders to "unstick" our little one, or help my body unstick the baby... however you want to look at it. I didn't even know there was a dystocia issue until after our new one was contently getting birth goo all over my chest. After everything was all said and cleaned up (probably the best part about a hospital birth - no cleanup!), the doctor very gently told me about the dystocia, that I did, indeed, have a small pelvis, and that complications like that is why we sometimes need to listen blindly to our birth attendants in the heat of the moment. Zombie Prep Dad tells me that he, my mom and my doula had told her that I had previously had a traumatic birth, which explains why she told me this. It couldn't have been a long conversation, we were only there for two hours before baby emerged and she was a very attentive doctor. Although I was the only birthing mama on the floor. At the time, I was a little confused by her comments. But I had a slimy kid trying to find a nipple and nurses who were asking if they could do newborn testing things with her on my chest. So I wasn't able to concentrate too much on what she said. Before we get all unraveled with her comments, I think she's right. I think when an emergency occurs, we need to be able to trust in our birth attendants fully. That's what they're there for! I also know that the United States especially isn't really in a position to make that always available right now. What I was more concerned about was the fact that I had a true shoulder dystocia. That caught me by surprise. By true I mean a dystocia that occurred naturally rather than medically induced as most dystocia's are. I thought the trauma I'd bring into birth would be the sexual trauma I carried on my sleeve from our second born's birth. Instead, I Carried The Weight of the birth of our first born. He also was stuck, but his was a medically induced shoulder dystocia. At least, that's what I had believed and even (finally) heard verified from a doctor when I delivered our second. But now, the words of this third doctor has me confused. Why is all this relevant to carrying the weight? I'm getting there, follow the mind of a writer here....
In my mind... that made me wonder: Would our first born have had a true dystocia if drugs hadn't been involved (pharmaceutical... given by the hospital....) and if I was able to walk around? Does this validate the actions of the doctor from our second born and thus invalidating my traumatic experience? Did I have no real reason or right to feel totally violated by him not removing his fingers when I begged him? These questions are why I've remained silent here for so long. I've been in this game long enough to know the answers. But they still plague me. They still haunt the recesses of my mind, contributing to the depression that tries to seep up and around the awesome placenta pills that are keeping it at bay (I'm sure they are, but can't prove it. Moving on...). I know that even if there was a problem with our second born, the doctor could have "pulled out," yes I used that term, to talk with me. There was time, even in an emergency. I know that my body knew what was happening, what it was doing. Having had three kids, two "stuck" and one not, I know that my body knew when they were stuck and when they weren't and it was able to communicate that to my attendants. I am confident that it would have let that second doctor know if there were a problem, which there wasn't.... I know that what I experienced at the hands of that doctor was perinatal violence (obstetric violence), nothing more, nothing less. Even when I called the RAINN hotlines, they could totally understand how I felt sexually abused by this one doctor, even in that setting. I begged him, my husband and doula begged him, and yet he still kept his fingers defiantly inside somewhere he didn't have permission to explore! We shouldn't have to validate the violent actions of our doctors (or midwives, nurses, etc.) to ourselves. "Maybe he WAS just trying to help?" But yet, this third doctor tried to validate the actions of the second, and the comments of the first... All in one calm, gentle phrase. Professional courtesy perhaps? I don't know. I'm not upset with her at all. I'm just left a little flabbergasted if you will. Now... If you're still with me here, and if all of that makes sense to you, you might be better off than I am at the moment! |
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July 2015
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