08/31/2023
The woman is the expert in her body, her baby, and her birth!!!!!!!!!!!!
"When we insist that pregnancy length is fixed and not fluid, when we force women to follow due dates defined by machines and not their own bodies, when we constantly prioritise medical definitions over women's own instincts, we undermine a vital source of information and a well of trust."
I wrote that to try to explain a huge problem that we have today.
Our knowledge about our bodies is being undermined by the very systems and advances that we have created to try and help ourselves.
Our technologies and machines are wonderful when they are really needed.
But they are overused.
And when we pay more attention to their output and stop looking at the bigger picture (including our own knowledge about our bodies), we can do more harm than good.
Over the years, I have talked to many women who have personal stories about this.
Some women have known the exact date they conceived because their partner was stationed abroad and they only saw him for one weekend in three months.
Others had IVF and also knew the exact date of conception.
Yet they were told that "the dating scan knows best" and they had to battle the system because the date calculated by a machine was given more credit than their own knowledge.
They weren't believed.
My website contains lots of information about normality, due dates and induction of labour.
I have also written two books about this: Inducing Labour: making informed decisions and In Your Own Time: how western medicine controls the start of labour and why this needs to stop.
Find out more at www.sarawickham.com/iol
