Mindful Birth

03/11/2022

06/24/2020

06/13/2020

04/05/2020

03/23/2020

Separating positive MOTHERS from their infants makes NO sense and is not supported as best practices. Remind your hospital systems to follow WHO guidelines!

12/17/2019

To improve access to safe birth at home, nationwide standards are necessary.

10/29/2019

🙌

10/01/2019

She opened her eyes for the first time in her life and gave her father the biggest smile.

09/11/2019

06/28/2019

When well-informed becomes “non-compliant”....

A mom in heavy active labor is contracting rhythmically, it is 11 PM. She has alerted the staff that she is a survivor of sexual violence by a male perpetrator and has requested that no men care for her during her labor and birth. Her water has been broken for 11 hours. A male resident, a stranger to this mother, walks into the room. While standing above her and without introducing himself or observing what is happening with the mother, he puts on sterile gloves and proceeds to l**e up one hand. During a contraction he says to the mother, “we need to check your cervix now.” The mother raises a finger as she rides her wave. When the contraction has faded she looks up at the man and says “no.” The doctor, obviously shocked, says to the mother, “we need to alert the delivery team and tell them how much longer you will be in labor.” The mother, again in heavy active labor, says simply, “no one will be putting their hands into my va**na. It is not evidence based practice. My baby will be born by morning. Please leave now.” The baby is born at 1:44 AM. Unfortunately, this was not the only instance of abuse during her birth. Fortunately, she was strong in her power and didn’t break under their constant pressure.

Even without an understanding of the physiology of birth I’m sure many of you can see the way in which this woman was violated in a time of vulnerability. Shouldn’t hospital staff take a voluntary disclosure of sexual trauma history seriously? Shouldn’t they have a plan in place to facilitate women feeling safe in their birth experience?

When we understand the physiology of birth, we understand that the hormone cascade necessary to allow an intervention free birth absolutely relies on the mother not releasing cortisol. If she has trauma triggers related to her safety and they are ignored, what type of impact does that have? This woman was being told by a stranger that he was going to enter her. Not asked, told. Can you imagine any other context in which this is okay?

Additionally, we know from real science (not pseudo-science, as someone recently told me I share) that introducing ANYTHING into the va**nal canal of a woman who has a ruptured bag of waters increases her risk of intrauterine infection. We also know from science, that cervical dilation means very little in relationship to labor progression and definitely cannot predict the timing of birth. (For instance I recently had a doula client who was fully dilated for 4 hours before birth.)

So in the above story, this mother was well-informed and making choices about her care that were in the best interest of herself and her baby. Why was she labeled uninformed, belligerent, and non-compliant? Why was she further bullied and demeaned during her birthing experience? Why was she reported to child protective services for endangering the life of her child?

I don’t have the answers. But I know first hand how traumatizing that experience was because that mother was me.

The state of birth in the medical system is not okay. Telling me to stop speaking up, accusing me of demonizing drs who are “just looking out for the mothers and babies” won’t silence me. And saying that “not all doctors are like this” is not excusable. I’ve seen 40 births, most of them in the hospital, and every single one of them had at least an undertone coercion and misogyny, whether the mother realized it or not. Most of the time it’s overt and obvious. None of it is justified.

Until we can honestly acknowledge the problem, mothers and baby’s are not safe. And I’m tired of being compliant for the sake of protecting other people’s egos.

🔥🐉✊

06/15/2019

Photo credit : honestlymommy
Edited to say this photo is part of a much larger photo by honestlymommy. Someone has cropped it and shared it throughout the Internet. It wasn't me. I share photos I think my page audience will enjoy but it wasn't me that intentionally ripped her off. As a creator and blogger myself I can understand her upset. If you liked this post please check her out. Her names the same on all her platforms. Thank you.

06/06/2019

A 5-minute delay in clamping the umbilical cord after birth may benefit an infant’s developing brain, suggests a small study funded by the National Institutes of Health. By 4 months of age, the brains of infants in the study who underwent delayed clamping had more myelin, a brain-insulating materi...

06/02/2019

Women in labour are increasingly being subjected to unnecessary and unwelcome interventions such as caesarean sections, warns WHO

04/03/2019

"Ultrasound has never been proven safe. To this date, there are no studies comparing the development of children who were exposed to ultrasound versus those who weren’t." -Shelby Salinas

Why you may want to think twice about prenatal ultrasounds: http://bit.ly/2uDYM2W

03/12/2019

Whether from desperation or convenience, or because it's simply so delicious, two thirds of breastfeeding mothers do bedshare at some point. Yet one of the most intense messages new mothers hear is to never, never sleep with their babies in an adult bed. So they often feel guilty, worrying that they...

03/11/2019

For many women, a safe, healthy labor lasts longer than the times cited as normal, according to guidelines from the nation's obstetricians. Giving women more time ups the odds of a va**nal delivery.

02/14/2019

Researchers have identified two proteins in a fetus' lungs responsible for initiating the labor process, providing potential new targets for preventing preterm birth. They discovered that the proteins SRC-1 and SRC-2 activate genes inside the fetus' lungs near full term, leading to an inflammatory r...