Ah, Foucault and the medical gaze? I have a picture around here somewhere to show you.

I finally got to this, fergus! It’s here.

Doulas, by the way, are worth their weight in gold. They are totally focussed on your physical and emotional welfare in labour, have lots of drug free tricks for pain relief, and can be your advocate when you are busy with the herculean job of “getting it out”.

I won’t repeat myself, but here’s my rant on women educating themselves about childbirth. Though I’ll agree, unless you’re planning a baby there’s no research time anymore :-(

With my first child,ten years ago, I knew nothing. I naively booked myself into the Royal Women’s in Melbourne because that’s what I thought I was supposed to do. I saw a different doctor each checkup and left my modesty at the hospital doors each time. One day, I asked an elderly OB whether it would be ok for me to go on a camp for zoology when 6 months pregnant. He said, “Of course!” Then looked me right in the eye and said, “YOU’RE NOT SICK.”

This was a new thought for me. Not sick. He’d started an avalanche of questions: If I wasn’t sick, why was I going to a hospital? If I was healthy, why was I being treated like a human pin cushion? Why was I being given repeated invasive medical examinations? Why was I being TREATED as though I were in some sort of danger?

That was enough unanswered questions for me and I coped the way I always do – I hit the library. I don’t remember everything I read, but one title stayed with me, The Baby Machine edited by Jocelynne A. Scutt. The whole world of the medicalisation of childbirth is laid out before you in that book. I finished it with my eyes wide open.

Luckily, ten years ago there was not a baby boom on and I was able to transfer to the Royal Women’s Family Birth Centre at 7 months. There I had a fantastic natural birth attended only by midwives whom I got to know over two months. My aunts who describe their labours in terms of the pain relief they had, were astounded to hear that it was drug free and I gave birth to my son standing up.

With my last one (2006) you practically had to book on your conception date to get into a birth centre, so my sympathies are with anyone who finds themselves with an unplanned pregnancy, there’s no time to research at all :-(

I would no longer recommend the Royal Women’s birth centre, it is just another hospital ward now – I checked in but had an argument with a midwife half my age about milo so checked out… but that’s another story. I ended up at the Mercy Family Birth Centre with the same midwife I’d had ten years ago **happy!!**, and a doula and student midwife that I knew personally. My husband and son were also there, my husband caught his daughter and hearing my son call out, “It’s a girl!!” was indescribably beautiful.

However, I STILL had altercations with them about hospital policy – they wanted me to labour with a cannula in my arm. I fought, I got second medical opinions, I won. I could only do that because I was well informed of my rights and treatment alternatives.

I don’t want to give the impression that I’m one of those women who think that every one can have a natural birth if they are left alone. I don’t think that. Medical intervention saves lives, that’s a no brainer! However at the moment, medical intervention in the form of “managed childbirth” is causing half the problems it’s fixing. :-(

I think OB’s in Australia are slowly coming around. Almost every woman I know is having babies at the moment, not all of them are as militant as I about midwives only, and many of them have had great births with their OBs.

I think the most important thing of all is trusting your health providers. If my midwife had told me that my baby had to come out surgically NOW, I would have known that there was no other alternative. I would have been happy to trust her judgement. I would not trust the judgement of an OB who wouldn’t read a birth plan. I would assume they had issues with control. I would assume that once I went into labour I’d be relegated from the status of individual human being, to ambulatory pelvis that needs to be managed.

Australia is getting better, but we still have a long way to go. My next one will be at home :-)

Emmas last blog post..Voluntary euthanasia or murder?

Stupid me!

However, I still disagree with this:
“You’d be relying on your GP to diagnose you, and refer you to an appropriate specialist.”

Because I wouldn’t be – if I have symptoms, I’m researching my symptoms until I have a good idea what to ask, what tests to request and what might be wrong with me. Type “misdiagnosis death GP” into google, and you’ll probably have a fair idea why. I am responsible for my body and my health, and I can’t hand that responsibility over – although I can certainly consult with an expert, and will if the situation requires it. I can’t remember the last time I had something wrong with me and had it accurately diagnosed by a GP – in fact, I can think of a dozen or more times when something wrong with me was blatantly misdiagnosed.

And yes, of course there are situations where women need a doctor – I was not suggesting there aren’t. All I was saying was midwives are a choice. Suggesting that women don’t have a choice of caregiver because doctors are booked out isn’t true. Midwives are an option for women in Australia with uncomplicated pregnancies, in one form or another, whatever your insurance situation.

Pregnancy isn’t a disease – it’s a normal physiological condition, and as feminists I think we should be talking more about the medical profession’s patriarchal control over our bodies, particularly when it comes to birth, so that when women do get pregnant they’re not so bereft of information as to suppose their best option for an uncomplicated pregnancy is an obstetrician. That’s why I love these posts so much – perhaps they’ll influence someone to question whether a doctor really is the sort of care they want during a birth.

Hospital “midwife” births are a mixed bag.

Yes. I was trying to draw a strong line of demarcation between obstetrics ward midwives and hospital-based Birth Centre midwives, and I didn’t manage to, and as you say the Birth Centres are hedged about with many restrictions regarding risk management as well.

Private midwives are covered by all private health insurers here

I’m not so sure about this. At least one major insurer has just withdrawn all coverage for homebirth – because it’s not an “inpatient procedure”.

Perth does have a small, publicly-funded Community Midwifery Programme which does homebirths, but it is small, and women are risked out at the drop of a hat. Many other areas have no access to funded homebirth. Women who can afford it end up using their baby bonus if they want an indy midwife, money which would otherwise be useful to pay rent and buy food while they’re on their unpaid maternity leave.

Hospital “midwife” births are a mixed bag. Many midwives work very, very thoroughly within the medical-interventionist model. And again, women get risked out of midwifery-run units – even just for arbitrary things like weight over 100 kg (regardless of health and birthing history).