Kim Dominguez
MY MOTHER rarely told us stories of her childhood. I think she did her best to block out most of it, especially her later childhood, since during this period, she lived a life of poverty and social injustice. So when she did let us see a glimpse into her past, we listened with rapt attention.
I knew that she had spent her early childhood living in the far north of Ontario, Canada, where her father was a lumberjack. What people there were close-by, were either immigrant lumberjacks, like my grandfather, or nomadic natives who lived off the land and the money they earned from trapping.
Some of my favourite stories were about the dog sled team my mother had. The sounds of the part wolf dogs howling into the snow-filled nights filled my child's imagination. My grandmother was a lay midwife for the women in this community and my mother had the great honour of being her apprentice. This was indeed an honour, since my mother was one of twelve children and my grandmother could have chosen any of the other girls in the family.
I recall my mother telling me once about attending the birth of a young native woman. The images of the birth were still vivid in her mind after so many years, just as the images she painted in my child's mind are still vivid today. The event obviously had a lasting impact on both of our lives!
My mother told me how beautiful and strong the woman seemed, how she had prepared her birthing spot ahead of time by digging a small hollow into the ground which she filled with soft grass before laying a rabbit pelt on top. My mother explained to me that this was where the baby would be born. As the moment approached, the woman squatted over the hole, supported by my grandmother and another female relative and gave birth to her child. My mother recalled the birth as being very peaceful, a few women, alone, under the protective canopy of the forest, connected on a spiritual level with their ancestors, with one another, and with nature.
When I compare this memory to the births I have attended in the hospital as a student here in Britain, it is hard to believe that it is even the same physiological process. When you see a woman lying on a narrow bed that's too high to step down from, strapped to a CTG and drugged to the point of being entirely removed from the experience, it is very rare to recognise the strength, the power, or the beauty of the birthing woman. You are overwhelmed with feelings closer to pity than the awe that my mother felt and that I have felt at home births and at the births of women with whom I had established a loving and trusting relationship before the birth.
As a society, we have lulled women into thinking that if they turn themselves over to technology, then a hospital birth is a safe birth and that death has been locked outside the front door. After all, they have taken all the tests. First a test to tell them they're pregnant; then a test to tell them when the baby will be born and that it is healthy; and then further testing to ensure everyone that the baby is growing within `normal' limits.
God forbid that a woman is in touch enough with herself to have recognised the moment of conception. After all, ultrasound can't be wrong, it must be the woman who has made a mistake if the dates don't match. Nor can we trust the woman to be in touch with the child growing inside of her. Could she possibly recognise the rhythms and patterns of her baby's movements and the steady changes in the size of her uterus that would let us know that all is okay? How did this woman from my mother's childhood know it was time to give birth when she was so far removed from technology that even electricity would have been marvelled at?
From the moment of conception, western society reinforces the belief that women need technology to interpret their body's signals. It is no wonder that women arrive at birth with a complete lack of faith in their ability to birth naturally, without technology, and with an absolute fear of the primal power that they feeling growing within themselves. Why would we expect a woman to be able to come to terms with two such opposite images?
I would suggest that as midwives, we are in a position to ground a woman, to help her to gain a faith not only in birth, but in her ability to give birth through this primal power that so many women fear. But we can't do this without continuity of carer. I am getting so upset by the number of times I hear the suggestion that women neither need, nor want, continuity of carer as long as there is a continuity of care philosophy. This is not enough! It may be sufficient in a society where women have faith in birth, but unfortunately this is not the case here.
Women need to establish a relationship of mutual trust, respect, and yes, love, with their midwife. It is only through this relationship, that we can journey through pregnancy, birth and parenting without relying on the unnecessary use of technology and then dealing with the iatrogenic consequences.
As a society, we need to recognise that hospitalisation and technology are not reducing overall mortality and morbidity rates. So what have we gained by their universal application? Perhaps more importantly, what have we lost?
In our quest to bury our fear of birth under a mound of technology, we have lost sight of the healing and empowering abilities of the birth experience and the role that midwives are capable of playing in this process when they have an established relationship with the woman. The saddest part is, many women are unaware, on a conscious level, that they have even lost anything because they have never witnessed with awe what birth has the potential to be. They have never reached deep inside of themselves to find the strength and the power that I believe lies within all women. A strength that once found is always there to support them throughout their lives.
Kim Domiguez
AH updated 8 February 2000