Labor of Love
The best piece of advice my business partner, and midwife Karen Clark gave me when I was pregnant was to research my birth options and then make an informed choice as to how and where I would give birth. I did and thanks to her - had two very successful, happy home water births.
My objective on joining Karen in creating www.birthworks.co.za was to create a platform where ALL pregnant women can find the answers that will confirm their initial instinct on discovering their pregnancy :- No matter what size, shape, creed or colour they are - they have the body and the ability to birth.
Karen recently lent me the following book - Labor of Love, a Midwife'sMemoir by Cara Muhlhahn - a certified Nurse Midwife who runs a private practice that specialises in home delivery in New York. She is featured in the documentary, The Business of Being Born, produced by Ricki Lake and directed by Abby Epstein.
The following excerpt sums it all up for me :
"Why do so many women sign up for the disempowerment and added risks that come with hospital birth? Women are affected by a paternalism inherent in the doctor/patient relationship that facilitates their own disempowerment, and they feel too intimidated to ask questions. A woman in an ob-gyn's office feels that she needs to cooperate even though her instincts may be telling her to disagree, or question, because this person is going to deliver her baby. Her life and her baby's life will eventually be in the doctor's hands. This results in the insidious process of turning one's own instincts and intuitions over to the advice of the experts, even and especially when it contradicts a woman's intuition. Many women make this unfortunate and unnecessary mistake.They choose a doctor they hear is 'good' and then turn off their own voice, replacing it with the 'voice of reason'. This process is facilitated even more by the hormonal state of pregnancy, which creates an unusual psychological state of vulnerability in the pregnant women. By the time labour begins, it's almost impossible at this late stage for a woman to take back the power."
