midwifery

Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta

mandy — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

When I saw Birth Matters by famed midwife Ina May Gaskin, I jumped at the opportunity to read and review it. Gaskin has contributed to the field of midwifery and childbirth education in vast and meaningful ways. She serves as an icon for many, and I, for one, was eager to learn what she had to say in this new book.

Having already read extensively on the subject of pregnancy, labor, and birth, I found that Gaskin’s book did not reveal anything completely new. However, where other authors have had to rely mostly on secondhand knowledge and data collected elsewhere, Gaskin was able to insert personal stories and years of experience into her writing. This obviously added quite a bit of authority to what she had to say.

Besides the strength in her convictions, Gaskin brought to her writing a powerful feminist stance and a tremendous feeling of sisterhood. She does not only claim to believe in women; she lives this message. Her unwavering trust in women’s bodies and capacities to make the right choices for them based on unbiased, accurate information felt every bit as empowering as I’m sure she meant it.

The issue at hand, however, is that women in the United States today are being fed a host of half-truths and even outright lies that directly affect their decision-making when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth. For instance, Caesarean sections are being promoted as easier, pain-free means of giving birth. But are they really? How come we rarely hear about the risk factors involved in this serious abdominal surgical procedure? Why is it that the United States has higher infant and maternal mortality rates than other developed countries?

According to Gaskin, Americans are relying too much on modern technologies and not enough on the wisdom passed down through generations or the innate knowledge that women’s bodies have about giving birth. Instead of fetoscopes, there is a higher reliance on electronic fetal monitors. Rather than allowing the baby to emerge in its own time, medical professionals are utilizing Cytotec to induce labor even though the drug is not FDA-approved for this purpose. Some feminists believe that reproductive technologies will help even the playing field, or even erase biological differences that could potentially hold them back in the fight for equality. For Gaskin, this perspective fails to see the beauty and strength that a birthing woman exudes, not to mention the natural mechanisms that are in place to assist a laboring woman during this life-changing time.

Besides the wealth of information that Gaskin provides, the parts of Birth Matters that touched me most were the birth stories that were interspersed throughout. Each account shares extensive detail about the mother’s sensations during the entire process of labor and delivery. I couldn't help but tear up as I read them because they captured so much warmth, power, and love. In the end, it is exactly this that Gaskin wants to share with the world.

Written by: Shana Mattson, April 14th 2011

Cuntastic

andrea — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

By Laurel Ripple Carpenter

With the popularization of blogs and personal websites in the past decade, there has been a sharp decline in the zine phenomena. I have longed for the days when the magazine rack at independent bookstores was lined with photocopied feminist zines, daring to say the things mainstream magazines cannot. Thankfully, there are still some zinesters willing to invest the time and money needed to undertake the taxing task of putting out a zine. Radical doula Laurel Ripple Carpenter is one of these few remaining idealists (however, a blog version of her zine does exist at blog.cuntastic.org).

As the name would imply, Cuntastic deals with “all things cunt,” meaning anything related to reproductive health, pregnancy, sexuality, etc. As Carpenter is both a doula and a mother, the zine has a large focus on pregnancy and children. The premiere issue, focusing on pregnancy and placentas, delved into multiple women’s experiences of being pregnant, including Carpenter herself. Carpenter shares her own pregnancy journal, giving an honest account of the concerns, fears, and elation a new mother faces. Another new mommy also gives an account of using a midwife assisted birth as opposed to a hospital birth, noting her reasoning behind her preference. As someone who has never been pregnant, or contemplated pregnancy, it was fascinating to read multiple graphic descriptions of the experience of being pregnant and giving birth. The zine also deals with the squeamish issue of new mothers taking placenta pills or eating their placenta, offering instructions both for tablets as well as meals meant to complement the inclusion of placentas.

The second issue, the menstruation issue, deals with women’s’ experiences with their menstrual cycle and alternative menstrual products like cups (i.e The Keeper) and sea sponges. The zine explores menstrual related traditions such as “menarche parties” for girls who receive their first periods. (There is also a humorous story from a male writer on his first time having sex with woman during her menstrual cycle.)

The third issue, the radical parenting issue, deals with feminists (and other left wing folk) becoming parents. The issue asks such key questions as how to not gender condition a child, how to go without disposable diapers, and generally how to raise a child while sticking to your ideals. It is fascinating to see the issue of motherhood explored by feminists as this was often a murky issue for the movement in the past. It is inspiring to hear about women using their feminist ideologies to raise their children. Within the issue, Carpenter also details her experience going into labor while at a DNC protest.

Overall, Carpenter has created a compelling and likable feminist zine with Cuntastic, in which she answers such questions commonly discussed by feminists (menstruation) and questions that need further exploration (motherhood and pregnancy.) I hope to see future issues of Cuntastic soon and hear more about Carpenter and her new life as a feminist mother.

Written by: Adrienne Urbanski, December 12th 2010

The Blue Cotton Gown: A Midwife’s Memoir

admin — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:10:00 +0000

By Patricia Harman

Beacon Press

By the time Patricia Harman finished writing The Blue Cotton Gown, she was no longer working as a midwife. Instead, soaring malpractice fees had caused The Women’s Health Clinic of Torrington, West Virginia, a practice Harman runs with her husband, Dr. Tom Harman, to provide only general obstetrical and gynecological care to the patients it serves.

Harman is a nurse-practitioner and her memoir tracks a handful of women for approximately a year, zeroing in on the many variables that impact their health and well being: rampant drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, violence, mental illness, and inadequate information about staying healthy, among them. It’s a gripping account. At the same time, the book is as much a meditation on aging, marriage, and parenthood as it is a look at the obstacles and challenges endemic to the provision of healthcare in the U.S. This makes it both intensely moving and intensely, if obliquely, political.

Harman describes herself and her spouse as former hippies, people who found their professional calling in their thirties, after years of organic farming and communal living. Their countercultural impulses have made them compassionate, and their work is motivated by love of medicine, not love of the dollar. Not surprisingly, these tendencies have led to managerial problems. To whit, an inattention to finances—and way too much trust in accountants who could care less about the Harman’s ethos of providing the best care for the best price—led to monetary miscalculations that threatened to shutter the practice. When the IRS came calling, tensions built and the Harmans and their ten-person staff had to work tirelessly to forge a survival strategy. They did—the practice was saved—but not without both dents and dings to numerous personal relationships.

Meanwhile, they had patients to deal with and their own personal crises to address. Harman calls it “running in front of a plague of locusts.” There is Nila, pregnant for the eighth time, who fears that her ex-husband is molesting her four-year-old. There is Heather, a teenager pregnant by a nineteen-year-old drug addict, and Holly, a forty-five-year-old menopausal realtor whose bulimic daughter is perched on death’s window ledge. And there’s Rebba, worried because she has never had an orgasm, and Shiana, a college student who needs to have a condom extracted from behind her cervix.

Closer to home, the elderly parents of staff get sick and Harman, herself, becomes ill. Within the span of a few months she needs to have a gangrenous gall bladder removed and has a complete hysterectomy.

Throughout, there are constant money troubles—big ones—and the tension and stress are palpably presented. To her credit, Harman is not looking for either sympathy or accolades but her matter-of-fact descriptions of how difficult it is to provide high quality, patient-centered care is simultaneously enraging and shocking. While she never discusses the need for a national health plan—she also barely mentions abortion as an option for her oft-pregnant patients—her chronicle of the trials and tribulations of one nurse practitioner is riveting.

Yes, The Blue Cotton Gown could have been more politically prescriptive. Nonetheless, readers will find their immersion in the daily affairs of this off-the-beaten-track health center emotionally engaging, engrossing, and inspiring. Indeed, in an era of rampant medical discontent, the determination and persistence of Harman and her Torrington colleagues seems almost miraculous.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, June 17th 2009

The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory

admin — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 02:30:00 +0000

By J.M. Adovasio, Olga Soffer, Jake Page

Smithsonian Books

Quick, name the world's oldest profession! It's not what you think, say the authors of The Invisible Sex. The world's oldest profession is, most likely, midwifery. The combination of larger brains and narrower pelvises required adaptations that led to women no longer being able to give birth solo. The book's title itself illustrates the thesis: were women truly invisible in societies of the past, or did they become so because of anthropologists' biases? Is the notion of worldwide patriarchy truth or, as everyone's favorite misogynist might say, projection? And what is "woman," anyway? Not all "women" are biologically female; the reverse is more rare, but also happens

It seems that each time a co-author is added to the roster, the resulting tome becomes vastly more unreadable. At 279 pages dense with information, The Invisible Sex is not for the faint of heart, but still very readable. It should be a required reading for those interested in anthropology and feminism. The authors pile on example upon example of unfounded assumptions that seemed self-evident to (male) anthropologists in the past. The skeletons that archaeologists unearthed and proclaimed to be female or male are not thus stamped, and the assumptions on which this determination was based (i.e. males are bigger or females don't hunt), in retrospect, seem flimsy. It is unlikely that women stayed in the cave awaiting the man who "brought home the bacon," yet that is the image most people have of prehistory. Maybe this is why we say, however jokingly, that prostitution is the world's oldest profession. Feminism did not explode the assumptions of prehistoric archaeology until 1984; fortunately, great strides have been made since then. This book is one of them.

Written by: Vita Foster, April 8th 2007