One last thought: Power

I promise to get back to the regularly scheduled Eliot and Ivy show soon, but I need to get all this out of my system while it's fresh.

A birth is a powerful thing.  I am not a person to toss around words like “energy” and “power” unless I am discussing an assignment in my Physics 112 Electricity and Magnetism course.  I never thought I’d turn into one of “those hippies”.  I’m not one to put much stock in the intangible.   But that intangible element of power and energy are exactly what brought me to this work as a doula.  I am a firm believer that the power of birth should rest in the hands of the mom as much as is possible. 

Power is present in the birth environment in many ways.  The mother herself experiences crushingly strong power… but remains unharmed, in the same way that electricity, strong enough to kill if mishandled, can pass through a conduit with no harm to the vessel.  The mom is the conduit of the energy of birth- she has to find a way to handle the intensity, but she will walk away unburned.

In a physiological birth, there is little reason for a mother’s power to be transferred to a care provider.   A midwife serves as a life guard, occasionally making gentle corrections to the course of the labor so that it stays safe.  A life guard does not attempt to be an Olympic swimmer, though she must know the sport intimately.  She simply watches and waits, ready to step in and seize some degree of power in the event of great need. 

Doula is a Greek word, originally the title of the head female slave in a household.  This slave would accompany the birthing women of the family, giving them whatever they needed during their birthing time.  If a midwife is the life guard, a doula is the woman holding the big fluffy robe and Gatorade for when the swimmer steps out of the water to take a break.  A doula’s role is support only, for the mom and dad. 

For anyone who has an ear open to what is happening in modern obstetrics, there is a huge power struggle going on between medical staff and mothers.  Rikki Lake postulated in her film “Business of Being Born” that doctors and hospitals are motivated by money to over-use life-saving high-risk technology for physiological, low risk women.  And that may well be a part of it.  But here is what I experienced as the other part, and what I think may be a bigger factor:

Power.  It is difficult to stand so closely to such power and not want to reach out and grab it.  I believe most midwives (there are bad ones out there) focus on the mother’s journey to empowerment, rather than their own.  As they say, “A good midwife has two skilled hands and knows how to sit on them.”  What an amazingly useful lesson for a woman about to embark on raising a human being, to know that she has the power to bring life from her body.  She is in a good place, has a good energy, and comes into motherhood with confidence.
And so where do obstetricians fit in?  An obstetrician is a highly trained surgeon, whose job it is to step in and seize power on the rare occasions where it is necessary in order to save lives. I don’t want to attack obstetricians here.  Just as there are bad midwives, there are many, many good obstetricians.  But I do wonder if an unconscious desire to seize some of the amazing waves of power present in a birth environment motivates doctors more strongly than money (as postulated by Rikki Lake) to discourage or even actively prevent physiological birth, over-medicate, over-intervene, and over-cut women who are at the mercy of the Authority.

It takes a strong woman to look at pain and choose to accept it as her route to follow.  I’ve accepted an epidural when one was pushed on me, and I don’t blame other women for it.  But if birth culture is going to change to something that is mother-centered as it should be, and always has been until very recently, it will require women to start talking about birth again.  Not as a horrific trial that we survive and endure, but as an incredible, empowering miracle that we orchestrate.  Let us find a way to once again make women want to birth, and not be delivered of, their babies.  We can all be strong women.   
* Addendum: As I was eating dinner tonight, it suddenly occurred to me that I might not have clearly connected two thoughts in this post... so here you go:  If I, as a doula, was sorely tempted to use every trick I'd ever learned or studied in order to "help" more in the birth, and, let's face it, in order to feel powerful by proxy, implicating myself more than necessary in the birth process, than I can understand the temptation for a doctor, who, again, knows life-saving techniques beyond the competencies of a midwife (instrumental delivery and c-sections) to also take this power.  It is hard to let someone find their own way, when we feel we can help.  And all I can offer is massage and kind words.  A doctor can literally "deliver" a baby.  Luckily, I have self restraint.  Luckily most midwives have self-restraint, and their very training reinforces the empowerment of the mother.  Unfortunately, doctors in general are not taught this- they are taught to see pathology, and take control.  How hard it becomes, for a god to let a mere mortal determine her own path.