BlogHer - Because Sometimes, Those Storks Make Crash Landings - Comments

" Through Pain Find Strength, Through Birth Find Healing."

Mama Sayana Doula support — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:25:34 -0500

I abosultely agree with you when you stated that "birth is meant to be a rite of passage for a woman into motherhood... she should be cared, supported and loved to arrive in motherhood in one piece-body, heart, mind and soul."

As a Labour and Postpartum Doula I ensure that new moms are equipped with the uncersored knowledge of pregnancy, childbirth and the initial postpartum period.

During my own childbirth experience, things didn't go as planned as I was in labour for 56 hours. In the end, I was left battling a mild case of PPD. With the right support I was able to bounce back and cope, and made a comforting transition into my new role as mom.

Many women are not aware of their options as birthing moms, and some are forced into making uninformed decisions at the cost of their dignity. Many women are left feeling robbed of such a special experience.

When they are fully informed they are empowered and equipped to enter this momentous experience, and are able to deal effectively with the unexpected.

In my line of work, I encourage new parents to replay their brithing expereince and come to terms with the realtiy of any trauma or mishaps that they had to face.

This gives them the opportunity to become aware of and work through their emotional shock following the traumatic event.

As it is written "Through pain find strength, through birth find healing."

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Carla Parchment --- Labour, Postpartum & Hypno-Birthing Doula

mamasayanadoulasupport.blogspot.com/

What the study seems to fail

Jodi Cleghorn — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:53:46 -0500

What the study seems to fail to report is that it is not just painful birth (like most mothers I wont say that mine didn't hurt a bloody lot) and difficult births. It is also where women are left feeling disempowered, raped by the medical system, bullied, shut out and not listened to. Instances where they feel as though they did not give consent to procedures (such as episiotomies) or were threatened (for failure to progress we will take you in for a caesarean).

What can be done? Rather than trying to put women back together how about the medical professional take a good hard look at itself and reflect on what it is that is causing women to suffer trauma. Women who are given the opporuntunity to have empowered births - to feel as though they have an active and participatory role in their care, their birth choices and their birth outcomes .. women who experience this type of birth do not suffer from trauma.

And sadly more and more women are feeling traumatised from birth - which is meant to be a rite of passage for a woman into motherhood ... she should be cared, supported and loved to arrive in motherhood in one piece - body,heart, mind and soul.

Being hooked up to machines, forced onto your back, being denied love, support and privacy, being cut open to speed the process along; being 'bought on' because you're 'over due' or its more covenient for the doctor, being backed into corners, bullied and forced into having caesareans - none of this is the natural blueprint for birth.

I feel very blessed and very lucky to have been able to have a private midwife and to have birthed my son at home (not without complications!) Until we allow women to access whatever birthing option they want, and provide one-to-one midwifery care in whatever setting she wants ... things are going to get worse, rather than better.

You also make avery valid point about women laughing off their trauma. There are few opportunities for women, their partners and their families to debrief after a traumatic birth. Women carry it around with them, and are never given a chance to work their way through it. To find healing.

Jodi Cleghorn

Mother, writer, editor and activist

www.jodicleghorn.blogspot.com

Because Sometimes, Those Storks Make Crash Landings

Her Bad Mother — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:00:27 -0500

This just in: childbirth can be traumatic.

I know. I was shocked too. I thought that I was the only mother out there who was traumatized by the birth of one of her children, and who isn't joking about it (because, yes, the impulse to joke about the minor trauma that childbirth can be is strong, strong my friends). Turns out, I'm not alone in believing that I was traumatized by my birth experience. According to a report cited in the Wall Street Journal this week, mothers who experience very painful or difficult births - especially those in which the mother feels that her life or the life of her child might be in danger - are vulnerable to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

"Amid the debate over how to effectively manage maternal mental-health disorders, a new type of postpartum illness is gaining attention: post-traumatic-stress disorder due to childbirth.

PTSD is most commonly associated with combat veterans
and victims of violent crime, but medical experts say it also can be
brought on by a very painful or complicated labor and delivery in which a woman believes she or her baby might die. Symptoms can include anxiety, flashbacks and a numbness to daily life. Even as medical advances have resulted in many more lives saved during high-risk births, extreme medical interventions can leave a mother severely stressed -- especially if she feels powerless or mistreated by health providers."

PTSD is somewhat different from post-partum depression, which isn't necessarily as powerfully llinked to the experience of the birth, and can be more intense than PPD (the least intense variants of PPD, at any rate). The story at WSJ has a good summary of the differences and good resources for looking into PTSD as a post-partum condition further.

Here's what's bugging me about the story: the concern - which appears in some secondhand accounts of the report, and is apparent even in the reporting of the original story - that acknowledging PTSD in new mothers is perpetuating a trend of unnecessarily pathologizing the experience of pregnancy and childbirth. I first came across this story at Jezebel.com, and their take on the report was that it was probably just one more way in which a natural event is being denatured by modern science:

Of course, women should feel comfortable speaking up and getting help about whatever issues they have in those difficult post-birth months, but something still irks me about this classification of childbirth as "trauma"... Have we become so precious and hyper-conscious that something women have been doing for time immemorial is now ranked alongside war as a painful event?

Someone here has never given birth.

(Someone here has also forgotten that women have, in vast numbers, died - and continue to die, in less fortunate communities - in childbirth. It may be natural, but it ain't no walk in the park.)

The report cited isn't suggesting that women might suffer from PTSD after just any birth (although many women might contend that even the easiest natural childbirth ranks up there on the pain scale with the worst POW tortures), it's saying that unusually traumatic births (like, say, the kind that occur super-fast and result in hemorraghing and blown sphincter holes) might result in PTSD. Which is something that I can totally attest to: I was MESSED UP in the days following the birth of my son, such that I could not even tolerate the drive home from hospital, taking the same route that I very nearly gave birth en route on. Not without screaming, anyway. I have had and do still struggle with PPD - the post-traumatic stress that I experienced post-birth was something entirely different. So I, for one, am gratified to have that experience recognized.

So far, there's no recommended treatment for post-partum PTSD that goes much beyond what is ordinarily recommended for PPD - talk therapy and medication, mostly - and some commentators are concerned that PTSD might just become another excuse for medicating new moms. Whatever. If a new mom really is suffering from PTSD, she needs to have that recognized. How it gets treated is secondary in importance to it being treated. There's nothing worse than being left alone with your terror when you're a brand new (or second time brand new) mom.

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In other news... don't forget that it's World Breastfeeding Week!!! Bare your boobies for the cause!

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The year of eco-challenges have drawn to a close at BlogHers Act Canada, and Amy's got the recap! And? It's time to brainstorm the gameplan for this year:

Naturally, the next steps will be to solicit YOUR ideas about how the next year should play out. Although there are exciting things afoot for this site, we’ll still be focusing on environmental issues. What issues would you like to see us feature here at BlogHers Act Canadathat we haven’t already confronted? Are there any challenges we’ve already addressed that you think we should revisit in more depth?

Help us spread the word! Write a blog post detailing your ideas and concerns, and provide a link to your site in the comment section to this post. This is a community effort, after all, and we love to find that the site is getting other people writing about the things they are passionate about.

Got that? Get writing, commenting, whatever - just let us know what you'd like to see us take on!