midwives & the media

Have been thinking about the way midwives are getting trashed in the media at the moment in NZ. I was pretty frustrated after watching 60 minutes on TV3 last monday at the biased & factually incorrect information that was being relayed to mr & ms general public. They had two tragic cases of babies who had died during childbirth and whom had midwives as their LMC's (that's lead maternity carers). 60mins angle was that midwifery care is insufficient, unsafe and that women should be birthing in hospitals with obstetricians (that's baby/mum doctors) running the show. Sad how the tragic, isolated cases call into question the whole system. I guess it is the longing to be able to place blame at the foot of someone or something. Completely understandable although possibly misguided. Just as my experience shouldn't dictate how others should choose to birth, neither should theirs. The program talked about how by medicalising birth (think early 20th century) they made it so much safer for women and how perhaps we should revisit doctors having control over pregnancy, labour and birth. (see note at the bottom...)

During my first pregnancy, i did a whole lot of reading about labour etc trying to get myself prepared. (check out http://www.homebirth.org.uk/) What I found is a whole lot of evidence that giving birth in hospital is not necessarily safer (for someone sho has a normal healthy pregnancy) and can actually be less safe than birthing at home! (yes I know, heresy isn't it!) We (me and Reuben) meet our midwife Rhonda when we were 24wks pregnant (had to dump the first one as it just wasn't working, but that's another story). As the weeks passed and we got to know her, we become more and more confident in her ability to care for us as a family and most importantly to ensure a healthy baby & mummy at the end of it all. She gave me confidence in my ability to do what billions of women before me have done.

And yes, we did it - twice now! Without the need for doctors, drugs & sterile rooms. So here's to midwives, who work long unreliable hours, who are on call 24/7 and who on the whole do an amazing job.

note... when we started telling people we were considering home birth, naturally we had significant numbers of less than favourable opinions handed to us, including from my mother and grandmother. not that suprising given their birth experiences. Both experienced highly medicalised births. My mums 5 deliveries (1970's & 80's) including high forceps x 2, caesareans x 2, epidurals, inductions, being shaved, enemas etc, nice... My Grandmas 3 births (1950's) under general anaesthetic (one can only imagine how they got those babies out!). The funny thing was when Grandma realised that her mother (my gt grandma) who gave birth in the 1920's had two successful births at... home - with a midwife! oh how things come about...