Sunday 8 June 2014

Basic human rights in childbirth.

The world is finally waking up to the very sad truth that many women have their human rights taken away during pregnancy and childbirth.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/human-rights-in-childbirth
http://birthanarchy.com/choke

Women around the globe are finally beginning to speak out against the treatment they received in labour that has stayed with them and haunted them ever since. My third labour was such a time that I was treated with cruelty and inhumanity whilst I was at my most vulnerable. My fourth was born at home and was my second pain free labour, bliss.

If more women learnt how to approach labour so that the first stage was pain free, then instead of worn out exhausted women facing their second stage, you would have strong women who would question interventions that were against their basic human rights.

Once society wakes up to the basic truth that uterine smooth muscle was never designed to cause the sensation of pain during a normal contraction then we can finally take back labour from the medical model of care. It is the way we approach labour, with anxiety leading to adrenalin production, that can cause all the problems and pain.