Birth troubles

Like so many of us here in the Great White North I have ties to the States. In my case I am still holding onto an American citizenship, though I don’t know why, and I have Canadian PR. Another thing to know about me is that for a while (up here in Canada) I worked as a birthworker.

So, what does birthwork and tyranny have in common? A lot. We are activists and tend to skew liberal, but I think even someone who learns right and then chooses this profession will have the similar ideas. One of the main ways we are activists are for those who are pregnant and are about to go into labour. At least here in Canada, there is a high chance that birth will be a medical event. Now some of my ‘crunchier’ friends say that birth is not a medical event.

That is pretty radical and for some, I thin it’s true. Especially when you think about the evils of institutions upon the racialized community, especially in the States. If you look at our history, birth was overseen by midwives and doulas for a long time. Then with the advent of medical breakthroughs, birth was moved into hospitals. There was a point, in the States, where midwives and doulas were actually banned from helping with birth, especially Black birthworkers.

There are horror stories of women being sedated and tied down to give birth, this was about a hundred years ago. But did you hear the story of a women in the States whose baby’s head was detached from its body during delivery? And guess what, she was black.

No one was surprised.

So I guess the point of this post is to bring to attention the difficulty of having a child. I have one, and before I got pregnant I was totally 100% naive about the difficulty that is exiting the baby out of my body and then recovery. AND I’m privileged to boot. I had my kiddo during one of the Covid lockdowns and while I have my PR now, at the time I was uninsured. Which is scary regardless of what country you are in, but at the time the province was actually paying uninsured people’s hospital bills, probably due to covid. So, I got out of having a baby with no medical bills. Am because I did have OHIP prior to his birth, I was able to have a OBGN and have access to all the hospitals specialists, which I did end up need. Talk about privilege, I was bathed in it.

But the one thing I did not have during all of this was access to my doula. Because of the said Covid wave, the hospital only allowed one person in the room with the birthing person. Totally understandable. But, it’s one major regret that I have was not having the second support person, that person who had been in births before, and knew what was the typical chain of events. And for me, I ended up having a cascade of medical events that ended up with my baby being cut out of me. Not ideal. But if you’re interested in having some more support for your birth, doulas are a great option. Look into it, look into it for you (if you are ever considering having a baby) look into it for your friends, or look into for your family. It really makes a difference having an extra experienced support person and birthworkers are also tied to having better birth outcomes. A win-win all around.