Yes, this is me - UNCOMFORTABLE!
And yes, Microbirth is an excellent film - I highly recommend it!
And, after seeing Microbirth this week, my body is still screaming. It's a woman's scream, a shamanic midwife's scream. I just can’t be quiet anymore about the fact that we don’t need any further research to show that women’s bodies give birth vaginally and that this is best for both mother, baby and our humanity.
I am so darn angry, that our human kind let science go so far as to doubt our bodies. I am angry that women as a collective didn’t stand up to say ‘no’ to research. Our bodies and our babies are play things for science who in the end, after all the trauma, all the interventions trying to ‘save us’, all the times they got in the way in the name of ‘safety’ (to appease the dominant overpowering fear of death – a pathological fear which should be named and be worked on in the first place) – in the end, they tell us that its safer for women’s bodies to give birth vaginally, to leave our babies with us (rather than take them away), and for all women to breastfeed if possible. SERIOUSLY?????
That is the conclusion to decades and generations of torment. That we should now continue what we already knew?
So, my mind turns to ‘what purpose’? Why do we as a society here in Australia, and elsewhere (though not everywhere) require science to tell us what we already know? What is the value here?
I wonder, for what purpose do women put themselves in the hands of professions who try to dominate them (tell them they ‘can’t do this and that’), who are rude, disrespectful, think they know more about the woman’s body than she does, who medicate and numb them to the experience of peak transformation, who don’t believe that they are magnificent, who don’t bow humbly to their ability to conceive, grow and birth life – for what purpose is this on-going trauma? There must be one, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it. And I think it’s worthwhile thinking into the answer.
If we know what we know, for what purpose do we pretend that we don’t? Or for what purpose is it that we want our knowing validated by people who, even after decades of research continue to say ‘we don’t know enough’ we must continue to study and know more, in order for us to support you in birth. I am nervous about people who are not comfortable supporting a woman to give birth just as she is. I mean, considering that for the entire existence of humankind women have been delivering babies – this would have to be one area that we have down pat – it’s not new!!
So, although Microbirth is fantastic, brilliant and a must DVD see by all. I largely think so because it counteracts all the other ‘research’ and gives perspective to those who want to challenge vaginal birthing.
My point however, is that it’s time to start simply honouring women, to apologise for interrupting what she already knew, for not trusting and not listening, to apologise for taking their babies away and assuming you were better placed to handle them, to apologise for shaming women to breastfeed so that women no longer were able to witness it outside of their homes, and to apologise for drugging woman and assuming that she ‘can’t ever do it’ without you. Just apologise! That is what I want research to go into – how can we as a society deeply and humbly apologise and start the healing with women so that we don’t continue this nonsense into the future? How can we heal as a species, how can we normalise birth again? That…. would be very good research.
Happy to hear your thoughts x x Rachel Vines
And yes, Microbirth is an excellent film - I highly recommend it!
And, after seeing Microbirth this week, my body is still screaming. It's a woman's scream, a shamanic midwife's scream. I just can’t be quiet anymore about the fact that we don’t need any further research to show that women’s bodies give birth vaginally and that this is best for both mother, baby and our humanity.
I am so darn angry, that our human kind let science go so far as to doubt our bodies. I am angry that women as a collective didn’t stand up to say ‘no’ to research. Our bodies and our babies are play things for science who in the end, after all the trauma, all the interventions trying to ‘save us’, all the times they got in the way in the name of ‘safety’ (to appease the dominant overpowering fear of death – a pathological fear which should be named and be worked on in the first place) – in the end, they tell us that its safer for women’s bodies to give birth vaginally, to leave our babies with us (rather than take them away), and for all women to breastfeed if possible. SERIOUSLY?????
That is the conclusion to decades and generations of torment. That we should now continue what we already knew?
So, my mind turns to ‘what purpose’? Why do we as a society here in Australia, and elsewhere (though not everywhere) require science to tell us what we already know? What is the value here?
I wonder, for what purpose do women put themselves in the hands of professions who try to dominate them (tell them they ‘can’t do this and that’), who are rude, disrespectful, think they know more about the woman’s body than she does, who medicate and numb them to the experience of peak transformation, who don’t believe that they are magnificent, who don’t bow humbly to their ability to conceive, grow and birth life – for what purpose is this on-going trauma? There must be one, otherwise we wouldn’t have done it. And I think it’s worthwhile thinking into the answer.
If we know what we know, for what purpose do we pretend that we don’t? Or for what purpose is it that we want our knowing validated by people who, even after decades of research continue to say ‘we don’t know enough’ we must continue to study and know more, in order for us to support you in birth. I am nervous about people who are not comfortable supporting a woman to give birth just as she is. I mean, considering that for the entire existence of humankind women have been delivering babies – this would have to be one area that we have down pat – it’s not new!!
So, although Microbirth is fantastic, brilliant and a must DVD see by all. I largely think so because it counteracts all the other ‘research’ and gives perspective to those who want to challenge vaginal birthing.
My point however, is that it’s time to start simply honouring women, to apologise for interrupting what she already knew, for not trusting and not listening, to apologise for taking their babies away and assuming you were better placed to handle them, to apologise for shaming women to breastfeed so that women no longer were able to witness it outside of their homes, and to apologise for drugging woman and assuming that she ‘can’t ever do it’ without you. Just apologise! That is what I want research to go into – how can we as a society deeply and humbly apologise and start the healing with women so that we don’t continue this nonsense into the future? How can we heal as a species, how can we normalise birth again? That…. would be very good research.
Happy to hear your thoughts x x Rachel Vines
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