Midwifery is NOT Medicine.

Midwifery is not Medicine

• does not belong under medicine's rule
should not be patterned after anything resembling the practice of medicine
LAST WORDS FOR A WHILE: I meant what I said and I said what I meant.....Birth belongs to mammas, 100%!
Why would we want to emulate anything we don’t want to be?  Instead of wanting to ride into the future on the medical model’s coattails  or asking to be part of their “club”,  why aren’t we pointing out to the most salient point in this debate of who should and should not be allowed to call herself a midwife?  Parents own their births.  Instead we are in a tug of war with the medical community over something that does not belong to us.  I think it is not only more noble, but has more long term potential for success for midwives to be striving to protect parents’ rights to birth at home with anyone or no one. The credentials and the titles are all minor pieces of the big picture.  I have been asking midwives for years to concentrate on the WHO they do this for rather than WHO is allowed to  call herself a midwife.

I am tired of midwives acting like they are medical mavericks, disobedient children who need new rules and regulations, sheep that have strayed. 

We have our own history  and our own identity that is not related to the group we seem to be seeking approval from. Midwifery's roots are not in medicine.  Midwifery's past is not a product of medicine......but if we don't do everything we can to disassociate ourselves from medicine, we will be swallowed up by it. 

I know it is NOT politically correct to say this......but if I were the medical community and I wanted to stomp out midwifery........well......I couldn't have thought of a better plan than what midwives have done to themselves in their effort to get legal recognition*, credentials and third party reimbursement.

Midwives are starting to see the light...... and I don't feel so alone
anymore.   In fact, I believe with all my heart that we are looking at a resurgence of the heartbeat of midwifery.....the desire to serve families who want to have their babies at home......midwifery as a service is very different that midwifery as a career option......and not many people are
saying that , but I am not afraid to.

We are the originals....not the copies.....don't forget that.

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*note that legal recognition is not the same as being legal. It does NOT mean I think midwives should be illegal.  It means that midwives should be legal by virtue of parents owning the right to give birth anywhere they want with anyone they want.

5 Things I Believe About Midwifery

#1 Midwives have no rights apart from serving parents. Nobody wants to hear it, but it is true. 

#2 Authentic midwifery is about serving mothers, not saving mothers or babies, from birth.

#3 Midwifery that incorporates, or is based on THE lie, is not authentic midwifery.  I am interested in honoring and saving authentic midwifery because it serves parents WITHOUT adding risk or diminishing safety. (THE lie is that birth is a medical event.  It rarely is.  When it is, thank God we have medical facilities and medical personnel.)

#4 Midwives who believe that their presence, or drugs or gadgets make birth safe don't believe the same things that I do about birth.  My beliefs are grounded in science and wholesale trust in the physiology of birth.  So, when we talk about midwifery, we are often talking about something different.

#5 I believe that if you are going to call yourself a midwife, that you need to invest in a comprehensive education that includes the history of midwifery, nutrition, anatomy, physiology, terminology, normal labor and birth, the newborn, counseling and communication skills, some basic biology and microbiology, complementary studies, possible complications and how to prevent them, possible emergencies and how to recognize and respond appropriately.  Of course there are many other things included in my curriculum.  However, I do not believe that midwifery students need algebra, composition, chemistry, pharmacology.

The Most Dangerous Thing to Happen to Midwifery

That is what some are saying about me.

That and several variations on that theme.

Over the 30 plus years of my work I have been called many things I have never addressed, but I want to speak to this one.

Midwifery is in terrible danger, but I have no part in it. 

I am referring to the extremely well organized effort to redefine midwifery. This effort denigrates the women who have handed that job down from generation to generation. It poses an ominous threat not only to authentic, with-woman midwifery but to the rights and freedoms of the women midwives serve.

Picture it as a double edged sword: those speaking for midwifery are speaking only for one brand and working to own the title lock, stock and barrel. They are speaking AGAINST those who choose not to buy their brand or promote their brand. They are not speaking for the midwife of history or the authentic midwife of today. Sadly, if they get their way there will be few midwives in the future. Their effort to eliminate "lay" midwifery and round up all midwives into one corral for easy pickin' will have disastrous effects on EVERY brand of midwifery.

The other edge of that sword is even more dangerous.  How can we forget that we don't own birth but mammas do?  How can we ignore the fact that parents' rights trump midwives' status?  If parents lose their rights, midwives' rights are moot anyway.

It is impossible to be subject to the state, an insurance company, or a midwifery organization, and serve the mother in the same way we could if there were no other entities involved.  If we enter into a contract about the mother, with anyone other than the mother, mothers are at risk of losing their voice.  If we enter into a contract without honoring the contract, then what does that say about our collective integrity?

I admit, I  am pretty vocal in speaking against what I consider to be the greatest threat to parents' rights in all of history. I know that my position is not popular.

BUT, if women lose that most feminine of all freedoms, to use her own body for birth, and her own head and heart to determine where and with whom she births, then which freedom will go next?  

If the state or a midwifery organization places itself in position to make ANY of those choices for any woman, and we go along with that, we will be equally guilty of diminishing her choices and compromising her freedom.

I will NOT be guilty. 

If that makes me dangerous, well I will strive to live up to the title.

Before It's Too Late

I have had horrible nightmares my whole life that I am in a situation where eminent danger warrants blood-curdling screams, but regardless of how much effort I put into it, no sound comes out.  I feel myself bursting at the seams in utter frustration, because even if I am in a crowd, everyone is oblivious to what I am trying to get them to hear.

I am living that nightmare every day.  I am screaming about the erosion of birthing rights and the possible loss of all parenting rights that could result from the effort to increase midwives' status. There is a VERY dark cloud looming over our children's and grandchildrens' futures but few are paying any attention to me.  Most are patting me on the head while they order my straight jacket.

People keep telling me to tone it down. Even good friends telling me that I am too radical, and some even think I am crazy.   Maybe, but this crazy, radical Baba is on a mission all day and up with worry  all night, driven by a sense of urgency that I cannot control.  I want to tell as many people as I can, as quickly as I can and with as much conviction as I can:

THERE IS NO MORE IMPORTANT RIGHT

THAN THAT OF WOMEN

TO CHOOSE WHERE AND WITH WHOM TO BIRTH;

IF WE LOSE THAT RIGHT, WHAT RIGHT WILL WE EVER BE ABLE TO PROTECT?

I feel like Chicken Little, and have for more than three decades now.  I consider licensure of midwives as the most ominous threat to women's rights in history. Yet there are just a few of us who realize the threat even exists.  How can women, especially women who would call themselves feminists, not see what is happening? If women lose their birthing rights, they have lost all their rights. Really, if a woman cannot choose where and with whom she will birth, what else is there to lose?

I thought about this for some time on my drive back from speaking on the importance of "self directed birth" at the APHA conference. It was a very surreal experience.  There was no way for me to prepare for it.

I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie.  While people threw around terms like "policy" and "payer" when they questioned me, I was trying to get them to hear the words; "parents' freedoms" and  "erosion of women's rights."  Either people stared back with me with glares or their eyes were glazed over as if I was speaking a foreign language. I made a case for the fact that The Big Push will marginalize women's rights like nothing in history, but it angered some and was of no consequence to others. I wanted to scream: "Don't you realize that if we lose our birthing rights it will have far-reaching and perhaps permanent consequence for everyone? This will affect your children and grandchildren.  How will parenting, and more to the point, our entire way of life change if parents lose their rights to make choices about how they bring their babies into the world?  What will happen if all birthing decisions are determined by authorities rather than the owners?"  The very nice group who invited me were politely, but only marginally, interested,  but obviously they did not embrace my cause.  I wanted just one of them to say, "You are making sense, we are with you; parents' rights trump the rights of midwives, doctors and insurance companies."  I wanted them to see that if we put parents at the forefront and the professions second, it would solve most of the issues surrounding birth. But once again, a few pats on the head, now be on your way. 

I was grateful to be invited to speak on that topic but the truth is that, for the most part, I was making my case to the wrong crowd. It is NOT doctors, hospitals and policy makers who are the greatest threat to women's birthing rights at this moment in time.

It is WOMEN who are PUSHING for the elimination of the rights of other women.

Women you know.  

Women you trust.  

Women mothers' trust.

Who would guess that there would be women throwing other women under the bus, acting as agents of the state? 

Which women would feel it is their right to sell out birthing women's rights in exchange for a piece of paper?

Is this piece of paper, that history proves bestows temporary rights, in exchange for the loss of permanent ones, worth the price of mothers' choices? (Maybe I am in need of a straight jacket, or at least some pharmaceuticals, because as I typed this sentence, my heart nearly beat out of my chest!)

If I were the medical community and I wanted to eliminate home birth, I could not have schemed up anything more efficacious than The Big Push and midwives clamoring for licensure.

You may not share my overwhelming sense of urgency and a feeling of doom, that if we don't do something now, tomorrow will be too late.

But, I want to beg you to Investigate for yourself what is happening to birthing rights. 

Do your own digging to uncover who is pushing for the changes.  

Decide what and who you stand for.

Decide who you will stand with and who you won't stand with.

Don't hide your head in the sand.  

Speak up.

Educate and encourage parents to take their birth back.  

Stand in the gap for mothers long enough for them to realize what is going on.

Wake somebody up every day....before it is too late.

Signed, Carla Hartley aka Chicken Little

P.S. Yes, the sky is falling.

Things that matter

z What really matters ? z

Our lives begin to end 

the day we become silent 

about things that matter.

Martin Luther King

“With woman midwifery” is, by definition, about mothers and babies, and not so much  about  the women who attend them.        

What really matters is a parent’s right to choose  where and with whom they will give birth—even if that is with no one.

Speak out and stand up for parents’ rights because when    parents lose their rights,  “Midwives’ rights” will be moot.

                                                Carla

Actions bring results

I think one's feelings waste

themselves in words;

they ought all to be distilled

into actions which bring results.

Florence Nightingale

The problem is that we just don’t know which actions will bring results.

We care, but we don’t know how to translate that into CHANGE.

If you are looking for a way to make a difference for birthing mothers and

new little babes....you will find it at  The Trust Birth Conference.

www.trustbirthconference.com

My Slant on Midwifery Education

Becoming a midwife is really a process of becoming MORE of what you probably already are: 

a server, a nurturer, an encourager. 

My feeling is that the most important work of a midwife is to help her clients learn more about birth and help them assume the responsibility and ownership for their birth.
So that means a LOT of what we do in Advanced Midwifery Studies is dedicated to client education.
It is my firm belief that people can only assume responsibility for what they know or know about. I see one of the midwife’s primary functions is that of increasing what people take responsibility for by bumping out the parameters of what they know or know about.  Most of the time spent with clients should be spent talking about all the issues surrounding birth and making references and referrals to more information. The enormous potential that midwives have to make a difference in the world is not by how many babies they catch, but by how many women they encourage to trust birth and embrace their rights and responsibilities as birthing women with confidence and joy.
Too much of midwifery education rhetoric these days has the same flavor as those who fear birth.....the focus seems to be on how to help women and babies survive it....as if birth is terribly dangerous. I happen to believe that birth is inherently safe and that we often do more harm than good by our interference, management or theft of ..... That is a whole ‘nother blog, eh?