The Mule

On average around 20% of UK women have their labours induced, some for medical reasons, others because they are 'post dates', that is, they have gone a certain number of days past their EDD (Estimated Due Date). How many days your care providers will 'let you' go past your EDD before pressuring for induction varies from trust to trust, but often women find that conversations about induction start on or even before their EDD, with 'sweeps' being routinely offered to encourage labour to start, and difficult to navigate meetings arranged with Obstetricians in which women are talked to about 'increasing risk'. Getting to the bottom of the actual reality of the risk of going past 41 or 42 weeks is tricky, mostly because so many women don't actually get this far. Midwife Thinking has a great article here about the balance of risks a woman contemplating agreeing to induction must consider. Many women feel under enormous pressure once the conversations...

The following article appeared in the Huffington Post today. Independent  Midwives, the only alternative to NHS maternity care available in the UK, are currently under threat. This Monday – 25 th March – they are taking to the streets of London in protest at a E.U.Directive that requires all registered health professionals to have mandatory insurance. Independent Midwives (I.M’s) won’t be able to get this insurance – due to their low numbers and the potentially high cost of claims the premiums would be prohibitively expensive – and unless the Government answers their call to help them find a workable solution, they face becoming illegal and extinct from October 2013. I first came across I.M’s during my second pregnancy in 2010. Having had a hospital forceps delivery with my first baby that, both physically and emotionally, took a long time to recover from, I knew the impact that a birth experience could have, and planned to have a home water birth with baby ...

Here's something every pregnant woman might like to know: during labour, you will be given a routine vaginal exam every four hours, and this will be used to check your cervical dilation, and to chart your progress. Your midwife might mention this at your antenatal appointments, but here's what she probably won't tell you - the exams are optional , you can refuse them, and unless there seems to be a problem or you actually want to know how dilated you are, it's probably better that you do, since this invasion of your privacy can actually bring you out of your Labourland trance, making your 'mammalian self' feel threatened and slowing or halting the very progress they are trying to check. Learning about the various procedures, such as 'V.E's', that are likely to take place during your labour and birth can help you to make truly informed decisions about whether to accept or refuse them. It can allow you to think about the kind of labour you really ...

Every generation likes to think they're free, and often only the clarity of hindsight reveals just how restricted they actually were. My mother, for example, thought, like many women in the 1970's, that it was the very pinnacle of freedom to have her labour induced, to be able to choose on which day of the week her baby came, and to be in a hospital which offered 'state-of-the-art' care for her and her baby. Looking back on it now, she can see just how far from freedom she truly was: shaved, enema'd and pethidined, with no formal talk of consent, and later, ushered sternly back to bed by Matron as she wandered the hospital corridors, drug-hazy and looking for the baby they had taken from her. Nearly forty years later, that baby - me - is pregnant for the third time, and wondering - am I free? Do I have full freedom of choice to have the birth I really want and need? Can I feel assured that anything that is 'done to me' in the name of medical science will ...

This article has now been published in the Huffington Post. Tapping into the twenty first century zeitgeist is easy, and a bit fun - you just have to tap into Google. For example, enter ‘very scared of’ … and you’ll see the top four things that people are very scared of, right now, like this: Many women are scared, afraid, terrified of giving birth. Some – as many as one in ten – suffer from Tocophobia , a morbid fear of giving birth that leads them to seek elective caesarians if they can. Others, while they may not have a diagnosable psychological disorder, are still extremely anxious and fearful about the task of bringing their baby into the world. It’s not really surprising that so many women feel this way. The media portrayal of birth ranges from the rather ridiculous soap opera version – 'woman looking terrified and sweaty delivers baby in pub drama' – to programs like One Born Every Minute – 'woman looking terrified and sweaty begs for dru...

If you gave birth recently, did you feel you had real freedom? Freedom to choose where you gave birth, who was present, what interventions took place and how you delivered your baby? Were you given access to all of the facts needed to make your choices truly informed? Who was the most powerful person in the room at the moment of birth? And did the experience leave you feeling exhilarated, disappointed, or downright traumatised? These questions are currently being considered on behalf of all mothers as part of a global movement to ‘take back birth’ and reclaim women’s power in the birth place. ‘The freedom in a country can be measured by the freedom of birth’, states Agnes Gereb , the midwife currently imprisoned in Hungary and held up as ‘the epitome of the very worst of what’s happening in birth today’ by the makers of Freedom for Birth , a UK based film about human rights in childbirth to be globally screened on September 20th. Over in the US, where caesarian rates are more tha...

This article is on the front page of today's Huffington Post . (16th August 2012) What did you learn about breastfeeding in school? Chances are - not much. Whether you were a pupil in the 1950's or the 1990's, it's unlikely you were told anything at all about nursing a baby, because breastfeeding has never ever been a statutory requirement on the National Curriculum, and it still isn't, even today. Teenagers are taught about alcohol, emotions, contraception, cultural diversity and more as part of their PSHE lessons. But breastfeeding? Telling girls how to do that is dangerous and downright disgusting, according to many commenters in this recent article in the Daily Mail about a pilot scheme in Merseyside teaching the benefits of nursing to 14 year olds. Revolting!! Don't teach them how to read and write but teach them how to breastfeed...ye Gods. Teach them how to respect themselves, how to say NO and how to keep their legs closed, along with teaching them ...

Lots of women want to give birth in a way that is natural, drug free and empowering, but often, this aspiration ends in intervention, and rather than the transformative rite of passage they were hoping for, many women begin their new lives as mothers feeling, at best, bruised and a little disappointed; at worst, violated and traumatised. Why is this? What is preventing women's dreams, visions and hopes for their birth experience from becoming a reality? Could it be that - Women's Bodies are not Fit for Purpose : Through some evolutionary error, women have a design fault that makes it nigh on impossible to give birth without help. Maybe the baby's head is too big, perhaps her pelvis is too small; whatever the reason, there's a mismatch here and women would be better off opting for an elective section than getting themselves all fired up and unrealistic about a candle lit water birth. Or maybe - Obstetricians are Evil Scissor-Happy Misogynists : Labour Wards are p...