What is the current thinking around birth? By building a evolving resource of video footage with experts from around the world, One World Birth aims to provide an ongoing dialogue about information and research surrounding birth, and in doing so start a revolution.
I first came across One World Birth because, well, I gave birth. More importantly, I gave birth in a positive, physiological birth-friendly environment, and I believe that crucially contributed to the relative ease and safety with which I gave birth.
I don’t say that to be smug. I don’t believe that having an easy birth makes me better than any other woman! But I also know that not only did I superficially assume that birth would be a straightforward physiological experience, I trained myself to truly believe it. I practiced HypnoBirthing, and I refused to listen to horror stories.
But horror stories seem to be part of the birth narrative now. And I know I’m not the only mother to worry about how fear can affect women during birth, not just emotionally but physiologically. Think about how your body reacts when you fear something; isn’t that likely to put a crimp in trying to relax enough to let a person emerge from your body?
Fear is not a new problem. HypnoBirthing might be relatively new as a widespread practice, but it grew out of an understanding of what Grantly Dick-Read (you’ll get over the name soon) called the Fear-Tension-Pain syndrome in the 1950s – and he wasn’t the first to observe it. Many birth professionals – now superstars of obstetrics and midwifery, like Michel Odent and Ina May Gaskin – have also discovered that fear is becoming entrenched in the birth narrative, and it is leading to questionably useful, escalating levels of intervention.
Let’s be clear: no-one is against saving lives. No-one is against medicine. But now there is a growing clamour of voices saying that it is supposed to solveproblems, not potentially create them. In a video posted just this week, Professor of Midwifery Cecily Begley explains her view that physiological birth is for everyone at the beginning of labour, and that interventions should be taken as needed, not offered as a matter of obstetric convenience (with a few planned-for exceptions, such as scheduled Caesareans for certain birth presentations or medical conditions). And she raises her concerns that side-effects are more problematic than we realise.
There are many videos like this on the One World Birth website. This is stage one of the campaign; with bite-size videos being posted under monthly themes such as October’s The Love Theme, which is all about oxytocin and physiological birth.
But Toni and Alex, the couple behind the campaign, have much bigger plans for the future. What started with telling real birth stories and selling DVDs of their documentary about doulas, has turned into a plan for a fully fledged birth revolution.
Stage two, which I’m really excited about, will be to build a large and powerful community online, supporting local birth activism. This will evolve into further development of the website as a multilingual educational resource empowering parents around the globe to challenge conventional birth habits and ask for the birthing environment they want.
The final stage will be the release of a series of documentaries through mainstream media channels.
I know from my brief forays onto parenting sites that this kind of topic can be controversial. Daring to say birth can and should be straightforward, safe and vaginal for the majority of women can be taken by some to be a moral judgement of women who were given or needed chemical or surgical intervention. There’s a sense that those of us who didn’t have epidurals are claiming some sort of parenting high ground over those who didn’t. I understand that feeling; I got an uncomfortable glimpse into the life of the defensive parent when I started formula feeding.
But, of course, that’s not what such a campaign is about. On the contrary, though it might not be stated, I personally feel that it places high value on interventions as truly important, and life-saving, when not treated as the routine option. I recently saw a discussion elsewhere online that argued for more positive information about Caesareans as one in four births in the UK is now a section, so it’s a ‘likely outcome’. But why? Are 25% of women really unable to give birth in the time-honoured way? And if so, shouldn’t we be asking ourselves why that is?
One World Birth really is about to go global, as Alex and Toni have a North American tour plan, which will include interviews with, among others, Ina May Gaskin at The Farm in Tennessee and Marie ‘Mickey’ Mongan, founder of HypnoBirthing. Chatting with Toni on Twitter today I felt extraordinarily excited about what this campaign has to offer women in terms of, yes, empowerment. It’s an oft-used and abused term, taking in everything from the Spice Girls to pole-dancing, but here it is in its purest form: women being given access to resources, education and information that will help them understand and work with their bodies during one of the most demanding – and amazing – processes they can ever undergo.
Alexandra Roumbas Goldsteinis a mum of one, digital marketer and online community manager who takes any opportunity to blog about parenthood, social media, cats, baking and Disney. Follow her on Twitter @mokuska