I want to start this section with two acknowledgements: one is that no one goes into the medical profession thinking, "I want to hurt people." OBGYNs, labor and delivery nurses, anesthesiologists, etc. — all of these people save lives and we need them!
At the same time, we have this issue. The approach and quality of interaction and communication between birth providers and parents in the hospital setting has left many parents feeling unheard, disrespected, disregarded and sometimes even emotionally or physically traumatized, with a birth experience that was forced upon them without medical necessity.
Well, why not turn to lawsuits, then? While this reaction has its place, the fear of lawsuits also drives some of the disconnected, authoritarian ways that some care providers interact with birthing parents. Lawsuits aren't the only option, and they're not enough.
Rather than place the accountability into the legislative system's hands, what does it look like to put that power into the community?
Are there ways we can incentivize what we want to see? Like The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to encourage hospitals to support breastfeeding and bonding. Hospitals across the country now market themselves with this qualification.
Are there ways we can organize our concerns about care in a way that's helpful to providers? Like what was done with the Respectful Maternity Care Charter, created by the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, NGOs around the world, government groups and grassroots stakeholders. As a part of this campaign to assert and protect human rights around care in birth, groups created local accountability measures like hotlines and community dialogues reporting and discussing mistreatment in medical settings, which was then shared with health providers in trainings, and did result in changes (source).
What could that look like locally, for birth world stakeholders and community members to create a birth care standard and not only offer the ability to meet that to our local care providers, but also create a way for parents to report their experiences, and to create safe spaces to share these experiences with providers, so that they can use them as constructive professional development opportunities, rather than destructive career threats?
LEARNING HOW TO “BE” WITH WHEN WE DON’T “AGREE” WITH
"We have to learn how to 'be' with those who we don't 'agree' with." Loretta Ross, Decolonize Birth 2017
What does it mean to “be” even if we don’t “agree” as those who care for parents? What do these situations even look like?
• the collaboration between home birth midwives, hospital providers, public health professionals, researchers, and more (example)
• the communication between care providers trained through the technocratic model of care, which sees the body as a machine the doctor needs control to care for, and patients seeking the holistic model, which sees the patient as the decision maker in their health care experience?
• the collaboration between hospital staff that do not acknowledge the role of doulas and the doulas parents bring in those hospitals?
What “be” ultimately means is mutual respect. There has to be mutual respect between OBGYNs and home birth midwives, between care providers and patients, and between hospital staff and doulas to allow them to “be” in the situations above.
How do we get to mutual respect? Knowing each other’s roles and purposes, knowing each other's strengths and how we complement each other, meeting each other, and having spaces to safely dialogue about concerns and to be on the same page and establish trust.
In a field where there is literally potential work to be done every hour of every day, I think one of the major challenges in this area is simply finding the time and the space for so many birth workers to come together and learn.
PROMOTING REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE AS MORE THAN A RESISTANCE MOVEMENT
“What’s going to happen when we win? This can’t just be a resistance movement.” Loretta Ross, Decolonize Birth 2017
My final lesson from Decolonize Birth 2017 is that this work isn’t just about resistance. It's not about one type of birth worker or model being better or worse. It's not about a system that's hopelessly broken. It’s about human rights.
Reproductive justice is about moving toward a brighter reality of birth in the United States. One in which the maternal mortality rate falls instead of rises, one in which birthing people – of all ages, races, ethnicities, gender expressions, family types, etc. – can be active participants in their health decisions, and can receive safe and respectful care with the same simple result time after time: happy, healthy babies and parents.
Our Babybay Cosleeper was right next to us — supporting us baby step by baby step on our newborn sleep journey.