Why Every Woman Needs a Golf Caddy for Labor

So I was driving down the street listening to an interview with Rocco Mediate, a golfer who nearly beat Tiger Woods last year in a huge golf tournament. He was singing the praises of his golf caddy. That’s when it struck me how wonderful a caddy would be in labor! Seriously, let’s look at the benefits of using a golf caddy:

• A caddy is there to help only you.
• He knows a lot about golf, but also understands that you know the game well.
• The caddy offers tips and suggestions that are personalized to you.
• He hands you clubs as you need them, sometimes before you knew what you needed.
• A caddy is always quick with a drink or a cool cloth.
• When the game gets tough the caddy helps you keep it real.
• The caddy will not let you lose sight of what you are doing or why you are there.
• A golf caddy never upstages you on the green.
• Your caddy never takes the shot for you.
• A professional golfer would never play the game without his caddy.

I could go on and on about why everyone needs a golf caddy for labor and birth. ?But I guess you already know that they are available for everyone who wants one - your doula. Hopefully this analogy will be helpful in explaining what a doula does!

Happy International Doula Month!

Birth Videos on YouTube: Sick or Slick?

I was reading a debate between some people, women and men, about individuals who post their birth videos online. The basics of the debate were that women posted birth videos online at sites like YouTube, unlike written birth stories, these were graphic and contained (*gasp*) nudity. Some people felt that this was horrible and awful and should be stopped. They felt that some of these women were attention seeking, others felt it was just tacky. The other side of the debate believed that the births were helpful from a real world perspective, that it wasn’t heavily edited (usually) like real birth on television shows or infused with intense music and dramatic interviews with care providers.

Which side of the fence do you fall on? Do you think births on YouTube are slick or sick?

(And just to fuel the fire, here’s a birth video for you…)

NHS YouTube Video Campaign Teaches Teens that Birth is Humiliating

The Leicester NHS Trust posted an anti-teen pregnancy campaign video on YouTube aimed at teaching school-age girls and young women that sex (or unprotected sex) should be avoided because it can result in pregnancy, which will end with birth, which is excruciating, humiliating and shameful.

From The Sun on May 15, 2009:

The video appears to have been filmed with a mobile phone camera to give an air of authenticity and had more than 1,000 hits before it was removed.

At first it looks like another sad example of happy-slapping featuring a gang of secondary school pupils crowding round in a school playground.

Excited children are seen running towards a crowd with youngsters egging on what seems to be a fight.

A girl in the centre is seen screaming while another has blood on her cheeks.

But as the camera moves in closer one of the teenagers can be seen on the ground in the middle of labour.

In explicit detail it shows the girl giving birth and the baby being delivered by a fellow pupil as other students yell and jeer at her.

The footage was intended as a shock tactic to highlight rocketing teen pregnancies by harnessing the publicity power of the internet.

But Leicester NHS did not anticipate YouTube?s stringent content rules and today their clip was replaced after less than a day online with a message saying ?This video has been removed due to terms of use violation?.

Renee of Womanist Musings has the video linked in her post ?Naughty Girls Give Birth in Public in Great Britain.? Please visit her site to view the video which is no longer available on YouTube and read the rest of her sociological analysis of the video, some of which is excerpted below:

This little video teaches young girls that should they engage in sexual activity, the punishment for their behaviour is a painful labour. It is very reminiscent of the punishment assigned Eve for giving Adam the apple in the garden of Eden. The father is quite typically absent from this scenario mirroring the privileging of masculinity in our social discourse. It is women that are constructed as ?controlling? sex and therefore the abandonment of men of their parental obligations is rarely a subject that receives much discussion. Note that this ad is supposed to serve as a warning against teenage sex and yet it is aimed solely at girls as though she became pregnant by herself.

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This advertisement teaches young girls that pregnancy is a punishment rather than a natural outcome of sex, this further supporting the idea that unless conception occurs inside the patriarchal family it is a sign of lasciviousness whereas; a man is not stigmatized for participating in pre marital sex. Though this ad is projected to teach kids to act responsibly when it comes to sex, it comes across as highly sexist in its determination to make women responsible and produce fear about a natural biological process.

From a birth activist perspective, this campaign?s premise is extremely troubling. Many women experience psychologically and emotionally traumatic births for reasons such as inadequate emotional support, a fearful birth space, a birth space full of strangers or care providers who resort to humiliation or bullying to gain compliance. In other words, the feelings that some women experience in a hospital would mimic the presumed feelings of this teenager giving birth while taunted by schoolmates.

The goal of this video was clearly to show birth as a humiliating, painful and scary consequence to bad behavior, which is one of the reasons that Catherine Skol is suing obstetrician Scott Pierce. Pierce allegedly told a nurse that Skol deserved to feel pain for not calling before coming to the hospital and that sometimes ?pain is the best teacher.?

So where will teenagers see positive birth videos? Unfortunately, they will not see them on YouTube, which routinely censors or removes birth videos or requires that viewers be 18 years of age. One of the many negative consequences of moving birth from a home model to an industrialized hospital model in the last 70 years is that birth is that the birth process has become unfamiliar to most people. This goes for all mammalian births?how many of our parents or grandparents moved away from rural areas where they regularly saw animals give birth?

Internet birth activism and flooding social media outlets with positive and realistic images of normal birth have never been more relevant or necessary.

For the Young Women

Lovely, lovely and the girls love it too! Remember that we have to teach our daughters to stand up for themselves if we want them to be the activist they can be!

Meet the Women’s Health Heroes

Our Bodies Our Blog did a great contest to find and name the Women’s Health Heroes. They had nearly 100 entries from 12 countries. After a lot of hard work - they managed to choose 20. Was your hero in their list? If not, there is always next year…

Ricki Lake debates Dr. Lisa on the The Doctors

Part One

Part Two

What do you think about what was said in this debate?

May = International Doula Month

She was there for you when you didn’t believe in yourself. She smiled at your superwoman strength.? She was there the moment your baby was born or came to be there with you those precious weeks thereafter.? She’s an angel to you, there just when you needed her most.? She may have been your friend, sister, mother or a professional, but she’s your doula.

Whether we’ve had a doula, know one, or are one, we can appreciate the significance of the doulas in our life and the importance of there being an International Doula Month — a time set aside specifically to show our support and appreciation and to recognize these individuals and organizations for the work they do.

The DONA (Doulas of North America) website lists some ideas on how you can recognize doulas in your area.? Some examples include:

• Host a community doula education night
• Create a circle for sharing birth stories
• Host a movie night, viewing The Business of Being Born, Orgasmic Birth or Pregnant in America, as a few suggestions
• Write up an editorial or press release for your local media; May is a month for mothers, and doulas are in the thick of it!
• For a complete list with other great ideas, visit the site
• Also, read more about a photo contest! (Hurry, though, because the deadline for submissions is May 31st.)

However you choose to recognize doulas, locally or internationally, the most important thing is that we return the support they give.? Give your doula(s) a call and tell them “THANK YOU” for all they have done for you and continue to do for mothers.? May they help improve the stories of birth around the world, one mother and baby at a time.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate all we do as mothers. Rarely do we receive the credit we deserve for our work. Thank you for what you do as a birth activist. Helping women find their way joyfully into motherhood is a lost art in our world. Whether your role is doula, childbirth educator, midwife, friend or mom of a future mother or father, what you do is important.?

“Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers - strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength.” —-Barbara Katz-Rothman

Vote for Mother of the Year!

MomsRising did a really great job of taking current issues that are important to moms and marketing it in to this video, staring - you! ?(Or any of your friends…)

Mother of the Year

And happy Mother’s Day from all of us at Birth Activist!

Midwives Organizing for Mothers (M.O.M.)

From Citizens for Midwifery (CfM):

Midwives Organizing for Mothers (M.O.M.) is a new national campaign to raise awareness and secure a place for Certified Professional Midwives in our health care system. Spearheaded by the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives (NACPM), the M.O.M. Campaign Steering Committee includes the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM), the Midwifery Education Accreditation Council (MEAC), Citizens for Midwifery (CfM) and the International Center for Traditional Childbearing (ICTC).

SAVE THE DATE:
Join the leaders of this initiative for a conference call?Webinar on Thursday, May 7th at 8 p.m. EST?to find out more about the M.O.M Campaign and how you can participate! Details to follow early next week; this will be an information call rather than a discussion. And, be ready for Action Alerts!

http://cfmidwifery.org