The non-profit organization Solace for Mothers: Healing After Traumatic Childbirth is asking anyone who has experienced or has witnessed violent maternity care, to write a letter to Lynn Rosenthal, the presidential advisor on violence against women, and First Lady Michelle Obama.
Solace explains:
We invite you to join us in writing to Lynn Rosenthal and Michelle Obama in an effort to bring awareness to the violence women experience at the hands of some maternity care providers. First Lady Michelle Obama has made recent remarks championing the rights of childbearing women, and may be an ally for this cause. Lynn Rosenthal is a former executive director of the National Network to End Domestic Violence.
We are calling for an official review of perinatal practices to investigate common and flagrant violations of patients? rights; mainly the right to informed consent and refusal. We are asking that enhanced and enforced mechanisms for accountability follow the investigation.
What can be considered violent maternity care? Solace states,
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence in this way:
“the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation.”
Violence in maternity care is expressed in many different ways. There can be physical violence, such as forcing procedures which women have explicitly refused. There can be emotional violence, such as coercion, manipulation, or verbal abuse. There can be an exertion of power or force over women’s legal rights by individual health care providers and/or by hospital policies such as threatening to call child protective services if a woman does not agree to a procedure or threatening to withhold care in labor if a woman does not agree to the provider?s suggested intervention. ?Informed consent? refers to the legal right of all patients to have the risks, benefits and alternatives clearly explained prior to any procedure. All patients ? including laboring women – have the right to accept or refuse any suggested treatment. Withholding informed consent through the use of physical force, coercion or manipulation is an act of violence and is illegal.
Provider-perpetrated violence during childbirth can result in the birthing woman suffering traumatic stress, anxiety disorders such as posttraumatic stress, postpartum depression and other disabling mood disorders.
For more direction, please click here to visit the Solace for Mothers webpage about the campaign.
To read the letter sent to Lynn Rosenthal and First Lady Michell Obama from Solace for Mothers, Click Here.
Please write letters and spread the word to anyone who may have experienced or witnessed violent maternity care.