AIBU for hating the Pampas advert thanking midwives.

[ToadsforJustice]

I didn't have a positive experience with any of the MW I had the misfortune of seeing whilst having my DC.

I find the advert really triggering. I don't think I would thank anyone for the misery and pain they caused me.

FaFoutis Mon 11-Jun-18 23:16:20
That describes my experience of mws too cheesey.

Sorry to hear that FaFoutis, I know your pain

Not read the full thread but read a lot of it and will get back to after this post. To all those saying "yabu to tar a whole profession with the same brush because of one bad experience" - please read up on this issue. Here's a longish but relatively easy to read article to get you started (easy to read in terms of lacking in complex statistics - some pretty awful experiences to take on board):

broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/evqew7/obstetric-violence-doulas-abuse-giving-birth

Abuse in obstetric care is endemic if this article is accurate (and it quotes studies as well as people talking from their first hand experience) and the posts on this thread would tend to back it up. Please head over to the feminism board if you're bothered by this. We're all about discussing all the ways in which women are treated as though their experiences don't really matter and their health care isn't a priority. This is an American article but everything I've read about the NHS tells me things are as bad here. The good midwives and doctors aren't a large majority sadly.

Some key quotes from the article:

A 2014 survey of over 2,000 doulas, childbirth educators, and labor and delivery nurses in the US and Canada found that almost 90 percent had witnessed a care provider engage in procedures “without giving a woman a choice or time to consider,” and nearly 60 percent had observed providers perform procedures “explicitly against the wishes of the woman.” Many outside the childbirth field find these figures difficult to believe. Varnam has struggled to convince people that the things she has seen were not simply the occasional errors of a few “old school” obstetricians. She says she has seen the same behavior from young doctors, female doctors, midwives, and nurses: It’s happening everywhere.

"Los Angeles–based doula Mychal Balazs agrees with this assessment. In her two years of attending births, she tells Broadly, she has seen every type of obstetric violence. Balazs feels that lack of consent in particular is overlooked as a maternity care issue and is one of the primary reasons for birth-related trauma."

"Balazs says she has also witnessed sexual assault during birth, and she makes a distinction between “unwanted medical touching” of the vagina, which some consider to be sexual assault, and incidents that were overtly “sexualized.” “I have actually had very sexually explicit things said to people while they’re in labor,” says Balazs. “I can’t even describe how incredibly strange it is when you watch what can only be described as a rape, and then someone has their baby handed to them, and then it’s the best moment of their life.”

Many doulas have similar stories, and often they only feel comfortable sharing them anonymously. An unnamed Alabama doula, speaking on the “Birth Allowed” podcast in 2017, described seeing a doctor straddle a laboring patient from behind as she leaned over her hospital bed. The doula says her client had declined a vaginal exam, and that the doctor told her, “So, this is how we’re going to do this,” before pulling up her skirt and forcing his hand roughly into her vagina from behind. “If that had happened outside of the hospital, he would be in jail,” the doula said. “We had all these witnesses. It was a sexual assault, and it was very sexual, the position of his body.”

Women aren't seen as really mattering sadly. Even by other women in the medical profession.

I do think a lot of midwives resent how maternity care isn't as women-centred as it should be and the way things are done though. Midwives only have so much power and I doubt all of them are happy with the way things are done and the resulting experiences for women.

When I was preparing for my second birth I found a great list of phrases online written by a midwife for women to use in order to give them more power and question what they were being told to do. One of her own quotes on birth was 'The woman does the allowing' which I absolutely love. I think a lot of midwives do truly want to be 'with woman' and dislike how there are often barriers against them practicing how they would like to

birthdaycake

As far as I am aware, American doula’s are not medically trained midwives. I’d no more have a doula than I would give birth solo in a field.

I completely believe in listening to the labouring mother, I have been one in relatively recent history. However there is a point where medical necessity takes over - in much the same way cracking open someone chest to save their life does.

It is unhealthy to promote an anti-expert mentality. Mother and baby deaths during birth/shortly afterwards statistics on a historic level are far, far too high for that.

You don't need to be an expert to observe when someone is being sexually assaulted semperidem. And some doulas are experts. Some of them are ex-midwives or ex-doctors.

If you read the full article it talks about medically trained staff tearing women open with their bare hands without any sort of anaesthetic. We need doulas because the care being provided by the medically trained staff is abusive and violent as a matter of course according to a fair amount of research now.

birthday

To sexually assault someone requires intent of that nature. Checking dilation etc is not sexual.

What about the fact anaesthetised women used to be used for students to practice vaginal examinations on without their knowledge or consent?
Surely inserting your fingers into the vagina of an unconscious woman without her knowledge or permission is sexual assault?
Surely just because the context is medical doesn't make it not assault and therefore okay?

Every time this thread title shows in 'active', it annoys the shit out of me that it says 'Pampas' instead of 'Pampers.'

It is if it's unnecessary Semperidem. Many of the healthcare professionals whose words I've read in studies and articles over the years have said that much of what goes on in terms of vaginal checking etc is actually not necessary (where women push for investigations afterwards it has often been found that this is the case). It seems that sometimes the women are subject to these as a form of punishment for being difficult.

And there's a debate to be had around what's necessary when a women is saying NO! I do not consent to this. There are almost always alternatives. Or else it can be discussed further with the woman. We have to consider that what might seem necessary to avoid a certain outcome may in fact do more damage to a woman who's already traumatised from her no not being listened to in other situations.

I think however mentioned unrealistic expectations was right!

Most women have gone through their lives having jobs, being professionals and as such have gotten this weird sense of entitlement regarding being respected as whole human beings, with feelings, intelligence, and value all of their very own.

When I went into labour I had expectations of being treated like the rational human being, capable of independent thought that I had been everywhere else in my life. I had the expectation that my pain would be taken seriously, and my opinions about my treatment would be taken into account. I expected my informed consent to be sought before all procedures.

These were very unrealistic expectations as it turns out.

I was treated like an unthinking lump of meat. When I tried to explain what impact the process of labour was having on me and the fact that it was destroying my mind (I have both pain and pain relief complexities in my genetic make up) I was told that nothing would be done or changed, and my wishes would be ignored, because there was no medical need for proper pain management or for C-section. The baby was doing fine so whatever was happening to me was irrelevant. This was the assumption I found to be at the core of all the treatment I received from midwives. That they knew best and my experience was simply not a factor.

So I'll join the list of women on this thread who couldn't face giving birth a second time due to the way they were treated during childbirth....and the list of women still recovering from the mental health problems poor management of labour caused.

I strongly doubt pampers will give a shit about any of this, but anyone can register a complaint with the ASA....so do please do that.

And there we disagree birthdaycake

I believe medical experts know better, being educated in their field rather more than the average person.

In much the same way a Jehovah’s Witness can find their beliefs being overridden and their child revive a life saving blood transfusion. Childbirth isn’t just about a particular experience - it’s about having a living, undamaged mother and baby at the end of it.

Of course tragedies do happen and they are tragic for their rarity.

But they're not rare, semperidem - read all the research and this thread. Serious damage to the mother, mentally and physically is almost standard. Yes, medical experts have more knowledge of medical stuff. But the research is telling us that they are commonly violent and abusive in spite of this knowledge.

So it doesn't matter how knowledgeable you are. If you see women as the team of so called professionals that "cared for" Morphene in the post above your last post (at 00:49:34 in case you've posted again since), saw her, i.e. as an "unthinking lump of meat" in her own words, then you're a danger to women and a doula by her side is an asset, just for the fact that she is there to advocate for the mother's care and to fight the staff that think a woman's suffering is insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Should clarify that I don't mean to say "you're a danger to woman" as in you "Semperidem" specifically. Just a general point!

My god zzzzz - so much of that sounds horrific. And again, maybe all these medical professionals had top medical knowledge but that doesn't make it ok that they made you crawl down a corridor in only a t--shirt (I can't actually believe that - was it even a long t-shirt?) or that they were racist to you and body shamed you. Much of the good they did with all that training was offset by the completely avoidable harm they cause you in other ways.

But very glad to hear you had 4 healthy children by the sounds of things. Please tell me at least that's true?

I spent a good few months thinking it would have been better for my baby and my husband if I HAD died during childbirth...I spent time contemplating the best way to finish the job.

The goal of getting a live mother and baby out of the process really isn't something that justifies abuse, procedures done without consent, or ignoring patients suffering.

I was nowhere near being in danger at any point during my labour...but that didn't stop midwives from ignoring me and failing to seek consent.

I think any rational person would understand that consent cannot always be sought in emergency situations - for example I don't begrudge the fact I didn't get a say in the use of forceps as I was unconscious at the time! I do very much begrudge the midwives doing examinations and putting me in stirrups when I was telling them not to, and couldn't physically stop them.

I'm so sorry Morphene. That sounds awful.

Wow - congratulations zzzzz!. Doesn't sound like you could have got much healing sleep after all the stress though!

Just catching up with this.

mila it's sad that you're too busy picking posts apart to see the huge issues here.

But if we are going to be petty, who called themselves a feminist and then used the word 'bitches'?? Certainly wasn't me (though I am a feminist). But even if someone else did- why hold me accountable for it??

Also, look up 'oxymoron'.

All these experiences are just heartbreaking.

Sorry for the horror some of you have been through. It's totally unacceptable, and that advert is a disgrace.

One of mine was a total bitch. She was from Cork, and I think in her opinion I was more fit for a magdalene laundry, (I was 18, unmarried and then dp had went home to rest, so she must have assumed the father wasn't going to be involved). I had to beg my mum not to leave me alone with her again, after she was quite nasty while my mum had went to the loo, put her hand on my belly and was barking at me if i sucked the gas and air 5 secs longer than I should have, snatched it off me the second time, answering questions with very brusque short answers etc, (I was in the birth pool thing half naked and felt quite vulnerable).

The same one also wasn't listening to me, later that night told me I should have an injection to help me sleep, I asked her multiple times to check if I was any further on and she kept refusing, before my mum insisted. Her face went white when she checked and discovered I was 2cm further on (my labour had slowed and I was stuck at 5cm for hours). I knew it was speeding back up again though.

The other local midewife couldn't have been nicer, she was even rubbing my back. It's just luck of the draw, like teachers in school. Some are fantastic, some are just arseholes.

In England, you cannot override a woman's wishes just because she has refused to comply with expert opinion. Unless a person has been formally assessed to lack capacity, and the appropriate safeguards have been arranged, every patient has the legally-enshrined right to make an unwise choice. Continuing treatment despite competent refusal is assault, even if the patient is pregnant.

I think the concept of horizontal violence is very relevant to the way some midwives treat women. Not all midwives, by any means--most midwives who looked after me were gentle and kind. But absolutely some midwives are acting out their own internalised misogyny, gleaned from wider society and from the icons of the natural childbirth world (Dick-Read, Odent).

But more than that, caring for people who are suffering intensely is emotionally depleting. In my experience, people normalise that suffering to help them cope--this is probably especially necessary if the local culture discourages offering the pain relief that we would offer people in literally any other healthcare setting. And once you normalise a type of suffering because you see it every day, it's hard to switch back and remember that it's a completely abnormal human experience.

Plus, the NHS is creaking at the edges. Everyone is understaffed and under-resourced, and the patients keep pouring in. Of course things go wrong, it's completely predictable. Midwives are only human. Things won't be fixed until women's healthcare becomes a priority. More than that, women-dominated professions must receive respect and investment and innovation, rather than being left to fester because women (unlike men) want to run themselves into the ground out of a burning sense of vocation(!).

We also need to root out the entrenched belief that childbirth is a punishment for having sex . . .

Don't know if anyone here is interested in getting involved, but the NMC is theoretically developing new standards for midwifery education. www.nmc.org.uk/standards/midwifery/education/

My midwives were all utterly brilliant. Sorry but YABU. If an advert was taken out slamming midwifes, there would be outrage (rightly) so it can't work the other way!