Need to vent! It’s either a baby boy or a baby girl!

[HeadAgainstWall0923]

I’m doing some online training at the moment related to labour and birth and whenever it makes reference to the newborn they will say “A baby that is assigned male at birth or a baby that is assigned female at birth.”

For example, “an infant that is born and is assigned male at birth may have more vernex than a baby who is born and assigned female at birth.”

And this is in reference to babies that are less than 5 minutes old!

I’ve heard it and seen it written down about 20 times now and it’s driving me mad!

During the section on labour I kept having to hear phrases like:

When the infant is positioned correctly in the person’s womb….

When the infant is below the parent’s pelvic bone….

The parent’s contractions will intensify as their body prepares to deliver the infant…

When the infant exits the parent’s body….

When the infant is placed on the parent’s chest……

If the parent decides they want their infant to feed at the chest….

The words are MOTHER, WOMAN, SHE, HER and BREAST!

When it all stop?!

Weve been given a list of terms/acronyms that we have to use when writing in the infants notes etc and it actually says we need to refer to the infants as BAMAB or BAFAM for “baby assigned male at birth” or “baby assigned female at birth”.

One pupil asked what they should do if any of the parents objected to their infant being labeled/described with those acronyms and the lecturer actually said we need to continue using the terms and we must educate (her words) the parents as to why it’s important we/they use inclusive terms when talking about their infant.

I honestly couldn’t believe it.

So now we are supposed to tell parents that we won’t refer to their babies as being either male or female and that they shouldn’t be doing that either to ensure they aren’t being discriminatory?!

When will this madness stop?!

One of the women on the course is a midwife and talking about how in the hospital where she works they have to document on the baby’s file each time they have a feed and specify if it was formula or breast (including EBM). However, all the documentation has now gone digital and there is no longer the option to select either breast milk /EBM or formula and instead when it is recorded that the baby has had a feed the image of a baby bottle will automatically appear regardless of how the baby was fed.

My friend questioned it as she said it automatically implies that a bottle was given and why should that be the default and only option? She was told that it wasn’t appropriate to differentiate between the methods of feeding in case it causes offence to some of the parents.

So my friend questioned why the programme didn’t display an image of a breast when it is recorded a baby had a feed as opposed to a bottle and she was told it wouldn’t be fair to the parents who weren’t breast feeding.

So she asked if that’s the case, why isn’t it considered to be unfair to use an image of an bottle when that may offend the women who breast feed?

No logical answer could be given except for her being told that it’s more correct and appropriate for bottles to be shown in order to prevent causing upset to any people who choose not to breast feed.

She said the undertone was definitely that of trying to eradicate the female act of breast feeding, which only women can do, so as not to upset any apple carts.

You wrote.. "The lecturer is now talking about how professionals cannot assign a sex or gender to an infant in any written documentation or forms"..

I do not believe that to be true.. if it is.. It should be challenged. Such drastic changes should be approved by the College of Midwifes and College of Obstetricians (not full names. Sorry.. being lazy)

Much of what you describe will do harm to mothers and babies, it is without evidence and does not benefit the users of the services you aim to provide.

If you and everyone else in the 'room' do not vote with your feet and speak the truth, women will only see and hear these words and believe them to be the truth. They will look around them, looking for others who feel confused by their feelings and will not find tnem because this language is taking over the birthing world on instagram. These women will retreat into their homes and feel isolated.

I am a birth and post natal doula.. Women need to be able to speak... There are other trainings out there.. do not be silenced because it will have a direct impact on other women and their babies.

I see many people in the birth sphere falling over themselves changing their language after years of stating that language, consent, empowerment, choice in pregnancy and birth is important and this is how we reduand ce harm to women and their babies.. And yet.. these changes are being made.. without evidence that the intervention is without harm.

Good birthing education preaches autonomy... if we cannot grant mothers autonomy around the language they use about themselves and their babies.. we cannot claim to have their interests at heart. We are encouraged to empower them, to direct them towards evidence, to understand the options available to them.. not to educate them, to take decisions away from tnem..

This part of the training sounds coercive and oppressive.. step away... speak out.. do no harm.

PS. I do.. I have .. and it costs me.. but I do it anyway...

As a hormonal pregnant woman right now, I really appreciate this post. I already feel I’ve lost control of my body, my choices are for the baby - I’m often made to feel like an incubator whether it’s meant or not especially suffering with HG. To then lose my words to describe this experience, is further insult to injury. Thank you x

We’ve been sent the handouts for the next session which is all about the benefits of “human milk”.

hand out is about ten pages long and the term “breast milk” isn’t mentioned once. It’s all been replaced with “human milk”.

Im not sure where else anyone thinks this “human milk” is coming from?

I really can’t imagine a professional saying to a mother, “How are you feeding your baby? With formula or human milk?”

Its so degrading to the mother who is actually making the milk!

It almost sounds like “human milk” is a product you can go and buy from the supermarket.

Is breast cancer that men can get as well as women being called chest cancer or human cancer? Why the deletion of breast milk when it’s from the breast?

God knows…..

I wonder how long it will be until the term breast feeding, and even chest feeding, will have to be replaced with the term “Human Feeding”….. 🙄

How infuriating.

This has made me think about the new baby greetings cards which often have ‘Baby Boy!’ or ‘Baby Girl!’ on the front. How long till those disappear I wonder?

‘Congratulations on your BAMAB!’ instead.