Birth Power!
What a topic to kick off the start of 2022 within our weekly @clubhouse session in the Physiological Birth Room! (If you haven't joined us yet download the app and join us on Tuesdays at 8pm). You can also listen to the replays now if you're unable to make it on the night!
We had a fascinating discussion about what birth power is - is it a tangible thing - can you learn to have it - is it innate - do you just need to uncover it - and can people take your power, or can you give it up?
We heard from some incredible people - birth workers and those who had recently given birth describing what its like to have that power, to give away that power and to watch people in the birth space harness their power.
But, I want delve a little further into what birth power is and how can we as birth workers support birth power?
Birth power may conjure up images of warriors, roaring their way through birth, making all the noise and telling all the people exactly what to do, where to be and how to help them. It may also conjure up images of birthing women and people in their power in a pool, surrounded by fairy lights and silence as being in their power (see attached blog image). But I've also regularly witnessed in the birth space power that is quiet, self assured, and exercised in the most medicalised of births. Power that was unknown and suddenly discovered or power that is overwhelming for the birth person.
A simple, polite "No" that is evidently a full sentence. Leaving an environment that doesn't feel safe. The active choice to accept a Caesarean or any other form of medicalised birth in a way that is self assured and a conscious choice. The time it takes to educate oneself, to undertake a reflective practice during pregnancy to tap into our instincts and bond with our baby. The overwhelming sense of astonishment when you birth your baby and realise you did that!
Birth power can take many forms. It can also be taken from us in many ways. In a system that is still fundamentally patriarchal, medicalises pregnancy and tends to treat pregnant people as a list of symptoms rather than as conscious individuals, all too often have I witnessed healthcare professionals try to maintain that an individual has no voice, no choice in the care/ treatment they receive. Ultimately trying to strip them of the power they have to birth their babies.
So how do we as birth workers - doulas - birth keepers -midwives and obstetricians help birthing people realise and actualise their power? You can't empower someone, that power comes from within - but you may need to give it space - a safe, held space to begin to unfold, to be realised. Doulas are trained to do this. We learn how to hold space, how to enable people to realise they have choices, and they have instincts that they can follow. We do this through building trust during the antenatal period with our clients as we are after-all relationship based practitioners. We do this through listening ... really listening without ego to what birthing people want. We provide reassurance in moments of uncertainty and we celebrate the incredible transformation that mother, parent and infant all move through during the birth process.
I can't express just how incredibly moving and humbling it is to watch people step into their birth power, to realise they hold it within and to move through that transformation that is birth with grace, and strength and vulnerability and above all innate power.