French déconfinement day 32

15,778 steps

I met with a woman who wanted to talk about her birth story. She recently had twins (twin A breech) and had an extremely traumatic birth. I won't go into details here but my jaw kept dropping as she told her story. "They did what? And then they did WHAT?!?"

This happened in one of our city's hospitals that prides itself on its very low cesarean rate. Which is a great thing--but that doesn't excuse what went on. We have so far to go to make maternity care even *barely* decent and humane, let alone something that leads to thriving, healthy, empowered mothers and families.

And guess what: it really isn't that hard. In fact, I think it would be so much work to be disrespectful and abusive. It's so easy (and rewarding) to honor a woman's autonomy and dignity, to listen to what she wants and take her seriously. To not do any procedure or treatment without her enthusiastic consent. To not touch without express permission. To not coerce or scare or threaten.

Okay, off my soapbox. It's time to relax for the evening. All the kids are in bed and we have some quiet time.

Today's pictures & videos:

Playing around with our Breech Without Borders logo and getting colorful...what do you think?

Zari's art project: when the mask is closed, it reads "j'aime l'ecole."

Pedestrian area near the Place du Pin...also known as "le petit marais Niçois."

Ivy doing a virtual piano lesson with my mom

And on my phone, Inga had made an instructional video of how to play the clock song. Here's a few seconds.

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Rowan Pelling writes about her HBAC

I saw this on another blog (sorry, can't remember which one) and wanted to share: journalist and writer Rowan Pelling wrote a short article in the Daily Mail about her home birth with an independent midwife.

Pelling mentions the trauma of her first birth--an emergency cesarean due to Pitocin-induced fetal distress--the difficulty bonding, and the recurrent panic attacks and nightmares of dead babies. Fortunately, women's experiences of trauma at birth are receiving more attention. One resource is Sheila Kitzinger's recent book Birth Crisis, which examines women who are dealing with PTSD after childbirth.

Edited to add:
I just saw on Lisa Barrett's blog that Pelling first wrote about her decision to have a home birth in the Telegraph. This article focuses much more on her decision-making process.

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