Pondering how as a midwife, I’m hired as much for what I don’t do as for what I do do. Reminding the mamas who are waiting for little ones to savor each moment in the wait and to be thankful I’m not a “do” midwife in these circumstances 
This was my facebook status on a recent morning. It had more to do with inductions but as I spent some time thinking about it and all that women pay me not to do.
Here’s a list of things women hire me NOT TO DO…
1. Make you wait a long time in a waiting room for an appointment
2. Rush you through your visits
3. Scold you for gaining 6 pounds in one month
4. Treat you like you’re ignorant or stupid
5. Order stressful “Non-Stress” tests
6. Do lots of internal exams when you’re pregnant
7. Induce labor
8. Freak out when your water releases
9. Make you wear a hospital gown
10. Think big bathtubs are for storing things in
11. Limit the number of guests or support people you can have
12. Use continuous fetal monitors
13. Require an enema to get into the tub
14. Start routine IV’s
15. Put labor on a timeclock
16. Restrict you to bed, or even a bedroom
17. Forbid you to eat or drink in labor
18. Rupture the membranes (break the water)
19. Bug you about pain
20. Talk too much
21. Keep checking dilation
22. Wait for you to fail
23. Do an episiotomy
24. Own stirrups
25. Harrass you about your choices
26. Put your baby in a warmer
27. Smash your babies face into your booby
28. Treat your baby like anything other than a brand-new human being
29. Scare, bully or belittle you
30. Separate you from your baby
Unfortunately….this reminded me of why people come to me at the hospital. Hoping to change the tides when I am done!
Comment by Michelle — October 18, 2011 @ 3:08 am |
“27. Smash your babies face into your booby”
I just doula’d a birth last week where the nurse smooshed the baby’s face into the breast, and the baby kept ulatching because it couldn’t breathe! I told the mom that she could angle the baby’s nose out a tiny bit so it could breathe and then it wouldn’t unlatch and the nurse had the huevos to argue with me and say that if you don’t smash the nose in the baby will only get the tip of the nipple. I was like “Uh, I didn’t say pull the baby way off, just angle the nose so we’re not suffocating the baby.”
Comment by No Booby Smashing! — October 20, 2011 @ 9:53 pm |