By Rebecca Mar Young
I enjoy hanging out with midwives. They are some of the most grounded people on earth and they have a solidarity and calmness about them that I admire.
I got to hang out with a lot of them recently at the 11th Normal Labour and Birth Conference I attended in Sydney. It was awesome and completely inspiring. Where else would you be asked to get up in your seat and dance to Pharrell Williams’ Happy at 9:30am to literally witness the power of oxytocin. Gotta love that – I certainly did and got down and boogied with everyone else.
There were over 500 people there and I was struck by the incredible number of strong women who had come together to re-shape the world. As I was sitting there listening to many of them get up and speak about their research, I thought to myself, isn’t it cool that here is a profession where older women are admired and respected and are doing such important work in the world. This is holistic feminism in action – for the greater good of all.
Some of the wonderful women who spoke include: Professor Hannah Dahlen; Professor Soo Downe – the lady who started these conferences back in England in 2001; Professor and Dr Kerstin Uvnas Moberg; Dr Sarah Buckley; Professor Caroline Homer; Professor Maralyn Foureur; Sheena Byrom; Professor Sally Tracy; Professor Sue Kildea; Bashi Hazard and Leona McGrath.
There were awe-inspiring men there as well, Professor Eugene Declercq, Professor Alec Welsh and Andrew Bisits to name a few. What struck me the most about them was how humble they were and how dedicated to the cause. They really listened to their women patients.
When Andrew Bisits was asked the question of what he actually tells women about how their breech baby would come out, he got a standing ovation. I felt it wasn’t just because of what he said, it was because he had listened to women and watched them birth over a long period of time and that was when he learnt the most, by just watching and learning and then answering their questions. Many of the women in his care had said they’d feel better if they could understand how the baby would come out and what their bubba needed to do – and so he would tell them, and then the women and their baby could be on the same page when it came to their big day.
I felt honoured to be part of such an important event for women as a whole. It was so hard to choose who to listen to as there were so many juicy topics. There were speakers from all around the world and each has their part to play in changing the face of birth.
Here are some of the talks that stayed with me…
It was challenging to hear how women birth in Iran. Dr Maryam Bazargan spoke about how currently there is no birth education at all in that part of the world. No one explains anything to the pregnant woman. Since the revolution 38 years ago they’ve taken up many Western advances and now birth is over-medicalised. Women must birth on a bed – no exceptions. No one is allowed in the room with her other than medical staff.
The wealthy women in Iran elect to have a cesarian as women have become petrified of birth. Culturally, vaginal birth is now seen in Iran as something only the lower class would do and not by choice. Natural vaginal births are considered an outdated practice. They have a 100% cesarian section rate in private hospitals and 78% in public hospitals. Dr Bazargan was saying that she feels it is a gender equality issue and until some of that changes, the experience of birth will sadly not change for women.
It was equally difficult to hear about women birthing in Jordan. Suha Hussein spoke about her research, which looked at the barriers and facilitators of introducing evidence-based practices around the use of episiotomy in Jordan. Over 90% of women receive an episiotomy in Jordan. It was clear from her research that there were unwritten rules that occur in hospitals that are different from the written-down policy. When midwives were interviewed, they said it was one of the first things they learnt when they started working – that women would be given an episiotomy. They didn’t really question it either, as it came from the top down and the Obstetricians were mostly males. According to them it made everything easier.
I was excited to hear the research behind my friend and colleague Nadine Richardson’s prep for birth program, She Births. I did the course myself prior to my second birth and had what I would call a rockstar birthing experience, choc full of oxytocin and all the rest.
The research was presented by Kate Levett. It was a five-year study conducted by the National Institute of Complementary Medicine at Western Sydney University. 176 couples were involved in this randomised controlled trial, which was facilitated in two major mixed demographic Sydney hospitals. It highlighted dramatic improvements for the study group who participated in the She Births program in comparison to the control group who received the standard hospital birth preparation course. The study group experienced fewer medical interventions (to a statistically significant degree) such as epidural and caesarean section, providing a safer outcome for their babies. Couples experienced shorter labours, particularly second stage (pushing) by 32 minutes and a 12% reduction in perineal trauma.
She Births is a two-day workshop for women and their birthing partners and it includes acupressure, yoga, guided visualisation, breathing, massage, facilitation of continuous partner support and an explanation of the physiology of birth. The study participants were asked what their most important tool was that they learnt and their answers from top to bottom were: acupressure, breathing, yoga/movement, visualisation/meditation, massage and partner support. After the birth they were asked what tools they used the most and in order of most to least they said: Breathing, acupressure, bath, yoga/movement, massage and j-breath.
If you’d like to know more about the Normal Labour and Birth Conference, send a tweet to Hannah Dahlen who organised the conference (@hannahdahlen). Twitter became huge at the conference and was encouraged as a form of communication, so I’m sure she’d love to hear from you about it. Also use the hashtag #normalbirth16 when sending a message.
See photos of the Normal Labour and Birth Conference 2016.
Would you like to learn to use acupressure and other natural methods to help the women in your care through their pregnancy, labour and birth? We offer an accredited online course for midwives and birth professionals. CPD/CEU points available for your professional portfolio.
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