Birth. We all did it. Every person in the world was nurtured inside the body of a woman. However, worldwide, while performing this essential process 1,000 women die every day. There are 49 countries in the world where it is safer to give birth than the United States. For women of color in the US, the chances of dying is four times higher. For every woman who loses her life during childbirth there are 50 other women who almost die. Most of these deaths and complications are completely preventable, by changes such as decreasing cesarian sections and increasing access to midwifery care. Beyond the physical toll of giving birth there is an uncharted realm of emotional trauma. Childbirth does not need to be a treacherous process. We know how to improve. Birth can be joyous and empowering, not traumatic and life threatening.
Now is the time to change this system. Now is the time to speak out. We need to take the facts that have been gathered in hospitals and private homes out into the streets, bear witness to the crimes that are happening every day. We will speak boldly using art and our personal experiences. Here is what we want:
- Women MUST be returned to the center of their care; it is NOT selfish to expect to have a beautiful, fulfilling birth experience. The desired outcome of a birth should not simply be a healthy baby. Women have to live with their birth experience for the rest of their lives. All birth professionals must respect a woman’s decisions regarding interventions in labor.
- Professionals MUST sit down together with the women they care for and make a plan, with ACTIONABLE ITEMS, about how to improve the maternity care system.
- All birth professionals MUST implement a follow-up interview process with their clients. Feedback from women about their birth experience will help all professionals have a deeper understanding of how their behavior during labor is affecting the women in their care.
We are activists, advocates, mothers, doulas, birth professionals, grandmothers, sisters, daughters. We birthed at home, in hospitals, in birth centers, vaginally, via c-section, with midwives, with obstetricians and unassisted. We believe that women are wise and are experts on their own health and bodies. We are not here to tell women how they ‘should’ be behaving, but rather to perform acts that will make people think about assumptions we all share about birth and women’s bodies. We are determined to bring the issues surrounding maternity care in our country into the light and begin fixing our broken maternity care system. Viva la revolution!
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