I Never Want to go Near That Hospital Again!
I never want to go near that hospital again! Strong words said by a mother… Then another mother says to me, “There’s no way I’m going to the hospital!” And then another mother says, “I don’t want to go to the hospital for even one check up. Everyone I know ends up with caesareans…” Three different mothers. Three very different scenarios. Three very different backgrounds. Three different belief systems. And yet this very strong underlying feeling from all three. And all in the same week. What do I do? What do I say in these situations? I sit and write this whilst waiting for my students to arrive. I am part of a group of women who teach the 4th and 5th-year medical students ‘compassion’ as part of their obstetric training. It is a programme that was started several years ago by midwife Robyn Sheldon. The students arrive and I put away my pencil and notebook. They are chatting amongst themselves. I hear the words, “I am so tired.” repeated several times. We begin the tutorial by sitting quietly and comfortably in chairs in a circle. The pressure is off and all we need to do is observe our individual breath as it moves in and out of our nostrils. We allow ourselves to just be. We observe or thoughts, emotions and feelings as they arise and drift in and out of us. We note the hustle and bustle taking place around us in the hospital. The clanging. The announcements. The hurried footsteps. The cars in the road outside. We notice these things but each time we go back to our breath, allowing that to be our centre and anchor. After some time, we open our eyes. Now it feels like we have truly arrived. It feels like we are truly present and can now truly see each other. We begin the tutorial by going around the circle and checking in. How has their week been in the labour ward? One by one, we go around the circle and what I hear is distressing story after distressing story. They are exhausted. They feel overwhelmed. They do not like how they are being treated and they cannot bear how the women in labour are being treated. They cannot wait for this part of their training to be over. Some had really looked forward to being in the labour ward and being part of birth and babies, bringing new life into the world. But right now, it feels like a war zone and something they need to get through and survive. I tell them briefly about the blog post I was working on when they came in and the title, I never want to go near that hospital again! I tell them about the three different women who shared these sentiments in three different settings and all in the same week. I say it is a pity because, in an ideal world, these women would live in a society where they could trust and feel supported by the health care system. What has happened when seeking help from places meant to heal and support comes as a last resort? Or is stressful and traumatic? Or something to be avoided at all costs? We discuss this further for some time when one student pipes up, “You can add one more person to your blog post who never wants to go near a hospital again, a fourth-year medical...
Read MoreThis is Marthe and she had a Home Birth…
When Marthe was eighteen years old and newly married, she went into labour one Cape Town spring morning. She was living down the road from her Aunty Maggie and Aunty Martha’s house and the two busy body aunties came to see if the pains the expectant mother was complaining about were indeed the pains of labour, they were there to keep the nervous young husband at bay, and to send a young boy to summon the midwife. The local midwife soon arrived on her bicycle and stayed with young Marthe for three days before deciding to send the young woman off to Groote Schuur hospital. The labour was taking too long and the baby was not coming. The midwife was concerned. After three days of labour and after being transferred to the hospital, Marthe gave birth to a skinny little baby girl. The doctors were baffled as to why the tiny girl had taken so long to come. Eighteen months later, Marthe was in labour again. Again she was at home, and again the local midwife joined her. This time the labour seemed to be progressing smoothly and soon Marthe began bearing down. By some strange twist of fate, the house across the road caught alight. While Marthe easily heaved out a large ten-pound baby girl, a woman died as the house opposite burnt to the ground. (Birth and death walked side by side down that road that day…) Marthe was my grandmother and the large baby girl was my mother. Marthe was pregnant again three years later, and she gave birth easily, at home, attended by a midwife, to another girl. Smaller this time. Life went on and many things changed, especially my grandparents’ social status and when my grandmother fell pregnant in her thirties it was only natural, that this laatlammetjie(1) birth would take place in a hospital, under the care of the best doctors that money could buy. It was years later, when my grandmother was hard of hearing, and cataracts had begun to form in her eyes, that I took her along to a birth film festival I had organised in Cape Town at the Labia theatre. On the drive home, she divulged her birthing stories to me, and she admitted that giving birth at home, had been for her first prize and that paying all that money to have her baby “delivered” in a hospital had been a disappointment. After watching these beautiful birthing films that night, she had only one regret. She would have liked to have had a water birth! * (1) Afrikaans: a child born many years after his or her siblings * My grandmother died in France two years ago, whilst on holiday with my aunts. She had been quite ill and been a given a short time to live so she took herself and her daughters off on one last holiday and shopping spree before she passed away in Nice. She was cremated and has been at rest in a crematorium in Nice. This week my aunts bring her back to Cape Town where she will be buried, alongside my grandfather (who passed away over twenty years ago). Rest in Peace Jiajia, and welcome...
Read MoreBirth : A Poem
Birth: What is birth? Birth is the emergence of a new individual from the body of it’s mother. The emergence of that new individual, is the emergence of a new life. Birth is completely normal yet unbelievably profound. As that baby emerges, everyone holds their breath….. Where do we give birth? We choose to have our babies in various settings: At home In hospital In a theatre And sometimes these are not choices but necessities. Sometimes we plan to give birth in one way but then something completely different may happen. Sometimes babies are born in trees, or on trains or by the roadside. Sometimes babies choose for themselves where they want to be born. Where and how we give birth affects who we are. It affects how we are as parents. We need to feel safe. We need to feel confident. And we need to feel in control, so that later we can lose control. If a woman feels cared for and nurtured, she is more likely to love and care for her baby. When we feel safe where we give birth, we give birth more easily. If we feel frightened or vulnerable, we may feel traumatised and incapable of loving our babies. If we are made to believe that we are incapable, we may hand over the power to someone else. There is a hidden secret in our culture: ‘It is not that birth is painful It is that women are...
Read More