Secondary trauma, trauma experienced by those who witness the abuse of others, spills over into the lives of everyone who sees it, who is complicit in it, who is conflicted about their role in it, who fights with everything in them against it, who perpetrates it.
If we support out-of-hospital birth, we should welcome these opportunities for growth, even when they are uncomfortable.
“That doesn’t make sense, for her to wait until after she’s abused to call me. If she’s really worried about it, I can meet her at the hospital as her doula, and make sure that doesn’t happen.”
These words came out of a growing sense of frustration that American leadership is so quick to blame women for what are actually systemic problems in maternity care.
This case of birth monopoly is about the long-term legal prosecution of Agnes Gereb, the trailblazing Hungarian obstetrician who chose to become a midwife almost 20 years into her career so that she could support women on their own terms.
Birth plans are women being smarter than hospitals when hospitals fail to follow humane, science-based practices. That they have to be written down and pre-approved by a doctor is evidence of how little women’s decisions in birth matter.
