They practice a profession which is not quite one, or which, certainly, goes beyond this denomination.
Is it really a profession to know how to “hold a whole space”—in the sense that we would not strip it of its existential, mysterious, I would even dare to say sacred dimensions—in which the immense moment of a birth takes place? ? Is it a job to listen deeply to what is required to facilitate the birth of a child, but also of a mother and a family? Is this what we would call this total availability, camped on a true ethics of accompaniment, articulated on the establishment of egalitarian, consensual relations?
Is it a job to know how to welcome life — and death, as sometimes happens — by never turning away either the heart or the hands, in a form of radical commitment which, let’s face it, is unfortunately threatened with extinction in our modern professional relationships? Is it a profession to offer both this quality of presence and this humility which makes those who practice it say: “I have never ‘given birth’ to anyone, it is women who give birth”?
Birth, its fulgurance, its grandiose and tragic theater call upon a posture which brings together so much knowledge: instinctive, technical, medical and human, above all.
That’s what they have, these midwives I’ve been writing about since they entered my life, and this, as much because they fascinate me as because they worry me, precariousness in which they are kept. We also remain eternally linked to those who held our hand, while a real coup unfolded in our bodily, psychic and identity territory.
I also know how not to “objectivize” a person giving birth sometimes draws the line differentiating a significant event from a traumatic event. The clinic of childhood and that of perinatal led me to develop a great esteem for all the professionals capable of offering to those who give birth an accompaniment which does not hinder this autonomy, and this, regardless of the outcome. . When dramas occur, whether we are at the birthing center or in the hospital, the way of explaining things, of offering or not offering options, the gestures that carry meaning and the gazes that do not shy away become so elements that will have an impact on the psychic digestion that will follow.
“It’s all in the way”, as the song said. “I understand that there is nothing more vulnerable than a woman between two worlds. This space still claims patience and silence; territories always to be reconquered”, wrote Sophie Arcand in the collection Rips and laces. birth stories, which we co-directed a few years ago.
Without devaluing the way in which babies are received in the hospital setting, without wanting to accentuate divisions which have never led to anything good, it is necessary to insist on a fact: the presence of midwives in the network of health gives pregnant people access to a greater diversity of choices about how they want to get through this time.
In this era when, as we know, women are still liable to lose whole swathes of their decision-making power over what is going on in their womb, the possibility of asserting their choices from the beginning to the end of the continuum of procreation seems all the more essential to me.
However, how can we understand that midwives, these real health professionals, graduates, are still struggling to obtain remuneration equivalent to their comparable professional colleagues?
If it’s not a job, is it a vocation then? “We tend to use this term when it comes to justifying the fact of underpaying people from whom we demand total commitment,” says Anabel Gravel Chabot, midwife in Estrie. “No, being a midwife is more of a way of life,” she told me. Because they offer exceptional availability to their clientele, they put in many hours of “on call”, including mental workload. This is the case for other health professionals, of course. However, their on-call hours are not remunerated, but well compensated, which, roughly speaking, generates a difference ranging from one to three times less than for all the other professionals in the network. We’re talking $1 to $2 for every hour of care; $1 an hour, to respond by first name to the mother who calls crying because she can’t breastfeed, to this other who needs advice on reducing the pain of the trenches or to this one too, who has just realized that she is having a miscarriage.
Instead of going to the emergency room, they will all be able to stay at home, while the midwife they know will come and sit on their bed, take care of them, blood, but also tears. Hard to quantify what this represents in savings for the health system.
In 2021-2022, 10% of midwives did not renew their license and 25% of positions remain vacant. If “keeping a space” is a job that requires many skills invisible to the naked eye, it is enough to have once been the one whose tears and blood flowed to recognize the immense value of having a midwife. by his side.