Confidence, like childbirth, is something you feel. The full expression of the first has a profound influence on the course of a birth, an experience sensitive to a thousand nuances and subtleties.
I believe that Bill 15, as it is presented to us, dangerously weakens this bond of trust and the multiple dimensions of birth.
I think of the birth stories that thousands of women have shared with me. Their stories made of words, but also, when we offer the space to welcome them, of silences, tears, smiles, postures, scars, emotions, muscular tensions, fear, trust, life , bereavement and support.
Does such a space exist in a health system focused on efficiency? Are all these dimensions fairly considered, in a system where we choose to elevate the medical dimension above the others?
I think of the story of my mother-in-law who, 40 years ago, gave birth to her son in her own bedroom, accompanied by her Marie-Paule, forced to practice her midwifery expertise clandestinely. . In the eyes of a vast majority, his choice was marginal. An ill-informed decision. Risky. Dangerous. In the eyes of a small handful of others, a courageous and militant gesture.
Are we adequately and sufficiently taught the power of our perceptions on the lived experience?
I also think of the experience of my own mother, who gave birth to me at the same time, on a hospital bed. Immobilized. After giving him an enema and shaving his pubis, the medical team worked to extract me from his body. She played the only role that this “choice” allowed her to play, that of lying down. Passive. Dispossessed of the intelligence of her body in the name of an excessively medicalized system.
Can we say that it is a choice when we have never been shown the existence of another possibility?
Fortunately, the birth scene in Quebec has greatly evolved. A context was constructed, not without difficulty, somewhere between my mother-in-law’s marginal delivery and my mother’s abusively medicalized delivery.
Thanks to the work of midwives, women, families and doctors who have shown openness, the birth stories I am told are increasingly centered around choices. But this work is still far from finished.
Obstetric violence remains a reality. Childbirth-related trauma remains very real. And this suffering, since it is largely trivialized by our systems, lasts, spreads or amplifies. Women’s bodies provide me with proof of this every day in my office.
This choice is still fragile. And still too often impossible.
We hope he is enlightened, but he is undereducated. Influenced by our androcentric medical history. Often pushed into the path of the familiar by the ignorance of those around us. Fed by their fear by projection. Women’s bodies provide me with proof of this every day in my office.
You have to be sensitive to a set of nuances so that a choice is the result of informed consent. Guided by trust. Towards the environment, towards the people who accompany him, and above all, towards his own body. It is full of these feelings of confidence and security that the body best abandons itself to its own intelligence to allow the process of childbirth as fluidly as possible.
I believe that Bill 15 is a real threat to this choice and to this bond of trust that is still so fragile that we are only just beginning to rebuild.
By imposing guardianship on midwives, it reduces the experience of birth to a passive concept of “medical care”, fueling power dynamics harmful to women’s health.
It downplays expertise that is both millennia old and supported by today’s evidence. It violates the fundamental rights of women by limiting their freedom to choose. It trivializes the importance of each woman’s role in her own childbirth. It limits women’s autonomy and power. He tells all women that it is risky to trust their own bodies.
It takes a long time to (re)build a bond of trust. Trust in midwives, yes. But especially towards our own bodies, which our medical paradigm has been busy destroying, consciously or not, for centuries.
Midwives have recognized, founded and demonstrated expertise. Medicine and obstetrics also have recognized, well-founded and demonstrated expertise. Absolutely nothing indicates that there is any benefit in opposing them, much less that one should be elevated above the other.
The posture is first and foremost that of accompaniment. Support the woman in her birthing process. To support her, to nourish her confidence. And intervene with expertise… only if necessary.
And midwives do this in an exemplary manner. Always.