thoughts on motherhood

Women contemplating motherhood face enormous challenges.  Pregnancy and childbirth are just the beginning.

Many Australian women tell me that they are angry when the 'system' dictates what they can and can't do.
"It's my body; my baby", they say.
"Surely I know what's best for myself and my baby!"
"Surely you're not allowed to not allow me?"

Women also tell me that they have deep sadness as they remember and reflect upon their experiences in birth.  "I know I needed a repeat caesarean.  But I felt like a piece of meat on a slab.  My baby was taken to the Nursery, while I was in Recovery.  I didn't see him for a couple of hours, and that still makes me sad.  I was afraid for him, and wanted him with me.  If I could have had a natural birth, I would have."

Natural birth has become the ultimate, longed-for experience in childbirth.

Unmedicated, physiological birth; uninterrupted, ecstatic, even orgasmic.
No clamping of the umbilical cord.  No separation of mother and baby - at all!  Not just the first hour, but as long as it takes.

Achieved by only a few.

Who wouldn't want to join that exclusive club?

Not only does the mother appreciate the physical, emotional and hormonal bonuses of working in harmony with amazing natural processes in birth, but the baby also joins in, without any prompting, in this unique primal dance.  


The point I am trying to make, and the main reason I am writing this post, is that there's a problem - women can't pick and choose their maternity journey.  My comments may seem predictable.  How many times have I written this sort of thing, since I started blogging in 2006?  

• The choices or decisions in maternity are quite simple - to intervene or not.  The biological processes in pregnancy, birth and lactation will continue as time passes.  
• Once interventions have occurred it may be difficult to return to the natural, healthy process.
• Undesired outcomes including death may occur, with or without medical or surgical interventions.

I have heard childbirth educators who teach that women who really want natural birth need to surround themselves with a team of supporters who will not waver in their support.  "The chain is only as strong as its weakest link," they say.  "If your supporters (including friends, husband, photographer, carer for children, doula, midwives) stop believing in you, they will cause you to give up just when you should be strong!"

This sort of advice is appalling.

Noone can predict a childbearing journey.  Natural birth is not something that can be ordered like a saleable commodity.  Women can't pick and choose.  A woman's pain in labour may be an indication of serious complication which, if nothing is done to relieve it, has catastrophic consequences.  A woman who shuts down her own responses to pain, and blocks the empathy and care of her supporters is ignoring natural processes at her peril.  A midwife who is disengaged, and sits on her hands rather than guide a woman on in labour, or, make the call to escalate care, is negligent or incompetent.  This might be as 'simple' as, without words, guiding a labouring woman to change her position, thereby moving from the transition to the second stage.  It may be as profound as telling the woman that you are now advising medical intervention, with all that that means.


Advice on childbirth has multiplied in recent years, with social media and internet communications.  A childbirth blog that has (literally) thousands of 'like's, tells us that "The legal authority in childbirth lies with the woman giving birth, not the providers ..." [link]

That's nonsense. 

There is a legal and ethical 'duty of care' that providers (midwife or doctor or other health care providers) are required to take very seriously.   It's an ongoing responsibility that the care provider carries as long as they are in attendance or other relationship such as in phone contact with the recipient of care.

This doesn't mean that all advice or decisions by providers are necessarily 'best practice' or acceptable to the woman.  Some providers maintain practices that are out of date, and believe they should intervene when others consider the progress to be uncomplicated and not requiring intervention.  Some providers (midwives and doctors) take large caseloads that result in cutting corners and burnout.  Human error is a constant threat.  These factors are balanced, to a degree, by the legal right of a competent woman to decline any intervention on herself (but not necessarily on her baby after birth).

We can talk about the legal and ethical standard for informed consent, but the hospitals/doctors/midwives know that they are much more likely to be defending their actions to their indemnity provider or the coroner or AHPRA.  


And there's the uneven playing field. The provider does *it* many times every day, while the woman is doing it for the first (or whatever) time - and takes the 'outcomes' (including pelvic floor damage, surgical wounds, infection, and many other types of morbidity, not to mention mortality) home.
 

Becoming a mother - bearing and nurturing a child - is an awesome and privileged position for any woman to be in.  Our bodies are wonderfully made.  

But, we can't pick and choose what happens in our maternity journeys.

The most healthy and 'low risk' pregnancy can suddenly and unpredictably be subject to life-threatening complications.  Alternatively, a woman with recognised risk factors can proceed without any complication.

Decision-making in the childbearing continuum is an ongoing process.  The woman who can trust her care provider enough to challenge or seek further discussion when any decision point has been reached is, I believe, in the best position.  The woman who believes she is alone, and has to be strong  and resist intervention or professional advice 'no matter what', is likely to be overwhelmed with fear and may make decisions that are not in her best interest.

Natural: is it good, bad, neither, or both?

It has been months since I put (virtual) pen to (also virtual) paper in this blog.

I have needed time to reset my body clock; to recover from the exhaustion and burnout after many years of midwifery and related professional activism.  I don't know if I have fully recovered yet.  The reality of ageing gives much to ponder; a relentless march towards exhaustion.

In recent months, with no midwifery to absorb time and energy, I have taken up some new challenges.  These photos show the performance of the 'Human Knitting Machine' at the Kyneton Show.

performance of the 'Human Knitting Machine'

The finished product

I am enjoying our new home, and the rural Central Victorian lifestyle.  The daily patterns of weather; the sun and clouds and wind; the subtle changes in the seasons; the growth and change in the garden - these natural life factors add wonder as well as sometimes concern to our days.

We are often delighted, and sometimes concerned, by the little members of our family and friendship circle, as they proceed through their developmental milestones.  This is all part of natural processes: sometimes good, sometimes bad, sometimes neither, and sometimes both.



Just as with retirement from attending births my life has changed, so has my capacity for writing.  Blogging has, for me, been closely linked with practice.  In the past, as I pondered the events of my professional life, the thoughts that surfaced became seeds for comment in this blog.

I now find that I need to shift my point of view from that of a midwife who was intimately involved in the day by day decisions related to maternity care and the lives of mothers and babies, to a more distant view.  As a retired midwife, my view is that of guardianship of birthing within the bigger picture of living.  I care deeply about what my society does to mothers and babies.  My right to comment continues as in the past.  Readers will need to decide whether my thoughts are valid and useful, or not.


Today I would like to consider *natural* in the maternity context.  Previously I wrote:

Giving birth spontaneously is, in my mind, a woman's *natural right* (not a legal right), just as we have a natural right to breathe, or walk, or perform any other natural function of our bodies.  Women do have a natural right to birth their babies.  Midwives are in the unique position to protect and work with that natural process, giving the mother confidence as she navigates the most challenging terrain.  The only way we can achieve our natural right to birth is if we stay on that natural pathway, and for the majority of women, this is a wonderful and rewarding phenomenon, working with the amazing hormonal cocktail that sets up powerful maternal instincts and bonding/attachment for mother and baby. 

I know of no better way for birth than to proceed under the spontaneous, hormonally mediated natural process from conception to birth, and beyond to nurture and mothering of the infant - MOST of the time.

Natural pregnancy, birth, and nurture of our children is good - MOST of the time.  Regardless of race, wealth, or other social factors, our bodies and minds are set to the 'default' that whatever is natural will be, unless something is done to redirect the course of events.

Whether we apply this principle to maternity issues, or any other ordinary life event, *natural* can be awfully unpredictable, and unmanageable.  There is no therapy that can make it work better, or reign in the unpredictability.  There is no drug that will 'fix it'.  Modern Western medical management of maternity care seeks to minimise 'risk', and in so doing reduce the impact of the spontaneous natural process: to remove the 'MOST' element, and make maternity just another predictable, manageable medical event that complies with medical guidelines and protocols.


For the midwife who is committed to working in harmony with natural processes, except when there is a valid reason to interfere, the big challenge is to know when the natural process is likely to result in harm; when medical and other interventions are likely to lead to improved outcomes.  This requires clear thinking by the midwife or other primary care professional, and independent clear thinking by the woman who receives the advice that a process other than the natural one is being recommended.

I want to emphasize the need for independent thinking by the woman.  The first decision to interrupt the natural birthing process is profound, and the woman must take responsibility for it as her own decision.  It doesn't matter how much trust there is between the woman and her midwife, or doctor for that matter.  The first intervention, which can quickly cascade into a whole bunch of subsequent interventions, can be a life and death decision point.  As can the decision not to intervene!

I started this post by saying that

I know of no better way for birth than to proceed under the spontaneous, hormonally mediated natural process from conception to birth, and beyond to nurture and mothering of the infant - MOST of the time.

During the past couple of decades I have experienced progressive increases in reliance on medical intervention in maternity decisions, paralleled by loss by women in their ownership of their commitment to natural, spontaneous, unmedicated birth.  In Australia today, the woman's ability to make her own consumer choices has eclipsed any valuing of or protecting physiology.  This has made maternity decisions more like walking down the aisle in the supermarket and making selections based on price, packaging, or some other possibly insignificant factor.

I'm not wanting to suggest that I think maternity care was better 20 years ago, when I was busy with midwifery and maternity activism; or 40 years ago, when I was having my own babies; or even 60 years ago, when as a young child I learnt much about mothering from my own mother.

Twenty years ago we were working to demand that midwives be called midwives, not nurses, in hospitals.  We had supported the release of a Code of Practice for Midwives in Victoria.  We were promoting the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, through which maternity hospitals were supported in the protection, promotion and support of breastfeeding as the health promoting natural resource of mothers and their new babies.

As time has passed the indicator of reliance on medical rather than natural processes has been the consistently increasing rate of caesarean births in otherwise healthy pregnancies. 

Women don't, on the whole, choose caesarean surgery.  They enter systems of care that sets up the cascade of interventions, so that there is no safe alternative but to bring it all to a conclusion, and when that happens the most rational and helpful option is surgery.  Women, midwives and doctors play games that set up a mirage of choice as the prize, when in reality there is no choice.

Natural birthing can be very good, or very bad.  It can be neither good nor bad.  It can be both good and bad.  Society will either benefit or pay the price for its reliance on the natural physiological processes in maternity decisions.

legal rights in childbirth?

Bec and Lucinda

For some years I have been troubled by apparently common misunderstandings of a woman's *rights* in maternity care.   I have pondered these questions publicly on this and other blogs; questions of choice and informed decision making. 

Consider these statements:

You [a competent adult] have the *right* to bodily autonomy.  This means that noone is permitted to do anything to you without your permission.

In any health care situation, including maternity care, you [a competent adult] have the *right* to decline a treatment or intervention.

These legal rights are well established, and I am not going to spend time discussing them. 

Now consider the following statement, which appeared this week in a news article titled Risky underground homebirths: freebirths tipped to rise:

"Women have the legal *right* to birth how they want to"

A legal right? 


Surely not!

Even in the most ideal maternity care situations there will be some women who, in order to protect the life and wellbeing of the mother and her baby, will be advised to undergo surgery.   What happened to these women's legal rights to birth how they want to?

Maternity care in the developing world is often far from ideal.  Women whose health has been compromised by war, social exclusion, poverty, poor nutrition, disease, and other preventable conditions give birth to babies often in shocking conditions, with high rates of mortality and morbidity.  Do these women have a legal right to birth how they want to?  No!



Giving birth is a natural, spontaneous phenomenon, if a woman's body is left to its own devices.
Babies will be born naturally whether someone is monitoring progress or not.   
The sort of birth that the mother wants, which according to the quote above is her legal *right*, may be very different from the natural outcome.  

Giving birth spontaneously is, in my mind, a woman's *natural right* (not a legal right), just as we have a natural right to breathe, or walk, or perform any other natural function of our bodies.  Women do have a natural right to birth their babies.  Midwives are in the unique position to protect and work with that natural process, giving the mother confidence as she navigates the most challenging terrain.  The only way we can achieve our natural right to birth is if we stay on that natural pathway, and for the majority of women, this is a wonderful and rewarding phenomenon, working with the amazing hormonal cocktail that sets up powerful maternal instincts and bonding/attachment for mother and baby.
   
Those who have access to modern hospitals are not bound to use their natural right: they can obtain medical management and intervention, which is provided in modern societies along with other medical services.   We are privileged to have this access, and even a degree of choice in planning the way babies are born.  But, access to choice in the way a baby is born is not a simple matter.  It's not a legal right. 

I think it would be silly to argue that women have any legal right to a particular medically managed pathway in childbirth.
 
So, with great respect, I would like to suggest that midwives and maternity activists stop saying that women have a legal right to birth how they want to. It's nonsense.


Why am I so concerned about this question?

I have read coroner's findings, acted as an expert witness, and discussed cases with peers, and the recurrent theme has been this distorted belief, on the part of the midwives, that women should be able to choose the sort of birth they want, and that the midwife should facilitate this choice.  Midwives working under this belief have forgotten the harsh reality that preventable death and disability is often not far away.

The mother who wants an 'undisturbed' birth, and tells the midwife that she does not want any monitoring of her own vital signs or her baby's.  Yes, she gives birth, and usually the baby's condition is good.   ...

The mother who has various medical conditions including unmanaged gestational diabetes, wants a VBA2C, and who decides that there is too much negative energy in the hospital, so she finds an independent midwife who commits to homebirth.  ...

The mother who feels that she suffered trauma in her previous birth, in which labour was augmented, and a forceps birth resulted in severe perineal tearing which was repaired.  She does not know what she should do.  Should she request an elective caesarean birth? ...

These mothers may not be claiming any legal right to the sort of birth they want.  But they are looking for competent professional care.  A midwife can proceed on life's path with the woman, and provide information, support, expert advice, and sometimes guidance.

The midwife can support the woman's natural right to spontaneous birth, in the setting that is considered most appropriate at the time. 



Footnote:
In relation to human rights and birth at home, the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Ternovski v Hungary (2010) is significant.

in two minds: why 'choice' is often a mirage

Today I am looking at (the woman's) choice, decision-making (whether it can be called 'informed' or not), and the midwife's challenge which, by definition, includes the protection, promotion and support of healthy natural processes in birth and nurture of the baby. 

From time to time a book or an article promoting women's *rights* in pregnancy and childbirth comes to my attention.  A recent feminist blog is headed with a big question "Why is it still controversial to say that women should make the decisions about childbirth?"

The group Maternity Choices Australia, which emerged out of Maternity Coalition (an organisation in which I was active for a couple of decades) has placed strong emphasis on a woman's own choices in the maternity terrain.


Who is *in two minds*?  
The woman herself. 

What are the two minds?
The woman's intellectual mind and the intuitive mind.  The same brain has separate parts that are used differently.

Why is 'choice' often a mirage?
Choices that are made (using the intellectual mind) prior to the time at which the intuitive mind takes the lead (particularly in labour and bonding) can be irrelevant, but can trap the woman. 


Although I am critical of a great deal of the maternity choice campaign as I see it today, my criticism is based on my understanding of the physiology of birth, which describes the two minds and their interaction with each other; not on feminist arguments of women's rights or fetal personhood.

The person missing from the current arguments about a woman's own choice is the midwife.  Not the generic midwife, whoever is given the task of providing midwifery services at a given moment; the one midwife who is acting as the unique professional, dedicated to working alongside and in partnership with that individual woman through the pregnancy, birth, and postnatal.

I am ready here for someone to tell me that I am being idealistic.  How can health services provide a one-to-one partnership between each woman and a committed midwife whose skill and knowledge the woman is able to trust at any decision-point?

Yes, I know it's not easy.  I have recently ceased providing this level of midwifery care, because I have become too old; too weary.  I can no longer offer to stay awake past my bedtime, or get up in the wee hours; to put aside my own needs hour after hour for the sake of what I believe to be optimal care in birth.   I still see that as optimal, even though I can no longer offer it. 

The only way I can see a maternity world that protects women's ability to make decisions about childbirth is when systematic changes are made so that midwives and women can honestly explore any choices that are presented as time progresses.  When the woman, using her intellectual mind, can explore and grasp the complexity of decision-making in labour, and can trust her midwife-partner to interrupt her from her intuitive state only if she needs to bring a matter of importance to her (intellectual) attention.  

I want to caution here, that without effective partnership, midwives and maternity services, as well as mothers, can err in over-reliance on 'natural' birth.  A UK report highlights the need for caution.  Anecdotes are common and some lead tragically to coroner's reports.


A midwife who delegates decision-making completely to the woman is foolish, lazy, incompetent, unprofessional!
For example:

Midwife A says she believes the woman is free to make any choice she wants about how long to stay in a birth pool after giving birth. 

The woman B has progressed in harmony with amazing natural, physiological forces in her body to give birth unmedicated and unassisted to her baby.  This was just what the new mother B had wanted, and she had (in her intellectual mind) chosen this pathway as having real advantages for herself and her baby.   Midwife A had supported B's plan. 

In the minutes after the birth, B stayed in the birth pool, hormonally awash in the beauty of her newborn and the afterglow of her ecstatic experience.  Midwife A was confident that all was well, and said nothing about getting out of the water.  Baby C did what healthy unmedicated babies do: she found her mother's breast.

Mother B experienced painful uterine contractions, and about 30 minutes after the birth B experienced a gush of blood, and midwife A reassured her that her placenta was about to be born.  Nothing was said about getting out of the water.

More minutes passed, with further after-pains, further bleeding, but no expulsion of the placenta.  Nothing was said about getting out of the water.

Why?

Because Midwife A believed B would know when she needed to get out of the water.

Midwife A was wrong.  Mother B was using her intuitive mind as she nurtured and bonded with her baby C.  She had no idea of time, or any other aspect of expected progress that her intellectual mind had considered prior to the birth.  The only intuition about moving out of the birth pool came much later, when B became faint.  I don't need to spell out the consequences of this error in delegation of 'choice'.



In conclusion, I can say that it is still controversial to say that women should make decisions in childbirth.  The big challenge is that midwives and women are enabled to work together, in deep respect, and with freedom to find the best course as time passes.  Neither can do it alone.

the myth of choice

1983 - working night shifts a the Women's

For a couple of decades now, *choice* has been a pillar of the natural birth movement.

An organisation that I am a member of has the vision, that
"Every woman can choose how, where and with whom she births."

This vision has troubled me for some time.  Today I am attempting to critically explore the notion of choice, and whether it is desirable or imaginable that every woman choose "how, where and with whom she births."


Firstly, some historical considerations:

• The Fortelesa (Fortaleza) Declaration (1985) on appropriate use of technology in birth challenged interventions, from shaves and enemas, to inductions of labour.  This seminal document also declared that "The whole community should be informed about the various procedures in birth care, enable each woman to choose the type of birth care she prefers".  *CHOICE!*
• Changing Childbirth in the UK (early 1990s) declared that women want the 3C's: *choice*, control, and continuity of care.
• A call for *choice* of place of birth (home/hospital) and care provider (such as individual midwife or the maternity system) was clear in the Australian National Maternity Action Plan (2002).

At the same time,  twenty years ago,

• emerging trends in medical research led to the Cochrane Collaboration, defining the reliability of evidence;
•  UNICEF and World Health Organisation introduced the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, with a key document being the Innocenti Declaration  of 1990. 
•  various state and territory governments around this country were conducting broad reviews into birthing services, and producing their reports. (eg Having a baby in Victoria 1990)  These reviews sought consumer comment as well as professional.
•  WHO prepared a series of basic publications on maternity care, including Care in Normal Birth: a practical guide (1996).  This document brought a consensus statement that "In normal birth there should be a valid reason to interfere with the natural process"

During the past two decades the world has experienced the digital revolution.  Twenty years ago, in 1994, few households had computers: the world wide web and email had only just been invented.   This phenomenon exploded communication and access to reliable information.  Our home went 'on line' in the early 90s, with a (very slow, and unreliable) dial up connection, and we were leaders in the field.   Prior to that, if I needed to send an email, I would ask my husband Noel to send it from his office at the university.  He kept up with the expansion of knowledge via inservice education, and a very helpful secretary, Jean.  He became the 'IT' expert in our home, until our children absorbed the knowledge and quickly spoke the language, as children do.  (but I have digressed from my topic!)

Twenty years ago, professional peer reviewed scientific publications were held in libraries, and accessed by scholars and the intelligencia.  Today, there is an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge at the tip of our fingers, from our computers, tablets, and phones.

Twenty years ago, information about natural childbirth was passed from teacher to student couples in highly motivated childbirth education.  Today women join social media groups where they share everything from their nausea and indigestion, to ultrasound pictures.  These groups, as well as personal blogs and microblogging, have introduced a degree of sharing of opinions, and introspection ('navel gazing'), that would have been unimaginable when person to person communication was limited to a telephone or over the back fence or a tea room at work.

So, what about choice?

In discussing choice in childbirth with colleagues and other interested folk, I have been a little surprised to observe that the woman's right to decline (a treatment/intervention) is often perceived to be the same as a choice in maternity care.  A woman's autonomy in any care situation (whether it's her toe nails or the birth of her child) is often limited to the little word "No!"

By way of example:

Jill is in hospital, in labour with her first baby.  Jill has been told she needs a Caesarean, because she has been labouring without adequate progress, and the doctor is concerned that her labour is obstructed and her baby is becoming distressed.

Jill does not want a caesarean birth, but she has no other options at this time, other than to do nothing, and that may lead to injury/death to her baby.  She has planned for a natural birth, because she believes that's the best way for her and her baby.  Jill has written in her birth plan/preferences document that if she truly needs a caesarean birth, she wants her baby's umbilical cord to remain uncut, and the placenta delivered intact (known as 'lotus' placenta).  She wants her baby to be placed skin to skin on her chest, and to remain with her in the operating room and in recovery so that breastfeeding can be initiated without delay.  She is aware of 'natural' caesarean births, discussed on her social media forum, and likes the idea. 

Jill communicates her wishes to her doctor.  If that doctor has previously supported women's choices in this way, he/she might be willing to agree.  But Jill is a patient in a public hospital.  The doctor who is performing the surgery is being supervised by the consultant obstetrician, and does not feel able to accommodate such a radical plan.  The hospital's policy is to send the baby and the father to the nursery while mother is in recovery, and Jill is told that the hospital is not able to provide suitable staff to accommodate her choices.  Jill has run out of options.  She needs the help of the hospital to get her baby safely born, and she finds to her surprise that the notion of choice doesn't work in this situation.

 Jill thought, prior to coming into labour, that she had chosen:

how: a natural birth 
where: in the local public hospital
with whom: the hospital staff at the time

'how' Jill gives birth is something that cannot be predicted, whether she chooses a private hospital with the most popular obstetrician according to the online rating system, or the guru homebirth midwife who has amazing skill and, according to social media, can do all sorts of things to make birth work as it's supposed to.  The best Jill can find out when she is choosing her care provider is an approximate rate of spontaneous unmedicated births that person reports for woman in their care.

I (frequently) remind women that they have only one choice in childbirth - to do it themselves, or to ask someone else to take over. This is the case, whether it's avoiding induction, having a vaginal breech birth (vbb), a vaginal birth after caesarean (vbac), a physiological 1st, 2nd or 3rd stage. (Haemorrhage and death are also physiological). 

There's an obvious rationale for the skilled midwife in these equations. A primigravida who wants to have a natural unmedicated birth, booked at Caesar's Palace, in the care of a knife happy OB, may have chosen where and with whom she births, but doesn't have much chance of achieving the 'how'.  

Choice is also dependent on money $$$.

The woman who chooses a caesarean for her own (not clinically indicated) reason can get a private doctor to deliver her baby if she can pay the doctor's fee (Medicare + out of pocket) and the hospital fee. But she has very little say about who else is in the room - her partner is likely to be welcome but may be asked to step outside. 

If we have a vision that every woman should be able to choose how - including elective C/S - do we think our public health $ should be supporting that so that women who can't afford the co-payment are also able to rock up and *choose*?
 
I am very concerned about over-spending of health $.  

The only sustainable policy direction in maternity care is to protect, promote and support the natural processes in birth wherever that is reasonable. The workforce needed as experts in achieving this goal is midwives whose duty of care by definition includes "promote normal birth". This does not remove the woman's right to make an informed decision to decline or accept the plan. Medical and surgical options should of course be available to those for whom they are likely to lead to better outcomes, but that's not a matter of the woman's *choice*.


Your comments are welcome.

Informed or mistaken?

Informed choice
Informed decision
Informed refusal
...

In my world the adjective 'informed' is often used in an attempt to declare that the person who is making the 'informed' choice/decision/refusal/whatever is intelligent, and has carefully considered options.  My question is, often, who's kidding whom?


A woman who wants to make an informed choice about who provides her care, and other aspects of the model of care, can only choose from what is available to her. 

A woman who wants to make an informed decision, particularly about an aspect of natural, physiological birth, may say she does not want to be treated as the next number on the production line.  She does not want standard care, whatever that is.  She wants to be treated as an individual.

A woman who wants to make an informed refusal of, for example, pre-labour caesarean surgery for a baby presenting breech, can find herself up against a system that does not support or understand her intentions.


In the often complex and demanding journey that a woman takes in giving birth to and nurturing her baby, the information available can be only marginally relevant to the individual situation: the choices and decisions can appear as shades of grey, rather than good and bad.  The constant juggling of the interests of the woman and her child, within the multiple contexts of a marriage, a family, a maternity service, and a community, can change the options for decisions in a moment.  In fact, a woman who considers herself well informed, and who is intentional about proceeding with an unmedicated physiological birth, has very little choice when some person with authority says "We need to get your baby delivered now."  A woman in labour who is confronted with even the suggestion that her baby's condition may be compromised, without whatever intervention is being offered, can suddenly find herself submitting to something that she would otherwise have avoided.


Health care, and especially maternity care, has changed in recent decades, from a "doctor-knows-best"-no-discussion model, with a hierarchical knowledge-based framework, to a system that attempts to include and respect the wishes and values of the patient/client.   This is, I believe, to be encouraged in principle.  But, in practice, I am often frustrated at the absence of an appropriate conversation about decisions or choices that need to be made.


At present the Melbourne Coroner's office is inquiring into the circumstances around the death of a baby whose mother intended to give birth at home.  Newspaper reports of this inquiry highlight the fact that the mother had refused caesarean surgery a few days before she came into labour.  In a news paper report of the proceedings, a medical specialist is reported to have said that: 

the "inadequate, incomplete and at times misleading information" available, particularly on the internet, made it difficult for women to make an informed decision about their birth plans.

There is little doubt from the reports that the mother believed she had made informed decisions.  Yet, in the tragedy of loss of the life of a baby, it's easy to argue that there were seriously mistaken decisions that led to the events of that day.


Women who have had previous caesarean birth(s) may make choices and decisions about their carers, and their planned place of birth, early in their pregnancies.  By way of contrast, women who find that their baby is presenting breech as they approach Term are suddenly confronted with a bewildering array of decisions.  As they obtain information they become aware that there is no right way (eg elective caesarean) and wrong way.  There is increased risk in breech birth, regardless of the actual method of birth. At each decision point, they can feel exposed and uninformed, even misled - but decisions must be made and there is no turning back.  Each decision places the participants in a new context, which may lead to more decision-making.

A woman who had planned to give birth naturally in a hospital birth centre found that her baby was frank breech a couple of days after her due date.  The special set of decision points that she encountered after the breech diagnosis were:

• attempt external cephalic version (ECV): the decision was made on Saturday that this baby was not suitable for ECV, and the mother was informed that she would be booked for a Caesarean on Monday.
• spontaneous onset of labour: Mother laboured at home Sunday night, and called her midwife for support around midnight.
• progress in labour: After several hours of established labour, the mother's cervix was dilated 6-7cm, and the presenting part was high.  The decision was made to go to hospital.  Labour continued strongly.  The obstetrics registrar at the hospital agreed that progress was good, but advised a caesarean birth.  The mother declined, and stated that she was intending to give birth vaginally.  All maternal and fetal observations were within normal range.
• review of progress in labour: After several more hours of labour, full dilation of the cervix was confirmed, but no progress of the presenting part.  Once again the mother was advised that she needed caesarean surgery, and this time she agreed.  Her baby was born in good condition, and the hospital staff facilitated early skin to skin contact and breastfeeding in the recovery area of the OT. 

In discussion a week after the birth, this woman commented to her midwife, "You know, it's a totally different outcome, having a caesarean birth after labour, knowing that I couldn't do any more myself, than if I had agreed to it the first or second time I was told I needed it."

The midwife agreed.  The decision making process included an ongoing review of the progress of mother and baby through uncharted terrain.  The decisions were made on the best information available.  There was ultimately only one *choice* - for the woman to do it herself, or not.  This is the only informed birth plan a woman can make, and follow through with.


related posts:
decision making for breech
breech vaginal birth
messages about breech births