birth + consent.

Yesterday, the LA Times released an article, "Pregnant women show an amazing lack of knowledge about childbirth options, study shows". 


My initial response: No shit.


The stats speak for themselves. Over 1 in 3 babies are born surgically in the United States. In her most recent book Birth Matters, Ina May Gaskin points out “It is simply unacceptable that a U.S. woman giving birth today has a greater chance of dying than her mother did."


This is no joke. 


There are a lot of things that make thing the way they are for people giving birth. One of those things is the failure of care providers to obtain informed consent and sometimes consent in general. 


There is the dream we all have that women and all people giving birth will unlearn the notion that our bodies belong to someone other than ourselves and that, in its place, we will learn to demand that anything that happens to our bodies is because we say it can happen BEFORE we birth our babies. 


Given this recent article & lots of things birth workers already know, this is not the case. It is at best unfortunate and at worst traumatizing for the birthing people we work with in the moment that they lose the ability/option to give consent. Or even worse if their whole experience with birth is such that they believe consent was never an option. 


This is an opportunity for birth workers to change the way things are with regard to consent. Again, we live in a culture that takes ownership over our bodies. As a doula, my greatest accomplishment is not necessarily having clients who ALL have natural vaginal births. My "record" is not just about quantitative outcomes. The accomplishment is hearing my clients say that the support I gave them empowered them to make their OWN best decision for their birth and their baby. This accomplishment begins with teaching the power and the requirement of giving consent.