Welcome to Saffron Doula's Blog!

I have decided, after much inner-dialogue, that I should put my thoughts concerning pregnancy, childbirth, local and national birthing culture, statistics, cesareans, trends, and the like into writing. What better way than to create a blog and link to it from my web site and MySpace?

In case you are wondering, I am a doula. A doula is a non-medical childbirth assistant. For more on doulas or my business, visit my web site, http://www.saffrondoula.com/.

I feel passionate about women's choices before, during, and after childbirth. I feel passionate about VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) as a safe option for the vast majority of women who have had cesareans (I'll go into that in another entry). I also feel passionate about cesarean sections and the continued need to make change in the maternity field. These passions do not detract from my passion for women's ability to choose whatever is best for them personally.

I do not believe that there is any "right" way to give birth, nor that the things I want and need during childbirth are necessarily the same as things anyone else will want and need during childbirth. Birthing is an inherently personal, spiritual, life-changing event with unpredictable variables throughout its process. It is imperitive that women regain their status as the owners and doers of childbirth, refusing the trend of the last 70-odd years where medical professionals are considered the owners of birth and birthing women, the determiners of what will be done to a woman's body.

Medical professionals are necessary in some cases. Don't get me wrong there. Prenatal care and medical advances like antibiotics for infection, blood transfusions, and necessary cesarean sections do save lives. However, what should be an open dialogue between care providers and women and other support people is too often an unhealthy dichotomy where the medical professionals take the power and the women are left with the consequences of unfair control held over them. We have been taught in this culture to trust doctors to a flaw. We expect them to be perfect when they're only human. We place our lives and our bodies into their hands and feel angry, betrayed, violated when something goes wrong, when the inherent unpredictability of life, birth, and death rears its ugly head and thwarts us all. Or we later discover that we had options not revealed to us at a pivotal moment, that we didn't need the surgery after all, that our bodies aren't broken, that we could have said "no."

I think we need to make some changes to our medical system across the board, but certainly in maternity. We as women and mothers need to be smart consumers, demand what we want and need, refuse what we see as unnecessary, and get real, detailed, thorough answers along the way. That's why I'm a doula - because women need to know what their options are, because I need to know what is going on behind those "secure" and "sterile" doors. I am a doula because women need support in their most vulnerable hours, and not just physical and emotional, but informational as well. Women need to have someone there for them who will say, "here are your options," "here are the risks they're not telling you about," and "remember, you're in charge here." I want to make some changes, and I think this is a good way to start.

Christina