Q&A with Gloria Lemay
Questions asked by LLM and answered
by Gloria Lemay (September, 1998).
Gloria Lemay is the only non-registered birth
attendant in the province of British Columbia
still serving parturient women; all others have
been terrorized out of practice by a monopolizing,
litigious, government-sanctioned midwifery cartel.
Ms. Lemay has been in service for over twenty
years, and is currently the most popular midwife
in B.C.
Q- Why did you become a midwife?
A- Because having my first homebirth was a
life-changing experience for me. Up until that
time I had worked in fields primarily involving
men; and when I gave birth to my daughter, I
really claimed my womanhood- it changed my direction
completely into wanting to work with women.
Q- What does birth mean to you?
A- it's one of the few opportunities we have
in life for transformation. The suck of life
is that people can change- that change will
happen over time. We come to believe that because
there is a lot of common agreement around it;
and transformation is expected to happen in
a predictable time-frame. Yet in birth, a transformation
happens outside of time- outside of time and
space. It's not something you can repeat or
do again; it's actually a change of substance.
I was transformed in my births, and creating
room for other people to experience that is
really important to me.
Q- Sometimes you call yourself a "private
birth attendant". Why don't you like to be
called "midwife" anymore?
A- Legally managed and sanctioned midwifery
tends to become invisible in the system very
quickly. Working outside the system is what
I do, and I am not attached to calling myself
a midwife- it's a lovely word to my ears, but
my definition of the word seems to be quite
different from the legislators in my province:
to them, "obstetrical nursing" is
equatable with "midwifery".
Q- What qualities make a good midwife?
A- Patience number one. And an ability to be
in true service- to put yourself aside and see
what is really needed in the other person. Love
in the heart... It helps to be smart. One should
be able to stay calm, and be reliable in the
face of emergency.
Q- What is the role of modern medicine in childbirth?
A- Mostly, to get the hell out of it. In a
small percentage of cases, modern medicine can
make a life-saving difference. But the harm
that doctors have inflicted on the women of
North America for no reason is like a holocaust.
A good analogy would be if you sent your kids
to the local swimming pool on ten different
days in the summer. If your child was given
complete CPR, oxygen, and a drug injection on
nine out of the ten days he went there because
the Lifeguard "thought" he was drowning,
and he wasn't, you'd get pretty upset. The fact
that normal, healthy young women walk into the
hospital to have a baby, and 90% of them came
out looking like they've had major trauma, is
ridiculous.
Q-Do you feel a backlash happening against the
homebirth movement?
A- I actually think that there's less as we
approach the year 2000. We've gotten to a point
where alternatives- and practices that have
endured over time- are becoming increasingly
accepted. Did you know that twenty-five percent
of people buy organic food? When an idea reaches
critical mass, what was the idea of a few people
suddenly becomes everybody's idea. The day is
coming quickly when the women who have been
persecuted as midwives will be rewarded for
their perseverance with very busy practices.
Q- What is your single greatest fear regarding
childbirth?
A- My natural fear is having a baby death,
because of the pain that the parents go through.
That fear keeps me smart, prepared, and keeps
me working preventatively, so parents have the
best chance possible of having a live baby.
I also fear that one of my clients will have
a cesarean section- or a forceps delivery- or
any of the other interventions that I hate.
Q- How many women should be getting cesarean
sections?
Q- Why aren't you a registered midwife?
A- I believe in joining and giving my membership
to organizations whose actions reflect my own
beliefs regarding their actions and stated philosophies.
The British Columbia College of Midwives is
not an organization to which I'd give my name
or my money. They see new midwives as a threat
to their monopoly of the homebirth market- I
was not welcomed or supported as a new midwife,
to say the least.
Q- Is there anything positive in the medical
model of birth?
A- There are a lot of positive things about
it, and if midwives are smart, they'd take all
the positives, duplicate them, and compete strongly
on the things that are not positive. Taking
things like clean fingernails, reliability (there's
always someone there when women show up at the
birth captivity center), making sure there's
enough oxygen in the oxygen tank, always having
lots of sterile gauze- there are certain things
that are useful, and conscious, that doctors
and nurses do that midwives can, and should,
duplicate. On the other hand, we can compete
very strongly with doctors and nurses because
midwives can do all those things easily, plus
offer preventative measures, womanly wisdom,
and our own experience in giving birth. We can
also offer a lot of tricks of the trade that
doctors don't know about- plus a gentler approach.
Q- What is the role of men in childbirth?
Q-What is your most important job as a birth
attendant?
Q- What bothers you most about TV's portrayal
of childbirth?
A- In order to sell commercial space, whatever's
being presented has to have a dramatic element.
Birth in real life is not dramatic- it is sacred,
moving, alive and earthy- but it's not something
that would make a dramatic screenplay. Birth
has to be warped a bit to make it saleable to
commercial interests. Unfortunately, people
get their general perceptions of birth, police
work and legal matters- and their perceptions
of those who work within these professions-
through what they see on TV. Midwives, police
officers and lawyers will tell you that the
every day work of their businesses is nothing
at all like what is seen on TV- but people never
believe it.
Q- What questions do you hear most from families,
and how do you respond to them?
A- Mostly- "How can we avoid being involved
with the medical system in any way?" They
want to avoid transfer to the hospital, having
a Doppler used to detect fetal heart tones ultrasonically,
diabetes screenings... Most people who come
to see me are referred by friends- so they've
already heard all about me. They already know
that I'm out of the system. In the course of
prenatal visits, we get to know each other,
trust each other and understand each other's
vulnerabilities. This all pays dividends at
the birth because everyone has only one focus-
the highest good of mother and baby.
Q- What should midwives do in society to help
heal birth?
A- What I concentrate on is one birth at a
time, with excellence in my practice. One woman
tells another, and soon a hundred people have
heard the birth story. Each birth creates a
ripple effect in the community- it's amazing
the effect that a normal birth has on people.
Q- What roles should midwives have- aside from
attending birth- in the community?
A- Classically, midwives have been the wise
women who looked out for their communities:
they were the women to whom you would go to
get help with burying your grandparents; the
women who would come with hot meals for the
family when the husbands have been ill; they
were mature women who never gossiped or betrayed
confidences. They furthered wise action and
harmony in their communities, and in turn, their
communities took care of and honored the midwives.
A midwife's role should be to promote harmony.
Q- How would a woman go about becoming a midwife?
A- The way I did it twenty years ago was best
for me. For four years I immersed myself in
reading, eating and breathing birth. We formed
different midwifery study groups, and I began
teaching prenatal classes. I did a lot of hospital
labor support, and was helped by friends who
were doctors and nurse-midwives. I learned a
lot from them. I also learned a lot about what
NOT to do at a birth... Some of these births
were such gruesome rapes I shudder to think
of them now. I know there are obstetricians
who hate women and are just plain evil in their
disregard. I really wanted to keep women away
from medicine as much as I could- so I learned
how do things like injections and suturing myself.
Also, a midwife needs to know many things to
be good at her job. She should learn all she
can about all aspects of life- she needs to
know about religion, government, history, economics,
auto mechanics, linguistics, geography, psychology,
matters of the law, physiology, crisis management-
she will have to have a wide repertoire of knowledge
regarding all aspects of women's lives.
Q- Could you briefly describe
your legal battles?
A- In 1985 my partner and I attended a homebirth
in Vancouver where a baby died. We were charged
with criminal negligence causing death to the
baby, criminal negligence causing bodily harm
to the mother, and four counts of practicing
medicine without a license. What ensued was
a six-year odyssey of appearing before the courts
in British Columbia and Ontario- ultimately
culminating in an appearance before the Supreme
Court of Canada. We were finally acquitted of
all charges in 1991. At that time I returned
to my midwifery practice (I wasn't practising
at all between 1985-91). In 1994 I had a baby
in my practice who died at three days old; and
there was a seven day Coroner's Inquest into
his death- which resulted in a finding of "accidental
death". There was a lot of negative publicity
and again, once it blew over, I returned to
my practice.
Q- What positive result came from your Supreme
Court case?
A- Our goal was for it to be the last time
midwives faced the criminal justice system in
Canada, and for our trial to be the end of all
midwifery trials in Canada. There has not been
a criminal arrest of a midwife since.
Q- What is the climate for you inside hospitals
when you need to take women in?
A- It varies- sometimes extremely hostile,
sometimes extremely cooperative- it seems to
depend on the mood of the hospital staff. I've
learned not to take it personally.
Q- Do doctors really believe they do right by
women by interfering with childbirth?
A- I think they're resigned to birth as it
appears to them inside the confines of a hospital.
They get resigned to what they see every day,
and believe that what they see is how birth
is supposed to be. I really feel that doctors
don't have a clue about what to do or how to
help birthing women- then they blame women for
"needing" interventions. They blame
the women for the terrible statistics. They've
been taught how to do things- and have never
questioned the wisdom of what they've been taught.
Q- Why do midwives in hospitals remain silent
regarding alarming intervention rates?
Q- Do some women- such as non-English speaking
or minority- suffer more in hospital births than
others?
A- I think that in Canadian hospitals some
women are used as teaching patients more than
others, so interns can learn procedures. These
women often have no idea what's going on, either
to them or around them. They also have an unrealistic
idea that modern technology is always better
than the simpler, more natural ways in their
own countries. I think it would make a difference
to these women if there were labor support people
of their own language or descent in hospitals
to help them. Young and uneducated women are
taken advantage of too. Two Burnaby midwives
were running a program for teaching teenage
mothers about nutrition in pregnancy; they soon
got a huge number of young women coming to them
for counseling. They would channel these young
mothers for their regular prenatal care to doctors
who never did episiotomies- that is, to gentle
women doctors. Soon, other doctors could feel
the pinch in their practices- and were forced
to develop kinder approaches as well. Hit them
where it counts to make change- in the wallet.
Q- What are the most important things a pregnant
woman can do to ensure the health of her baby?
A- Eat a good diet. Muster all the social support
she can around her. There have been studies
that have shown that these are the only two
things really make a difference.
Q- What are the two greatest advantages of homebirth?
A- No one will lose your baby, and so far no
one has had a cesarean section at home.
Q- Can you think of any disadvantages?
Q- Do breathing exercises really help in preparation
for childbirth?
A- Breathing exercises worked for me personally.
I love to have some familiar tools when going
into scary or unknown situations- learning how
to breathe was valuable for me going into my
own births. Some women don't care about them,
though. Every woman has unique wants and needs,
and midwives should listen, and put their own
judgments aside. If women say they would like
to be taught breathing exercises, then they
should be taught. That goes for anything else
as well. Midwives need to address women as individuals-
they need to address individual needs.
Q- What do you find most rewarding about being
a midwife?
Q- If you could tell all the obstetricians in
the world one thing, what would it be?
Q- What would you like written on your gravestone?
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