Birth is easy; obfuscating medical factoids make
it hard. Modern obstetrical knowledge is based
on false hospital outcomes; more is known about
how bedridden patients give birth than how real,
panting, sensual women give birth. The wild animal
inside each of us is anesthetized in an unfamiliar
environment: we cannot hope to explore our primal
side in any hospital nor even at home if our birth
attendants are accustomed to working within sterile
fields.
Birth is not dangerous; birth need not be frightening;
birth does not require people well-versed in the
abnormalities of childbirth to observe and record
its every fluctuation. Birth needs to be trusted.
Birth needs to be believed in. Birth is safe.
There are qualities inherent in safe, loving
childbearing which must be recognized as the global
rights of all women. Dangerous, dehumanizing medical
procedures are violations against women's most
basic human rights and are also violations of
children's rights to be born without undue pain
and exploitation.
Birth's integrity diminishes as obstetric interventions
multiply. These are the rights of women and babies
everywhere:
1. All women have the right to sacred, fantastic,
profound, and loving birth experiences. Childbirth
must never be viewed by birth attendants as
routine, cumbersome or insignificant.
2. Childbirth must happen in physical and emotional
privacy. Women's vaginas in birth are as sacrosanct
as they are at any other time; routinely penetrating
them with fingers, forceps, scissors or hooks
is a severe violation against the most fundamental
rights women have to privacy and protection
of the self. Women have the right to vocalize,
move about, assume any birthing positions they
like, and allow their births to unfold uniquely,
without feeling the need to gain the acceptance
and approval of their birth attendants. Women
have the right to refuse birth attendants altogether.
All hospital staff, midwives, family members,
and friends of birthing women must have full
consent before viewing the childbirth process.
Women's bodies are never to be regarded as learning
aids. No institution has the right to impose
spectators on any woman's birth.
3. Women have the right and power of "No":
if they understand interventions and procedures,
and refuse to allow them to be implemented,
their refusals must be respected by all medical
personnel. Childbearing women will not be barraged
with attempts at mind-changing or browbeating.
4. All women must be physically safe at birth.
Instruments of routine interventions seriously
harm the bodies of women: scissors, knives,
harmful drugs, forceps, catheters, hooks, needles,
fingers, tubes, and razors can be classified
as tools of assault. Extreme caution must be
used whenever intervention into the natural
birth process is considered.
5. All babies, either in the process of being
born, or after their births, must not be harmed:
forceps, scalp electrodes, vacuum extraction,
rough or careless handling, early amputation
of the umbilical cord, suctioning catheters,
ventilating equipment, injections, eye treatments,
and an oxygen-deprived birth environment- caused
by either pain-relieving or induction drugs-
all cause a great deal of distress to new babies,
and can upset their future wellbeing as well.
6. All women have the right to complete, immediate
access to information regarding all procedures
done, either to them or their babies, in pregnancy,
birth and the postpartum. Women must be informed
of any potential harm of all procedures, regardless
of the length of time the explaining takes (except
in the most extreme cases). "Informed consent"
cannot be taken lightly by women or their birth
attendants. Women have the right to be made
aware of nonintrusive alternatives to common
hospital procedures- such as the superior safety
of giving birth at home, waterbirth as a safe
method of pain relief and the advantages of
natural, private methods of induction of labor.
7. It must be recognized as a criminal act
to mutilate women's bodies in childbirth.
8. All women must have easy, free access to
information that illuminates the natural childbirth
process for them, and helps them prepare for
their births, and assists them in preparation
for care of their newborns. This information
must be given in a way that does not view birth
as a dangerous, biological anomaly, but as a
natural, joyous one.
9. All women have the right to give birth wherever
and with whomever they choose; and to know the
safety statistics of any individuals and/or
institutions they choose to give birth with/in.
10. All women have the right of complete access
to all of their own recorded medical information,
as well as access to knowledgeable people to
interpret the information who are advocates
for the consumer.
11. The newborn must be viewed as a natural
appendage of its mother. Mother and child must
remain together, in quiet dignity, for as long
as the mother desires. Handling of the baby
by anyone other than its mother for the first
hours of life is to be strongly discouraged.
12. Ongoing breastfeeding information and support
must be available to all women.
13. The rights of women are inalienable and
will not be undermined by any government, male
partner, professional birth attendant, nor any
individual or group of individuals whose interests
do not reflect the wishes of parturient women
regarding their own, or their babies', safety
and wellbeing.
These rights cannot possibly, right now, be mandated
by any government; too many individuals and organizations
are exploiting women's basic needs to trust and
to feel safe for their own gain and/or expediency.
Yet birth cannot be safe when a woman's wishes
are secondary to those of her birth attendants.
These rights must be demanded by every woman;
no one will give them freely to her. These rights
are for women to learn and cherish. All enlightened
women must inform other women of their inherent
rights as women of the Earth
