Submission and Stirrups (aka, Two Posts in One)

"I used to have fantasies...about women in a state of revolution. I saw them getting up out of their beds and refusing the knife, refusing to be tied down, refusing to submit... Women’s health care will not improve until women reject the present system and begin instead to develop less destructive means of creating and ...maintaining a state of wellness." ~"A Woman in Residence," by Dr. Michelle Harrison

There is a fine balance to maintain in labor and birth. Labor is about the giving up, the letting go - it is a sort of submission to one's self. Allowing yourself to become fully succumbed and submitted to the power of your body, that is labor and birth.

Somewhere along the way, we have forgotten how to submit to ourselves and, instead, have begun submitting to our care providers. This is a gentle reminder that we hire our care providers, not the other way around. If you don't feel in partnership for your health care, perhaps you should find a different partner.

There are so many things that are designed for the care providers comfort and composure, not for the woman's needs, comfort, or composure. Some examples:

• Stirrups for cervical checks, VEs, etc..
• Gowning
• Lying on Your back for labor/birth
• Most inductions
• Many cesareans

and the list goes on...

On the same token, I fumbled into a really cool site. It is called Stirrups and Stories and can be found also on Facebook.

Their site is provocative, raw, and honest - a beautiful reminder of this relationship, taking down the veil between the Obstetrician and the patient, and saying the, sometimes difficult, things that need to be said.

One of my favorites.