So Feministing also posted a link to the article on Joy Szabo's VBAC challenge, and the comments section has gotten - interesting. I don't want to say that every Feministing commenter is in fact a card-carrying feminist (what, you don't have a card? I keep mine in my wallet, it's laminated and everything!) but the reactions of some of the commenters really surprised me.
Despite my better judgment and a pile of other tasks I need to do today, I have gotten into the fray. It just raises my hackles when women who in many other contexts would aggressively question medical/legal authority and advocate for a woman's right to make choices about her own body go off on the "Well, if her DOCTOR says it why would she put HERSELF and everyone else at RISK" line. As if your reproductive autonomy ends when you choose to continue a pregnancy, and you must willingly hand your body over to the medicolegal system. As if VBAC access in no way equates to abortion access. As if it's OK for a hospital to threaten to get a court order for unnecessary surgery, because "She's the one who decided to get pregnant and decided to have a VBAC, so she's got to live with the consequences. The hospital has to protect themselves". I'm glad there are other commenters who see the irony here, but shocked that there are those who do not.
I have so much more to say about the relationship of feminists/the reproductive rights movement to birth, but that post would take longer than I have at the moment. Suffice it to say, I think reading the comments on that post is educational, if nothing else, and offers food for thought about how to appropriately illustrate to those in the movement that birth issues are not related to reproductive rights - they ARE part of reproductive rights and just as important as any other.
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label activism. Show all posts
Monday, October 5, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
A subway car full of nursing moms
A New York State Senator and a subway car full of nursing moms took the A train recently in support of breastfeeding and the right to nurse in public:
State Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) joined the New York City Breastfeeding Promotion Leadership Committee (NYCBPLC) today for their annual Breastfeeding Subway Caravan. The Subway Caravan began in 2004 as a means to highlight the importance of breastfeeding and reinforce a women's right to breastfeed wherever they have a right to be. The focus of this year's Caravan is the passage of Senator Krueger's Breastfeeding Bill of Rights (S1674-D). The legislation codifies mothers' rights to breastfeed into a single, concise document and bans commercial interests from influencing new mothers' choice of breastfeeding.
I wish the last part referred to a ban on formula gift bags in hospitals, but it's just a right to refuse the gift bags - maybe to prevent women from being pressured to "just take it in case you need it". Read more on the Senator's website here.
State Senator Liz Krueger (D-Manhattan) joined the New York City Breastfeeding Promotion Leadership Committee (NYCBPLC) today for their annual Breastfeeding Subway Caravan. The Subway Caravan began in 2004 as a means to highlight the importance of breastfeeding and reinforce a women's right to breastfeed wherever they have a right to be. The focus of this year's Caravan is the passage of Senator Krueger's Breastfeeding Bill of Rights (S1674-D). The legislation codifies mothers' rights to breastfeed into a single, concise document and bans commercial interests from influencing new mothers' choice of breastfeeding.
I wish the last part referred to a ban on formula gift bags in hospitals, but it's just a right to refuse the gift bags - maybe to prevent women from being pressured to "just take it in case you need it". Read more on the Senator's website here.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
"From Worst to First" - Getting hospitals to change their ways
There's an inspirational campaign going on in New Jersey called "From Worst to First". With New Jersey at a 39.4% cesarean rate, they are publicly naming and shaming hospitals with high cesarean (and episiotomy) rates. Once there are women out front of a hospital with brightly colored signs saying "Bad Maternity Care Harms Women", most hospital administrations seem eager to at least meet with them.
The Worst to First website is here - if you scroll down to "Status of New Jersey Hospitals Addressed by NJMCWTF2010" you can click on individual hospitals and see photos of each protest and a short report of what happened.
I learned about this campaign through e-mails via a doula listserv. The e-mail reports were longer and more detailed than the reports on the website, and I thought I'd share an excerpt of one here:
We met with the Administrative staff of Saint Clare's Hospital in Denville
on June 8th, 2009 for a meeting to discuss the first steps towards our "Worst to First" Campaign.
In attendance was the Administrative Director of Nursing, the Maternal Child
Education Coordinator, the Communications Manager, the Executive Vice President of the Hospital, the Patient Care Manager, the Maternal Child Heath Coordinator, the Vice President of Public Affairs, the Labor and Delivery Staff Nurse and Doula, Quality Manager of Maternity, and the Director of Clinical Quality. Stacey Gregg Action VP for NOW-NJ, Anne Mitchell Stacey Gregg's Summer College Intern/Activist, & Morris County NOW Secretary Doreen Manno.
For the first hour and a half of the meeting, Stacey and the administration went back and forth about the condition and quality of patient care and how it was reflected negatively in the statistics that we're trying to break with our campaign.
Unfortunately before this point, the hospital staff present was unwilling to admit their statistics. They were trying to question the validity of the state's statistics of the ten hospitals that already really have episiotomy rates below 5%.
It wasn't until Stacey made the analogy between the unnecessary cutting of woman during birth and how if a woman was a rape victim, you would not be discussing the reasons why a rapist does what they do. You would only be concerned with coming up with solutions and ways to protect her. She gave the examples of a rapist claiming any justifications "didn't have enough time, it takes to long the other way"," that's the way I was trained to do it", "the women want it or they ask for it", and "they don't mind it this way", the way a doctor might defend his high rate of episiotomies. She stated that she did not want to discuss how they got here it just had to stop, and she took one of the signs that we had bought with us into the room that stated "STOP Violence Against Women" and stated that Women are being harmed. ...
"There are ten hospitals with low episiotomy rates that are doing things differently; obviously they're not doing the same things that are going on around here." Stacey said. ... Discussion was held about how to get the doctors to best respond and change the way they practice. From there, we began to formulate an action plan to reduce episiotomy rates at Saint Clare's.
Wow.
On the doula listserv I get these e-mails through, doulas are saying "We need to do this in OUR state!" Is it too much to hope this goes nationwide? I'll head up my state's chapter!
The Worst to First website is here - if you scroll down to "Status of New Jersey Hospitals Addressed by NJMCWTF2010" you can click on individual hospitals and see photos of each protest and a short report of what happened.
I learned about this campaign through e-mails via a doula listserv. The e-mail reports were longer and more detailed than the reports on the website, and I thought I'd share an excerpt of one here:
We met with the Administrative staff of Saint Clare's Hospital in Denville
on June 8th, 2009 for a meeting to discuss the first steps towards our "Worst to First" Campaign.
In attendance was the Administrative Director of Nursing, the Maternal Child
Education Coordinator, the Communications Manager, the Executive Vice President of the Hospital, the Patient Care Manager, the Maternal Child Heath Coordinator, the Vice President of Public Affairs, the Labor and Delivery Staff Nurse and Doula, Quality Manager of Maternity, and the Director of Clinical Quality. Stacey Gregg Action VP for NOW-NJ, Anne Mitchell Stacey Gregg's Summer College Intern/Activist, & Morris County NOW Secretary Doreen Manno.
For the first hour and a half of the meeting, Stacey and the administration went back and forth about the condition and quality of patient care and how it was reflected negatively in the statistics that we're trying to break with our campaign.
Unfortunately before this point, the hospital staff present was unwilling to admit their statistics. They were trying to question the validity of the state's statistics of the ten hospitals that already really have episiotomy rates below 5%.
It wasn't until Stacey made the analogy between the unnecessary cutting of woman during birth and how if a woman was a rape victim, you would not be discussing the reasons why a rapist does what they do. You would only be concerned with coming up with solutions and ways to protect her. She gave the examples of a rapist claiming any justifications "didn't have enough time, it takes to long the other way"," that's the way I was trained to do it", "the women want it or they ask for it", and "they don't mind it this way", the way a doctor might defend his high rate of episiotomies. She stated that she did not want to discuss how they got here it just had to stop, and she took one of the signs that we had bought with us into the room that stated "STOP Violence Against Women" and stated that Women are being harmed. ...
"There are ten hospitals with low episiotomy rates that are doing things differently; obviously they're not doing the same things that are going on around here." Stacey said. ... Discussion was held about how to get the doctors to best respond and change the way they practice. From there, we began to formulate an action plan to reduce episiotomy rates at Saint Clare's.
Wow.
On the doula listserv I get these e-mails through, doulas are saying "We need to do this in OUR state!" Is it too much to hope this goes nationwide? I'll head up my state's chapter!
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