Were you dissapointed with your midwife? - Page 5

[michiganmidwife]

Crystal's letter

I know I'm chiming in late on this thread but I wanted to say to you Crystal, you did an amazing job of respectfully presenting your feelings in a non-threataning manner.
As a midwife of 12 years, I can say that I've learned an awful lot about how important it is to integrate into the woman and the families needs. I have dissapointed clients as well, and have learned a great deal from those expereinces.
Many midwives have held a cervical lip, broken waters, done things to get labor going, etc.. but I think the key is that these things have to be an agreement between the woman her midwife. The midwife can give her best advice about how to best help a woman. She can tell her that labor will be more effective if she changes position or whatever the case may be, but in the end, the woman needs to be supported in her choice. Even if that choice means the birth eventually ends in a transport.
We walk a delicate line between protecting the space that allows a woman to birth her baby as nature intended and being a servant of knowledge and experience that can be useful and helpful when things aren't straight forward. Most of the time this is a recepie for successful and beautiful birth experiences. But sometimes, if things are out of balance and everyone involved is not in sync, there is dissapointment for obvious reasons.

It will probably be hard for your midwife to read the letter. The reason is because we have our heart and soul invested into helping women avoid painful experiences. We want them to acheive a marvelous, blissful birth and we want to share in that bliss.

I wish you love and healing. From the sound of your letter, I'd say you're well on your way.

~Bridgett

[mothercat]

Midwifery Today articles

Was cleaning out some old e-mails today and found an e-zine from Midwifery Today. It was part 2 of a series of 4 articles related to much of what has been covered here: bullying by midwives. The article I saw talked about the characteristics of a bully vs. a sociopath and had commentary from some psychologists as to how and why this happens.
I am hoping the other parts of this series will offer some help for women who have suffered birth trauma and birth rape.

here is the link to Part 1 (defining the problem)
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/bullying_1.asp

here is the link to Part 2 (Spring 2007) (the how and why)
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/bullying_2.asp

here is the link to Part 3 (PTSD as a result of bullying)
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articl...ullrelease.asp

This last one has a lot of really good information about how bullies chose their targets and what events then cause the bully to take action to eliminate the target. Yikes, it is pretty scary stuff.

I couldn't find the link for the fourth part which I hope deals with healing and recovery for the woman. It's probably in the fall issue and just not available on line yet.

I hope that there is some information here that is helpful.

[Climbing Rose]

TBH, there are some things I would change about my midwife. She is more hands-on and tech orientated than I would like. (My first midwife who now lives 2000 miles away was more my style.) I could list a few things, but I guess I have just decided to just let it go.

I have had enough births now to know that I honestly just do not like births, and the few little things my mw does/doesn't do isn't going to make or break it for me.

However, if she did major things like kept touching my cervix or wouldn't let me in the tub, I would definitely not be okay with that. I would not use her again. I don't know if I would have the couage to tell her why, but I am a wuss like that. =(

[KariM]

Originally Posted by mothercat

here is the link to Part 1 (defining the problem)
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/bullying_1.asp

here is the link to Part 2 (Spring 2007) (the how and why)
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/bullying_2.asp

here is the link to Part 3 (PTSD as a result of bullying)
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articl...ullrelease.asp

Thanks so much for sharing the links to the articles! They were really enlightening for me and helped me better understand my situation and responses to it.