The Birth Empowerment Course:

Session Two
Links & Extras

Hello, lovely soul! This week, we've got a few difficult reads...

This first link is about birth rape--a disturbing combination of words, indeed: http://birthwithoutfearblog.com/2010/12/ 09/a-license-to-rape/ Putting this sort of vocabulary on any birth experience can feel intensely upsetting, but assault is no less assault when it happens in the middle of an already intense emotional experience.

This one's about recognizing and preventing the cascade of interventions during labor: http://www.childbirthconnection.org/arti cle.asp?ck=10182 The cascade of interventions is what birth professionals call it when one seemingly innocent + minor intervention spawns the need for another minor intervention, which creates the need for a third, more invasive intervention...and so on. This is often the slippery slope to a Cesarean section that didn't become necessary until after the interventions occurred.

This link is to an online version of a widely acclaimed scholarly journal namely the American Journal of Public Health. In this issue from 1987, they discuss the history of birthing positions, as well as how and why things changed. (The historical information about King Louis XIV's voyeurism is in here! It's a bit of a heavy read, but fascinating nonetheless. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/ PMC1647027/?page=3 This one's about vaginal exams and the power imbalance they perpetuate: http://mamabirth.blogspot.com/2011/04/o bstetric-lie-93-i-need-you-to-take-off.html

Here's a quick overview that questions routine newborn procedures, and the mechanization of newborn "protocols" as opposed to care. This is really just the very tip of the iceberg - but this link touches on several of the largest issues at hand. http://www.modernalternativemama.com /blog/2011/5/18/healthy-pregnancy-seriesnewborn-procedures.htm So, the cervix is a sphincter muscle? Here's Ina May Gaskin's excellent explanation of what she calls Sphincter Law-http://www.inamay.com/article/understa nding-birth-and-sphincter-law/page/0/1

Finally, this link is a shorter, decidedly philosophical discussion of the lithotomy (semi-reclining, supine) birth position, and talks about the systematic demeaning and marginalizing of women in a typical medical birth setting. It's an excerpt from the groundbreaking book,

Birth As An American Rite of Passage.

http://www.birthingnaturally.net/barp/lith otomy.html

Until next time!

--Krystal