- Hey – Thanks for writing Pushed. Your argument that women do not have enough say
about what happens to them when they are giving birth did make me think about how
our society seems often to be corrupting what is supposed to be a natural event for the convenience and legal protection of health professionals.
- Really! You think so? I’m impressed that someone as young as you and who, if you pardon me for saying so, probably won’t have the experience of birth yourself would
be that interested. What parts stood out for you?
- Well, if I’m honest, it was an assigned reading project as part of a course I’m taking at School of the Future. I remember the last part the best, which is all about your advocacy for midwives and home births.
You make the point that midwives went out of favor in the U.S. in the 1930s because of medical reports that seemed to blame them unfairly for deaths in childbirth. Obstetricians had campaigns against midwives even in the 80s with bumper stickers that said “Home Deliveries Are for Pizza.” So the new generation of midwives had to start from scratch you say because there weren’t any around to learn from. Then you tell the story of Cynthia Caillagh who is the hero, who gets falsely accused of causing a woman's death in childbirth, and then gets her reputation back at the end. It’s interesting that she had a Cherokee grandfather who told her that she was fated to be a midwife even though she was really smart and was studying pre-med when she was 16.
Cynthia trains with a “traditional Cherokee midwife" for two years. Caillagh says on page 219: “She learned her skills from another midwife, who learned her skills from a midwife.. Knowledge was handed down, midwife to midwife.” This leads to your saying that over 33 years she “attended 2500 births.” This woman is a pro with special skills who is called in by other midwives because she can successfully treat even serious conditions with special diets and with herbs.
Then Cynthia is called by Julia Peters to help with her birth. We already know that Julia is going to die and that Cynthia is going to be accused of causing her death, but there is still suspense to find out what actually happened. Then we find out there is a villain in the story, Marcella Ferro, the state of Virginia's chief medical examiner, who is part of a coverup of the facts of the case and the campaign to blame the midwife. Then on page 245 you say, “On May 5, 2000, Caillagh pleaded guilty to practice of midwifery without a license, to practice of medicine without a license, and to 'abuse and neglect of an incapacitated adult.'” Now I am even more into this story and pretty angry. The idea that Cynthia abused or neglected Julia is a very bad joke.
Even though Cynthia gets off and Virginia declares “Midwives’ Day” the day after she is let go, the reader is still mad about her treatment. What Cynthia says to you on page 248 after her whole experience of having been arrested and accused as a criminal seems to be the main point of the whole book: "To truly give birth you have to surrender to the process of birth, which is to suspend a conscious awareness. You must trust the instinctive internal self. And I think we’ve come upon a generation of women who don’t know what that internal trust looks like. I think there will come a time when we will remember or will rediscover… the intrinsic value of birth under one’s own steam.”
Of course I’m a guy so what do I know about all this?
- I’m glad you got so much out of my book. How could it have been better?
- Again, if I’m honest, I found a lot of it hard to read. The Cynthia story was the one that I read without being bored at all. Not to say that all your facts and figures and histories of policies aren’t important. They are just hard to read about unless you are a health professional or pregnant with your second child and don’t want to have another cesarean section. But if I become a dad one day, you’ve definitely made me understand more about what a mother has to go through and hopefully I would be more helpful.
No comments:
Post a Comment