A “hands off” birth and why I practice this way.
I rarely touch a woman during childbirth. It is very unusual that I check her cervix unless she ask me to do so, or if she is not progressing and is starting to run out of energy, or there are some concerns with baby’s heart rate. I don’t touch a woman’s perineum without her permission. I don’t massage it, I don’t tell her that “it’s time to push.”. I don’t “catch” babies. Instead, I let her and her partner be the ones who bring their baby into the world.
As a student midwife, I learned some “hand skills” for birth but it always seemed “off” to me that my hands should be anywhere in or near the vagina. Over the years, I noticed that actually, very few babies needed our hands as they enter the world.
So, why are we taught to have our hands on the perineum at EVERY birth when the vast majority of births don’t need them? Control. It gives US a sense of control and the root of control is FEAR of the “what if?” If we don’t trust the process of birth as being physiologic, we can’t accept that it can happen without our intervention. Therefore, we fear birth and attempt to control it.
Folks, despite what you have been told by your physician, nurse, nurse-midwife, certified professional midwife or lay midwife, WE are not the ones “delivering” your babies nor do I believe we should be the ones “catching” your babies.
One of the most common questions I’m asked during an interview is to explain what my philosophy about birth is. My answer is that birth is a physiological event that belongs to the woman and her child. My role as the attendant/midwife is to quietly safeguard the process and space and to intervene only when the process require my skills (which is a rare event).
To watch a woman and her partner give birth to their baby with no one “helping it out” is sacred and is a privilege. I only wish it could become the norm.
