From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Thu Sep 19 2002 - 16:10:32 EDT
September 20, 2002 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A Calvin College professor is part of a new book that urges fundamental changes
to the way women give birth. Helen Sterk, a communication professor, shaped and
shepherded "Who's having This Baby?" to publication. She conducted the
interviews upon which the book is based, brought in the co-authors and wrote a
chapter plus the introduction and conclusion.
She says many women, even years after having given birth, asked only to be seen
as partners in the process of giving birth, rather than as patients. Their
memories of birth were often negative, often because they felt like onlookers
rather than participants.
"We urge," Sterk says, "that women be listened to. Birthing care should defer
to women. They are the ones doing the hard, unusual and important work. They are
the ones who have unique access to their own experience of labor. And they are
the ones who will be in relationship with that child once she or he is born.
These are weighty reasons to place women at the center of attention in the
situation of birth."
Sterk says birthing should involve the least use of technology that still
ensures the safety of the mother and child.
"Technology," she says, "is becoming its own reason for being to the detriment
of women and not to the significant betterment of healthy babies."
To make the case the book provides a new set of reasons: women's own stories,
their narratives. Says Sterk: "Narratives provide a kind of moral reasoning.
They provide wisdom about human life. They show us actions people take and the
consequences of those actions."
To tell women's stories the book draws on a project Sterk has overseen for the
last decade, an archive called The Birthing Project. It contains over a hundred
birthing stories, the result of interviews Sterk either conducted or supervised.
Thus "Who's Having This Baby?" is a book about birth that is told from the
perspective of mothers, not, says Sterk, "from the point of view of medical
personnel or fathers or even the baby."
And what do mothers think about birth?
"Very simply put," says Sterk, "women often feel themselves harmed emotionally,
psychologically, socially and spiritually by birthing practices that are
unnecessarily invasive."
To counter this the book suggests some changes, including more insurance
coverage for midwifery; more options for where to have a baby (including
birthing centers or home); minimal use of technology, drugs and invasive
procedures; and the routine use of doulas (a woman whose job includes talking
with and touching laboring women).
"In summary," says Sterk, "we endorse labor and delivery care that take its cue
from women. Currently the rhetoric of birthing puts babies and their safety at
the center. This masks the reality that dcotors and medical protocol are at the
center of birthing. A rich, meaningful experience of birth will be made possible
when the birthing unit of mother and baby takes central position in all decision
making."
The book contains five chapters and each looks at a different area of birth.
Carla Hay, a historian at Marquette, looks at the history of childbirth. Krista
Ratcliffe, an English professor at Marquette, examines a literary perspective on
birth. Sterk looks at birth in terms of communication, especially at how
communication often becomes about control and not care. Alice Beck Kehoe, an
anthropology professor at Marquette, writes about birth on Native American
reservations and Leona VandeVusse, director of the Nurse-Midwifery program at
Marquette, gives testimony to the role of the nurse-midwife in birth.
See Amazon's page at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0870136151/qid=1032466123/sr=1-10/ref=sr_1_10/002-9014673-7884002?v=glance&s=books
-end-
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