well family care
home birth midwifery in my area is pretty much for clients that are white, upper-middle-class, straight, and of child-bearing age.
this ain't right.
traditional midwives didn't just deliver babies. they engaged in the healing work of entire communities. men, women, children, babies, elders. as women, we have always held the knowledge and power of healing within ourselves, passing it down for generations from wise-woman to wise-woman.
when we compartmentalize women's health into a very exclusive, child-bearing clique, we do most of our community a disservice. when we almost exclusively provide home-based, herbal, DIY, radical, supportive health care to bougie white women, we betray our roots, sever our bond with the wise-women of our ancestry, and exclude the vast majority of our community.
i believe that childbirth is under the attack of a white-supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy. so is women's health. so is men's health. so is children's health. so is the process of dying.
i loved "the business of being born" film. i would also love to see "the business of dying," "the business of having HIV or AIDS," "the business of eating," etc.
what i'm trying to say is that the process of childbearing cannot be separated from the rest of the process of being human. when it is, we leave a lot of people out.
if as wise-women and potentially as midwives, we focused at least on the whole woman to start out with:
- menarche celebration
- pre-conception counseling
- nutritional counseling
- lesbian/trans-gender/bisexual-friendly health
- STI screenings and treatment
- herbal therapy
- self-healing (a.k.a."DIY")
- infertility counseling and treatment
- herbal abortion and/or menstrual extraction
- menopausal celebration, counseling, and treatment
- palliative care
maybe we could start here and then move out to heal the world. what do you think?
a radical community of midwives
one person cannot fulfill all of these needs. therefore, to make these things happen, we have to come together and help where we can, learn from each other, and encourage safe space, compassion, and respect.
in our midwifery community there is a lot of shit-talking. some of it is for very good reasons. but it is our responsibility, in order to provide quality care for our whole community, to use consensual processes to deal with grievances together as wise-women.
imagine a community of midwives working together:
women of different backgrounds, experience levels, philosophies, ages, and truths all working toward the common goal of providing quality well-woman and well-family care to our community.
holding each other accountable for our words and actions.
our integrity will grow with every birth, death, joy, mistake, love, laugh, and tear.
