When you’re expecting a baby, it’s exciting, and maybe a little bit scary, to think about parenting this new human together. What will you name the baby? When will you first take her/him out of the house? Where will s/he go to college….?

But before all of that, starting right now, it’s already time for a team approach.
I know that it’s common for the pregnant individual to take the lead, and often the partner feels the best approach during pregnancy is to step back and just say:

                      “Whatever you want Dear.”

However, there are already many important decisions to make well before your baby’s birthday, during pregnancy, and even during labor. And these decisions can impact all three of you in both the short and long term. What you decide may affect the birth-giver’s and the baby’s physical health, everyone’s emotional/mental health and the health of your relationship with each other and with the baby. How birth happens even impacts sexual health. Furthermore, memories of the birth experience, and how the people supporting you made you feel, last a lifetime (1).

So instead of assuming what you might call “traditional gender roles”, consider working as a collaborative team right from the start!

I’ve always wondered why people feel entitled to touch a person’s belly when it is full of a baby, while it’s culturally taboo to touch it at any other time. -- No one would dream of touching my daughters’ bellies? Why does it seem OK to touch my pregnant belly?

Along the same lines.... Why is it acceptable to put fingers in a vagina of a pregnant person with no more than a “I’m going to check you now” – when in any other situation, you need permission? 

Why do we tolerate cutting the opening to a birthing person’s birth canal without asking for permission first, when no medical professional would ever cut a patient anywhere without a discussion of risks and benefits and obtaining true consent?

How can one sew up an episiotomy or a perineal tear without ensuring that this sensitive tissue is adequately numbed, when no medical professional would ever sew up a cut or tear anywhere on anyone’s body without adequate anesthetic and pain control?

Why when a person’s body is growing a new life inside, does that body suddenly lose its civil rights, its status as a human being?

Are you pregnant? Here’s what I want you to know:

You still own your body. Being pregnant does not change your right to bodily autonomy. (To read about this issue from a legal perspective, read The Nature and Significance of the Right to Bodily Integrity here. Full reference below.)

Nobody, not a doctor, midwife, nurse or friend… NOBODY has the right to touch you ANYWHERE without asking for and receiving your express permission. You have a right to deny anyone permission to touch you, and you have a right to change your mind and withdraw your permission after you have first given it.

With that in mind, I want to describe for you what a vaginal exam should look like, so that you can recognize when your rights are being respected.

I had plans for the launch of this blog right about now… but that was before this Covid-19 global pandemic. Still, if there is one universal truth about doulas, it’s that we are used to adapting to the unpredictability of life. Since we never know when our client is going to go into labor - what will be interrupted, what will have to be rescheduled, postponed or canceled - we know how to do unpredictable.

So - Some thoughts about the importance of “visitors” to birth-givers in the hospital setting.

When Covid-19 cases started rising exponentially in the USA in March, hospitals quickly decided to exclude all visitors. This decision was made in the midst of chaos and panic with a laser focus on infection control, because the immediate concern was preventing the spread of the virus in the hospitals, especially among the staff, nurses and doctors who were (and still are) risking their lives daily to save ours. We know that there wasn’t enough personal protective equipment (PPE) stockpiled to prepare for the sudden surge in need. Thus, without adequate PPE, other measures HAD to be taken to ensure our medical professionals could continue to do the work of attending to sick, and highly contagious patients. And when visitors were restricted, infection rates among these professionals immediately declined.

But when visitors were banned, did we throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water?