BIRTHWISE IN BIRMINGHAM
  • Home
  • About Us
    • About Dalia >
      • Dalia Testimonials
    • About Susan
    • About Anjanette
    • About Renee
    • About Yanick
    • About Blakely
  • Services
    • Open House
    • Birth Doulas >
      • The evidence for doulas
      • On-Call doulas
    • A La Carte Childbirth Classes >
      • Birth Prep Essentials
      • Instinctive Birth
      • Navigating your Hospital Birth Part I
      • Navigating Your Hospital Birth Part II
      • Comprehensive Comfort Measures
      • Getting Off to the Breast Start
      • Welcome to Parenting!
      • Soothe & Sleep
      • Childbirth Class Testimonials
    • Private Childbirth Class
    • Birth Prep Coaching
    • StrongParent Virtual Group
    • Breastfeeding Services
    • Massage
    • Birth Pool Rental
    • Birth Doula Workshop
  • Contact Us
    • Sign up for our Email List
    • Register for "A La Carte" classes
    • Open House RSVP
  • Gift Certificates
  • Blog
    • Birth Memoirs
  • Forms and Printouts
  • Dalia's Soap Box

Note to partners: “Whatever you want Dear” is not an effective support strategy!

2/19/2021

8 Comments

 
Picture
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!


Read More
8 Comments

PERMISSION to Touch: bodily autonomy during pregnancy and birth.

7/13/2020

2 Comments

 
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?
Picture
My daughters: Ayala and Deanna, 2015
Picture
Me, pregnant with Matan, 1999
Photo by Larry Labonte
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:
Picture
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.


Read More
2 Comments

Pregnant? Who's responsible for all this???

6/29/2020

1 Comment

 
So you’re expecting a baby. They’ve given you a due date, sent you for tests, scheduled your prenatals… So many decisions are being made…

Wait…

Who should be deciding about the particulars of your pre-natal care?  Your birth experience? Your post-partum course? Who, ultimately, is in charge of your physical health, mental health, sexual health, and the health of your baby?

…Let’s try that again: REWIND<<<<

So you’re expecting a baby. You’ve determined your due date, chosen what tests to take, scheduled your prenatal visits. There are so many decisions for you to make…

Do you want to be a passenger or the captain? The first mate or the private? Not sure? Consider this:
What about Covid-19? YOU are still in charge. See below.

Read More
1 Comment

    Author:
    Dalia Abrams

    M.A., M.P.H, BDT(DONA), CD(DONA), LCCE, CLC

    Picture

    Subscribe to Dalia's Soap Box

    * indicates required
    I'm a birth activist who is fed up with how birth-givers and babies are treated in health care, specifically, and in our culture globally.
    This blog is a space to discuss the challenges we face and to support the movement to make CHANGE happen!

    You can read more about me here, and about why I started to do birth work here.
    Picture

    Archives

    February 2021
    October 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020

    Categories

    All
    Birth
    Covid 19
    Covid-19
    C-sections
    Doula
    Health Disparities
    Medical Decision Making
    Parenting
    Pregnancy
    Racism

    RSS Feed