Birth as power

Birth as power: Options and preparation for organic childbirth

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Homebirth Obstetrician and Midwife Faces 5 Years in Prison

Obstetrician and Midwife, Dr. Agnes Gereb, Faces 5 Years in Prison for
Attending Homebirths in Hungary

This letter is being posted at the request of the author and in solidarity
with those supporting and advocating on behalf of Dr. Agnes Gereb around
the world. Gereb is currently being held in a maximum security prison in
Hungary, facing a five year prison sentence, for attending birthing women
at home. Supporters of birth choice in Europe urge readers to contact your
local Hungarian embassy.

http://www.drmomma.org/2010/10/obstetrician-and-midwife-dr-agnes-gereb.html

Note:

Obstetrician and Midwife, Agnes was taken into police custody in the
evening of Tuesday, Oct 5th, just minutes after attending to a pregnant
woman who had unexpectedly gone into labor at her homebirth centre in
Budapest. The mother transferred by ambulance to the hospital with her
baby boy when he displayed breathing difficulties immediately after birth.
The police arrested Gereb and held her for 72 hours with access only to
her lawyer. After the 72 hours in detention, she was taken before a closed
criminal court and charged with "reckless endangerment committed in the
line of duty" and was to remain in custody without bail for a further 30
days. It is common in Hungary to spend more than a year in prison while
awaiting trial.

On October 6th, more than 600 people protested outside Budapest's prison
that held Gereb. Two days later, more than 2,000 people made a human chain
from the municipal court to the national parliament.

On October 12th, Gereb appeared before a court - shackled and handcuffed.
She faced several charges including negligent practice and manslaughter
for a birth where a baby died after a difficult labor.

According to Tamas Fazekas, one of the lawyers fighting Gereb's case with
the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, said Gereb is confined to a
four-woman cell for 23 hours a day. "She is subjected to strip searches,
only allowed to see her family once a month — they have not been allowed
to visit her since her arrest — and can have just one 10-minute phone call
every week. When she appeared before the public court she was in handcuffs
and leg shackles so tight that she had a 10cm bleeding wound on her leg."

As of yesterday (Fri, Oct 22) Gereb has been moved into a maximum security
prison and faces a five year prison sentence.

Obstetrics is well known to be one of the most lucrative branches of
Hungary's "free" health care system. Inductions and episiotomies (as well
as an assortment of other interventions) are ubiquitous. Women who want to
step away from this medicalized birth face a very difficult challenge to
find a skilled birth attendant. In fact, there are only 15 midwives in all
of Hungary who will attend women at home, and 5 of them currently face
lengthy prison sentences for the births they've attended. Gereb is the
founder of the Napvilág Birthing Centre, is a highly experienced OB/GYN,
midwife, and internationally recognized homebirth expert. She has attended
over 3,500 births at home in Hungary

Prevent Millions of Women and Children Dying in Pregnancy and Childbirth

Millions of women and children can be saved from death in pregnancy or childbirth,
if world leaders, who are about to meet in New York, meet their promises and step
up their aid commitments for maternal health. Let's call on them to act now!

Millions of pregnant women and children die every year because of malnutrition or
inadequate health services. It's shocking, but if our governments meet aid promises
to women and children at the poverty summit later this month, it is avoidable.

Ten years ago world leaders committed to drastically reduce the disgraceful number
of maternal deaths by 2015, but in fact aid levels remain shamefully low. Now, some
governments could be prepared to boost aid for mothers and babies, but they need
massive public support to get all governments to step up.

In days our leaders meet in New York. Let's build a global outcry against needless
deaths. Sign the petition below to double aid for maternal and child health -- it
will be delivered to key government leaders at the New York meeting.

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_children_and_mothers/?vl

In the last 10 years, since the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were set,
significant advances have been made to tackle poverty -- one-third fewer mothers
have died during childbirth due to increased aid and investment in maternal health
care. But millions of pregnant mothers are still dying needlessly and every year 9
million children die before their 5th birthday.

There is already a specific mechanism to deliver aid for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and
Tuberculosis, but no similar system exists to support health for mothers and
children. Experts feel one of the best ways to have an immediate impact is to ensure
that aid is doubled and coordinated to effectively bring health care to the mothers
and children who need it the most.

But with only 5 years left to meet MDG targets, there’s a danger that our leaders
use the recession to shirk responsibilities to help the world’s poorest. It has
always been the world's citizens that have led the fight against poverty and pushed
our leaders to take critical action, and now it is up to us again. Sign the petition
to save mothers and children:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_children_and_mothers/?vl

Too often the poorest and most vulnerable communities are just statistics at
international summits. On the eve of this crucial summit, let's join together and
give the poorest women and children a voice. Sign the petition below:

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_children_and_mothers/?vl

With hope for a fairer world,

Alice, Luis, Alex, Pascal, Maria Paz, Ricken, Ben, Iain, Graziela and the whole
Avaaz team


Sources:
Oxfam, "Minimal G8 Maternal Health Initiative sends disturbing message to women and
girls":
http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/reactions/minimal-g8-maternal-health-initiative-sends-disturbing-message-women

The Countdown to 2015 Initiative tracks coverage levels for health interventions
proven to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality:
http://www.countdown2015mnch.org/

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To contact Avaaz write to us at www.avaaz.org/en/contact or call us at +1-888-922-8229 (US).

Squat - Anarchist Birth Journal

Squat - anarchist birth journal is available on-line to read or print here

They are also looking for submissions for next issue. Submissions can be emailed to submissionstosquat@gmail.com.

Visit their blog at squatbirthjournal.blogspot.com

Reclaiming Birth, and the Albany Midwives

Below is an interesting article by our sisters in London anarcha feminist kolektiv, about reclaiming birth and the recent closure of the Albany Midwifery Practice, Peckham, South London.

Reclaiming Birth, and the Albany Midwives

The Albany Midwifery Practice provided a free service – as part of the NHS - for women around Peckham for over twelve years. As an independent group, based in the community and sub-contracted by Kings Healthcare Trust, the Albany midwives provided individual, continuous maternity care for all kinds of women, including those who are often denied proper choices by the Health Service: working-class women, women from ethnic minorities, those with mental and physical disabilities or with medical risks.

The Albany midwives aimed to provide choice, continuity and control for women, with a philosophy that pregnancy and birth are a normal part of women's lives, not a medical problem. They would provide information and let women make their own decisions, about their maternity care and the birth itself. They believed that women deserved continuity, so guaranteed access to the same pair of midwives throughout pregnancy, giving them a chance to develop a mutually-respectful, trusting, relationship with each woman before she gave birth.

This type of care is understandably popular with women, and has been proven to result in lower rates of infant mortality, lower rates of caesarian section (less than half the national average), and also much higher rates of home-birth and breastfeeding. 74% of the women using the Albany decided they didn't need pain relief during labour.

This quality of care is rarely available on the NHS. Although there are some other group practices which operate in a similar way to the Albany midwives, in many areas women have to pay privately if they want this kind of maternity care, which puts it beyond the means of most.

In December 2009, Kings Healthcare Trust abruptly terminated its contract with the Albany midwives, without any consultation ( either with the midwives themselves or those who used their services) or warning (even for those women about to give birth in the next few weeks).

Kings claimed that the issue was one of patient safety, as earlier on in the year a baby had died one week after being delivered by the Albany. Kings commissioned a report from the Centre for Maternal and Child Enquiries (CMACE). They claimed that babies delivered by the Albany Practice at this time had higher rates of “Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy” ( brain damage caused by lack of oxygen), than those delivered by midwives directly employed by the Trust. These figures have been contested since the outset, with various organisations, including the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), criticising the CMACE reports. Despite requests, the full reports have still not been made public. Although Kings terminated the Albany contract on the grounds of patient safety, they then offered the same midwives jobs within the Trust's own midwifery service. All of them declined the offer.

The closure of the Albany Midwifery Practice prompted a range of protests, including a large, very vocal, very colourful march and rally in central London on Sunday 7th March. The 'Reclaiming Birth' march was called by the Albany Mums Group, both to protest the closure and to push for better, more women-centred approaches to childbirth. It was supported by the NCT, the Royal College of Midwives, the Association of Radical Midwives, Independent Midwives UK, the Alliance for Improvement in Maternity Services (AIMS) and many feminist groups.

If Kings succeed in damaging the reputation of the Albany midwives, this could have serious repercussions on a wider scale. Their model of care has long been recognised as a way of improving outcomes for mothers and babies. Most women in the UK don't get offered this level of choice, or continuity. Instead, they are only offered an obstetric-based model of care, institutionalised, with high levels of medical intervention and operative deliveries. The choice to birth at home is dependent on the availability of midwives, and unfortunately there is a shortage of midwives. Those already working in the NHS are under-paid and over-worked, and there are not enough staff to provide the quality of care women deserve, let alone set up loads of small group practices like the Albany.

Centralised, industrial-scale obstetric care may be expedient for bureaucrats, but does not allow true choice, and does not equate with a satisfying, safe and empowering birth experience. As public services suffer more cuts, our already over-stretched and under-resourced maternity services are in crisis, and ultimately this is bad news for us all.

For more information on the Albany Midwifery Practice, the CMACE report,and the 'Reclaiming Birth' march, visit: www.savethealbany.org.uk.

Another article worth reading: “Industrial Birth”, by Shonagh of Dublin's Revolutionary Anarchafeminist Group (RAG). www.adbusters.org/magazine/80/industrial_childbirth.html.

Birth – Everyone's Business

Are you alive? Then you were born.
The way in which you were born affected your immediate chances of survival, the kind of nourishment you would come to receive and your potential for intelligence, growth, health, emotional development and social adjustment. It helped set the relationships you would have with your parents, by either encouraging or preventing their ability to positively bond with you. It was monumentally important in your life – but you probably won’t remember it.

Your mother will. Her experience is likely to have had a profound effect on her. Was it good? Did she feel free, empowered and in control amongst people she loved and trusted? If she did, she was fortunate and more likely to be able to love, care for and breastfeed you thus setting you up for a lifetime of good health and well-being outcomes – providing resilience to the physical, emotional and social challenges of life.

Was your father there? Did he welcome you into the world? Did he feel involved and know his child from the outset? Did he accept you into his heart as his own to love and protect regardless of how life and relationships would progress? Were other parents, family members, friends and communities supported and supportive? Were you all as a family welcomed, provided and cared for in the world? Were you as a baby given the chance to thrive? Because it affected you for life.

Perhaps you have or want children of your own? Perhaps it will happen unexpectedly. Or maybe you hope for a different, better society, or a revolution? For the human race to continue in any form, from utopian to post-apocalyptic, babies will need to be born, parents will need to care for them and communities will need to raise them. How it’s done isn’t just important; it's integral, and its effects are infinitely wide ranging. It matters, to you, to me, to everyone.

None of us can afford to forget about childbirth, but that's easily done when we don’t remember it happening to us, and the event itself is hidden away in special secret places, which often provide difficult, negative and traumatic experiences. Lets stop sidelining this as a women’s issue, a health issue or identity politics. It’s huge, it’s vital and we should all be taking an interest and a responsibility for the coming generations.

London Anarcha Feminist Kolektiv
www.lafk.wordpress.com
lafk@riseup.net