Honoring Cesarean Awareness Month 2020
by Donna Delaney
Today is
April 30, 2020.
What a month it’s been, huh?
A worldwide Pandemic, an economy in crisis; never in our lifetime have we seen anything like this.
It’s overwhelming and scary and can be immobilizing.
I guess I could say that is what has kept me from writing this blog,
but I’d be lying.
Today is April 30th, the last day of Cesarean Awareness Month.
This month is important to us at Orlando Doulas. This month matters to me personally!
So why has it taken me until the last day of April to write about it?
You see, I have a secret.
I’ve never had a vaginal birth.
But I’m a doula, isn’t that what being a doula is all about?
That’s what most people think. That’s because that is what many other doulas and most of the organizations that train them believe.
That is not what we believe at Orlando Doulas.
In fact, I’m a better doula BECAUSE I had c-sections.
My Ideal Birth
Sitting in my first doula training, with all the importance placed on “natural childbirth,” I felt inadequate and incomplete because all four of my beautiful, healthy children had been born by cesarean section. As part of the curriculum, we were asked to draw our ideal birth. I tried to draw the most perfect birth I could imagine…
…at home in the water with music and candles. Supported by the most loving partner imaginable, and a gentle, experienced doula by my side.
But that wasn’t my reality. My babies were born by a necessary surgery. This was my experience and trying to imagine something else, only made me feel more inadequate, more incomplete and somehow less than other people who were able to achieve the birth that was only in my imagination.
I had healthy babies, BECAUSE I had c-sections. How could that not be MY ideal birth?!
If you’ve had a baby born by cesarean maybe you have felt some of these same emotions.
We should not be made to feel this way. We birthed our babies the way that was ideal for us and them. We were brave enough to do what we needed to do to have a healthy baby. Cesarean birth is not less than any other kind of birth and we need to stop letting that be the message sent to us by any one.
Thankfully, I found another training organization, ProDoula, that believed, as I did, that all birth matters. And the most important thing for a doula is to support all birth with judgment-free, unbiased support.
A Perfect Birth
Some births are unmedicated; others supported with medical interventions.
Some are spontaneous, and some need to be started with induction.
Some are vaginal, and some are surgical.
One is no more “natural” than the other.
One does not make you any more or less of a parent to your baby.
All are just variations of a perfect birth.
This month matters!
Cesarean Awareness Month matters because:
- We need to expand the awareness and perspective of doulas, doula training organizations, medical professionals, and society at large to see surgical birth as just a variation and not “less than.”
- We need to change the language we use around cesarean/surgical birth.
- We need choice, control, and support in our birthing process even when it is unexpected.
- We need to understand our recovery and get the help we need to heal and care for our new baby.
- We need the support of doulas that are professional and unbiased.
You see, this is personal
My c-sections matters.
Your c-section matters.
Not just in April, but every day.
All Birth matters and no matter how you choose to, or need to bring your baby into the world, Orlando Doulas sees you, is there for you, and honors you.
