Induction and C/S aren't always bad

[sushee]

Birth activism, like most 'activisms' are usually about changing the CULTURE of something, not about individual circumstances. I could tell you about how refusing intervention saved my son's life where my ob (who has 20 years experience and who I trusted) admitted I was right to refuse his advice and follow my instincts, but how it was for me obviously wasn't how it was for you, and that's the thing about birth, no one really knows for sure. Obs will err on the side of caution for the immediate circumstances facing them (and often this is to defer to a surgical or medicalised solution) but it may not be the best medium or long term outcome for the child, the mother or the family.

But that doesn't mean that as a society, we don't champion less medicalised/surgical birth. And to do that requires some passion for the subject. It's easy for me, whose children are older, to not care about the best outcomes of birthing women. But I do because I am passionate.

Some express their passions well, some don't. Some will influence, some will alienate. And it may be the same person who is doing that to two different people. As an activist, you try to get the message out, and like every human, the message doesn't always come out as elegantly as you like.

I still would prefer a world where women looked out for each other and for our children than one where we didn't participate in the sharing of information, and therefore the education of ourselves. I don't believe you don't trust your ob, or else why be there? But I do believe I am not someone who will follow someone's direction blindly, without being informed, without knowing the facts and being a PART of the decision.

We are all coloured by our experiences, but the bigger picture is that intervention rates on women in Australia is one of the highest in the developed world, which doesn't take a genius to realise it equals to a LOT of unnecessary intervention. Intervention that hurts women, children, families.

If we only had necessary interventions perhaps it wouldn't be a minefield of 'when should I listen, and when should I not?'. If we could trust that when our dr said we needed a cs, than as women, we don't have to weigh up whether it's true or not. Imagine that.