I hear this sentence more often than I care to admit when I’m talking with friends and clients: “Will they let me?” or the old classic, “Am I allowed to do that?”
We are usually talking about things like what kind of snacks to pack in your hospital bag, if you should stay home in early labour, whether or not to get an IV, or deciding if she wants to be induced or not. Somehow the conversation always returns back to these questions. “Will the doctor allow me to make that choice?”
This is my response: think of the hospital as being more like a restaurant than a prison. Essentially, they are providing you with a service, of which you get to pick and choose what you will have and what you won’t. Your doctor or midwife is more like a well trained sommelier than a militant guard, or at least they should be.
Doctors are educated and experienced care providers and have tons of knowledge and advice to give you regarding procedures and protocols in the hospital and birthing center. Getting their opinion and advice is a helpful way to make decisions regarding your care, but you are still allowed to take those opinions, think them over, and make your own choice.
Did you know that women in labour have rights, just like every other person in Canada? That you can decide what course of action you’d like to take and that you are entitled to refuse medical treatment if you decide that it isn’t what you want? Did you know that Quebec even has it’s own charter of rights for the birthing woman– IT’S TRUE!
Let’s truly sit and think about this. Imagine this scenario, for example- a grown woman, entering the hospital to labour and birth a baby, sometimes over the course of more than 48 hours is told “Sorry, you can’t eat or drink anything. Only ice chips for you missy!” This is based on research showing that it could be dangerous if she were to need a c-section AND be put under general anesthetic AND aspirate any vomit or liquids. There is a lot of current research showing that this simply isn’t as dangerous as we used to think, yet hospitals continue to disapprove of women eating and drinking during labour. There are many other examples of this type of thing, sometimes medically indicated, and sometimes not.
The point though, is not for us to argue each and every topic or choice and I’m certainly not trying to insinuate that doctors and midwives don’t know their stuff- they absolutely do! In a medical emergency, there is nobody else I’d rather have around then a well-trained and experienced medical professional. But, shouldn’t a grown woman, who will soon also be responsible for another human life, be able to make her own decisions when it matters to her?
It would be nice if we could stop using this kind of language and instead ask questions like “If I want to refuse this treatment could we discuss alternatives?” or “Could we talk about the benefits and risks of the proposed intervention?” Imagine a world in which each and every birthing woman could feel that the care providers were there to support decisions and provide information, instead of “allowing” and “giving permission” for a woman to act, eat, think and be supported during her pregnancy and birth. What a wonderful world it could be.
What do you think? Should doctors “let” women do what they want? Should they “allow” them to have a voice in the decision making process of what happens at a birth? What do you think of this kind of language in reference to birth? What was your experience?
