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TEDx Talks
Title: Mother Knows Best: Listening to women improves health options | Sonya Chamberlain | TEDxGullLake
Published: 2017-08-29
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaB1jSAKkf0
I'd like to start today by introducing you to Britney a client of mine a northern Minnesotan woman who's also a mother a native American students I dietitian and Britney's first child was born the way about a quarter of all American children are born these days which is by C. section and there are many reasons for this but the most prevalent or the one that was given
to her is the main reason for this kind of delivery was that her pelvis wasn't big enough they want you to think about that for a moment if you're becoming a mother for the first time like she was she was told right away that really her body didn't work and wasn't made to do what she thought had been meant to do so I met Britney if
two years after the US and she was pregnant again and she was really wanting more from experience this time something different and she sought out a midwife's care in a different setting for the second birth because despite what she'd been told she actually did believe that her body works and she thought that her best shot before a different experience would be with a midwife's care %HESITATION
there were again a lot of reasons for this you experience a certain amount of discrimination in her small rural community because of her health history and how she felt the first time in the hospital she didn't feel comfortable going back there it turns out that her intuition about seeking out something better for her was really supported by research so I spent about ten months of course
getting to know Britney over the whole course of her care and this is where midwifery care really shines because we're building relationships with our clients Britney drove a considerable distance every time she needs to see me and each appointment with a midwife is usually about sixty minutes only about ten minutes are spent on medical tasks not usually about all you get in a typical medical setting
but midwives really treasure that or other forty five or fifty minutes because over the ten months of me getting to know where I was not only learning her normal blood pressure how much iron was in her blood the size of her baby whether or not she was at risk for something like just actual diabetes but I was also learning what's justice throughout what she loves about
her family how she's sleeping what comforts her what foods are giving her heart burn and so when Britney's due date came around we had a great relationship one built on trust one built on time spent and one built that was really shone through research to improve the actual birth outcome so a beautiful September day rolls around and Britney goes into labor but there's a problem and
the problem is that I am already with Gen another woman in labor and I've already been there all night she's clinging to me with every contraction and as a home birth midwife the one thing you don't do is you don't leave mid stream the shift does not and and so I make a difficult decision I have to call a colleague in to go and be with
Britney for her labor and this colleague drives from over three hours away she knows how important says and I continue with Jen and tell her labor actually becomes too complex to stay where we are we have to move on to the hospital and so I am crunched up asleep on a hospital couch in the early morning hours John still in process having her baby my phone
buzzes in my pocket and since there's no messages just a picture my colleagues just sent me a Britney holding a baby and I realize something that hadn't come to me previously and that's that yes I would love to be there and she Chris really wanted me there but in the end it's not about me in the slightest Britney did this she owned it she's carrying it
forward this was her choice to make and she was able to see it through and that's really what midwifery cares about at the core it's about listening to women helping them find their power and their choice and most of the time those choices leading to better outcomes for themselves and their babies women everywhere regardless of their race their religion their family arrangement their age they always
really remember how they're made to feel when they're giving birth and because we are providers witnessing this and experiencing this with women that the secret time we need to treat it as such so how're midwives different well a lot of people have stereotypes about midwife's %HESITATION maybe which in the woods with some potions and some herbs Oregon over typically I get kind of you know the
hippie with the Birkenstock sin what you bring to the birth maybe a crystal and I stick to bite on a hot towel and use the Birkenstock his true for someone else but the rest is not accurate %HESITATION most credentialed midwives in Minnesota and really nationally and internationally share thousands of hours of clinical apprenticeship advanced training academic training access to and use of very evidence based care
models medications therapies but all that is really a lot less important than what we do that so different for the medical model enough that we listen we take a lot a lot of time to listen midwives view pregnancy and birth as a normal part of life when you're pregnant you're not sick you don't need to be managed must you have a you know another mitigating health
concern and the word midwife means with woman you're not directing their care we are with some is they're experiencing this part of their life and so with unhurried conversations frequent visits always listening helping them explore what their choices are we can get better results for them for their babies for their post partum time for their nursing why does this matter you know you might say well
that's fine a few people that have their babies at home they can be where does call I'm going to be a hero and this is in a push for everybody to have their baby out of hospital certainly not but it is a push for choice in understanding what choices are because despite all the bells and whistles despite all of our technology in the United States around
birth and pregnancy right now the US is about fiftieth in maternal mortality that's women dying in childbirth think about that for a minute we have a lot at our disposal we're doing really poorly for mothers and countries that are doing a lot better than us are doing so primarily through the use of midwives for the lion's share of these women's care in fact even in the
United States is this graph shows if you take two groups of similar women so similarly healthy low risk in midwifery care the standard medical care the rates of a lot of interventions are a lot lower with midwives primarily because they're taking that extra time see section specifically about three or four percent of low risk women delivering with midwives who experience the section which some major surgery
to recover from on top of recovering from having a baby which the least half of you know what that feels like and the national average is about twenty percent and it's a lot higher in rural areas in our area specifically it's about thirty three and in very rural hospitals it's even higher and less than two percent of women who strive been using midwives say they want
something different from the future women tend to really love the Midwest on a bond with them which is part of what makes our %HESITATION experience so enjoyable as well I had one month say to me that's part of what makes men free care so special the midwife understands the need to move and make noise and be scared and excited and sarcastic and quiet and serious and
elated unfocused and freaked out all in one birth experience and the grace and the knowledge to know that each of those has its rightful place and the midwives have the ability to just be present through all of this and not just wait it's a baby a lot of moms tell us that they feel like the safety and security that comes from that relationship is what helps
their labor to go as it does lifetimes easier and again that is born out by research some advice really try and be hands off we try and be there for support to listen to provide the care that's necessary when it's necessary and women like Britney really get it but she should have had to drive two hours every time she had a prenatal appointment with me they
should've been a midwife in our own community the concert for we need more of us women in Minnesota and Dion really deserve to understand what midwives do and how that choice could be accessible to them they deserve to be honored and respected for their bodies for their families and midwives really need to stick to using our most important tools which is our ears to really listen
