How often do you as an OBGYN look over the blue drape in the operating room to make sure your patient is experiencing this birth without emotional trauma?
Trigger warning: This post includes a written recollection of my psychological experience in the operating room during my first birth.
We all know that Healthy mom, Healthy Baby takes the cake when we ask: what's the most important thing about birth?
But does MENTAL HEALTH count as part of the Healthy mom part? Or is the mother's mental health irrelevant in the equation of birth? Are we only looking at the physical health of a mom as being a Healthy Mom, and whether or not she maintains a positive mental health is irrelevant?
How does the care provider that you choose to hire for your birth impact your Mental Health?
With my first birth, I had full faith in my hospital choice, in my nurse, in anesthesia, but I realized in the moment when I was in the operating room and my csection procedure had begun, I did not choose the right OBGYN for MYSELF. He was awesome for my friend during her birth but he was not the person I needed for mine. I did not trust him during pregnancy, I remember leaving prenatal visits feeling like he didn't answer my questions fully, and the lack of his support through my pregnancy is how my first birth ended up being traumatizing for ME.
7 years ago, I was fully awake when I entered the operating room. I was awake, cognizant that I was fully experiencing major abdominal surgery. For ME, this was a very personal experience and it scared me to my core. I found an old message I wrote after my daughter's birth recounting my memories: Circa 2012 "I remember how terrified of dying I was when I was told I needed a csection. I was so scared I was crying out of fear and telling Mike (my husband) I don't want to die and leave him a single dad. The nurse talked to me for a long time telling me I won't die, telling me what they will do, how it will feel. Her hugging me while the anesthesiologist inserted the spinal, me feeling terrified because I couldn't move my legs, then I felt them touching my stomach behind the blue screen and I cried and was hyperventilating the whole time. Mike held my hand and kept telling me I was doing great. After Kate was born, Mike went with her to the nursery I thought I'd never see him again and that I'd bleed out."
This is not every woman's experience, but it was mine, BECAUSE COME ON! IT IS MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY THAT A WOMAN IS AWAKE FOR, what other major surgery are patients awake for?! It was not anyone's fault how scared I was. My nurse did her best and was thorough. Anesthesia held my hand, god bless him, I finally thanked him last year when I saw him again after years. I had full confidence in my hospital. But I had zero confidence in myself. I had zero confidence in my body. But I was doing this for the first time, and this was the only moment of my life that I would become a mother for the first time. The part that failed me was that my OBGYN who had done this a thousand times and should have known better how much this experience can stay with a woman for the rest of her life, how much this experience can impact a woman's mental health, yet he did not come to me, he did not to hug me, he did not talk to me or reassure me of what was happening or reassure me that everything is ok. My OBGYN walked into the OR and I heard him talking statistics from last night's game. For him this was an everyday occurrence but for me this was THE MOMENT. I was beginning my journey of being reborn from womanhood into mother, the only time for the first time in my life. It was a transformational experience and I transformed through fear of death and was left with trauma.
The OBGYN, CNM or LM YOU HIRE for YOUR BIRTH matters SO MUCH. I chose the best hospital, had a great LD nurse, an amazing anesthesiologist, but I didn't know that I chose the wrong OBGYN for myself.
So while your care provider may have amazing statistics and has delivered 1,000 babies, if your care provider is not compassionate to your mental health, and prepared to hold space for you knowing this is a rare occurrence for you, since you'll likely give birth only a few times in your life, then ask yourself if your care provider truly encompasses "Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby"?
And providers ask yourself, do you want your patients holding onto fear, trauma and disappointment through their lives or do you want them remembering these moments in the pictures of this blog post, moments where you expressed deep compassion for them?
Because as exciting as this moment is for all families, for many families this moment is also terrifying, and the only rock they can lean on for confidence and support is you. Until as a species we recognize that women in labor need way more compassion and emotional support than we have been giving out, until all our care providers truly become the embodiment of ‘birth workers’ we will continue seeing unnecessarily rates of birth trauma in women, post partum depression, PTSD, post natal anxiety.
Pictured within this article: Care providers at birth's I've attended who blew me away when I saw them caring about how mom is perceiving her birth experience.
I am Paulina Splechta and I have attended 130 births in south Florida. I have been a professional birth photographer part of the International Association of Professional Birth Photographers for over 5 years. I understand the Birth Process and Birth Space with knowledge about the stages of labor and how they can sometimes look different for different people, how an unmedicated birth differs from an epidural birth, knowledge of the vocabulary of birth and I recognize how my presence as a photographer might inhibit or interfere with the birth process and how my job is to recognize and adapt to what each birthing person needs.
