I got an email yesterday from a classmate. When I first saw the subject line, which had only the name of another classmate, I thought the worst. It turns out that devastation had not hit her, but a Mother she had been caring for.
My classmate had attended a silent birth.
There was a knot in the cord and the Mother stopped feeling movement on her due date.
I never said anything on this blog, but when I did my presentation on pre-e, I got comments from the class as part of the evaluation. More than one of the comments said something about it being a sombre topic, as if it had no place in midwifery, the land of so-called "normal" birth. I know that many people come into this profession thinking about smiling Moms and happy, fat babies, but the reality, as so many of you know, is that that isn't always the case. One of our classmates lost her baby at 22 weeks due to PTL and now, in her first placement, another classmate has borne witness to the penultimate devastation of a silent birth. I haven't figured out why we don't talk about it more, after all, it happens more often than SIDS (from the stats I've read for the States, not sure about other areas). The only reason I can come up with is that, because around a third of stillbirths can't be explained, we can't do anything about them and if we can't do anything about them, we'd rather not talk about them. It does more harm than good though, to sweep it under the rug. We don't do research, we don't keep good enough records, we don't learn the best ways to handle such losses, we don't see the many, many parents who are walking around hurting and missing their babies, we don't realize how blessed we are when a baby is born healthy, we don't hear the names of the lost and remember their passing.
I am thinking of that Mother and the road she has to travel. I am hoping she finds a community like the one I have found that opens its arms and hearts to others who are hurting.
I am also thinking of my class, who are learning the reality of this profession.
Please keep the family in your prayers.
4 comments:
I'm sorry Sarah. I've spoken about my midwife and my son's birth many times, and I've spoken about how she was so kind and careful and soothing.
I'm sorry for your classmate. It is hard when birth and death come so closely together.
I am so sorry for this mother's loss. I don't know why people won't talk about it, especially midwives and doctors. Although I was not oblivious to the fact that silent births occur, my doctor certainly never mentioned the possibility to me. I assume they are afraid they would create too many hysterical mothers if they started talking about the things that can go wrong. But more often than not, we don't learn about what can go wrong until it is too late. Maybe a little education would help women be more alert to kicks or other symptoms that may indicate a potential problem. Even when you read the books like What to Expect, there is usually only a few pages that address what can go wrong and most issues are glossed over with the "it's probably nothing, but..." I get the feeling that the larger medical community is just accepting of the fact that x amount of babies will die per year, rather than actually trying to do something to prevent these deaths. Like you said, there's an article about SIDS in every parenting magazine you pick up, but in the US you are 4-5x more likely to have a stillbirth than a baby who dies of SIDS. It's really rather frustrating. I am glad you are one of the few that acknowledge the sadness that can go with childbirth and are not trying to sweep it under the rug.
You're going to be an amazing Midwife. Because you think of the bad things.. you'll be more prepared.
I think about Dr. Sunshine- my peri who was such an ass. ALL he sees are high risk pregnancies. You'd think he'd have learned how to handle us a little better.
I'm sorry for that family.
I truly hope that if there is ANY good that can come from such an awful situation it's that your classmates will be better caregivers if they ever face that situation themselves.
I hate hearing about another lost life. I think the attitude some of your classmates have is the attitude in general of the medical community.
Silent birth. I like that term better than stillborn.
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