We have already published three interviews with doctor Emilio Santos, gynecologist and psychiatrist, specialist in the emotional aspects of pregnant and parturient, professionally dedicated to the care of home births.
Today we are going to address a new battery of questions, this time focusing precisely on mother's feelings that gives birth and we will see how it explains some of the feelings that women show in their non-respectful hospital deliveries and also the way in which he attends births to allow the parturient to feel safe and able to give birth in intimacy and freedom .
When i met Emilio SantosEight years ago, there was something about him that I found fascinating. We were in meetings of women who talked about their deliveries, often lived with emotional pain, and investigated and committed themselves to achieve an improvement of the delivery care model in Spain. He barely spoke, watched and listened, with eyes full of sensitivity and respect, never imposing his opinion, but rather wanting to know that we were worried.
In those meetings he used to be the only man, although sometimes parents came, if he was of course the only male gynecologist. The feeling of tenderness and closeness that I simply conveyed with his silent and respectful presence was exciting to me. Today, years later, I have known him better, and I understand those feelings, increasing every day the admiration for his work and his conscious attention, but above all for his extraordinary humanity.
Is there a special "violent" treatment of parturients in the hospital system?
Most of the professionals who attend childbirth are correct in education and intend to collaborate to the best of their ability so that the process proceeds. I do not know any malicious professionals or have a special animosity against women in labor.
Why then are there women who feel they were not treated well, especially if they want a natural birth?
What happens is that in a spirit of contributing to health education, professionals believe in the obligation to channel those women who, because of their ideas or what they have read, want a different birth. Most professionals live childbirth as something dangerous, full of risks. Most of the professionals have not witnessed in their lives the process of women giving birth free according to their instinct and they do not know that this type of birth has a really low complication rate. Most professionals believe that a woman who wants a birth in free posture and without interference is a woman who does not care enough about her safety or that of her baby.Because of their training, many professionals live the birth in the belief that really comprehensive pregnancy controls and the medical and technological monitoring of labor is saving lives.
Does the woman become childish in her births?
There is often a childish treatment behind the affectionate treatment, represented in phrases such as "lie down, pretty." When we want to treat a patient affectionately but at the same time we want to have responsibility and power over their decisions, the only possible outcome is the infantilizing treatment. Within the medical acts the case of childbirth is also a very particular case. First because childbirth is not a disease and second and equally important because among the conditions that nature has provided for the delivery to proceed normally is the condition that the woman should feel great, powerful. Nature plans to have the birth postponed when there is an authority figure in front.I think that the most difficult thing to learn for people who attend a natural birth is the humility necessary to put themselves in a plane of social hierarchy below that of the woman who is giving birth. Doctors have taught us to make decisions for patients, not to inform and ask what they prefer.
Is it harder to let the woman decide?
The professional's point of view is that he has a series of knowledge that he has acquired after many years of experience and study. Many professionals believe in the responsibility of their patients' health decisions. Actually these professionals carry a very heavy heavy load on their backs. When a professional assumes that his role is to inform and advise and that, indeed, the final decisions about health are of each person, it should really be a relief of this burden of responsibility. What happens is that behind all responsibility there is also a desire for power. And although responsibility is a burden, the search for the feeling of power is something almost instinctive in the human being. We have the instinct to try to have things under our control. If we think about it coldly, responsibility and power are a burden, but we all know that responsibility and that power have something that hooks, it is almost addictive. When we assume more responsibility, we feel more power and we like that, but at the same time we carry more weight. Actually, our professional work is much easier when we unload that burden on the patient.
How do you get the woman to feel that she has the power when you attend a birth?
Speak justly and calmly and even have a spatial position inferior to that of women. If she is sitting I try to sit down or get on my knees; if she is on her knees, I also try to get on her knees or squat; If she is squatting, I also try to squat or sit on the floor and if she is sitting on the floor, I also try to sit on the floor or lying down. But perhaps more important than all this that can be done at the time of delivery is to have brought about emotional closeness and mutual familiarity during pregnancy during the first consultation during pregnancy. I consider it very important, when I attend a delivery, to speak little, not to stand out among the people who are present, to avoid being the center of attention.
And how do you get it? I know that if I do not do so, I am creating a risk factor that the delivery does not go well. This is due to the fact that the woman's genetic program foresees that the delivery takes place in privacy or, at most, in the presence of close relatives that make her feel safe. If society demands that a professional exist in a delivery, that professional must keep this in mind at all times.
When they treat me, I propose that we deal with you to take familiarity. I also take advantage of all the occasions of greeting and farewell to give a hug to the woman who is going to give birth, to her partner and to her children; and I accept any invitation to share a coffee, a beer or a meal.When I am going to attend a delivery at home I consider that I will have the privilege and that I must necessarily belong a little to that family.
Have you been told by many women who suffered feelings of humiliation and invasion during their hospital delivery?
Many. A high percentage of women who come to my office to have a home birth are hurt because they perceived that kind of sensations in a previous birth. I know well that the professionals who attended them did not act badly according to their knowledge or according to established protocols; they didn't even act badly from the point of view of education standards. But I also know that most of these professionals and, in general, medical science today, have a great lack of knowledge about the emotional needs of women in labor.
Conclusion
This quarter of the interview that Babies and more has done to Dr. Emilio Santos It reveals to us the reasons for some situations that women live in an emotionally negative way in their hospital births and the way in which this respected childbirth professional manages to avoid them in their practice. We will continue to see other aspects, such as separation and its consequences, the reality of the practice of early cord cutting and other important issues to deepen the most respectful way in which the coming to the world of children can be addressed.
