This is an excerpt from a truly infuriating Facebook thread recently about dogma around which tools midwives “should” carry or not. This was in response to a post about using a simple and inexpensive contraption that can help reduce bleeding in a postpartum hemorrhage – I agree that it is not ok to experiment on women in the global south, which was part of the original post.

T:      I am curious when you say a non-medical model of childbirth and then say that you carry a medical device with you. What of what G was saying about the non-medical practices of skin to skin…..

J :      Would you have midwives not use tools that might save a life? Of course all non medical things like skin to skin must be standard, and for many midwives are. For the rare women who need more ( I’ve definitely seem more bleeding since covid) would you not want next level inexpensive medical care to save a life or prevent catastrophic bleeding and a rough postpartum recovery?

T:      J is midwifery just  inexpensive medical care?

Margo:      T is your dogma you are attached to worth someone dying or being needlessly ill? I have been to births where baby was skin to skin and no one interfered and yet the blood loss was more than the mama could withstand without showing signs of shock. Why NOT have these simple tools? Why NOT trust ourselves to only use them when we have also done our due diligence as incredible respectful midwives? It does not need to be an either/or just for the sake of it. I hate this medical/non-medical debate. Midwifery is different than it was 100 years ago and we have to decide what the best way to love forward is without ego and attachment. The ultra medical midwifery is also dogmatic. If we can rid ourselves of the debate altogether and say “what tools are there and how do I want to wield them for the highest good of all, in alignment with what feels true for me?” – now that, in my opinion is the question that few are asking. And we each will have a different answer and that is so beautiful.