Interview by Alisha Meyer

It seems our whole industrialized medical system is based on machines. Patients are machines, Practitioners are machines, we use machines on machines. When do we get to the point where we start being treated as humans? Birth left to its own devices will result in death, or without my expertise there to save you or your baby, someone will die. How dare you give birth without an obstetrician! The birthing woman being told “you have no authority here” during her labor is just one example of how far we have come away from trusting women to fulfill their birthright. There’s a few ways this mistreatment can be dangerous 1) Blanket standard of care for women that are as unique as they come. Let’s look at the routine of cervical exams. Your cervix is not a crystal ball, if you’re 6 cm or 10, there’s no time table your body is guaranteed to follow! 2) The lack of informed consent or even consent at all is a huge danger! Obstetric abuse is real, and very alive today, I’ve recently first hand seen this happen. “Holding back a cervical lip” so the patient is complete so now you can coach and tell her when to give birth. This is no way any human deserves to be treated during such a turning point in her reality, and existence! How about we step back and listen to the birthing woman that’s yelling in agony and begging for you to stop, step back and ask yourself, was I really helping? Did my fingers in her really improve anything? In this situation, you did not help, she still ended up needing to wait hours until her body was actually ready to push! What she needed was someone to give her time and listen to her needs, she needed rest and to recollect. When a woman is hallucinating due to extreme exhaustion, do you really think she’s in the right place to be abused? 3) Nutrition prenatally and postpartum could be 1000% better, but no, we’re feeding fresh postpartum moms red jello and pancakes… I’m not even going to go into the lack of healing but the actual harm that meal is doing to women. At least you could give her warm milk, and soup. Something to nourish her. She now is constipated, on top of being afraid to poop. Her body is under a tremendous amount of stress with breastfeeding and healing, and not sleeping enough. She needs 3000-4000 calories a day and fluids, not drugs and red dye 40…