Healing the planet begins when greater value is placed upon the spiritual transformation of birth.
Healing the planet begins when the current management of Pregnancy Labor and Birth shifts towards a more humane approach. The current management of pregnancy, labor, and birth must change towards a more dignified honorable process.
The planet heals with the elimination of racial and gender bias in labor/birth management. Our planet heals when racial discrimination and reproductive injustice ends. Healing will begin when healthcare shifts from a for-profit politically and economically driven model towards a more holistic compassionate standard.
The planet heals when empowered women intentionally articulate their needs and play a more active role regarding the management of their labor and delivery.
Healing the planet will begin when women begin to own their power and consciously use their voices to stand up and make demands that support their choice regarding labor room interventions and overall care.
Healing the planet begins when the insurance industry no longer uses its corporate power to regulate the practice of midwives by denying women access to midwifery services or access to maternity care of their choice.
Our labor birth choices have been influenced by our social norms and dictates that do not place enough value on one of women’s most cherished life events.
African American history reflects a legacy of strength exemplified by women who in the past have chosen Midwives as the primary provider for support during pregnancy labor & birth.
Healing the Planet arises with culturally competent health care providers. Culturally competent providers can help improve birth outcomes, and can positively impact the health equity of women.
The planet heals when women are encouraged to reflect upon elements of importance in their lives. Reflecting upon those elements will support them in self-discovery. This reflection strengthens, empowers and helps support women to feel stronger and secure in decisions regarding birth practitioner and birth settings.
Healing the planet requires women to reject our current dominant approach towards the management of labor.
For some time now, we have allowed the current medical paradigm to define for us what is important to us during our pregnancy, labor, and birth journey. We have all been socialized to believe in the current one dimensional, medicalized approach to managing pregnancy, labor, and birth. This approach focuses more on technology and invasive procedures rather then the human experience. Our medical care system is a male dominated for profit driven corporation comprising an inpatient hostile agenda based in fear. This system offers marginalized care towards women of color.
The current paradigm is hostile towards out of hospital birth settings. Particularly,
the home birth option endorsing home birth as unsafe despite the enormous amount or empirical data. Women with uncomplicated pregnancies — about 45 percent of the total — were better off in the hands of midwives than hospital doctors during birth, according to new guidelines by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. 3
Birth is a sacred process to be honored, cherished, and revered. Therefore, it is important to choose practitioners and birth settings that will respect and honor this tradition.
Midwives encourage women to take more control in initiating and creating a more relevant positive birth experience that matters to her, her partner and her family. A positive birth experience involves the presence of family. A positive birth experience includes a partnership between the expectant woman and her provider. A positive birth experience is empowering, illuminating, restorative, connective, inclusive and above all healing. A positive birth experience matters ancestrally- drawing on the past and providing memory for future. Women are eternally transformed by their birth experience.
In the context of race, statistically African American women have a higher (MMR) maternal mortality rate. The rate is 3-4 times higher then non-Hispanic Caucasian women. The (IMR 11.1%) infant mortality rate among black infants is 2.4 times higher than that of white infants, primarily due to preterm birth.1 A preterm labor usually leads to delivering a low birth weight baby. These untoward statistics in part are due to racial and gender injustice. We, obviously have different variables to negotiate. Based on these statistics it is extremely important for African American women to become more responsible, accountable, and critically aware of their health and well being physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It is also imperative that we choose birth options that work more cohesively with our whole spirit and wellbeing. It is equally important for women to be informed of all labor birth options and to remain informed about vital health facts and statistics.
As a Midwife, I encourage women to own their power and Consciously Choose to Birth Positively, joyously and powerfully within the privacy of their homes or at least choose a provider who cares to touch who dares to listen, who validates, and of course one who practices with some human dignity. I encourage women to consciously choose a provider who cares to integrate their medical social cultural and religious elements of their lives towards the management of their care.
I encourage women to choose a provider who they intuitively trust.
I encourage women to exercise their reproductive rights throughout their entire pregnancy and birth in the way that is right for their labor birth journey.
Midwives have a lower C-section rate then physician led deliveries.
Midwives have lower then the national average rate for episiotomy (3.6% compared to 25%)1
Lower then the national average rate for primary cesarean (9.9% compared to 32%)2
Higher then the national average rate for breastfeeding initiation (78.6% compared to 51%)1
Midwives also have a lower Infant mortality rate and a lower LBW rate then physician led deliveries.
Midwives create a culture of safety by providing comprehensive care.
Midwives facilitate quality care by engaging in a shared decision-making process with clients. Greater patient involvement in care generally results in better health outcomes and higher levels of patient satisfaction.4
Midwives validate home birth, and all birth options made within a conscious context, inspired from within, centered around collective decision making that supports the transformative potential, purpose & power of Birth.
I encourage you to consciously choose to have a birth experience that positively matters most for you, your baby, your family, your community, Your Life.
Healing the planet originates with a conscious decision to birth in the way that is right for you and in the way that is healing to both you and our planet.
I am a Midwife and I represent a Conscious Collaborative Driven Evidence-based Paradigm. A nature based spirit process that leads to the healing of our planet.
I encourage women to move towards a natural transformative birth process that is consistent with the Midwifery based Philosophy. A philosophy that is consistent with a healthier lifestyle, and a transformative birth process that contributes to the healing of our planet.
By Sakina O’Uhuru CNM MS RN RPA