What happens when you are going to give birth to a hospital and end up being a victim of obstetric violence? One of two, or in the second delivery you go again, praying for you to be touched by more respectful professionals, or you do not take risks and decide to give birth at home, like mammals, without the exhaustive control of many hospitals or the instrumentalization that sometimes complicates rather than fix or prevent.
This is what Axel and his wife did, who chose the alternative option of having their baby at home, in the company of the midwives of Nèixer Home, with Inma Marcos, whom we interviewed a long time ago in the blog regarding childbirth at home.
They did it because they did not want to repeat such a deal and they recorded it to try to help couples who have doubts with an example of a home birth in which the protagonists are what they have to be: mom, baby and dad taking a hand. The result is "MAMÍferos", an intense and exciting video.
Axel, the father, tells everything from his point of view on his website and thanks to that explanation we see how everything was forged and how everything happened. They decided to flee the hospital because after the first birth they concluded that if something was going to go wrong, it was going to go wrong both at home and in a hospital, and if everything went well, at home I sure the delivery was perfect but, in the hospital, it might end up not.
We talked, of course, about the instrumentalization of births, about putting on a monitor and lying for hours when the woman should have freedom of movement, about putting you in a room with other women dilating, without privacy and without the possibility of disconnecting, knowing you in a place alien, far from the warmth of your home, or from a place that conveys confidence. And we talk, of course, of "shaking" every time someone comes in white because he treats you like a useless girl, telling you exactly what you have to do at all times without considering that you are not a sick person, but a healthy woman with a healthy baby about to be born.
The protocols have changed. Years ago, many years ago, it is known that births should not be like that, but the news does not arrive in the same way everywhere and in many hospitals the routines are still those of 20 or 30 years ago. Normal that many mothers run away.
My opinion? I have commented on more than one occasion: if something goes wrong, I prefer to be in a hospital than at home. I guess the being of those who wear a white coat every day makes me see it that way. If everything goes well, it depends, I guess I would fight to achieve a respected birth also hospitable. As I say, things are changing, but you have to keep fighting, even more, for them to continue evolving and for the hospital delivery to be like Bea's, the video's mother. A beautiful birth. Copy. An unforgettable birth. Thanks Axel and Bea for opening the window of your house and your privacy and showing us what a normal and mammalian birth is like.
