Why Cesarean Awareness Month? Giving Birth With Confidence says,
My Birth Matters. And while a cesarean may be the best choice for a particular birth, the cut mother may have mixed feelings and need understanding of both her gratitude for a life saving procedure and the grief of not finishing the birth on her own powers.
For these women, the short cut cuts short the hormonal completion some women need to feel finished. The closure of the incision is not the closure on the surgical birth.
Out of the desire for birth need recognition comes a new movie, Trial of Labor. Spinning Babies was a supporter of this effort. Here is an April 18th film screening of Trial of Labor at ArtRage, an activist art and social awareness gallery in Syracuse, NY.
Good going ICAN of Syracuse.
I, myself, am speaking Monday April 13th for our local chapter of ICAN Twin Cities in South Minneapolis (Minnesota). Come to the free evening and learn something useful to avoid a cesarean in your upcoming birth.
Cesarean Awareness Month gives a voice to woman who felt shushed when they expressed the grief next to everyone’s relief that the birth resulted in a living child. Even when the cesarean is what helped make sure the baby lived.
Not all women grieve their cesarean. I would hope we all realize that some women have a peace with having had a cesarean to avoid health threats, for scheduling convenience, or even avoid facing the fear of birth when their is no support for birth around them.
And even if its a surprise cesarean for someone wanting a natural birth they may not grieve because they began labor, everyone helping them tried their best and the woman got to make decisions through out.
In my circle of supporting women wanting natural birth either at home, birth center, or in the hospital, women feel that they’ve tried “everything” and know why they consented to a caesarean. But this doesn’t take care of all of the loss of the birth they did not have.
Part of grief is trying to restore the expectations that were lost. The birth went differently and the expectations of the vaginal birth are lost. Who she was becoming as a mother changed scenes and she seeks her self in the difference. Feelings emerge and sometimes erupt spontaneously from this change.
We grieve until we find ourself on the other side of the stage, so to speak, and then we maintain.
Cesarean Awareness month supports that journey.
Cesarean Awareness is also public awareness of the risks associated with major surgery for birthing a baby. Higher rates of injury and infection and higher future rates of pregnancy and birth complications can be examined at
Resource on what is a VBAC and if they are safe on
ICAN: https://www.ican-online.org/faqs-about-vbac/