by Julie Bell

Created on: October 27, 2008   Last Updated: November 11, 2008

There she lay... a stranded beetle tethered to the bed... a bleeping machine with wiggly lines on one side... another bleeping machine infusing some kind of ominous cocktail into her veins on the other side - and suddenly she sat bolt upright and cried, "I'm frightened!"

The midwife seized her by the shoulders and pushed her down flat.

"Now listen to me! Just lie still!"

"Deep breath, dear. Nearly there! We just have to give you a little pizzy," came from the nether regions beneath the surgical drapes.

An aside to the student nurse: "Just jab that into her thigh with the birth of the anterior shoulder. Don't worry. She won't feel it."

Such was my lasting impression of birth during my rotation in an obstetric unit. That was enough to make any thinking woman run screaming down the road in the opposite direction. I've read in various women's magazines that "parturiphobia", the pathological fear of childbirth is on the rise, especially among educated, middle class women. You don't say!

I vividly remember my midwife mother tut-tutting, "These modern career women! They've no instinct, you actually have to teach them how to breastfeed - and the fuss they make during the delivery!"

In due course, I myself became one of these modern career women and in the fullness of time, got pregnant. My mind still echoed with the gory stories Mum brought home from the delivery suite. I winced at the memory of myself as the student nurse poised with the needle aimed at the trembling thigh of the stranded beetle (I never did believe that she 'didn't feel a thing'). I knew one thing for sure . Wild horses couldn't drag me into a hospital to have my baby.

To be humiliated and stripped of my clothes and my choices, left shell-shocked and out-raged, struggling with ambivalent feelings towards the squalling infant in my arms, swallowing rage at the loss of control and dignity, yet having to act grateful, all banged up and cut and stitched and patronized and having all different uniforms peering at my intimate bits . Oh sure. Sign me up now.

There just had to be a better way.

So I did a little bit of personal research. I found that the basis for the "smart women have no instinct" view dated back to the Victorian era when it was supposed that the intellectual exercising of a woman's mind interfered with her biological mothering instincts. Which explains why not educating women was really an act of benevolence - to protect them from influences that would disrupt their ability to function in their natural

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>