There are plenty of people who should be feeling guilty for breastfeeding failure.

But the mothers who are doing the best they can with the information and access they have in a culture that is unsupportive and hostile???

Nope. 
​
That ladies is called gaslighting.

And we women are so used to it, that we didn't even notice. We gaslight each other and ourselves. 

​it's called the Mummy Wars

I read this article about induction  today, (well actually I read the comments on the article, and got too angry to read the article itself) a mum's birth story.


The Tagline for the heading was "at 42 weeks clearly my body just didn't know how to 'do'labour". 


That alone made me want to punch people.


The comments left me with a new understanding for my Ex who regularly used to express his frustration that life is not more like Video games. I seriously wanted to stab people.
In fact I wanted to hit them all in the face, and then tattoo "ask for the evidence" all over their bodies, whilst wearing my Birth Monopoly shirt. 


So what made me so angry?


In a hundred and seven comments, not one woman had any idea of evidence based practice, of  the cascade of intervention, that pregnancy is not 40 weeks long, or the effects of induction (especially early term induction) on their baby. 




But that's not all


There was dozens of comments referring to how their Dr told them they needed to be induced, how their Dr knew best, or 'saved' their baby's life, and in fact there was a whole sub thread of women defending their medically recommended inductions when the original comment on the thread gave them absolutely no reason to need to justify themselves. (It said that inductions suck, so she did't understand why anyone would want an induction purely for being a few days late)


And then there were the comments of women trying to justify an induction for things like being 40weeks in the middle of summer...........


Yep.


Cause no woman anywhere has ever had to deal with that before. Eye roll. 

And finally the incredibly confusing double posted comment about how being exhausted is a risk factor for PND (yes) and so if you are really exhausted at the end of pregnancy an induction will prevent PND (ummm, No).


Yes if you have major back pain and can hardly move that's a reasonable reason for induction. Yes if you have HG and still can't hold down a thing more than Saos you have a case. But in both those scenarios, giving birth is going to solve the underlying issue.


I can guarantee that giving birth is not going to help you be less exhausted!
All you are doing is trading an inability to sleep because you are uncomfortable for an inability to sleep because you are feeding around the clock. 


So, yeah. Wanted to stab people.


But after having all these "my body let me down" stories float around in my head for a few hours I had the following thought.


When are women on a whole going to wake up to the fact that their bodies didn't let them down, the system let them down?!  (This applies to breastfeeding too)


All this, "don't shame/judge me for having an (insert intervention here), my body didn't work" or "my baby would have died without it" stuff is absolute crap.


we are all so busy focusing on the" mummy wars" and "not judging/shaming" or defending what happened to us, instead of learning about physiological birth, finding our agency and demanding better.


Let me say it again.


Your body did not let you down
Your body is not broken
You did not fail


Your "care providers" are the failures. 
The responsibility and the outcome lies with them and their shit system.


Stop putting them on a fucking pedestal for 'saving' your life or your baby with the 'emergency' C section or instrumental delivery they inevitably performed after they mind fucked you into believing that you were broken, and that you were putting your baby and your lives at risk!!!!!!


Listen to this right now.


They created that risk.


They created it. With their fear mongering about going "overdue" based on a due date system that isn't even accurate. With their you "will Have to"s and their "I will allow you to do x but not y"s. With their lack of using evidence based care. With their damn ridiculous and disproven Partogram counting down your 'lack' of progress. With their EFM machines, saline drips, epidurals and pitocin. With their ridiculous policies like not eating and drinking. With the lithotomy position then "needing" episiotomies and forceps to do the job of gravity. With their directed pushing. With the bright lights and the rotating shifts, and the lack of continuity of care.


They created the risk.

In fact here are some of them to prove that it's not just celebrities and royals that can make birth look easy. (#Birthjusthappened) 


It doesn't have to be this hard!
It won't be super easy for everyone, we all have different bodies and pain thresholds and labour for different amounts of time, but the system makes it harder than it needs to be.


It's never been this hard in the whole history of the world, before the last 2 centuries. 
And don't give me, that "but women and babies died more back then" crap.


1: We have significantly better basic hygiene 
2: America has maternal and infant mortality rates higher than the freaking third world countries that are the closest comparison we have in terms of the living conditions of our ancestors.
Puerto Rico, Kuwait, South Korea and Serbia all have less babies and mothers die than the good old USA. 
(Australia and the UK's rates aren't that crash hot either but we at least are not going backwards!) 


So, please, please, stop defending your doctor and your interventions and believing their crap about your body failing you. That is just them (consciously or subconsciously) covering for their failures.


Get educated on what birth should and could be like, and then get angry at the system instead of at all the women (and men) who you think are fighting you. Because they aren't. They are fighting the system. This isn't about you. It's about the system. 


Seriously. They are on your side. fighting for you. so that your daughters don't have the same shitty, intervention filled births you had. So that your daughters don't have to fight for their rights mid-labour. So that the home birth vs hospital debate becomes completely defunct. so that there is no "natural birth movement" or "anti-CSection movement" making you feel judged.


So that there is No need for the obstetric violence "movement". 


The future we "Natural Birthers" want is the one where our daughters know that they have the power and the agency to make the choice that is best for their circumstances based on the best possible unbiased evidence. 


We hope that they will expect and receive a respectful model of care where no one will feel like they are being bullied into a type of birth they don't want.


We want unmedicated, active birth to at least be one of the options they think of when they think of birth, that they actually see it on TV and in other media. For them to know that there is nothing to be feared from birth, and that the horror stories of our current world are simply ancient history.  


Sure we hope that with adequate education on the micro biome, and the hormonal/psychological as well as physical benefits of natural birth for both mum and baby, that they will choose natural birth because it is best practice in most situations. 


But


'natural' or 'CSection' we want them to feel empowered, competent, respected and involved.


We want a future where no woman feels like a failure for not getting the birth she wanted, or can be 'made to feel' like a failure by their doctors, their family, their friends, or some random stranger on the internet.


So please start fighting with us, instead of believing that we are fighting you. 


Ps.


I know I said I wanted to slap people. But really, I would rather you just get educated, then I wouldn't feel I had to slap people into recognising the lie that they are living. 


Pps.


All of this applies to the breastfeeding/formula crowd too. 

Privilege and oppression come in many forms

You know the drill, show support for Nursing In Public and someone always says, "be discreet, it's not that hard." Or perhaps "it's fine if you do it discreetly but all those mums who just flop their boobs out are annoying/attention seeking."


Maybe the even go as far as to say this...