Title: Re: [ozmidwifery] sexual abuse and labour
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Justine,
thank you for being so open with your
experience...the women we were discussing actually had a 6.5 hour 2nd
stage...and, yes, in hospital!! (don't faint!) She just would not push even
though the baby's head was just a knuckle's depth into the vagina, in fact she
clenched her buttocks together every time she had a contraction. We tried
talking her through her contractions, walking around, stepping up and down on a
step, but to no avail. Her contractions went off for ages, but the baby's
heartrate was fine and mum appeared to be doing well in the physical sense.
Ultimately she ended up with a 'whiff' of syntocinon which picked up the
contractions until she had no choice but to push her beautiful boy out. she went
throught the whole labour with no analgesia at all, and only needed a few
stitches, so the outcome, from a physical sense was good. This is where
continuity of carer would have been in it's element...we are still working on a
proposal to get 'caseload' up and running where I work.
Sally
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery] sexual abuse
and labour
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent:
Monday, 6 June 2005 6:36 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject:
[ozmidwifery] sexual abuse and labour
could anyone point in the
direction of research about the effects of sexual abuse (childhood or as an
adult) has on labour. I was having a conversation with a friend of mine and
she finds it difficult to believe that the psychological can interrupt the
physiological.
Thanks
Sally
Dear Sally
and All
I suggest your friend has never encountered anyone who has been
sexually assaulted/abused, although with one in 4 women if she is a midwife
then I doubt it. Liz Mullinar, heads up an organisation called ASCA (Advocates
for Survivors of Sexual Abuse). She presented at the 2003
Homebirth Australia Conference and was very well received. She noted
that labours (of survivors) tend to either have precipitous labours or
extremely long labours. Women�s psychological damage rewsults in not
wanting to feel the sensations of birth (particularly the more sexual
sensations) and works very quickly or holds on hoping never to sense
it.
As a survivor of sexual assault I can vouch that I fell into the
�very long labour� with number 1. I had an out of body experience and
felt that death was imminent (yes I know that there is that death thing around
birth but mine was directly related to the assault as I relieved it. I
had no urge to push (yes other women have this too) and felt my body closing
down when I was directed to give a little push on the next contraction.
The sensation of bushing and particularly the full sensation towards my
anus made me wish I was dead. I was not scared of birth I was terrified
of what came next in my repeat performance of the assault (as it was at
knifepoint).
Here comes the sad bit. If I�d have been in the
system it probably would have been totally relived with an [EMAIL PROTECTED] I
swear if that had happened I would now be in an asylum. But due to a
skilled midwife and me being at home a beautiful and EXTREMELY healing birth
took place.
Oh and by the way I had previoulsy �dealt� with my assault
through 12 months of psychotherapy (several years before) and the whole
episode took me by total surprise. Birth and sexual abuse/assault have an
amazing link even if the woman can�t articulate it (repressed memory unable to
articulate it etc).
Australia�s production line birth and inhumane
interventions no doubt force women to relive abuse everyday.
You can
contact Liz Mullinar through the ASCA website www.asca.org.au or if you
want to I will contact her personally for her
references.
Justine
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- Re: [ozmidwifery] sexual abuse and labour sally williams
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