As doulas, we are finding our way into the labor and delivery room in increasing numbers. Sometimes barriers are thrown up in our way. They may be systemic or institutional, as part of the medical culture of the hospital. They may be based on boundaries perceived to be threatened by medical staff. Or the barriers may come from the family of the laboring woman.
I have found that the mother of the laboring woman can be highly threatened by the presence of a doula. There are many reasons for this, many individual and personal to the mother and her daughter's unique relationship. However, there are some universal truths.
Mothers want to be there for their daughters, at this time more than ever. Mothers feel that birth, at least, is one experience that they can share with their daughters. They have been there before. It is a path that they have also travelled. Instead, the mother's mother is usually sent the message that their birth was barbaric, that how they fed their baby, calmed their baby, put their baby to sleep was wrong. They are told that what they ate, what they drank, what they smoked in their pregnancy was potentially damaging, despite the fact that they doctor told them it was okay.
It must be heart-wrenching to pick up a book and read that everything that you did or were told to do was wrong. It must be maddening to hear that the way you were treated in your labor would never happen now. As well, you can access constant, continual support and advocacy in the person of a doula. Grandma may think "isn't that my job?!"
Mothers live to offer their children their wisdom and gained life experience. As a doula, a childbirth educator and as a daughter myself, I am always aware of the needs of the new grandma-to-be.
Allow her to share her experience. I am always happy to have expectant moms bring their moms to prenatal class, even if the class is getting pretty full! I include them in all the discussion and encourage them to share their birth experiences, if they wish. If they have negative experiences or say something like "nobody ever offered me a doula!" I try to reframe it as a positive.
"I am sorry that your birth was so lonely. It is lucky your daughter is able to have such strong support for herself. I know you would never allow her to: labor alone, be strapped down, be forcefully medicated..."
As a doula, I honour the mother-daughter bond just as I honour the partner bond. Here is a woman finding her way to "grandmother-hood." Here is a woman who wants nothing more than to be to her daughter what a doula can be. But she doesn't know how. She may not herself understand birth, or anatomy or remember the stages of labor. She may have had a very lonely, painful birth, where pain medication was given as a standard coping tool. She may not believe that woman can labor without it. Or, sometimes, she may have been denied pain medication, support, comfort measures and told to "shush" and may feel her daughter should suck it up, like she did.
All I can do, as a doula, is model behavior and try to make Grandma look good. I am at my most diplomatic with the grandmas. I never hold a new baby before grandma has. I use every teachable moment that comes up and I draw out grandma on what makes her believe what she believes.
I was at a birth where the grandma insisted that her daughter keep her eyes open at all times when laboring. I drew that grandma out by asking what she liked about having her eyes open in her labor. She told me that the maternity nurse at her birth insisted that she open her eyes, so she focused on the clock and kept staring at it throughout the labor. I suggested that we give the mom something to focus on if she was going to have her eyes open, so mom stared into grandma's eyes. After a few contractions, mom sometimes focussed internally with her eyes closed and sometimes kept up the eye contact.
Part of the legacy of the loneliness and trauma of the births of the past generations, is that we now have a better understanding of what truly helps in birth. In order to move forward and improve things for birthing women, we have had to do little more than look back.
copyright 2005 Sarah Hilbert-West www.birthwares.com
