Maternal Rights When in Labor - ACOG's newest guidelines

While you were discovering your passion for animal rights given light to the past week's news, ACOG released a poignant ethics opinion on HUMAN RIGHTS - specifically on an issue near and dear to my heart as a crusader for a woman's right to informed consent and refusal within the realm of obstetric care.  ACOG's 2016  "Refusal of Recommended Treatment During Pregnancy" is about the mother's right to say "no" or refuse a certain aspect of her care, when it came to her care in pregnancy and in labor.  

​If you are pregnant, desire to become pregnant, or have a mother, sister, wife, cousin, aunt, etc that you care about who is considering giving birth, this opinion that replaces the 2005 Committee Opinion Number 321, “Maternal Decision Making, Ethics and the Law,” gives a valuable resource to you and/or to all these women in your life. 

Cristin Pascucci, founder of Birth Monopoly, wrote a summary of ACOG's newest opinion on maternal right to say no in her blog.  Its worth a read and you can find it here.   

At the end of her article, Cristin acknowledges the extraordinary resource this decision is for mothers in the maternal health care system but she also relays the very real aspect that our work as advocates for maternal rights is no where near over by posing the question  - "What can we do to further awareness and education among medical professionals, as well as providing protections for women who do experience coercion and forceful interventions?" (Pascucci, 2016)

Well, I called myself a crusader so ---- What am I doing?!

I'm glad you asked!  

I value women's rights in labor more so than ever before as my experience as a doula in the maternal health care system has showed me the good, the bad, and the ugly.  I want to say now, as I have many times before, I am a BIG fan of the health care system and truly value doctors, midwives, nurses, and other professionals, especially those I work with everyday on the labor and delivery floors.  With that said, I have grown to mistrust the system in its routine care for individuals.  After all, how can there truly be routine care so different at one office/hospital from the next?  For example, one area hospital says "You must have IV placement for your safety" and another down the street says "You only need it if x, y, z."  Andplusalso, when the individual in front of the OB changes, how then does the OB continue to provide the same routine care for a totally different person?  I digress.  

Let me get back to answering your question.  What am I doing right now to help the crusade?  Well, I became an Evidence Based Birth® Instructor a few months ago.  Evidence base care is different from you to me because there is a critical piece about you and me that is different.  

You are you and I am me.  

In my Evidence Based Birth® workshops, we fully address how to recognize evidence based practice AND HOW TO GET IT.  Now, with ACOGs support, we might just be on the right track...

​What do you think?  





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