Ina May Gaskin i Göteborg 8 dec 2011
Amerikas mest kända barnmorska, en inspirationskälla för kvinnor runt om i världen: Ina May Gaskin, tilldelades det alternativa Nobelpriset - The Right Livelihood Award i Stockholm den 5 december 2011. Den 8 december var hon inbjuden av Födelsehuset för att hålla två föreläsningar.
Preserving the skills of midwives and obstetricians
For the safety of mothers and babies we must keep our professional skills well-honed. In Europe, we should not follow the lead of the USA in putting technology first, while forgetting the manual skills that are still essential. Ina May will talk about why good cooperation between midwives and doctors is vital and tell moving stories from her 40 years of experience as a midwife.
Women can give birth!
Women's bodies are very capable of giving birth. We do not learn enough about this as we grow up. There are many horror stories about birth that circulate instead of helpful information, with the result that many women do not trust their bodies and are afraid of giving birth. Ina May will give us many encouraging examples of how the body works well in birth. She will also talk about the kind of care that is helpful.
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Här är citat från Ina May Gaskin:
“Remember this, for it is as true and true gets: Your body is not a lemon. You are not a machine. The Creator is not a careless mechanic. Human female bodies have the same potential to give birth well as aardvarks, lions, rhinoceri, elephants, moose, and water buffalo. Even if it has not been your habit throughout your life so far, I recommend that you learn to think positively about your body.”
“There is no other organ quite like the uterus. If men had such an organ they would brag about it. So should we”
“The techno-medical model of maternity care, unlike the midwifery model, is comparatively new on the world scene, having existed for barely two centuries. This male-derived framework for care is a product of the industrial revolution. As anthropologist Robbie Davis-Floyd has described in detail, underlying the technocratic mode of care of our own time is an assumption that the human body is a machine and that the female body in particular is a machine full of shortcomings and defects. Pregnancy and labor are seen as illnesses, which, in order not to be harmful to mother or baby, must be treated with drugs and medical equipment. Within the techno-medical model of birth, some medical intervention is considered necessary for every birth, and birth is safe only in retrospect.”
“If you can't be a hero, you can at least be funny while being a chicken.”
“It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn't be so many humans on the planet.”
“It would be a mistake, though, to consider care by family doctors or midwives inferior to that offered by obstetricians simply on the grounds that obstetricians need not refer care to a family physician or midwife if no complications develop during a course of labor.”
“Gardeners know that you must nourish the soil if you want healthy plants. You must water the plants adequately, especially when seeds are germinating and sprouting, and they should be planted in a nutrient-rich soil. Why should nutrition matter less in the creation of young humans than it does in young plants? I'm sure that it doesn't.”
"If you keep women scared you can make a lot of money"