Birth Activism and Obstetric Violence: Interview with Ibone Olza by Elena Skoko I met Ibone at my first meeting of the COST Action BIRTH in Lancaster (UK) in 2015, as part of this European research project where researchers, policymakers, and activists work together to produce and disseminate scientific literature on the topic of normal or…
Fear of childbirth (FOC), also referred to as tokophobia, is related to feelings of limited capability in the face of childbirth and affects the pregnant woman’s quality of life. It is more common in nulliparous women but can also be related to earlier traumatic birth experiences. A new study, recenlty published in the Journal of…
by Ibone Olza, MD, PhD I met Cheryl Beck in 2010 in Pittsburgh, at the Marcé International Conference. I had been reading her groundbreaking and brave research on birth trauma for years. One of her publications begins with this potent sentence: “My child was conceived in love and born by rape.” The Anniversary…
Finland has taken one more step in its policies to support families, not only to make it reasonable for them to have children, but also to favor their care. Let us not forget that the more intelligent a species is, the longer the exterogestational dependent period. Care of the young during those early years is…
A study published in the latest edition of Archives of Women’s Health has found that instrumental births (those requiring forceps, vacuum extraction, etc.) and cesarean sections are related to a higher number of psychological difficulties after birth – ranging from lack of adjustment to motherhood to post-traumatic stress disorder. To put these conclusions into perspective,…
It is well known that pregnancy is a psychologically transforming event and that in some cases it may activate unexpected difficulties at an emotional level. It is also known that stress, anxiety and depression may impact the baby´s development, elevate the risk of preterm birth and of mental health issues in the postpartum. Not much…
According to some sources, when a woman in Sparta (Ancient Greece) hadn’t gone into labour after nine months, other women would go to her house to berate her almost violently. They would hurl all the grievances in her face that they had kept to themselves during the pregnancy and the heated exchange usually triggered the…
Obstetricians… Two of the mothers I visited today at the breastfeeding clinic recounted their birth stories to me. Though both had been similar in the workings (hospital births, vaginal, no epidural, some synthetic oxytocin), each mother had a completely different story to tell. For one, it had been a wonderful, empowering experience. For…
The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes a “positive childbirth experience” as a significant end point for all women undergoing labor. It defines a positive childbirth experience as one that fulfils or exceeds a woman’s prior personal and sociocultural beliefs and expectations, including giving birth to a healthy baby in a clinically and psychologically safe environment…
Newborns have a series of highly conserved neuroendcrine behaviours that we see as the “breast-crawl”, when babies placed skin to skin on their mothers immadiately after birth crawl to the breast, attach and suckle. This behaviour has been called Widström’s 9 Stages of Newborn Behavior. A recent study by Widstrom´s group found a strong inverse…
