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Midwives and Community |
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Midwives and Community |
(For 15 years, the Farm Spiritual Community existed in the backwoods of Tennessee, growing from a few hundred to 1500 people. It used the synergy of it's collectivity to advance a lot of wonderful practices the world desparately needed. Practices that were likely not to happen in the larger culture. It started Plenty, an international relief service that connected with and helped indiginous tribal cultures worldwide, which was accepted by them easily because they recognized our tribal orientation as a community. We didn't impose foreign cultural attitudes on them, we just helped them as they wished us to.
The Farm's midwifes delivered a lot of babies, doing so for free on the Farm for hundreds of couples and single mothers from outside the community. This is a testmony by one of the people who lived there for many years, and who went on to become a doctor after the community lost it's collectivity and most people were forced to leave. If anyone has any questions about the Farm, please don't hesitate to send me an email at [email protected] and I'll try to answer. I lived there about 8 years.)
From Keith
I remember being a single man in 1973 and living in the doo-dah tent at the bottom of second road with other single men. After working all day, I left to go to the laundromat to do the laundry. I signed up and got on the list and waited my turn. I remember being bumped from the laundry list for midwife laundry, midwife household, birthing couple's laundry, and ambulance laundry one night. As a single guy, everyone felt that their needs were more important than the needs of a single guy. At 4 a.m., after never doing my laundry, I left for home.
The next day I went to the dry goods store and the Dry Goods Lady (what a dear she was) fixed me up with what she had. When I went out on the Farm, two people stopped to tell me I needed to take better care of my scene and dress better. Being a single guy had no social position. If getting bumped from the laundry list and working a few extra hours helped the midwives, I am proud that I could help.
I can tell you that I am glad that the culture on the Farm was so supportive of women and midwives. I can tell you that every white male in this culture receives advantages that we are not even aware of. It does a body good to realize the incredible, positive message that the midwives sent out to the medical establishment. Everyone who has ever lived on the farm should be proud of being part of a group that included the farm midwives. Pat yourself on the back for helping the midwives in one way or the other to pull off the miracle of having so many wonderful deliveries. (Better than any hospital in the US -Roan)
Not all birthings are like the farm's. Having learned another way in standard issue medicine, I can tell you firsthand what they offer to women.
True story. I was in my residency and was taking care of a nice, young couple during the birth of their second child. They were blue collar and redneck, but you could tell how very much they were in love. He was at every visit, saying little but very supportive. In their room, they were excited as she started to go into labor. After a few hours, she had dilated to about 3 centimeters. I told the attending physician (the person who backs up the resident in training) about her progress.
He looked at his watch and said he would give her 30 minutes. It was 4:30 p.m. and he said he wanted to be home no later than 6 p.m. If she wasn't ready by 5 p.m., he wanted to do a cesearean section on her. When I told him that she had just started and that she had had company all day that just left, he replied that she had "failure to progress".
He then changed the subject and told me he was going to Puerto Rico in 2 days and his wife wanted some extra spending money. He told me he made about 3 times as much money on a c-section as he did on a natural birth.
I knew he had the highest c-section rate in the hopital, about 33 percent. He told me to examine her and tell him and not write it on the chart. I did and told her she was now about 4 cm. At 5 p.m., he roughly examined her and said she was only 2 cm. He did a c-section.
She died. She bled to death.
He told me to go in and tell her husband the unfortunate news. When I did, he asked me if I thought the c-section was really necessary. I told him that the other doctor felt it was necessary. He asked me if I thought it was really necessary. I couldn't answer him. He was 21 years old and now had 2 small children to take care of. The doctor makes $400,000 a year.
I think he is guilty of murder.
The midwives are the answer to problems like this. They have brought light into a very dark corner of women's health. They have helped empower many women directly and indirectly. I am very proud to be able to say that in some small way I contributed to their getting their voices and actions heard. We all should be glad that we participated in such a wonderful thing. I know, we never really could afford to give away so much to people who didn't live there when we had so little. I know that other people had to give up their needs so that the midwives could do what they did. I know all this. I'm still proud that the midwives did what they did.
I'm still proud that we started Plenty. I'm still proud for what we did for Native Americans. I'm glad that we are still talking about all the stuff that went down and trying to learn about it all.
Love you guys.
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