Birth with Dignity

“Leave your dignity at the door”

What does this mean?

This was a bit of ‘sage’ advice I received when preparing for my first birth. I took it to mean,

“don’t worry about being naked in front of strangers,

because you are giving birth,

and that is your focus…”

but ….

the more I learn, the more I hear, the more loaded this simple piece of advice becomes.

What is dignity?

One online dictionary offers this:

The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect.

Leave your sense of worth at the door? Don’t expect respect?

Oh that is bad. very bad.

Be a ‘good patient’, let the hero-care provider think for you, you are nothing more than a vessel for the baby. You matter not.

What matters is a healthy baby.

This is BAD. VERY BAD.

Your dignity matters.  But how can you hold your dignity, when the culture around birth and the structure of the maternity system expect us to disregard ourselves?

The Birth Map was written to address this issue.  What started as a birth plan template, that just got more and more detailed as it became apparent that the template approach to birth plans were doing us a disservice.

What we needed, as pregnant women, expectant mothers, was support to navigate this system which expected us to have no expectations and do as we are told. 

And this is a problem, as consent is the framework for healthcare.

There is No One Way.  Who we are matters.  Our backstory will influence our birth journey.  We needed to know The Questions to ask to determine our way forward.  At the very least, we need to understand what our options are, not just at a point in time, but what it looks like ‘down the road’.