Pregnancy is not a medical condition

(Plus, why I trained in obstetrics)

Here in the northern hemisphere, we are moving into Spring and everywhere one looks, new life is sprouting, growing, blossoming and blooming. This annual renaissance is nature’s way; it happens without any need for intervention.  Strange then, that when it comes to humans, we have managed to medicalise the process of birth, such that women have come to fear it.

Why is that? I’ve been musing on this following a heartening conversation with my next Tess Talks interviewee, Nickita Starck. Nickita is a birth doula and the founder of When Push Comes to Shove, a maternity service specialising in birth physiology, education and advocacy for women, midwives and doulas. She is the person every woman needs to hear to prepare for their own pregnancy, or to heal any trauma they may carry as a result of their own childbirth experience. I don’t mean you need to each go and physically meet Nickita – just tune in to our conversation which will be available here from Sunday morning, and bask in her wisdom and positivity around pregnancy and childbirth. Nickita shared what it means to be a doula, and how doulas empower women to trust in the extraordinary capacity of their bodies to bring forth new life.

Our conversation took me back to my early years of working as an obstetric registrar. I worked in large, busy labour wards which seemed designed to be the antithesis of what women truly need when giving birth. Rather than being joyful, warm and nurturing environments, they were cold, harshly lit, and frankly inhumane. Believe it or not, this is partly what inspired me to train in obstetrics in the first place: witnessing these conditions as a medical student made me want to help women have a better experience.

With this in mind, I recognise the value of having a doula – someone who understands the needs of the mother and ensures those needs are met. Nickita is passionate about ensuring every woman can have access to a doula if she so wishes. In doing so, she is reviving the ancient tradition of women supporting women through childbirth and ensuring it is a joyful event, not a traumatic one.

Our conversation also touched on those early days after giving birth, and how important it is that mothers ‘bed in’ with their baby. It’s very fashionable to do the opposite: to put your newborn into a cute outfit and go out and about within a matter of days. This is certainly something I did myself: I remember travelling abroad when my baby was only a few weeks old. Isn’t this strange?  We wouldn’t do this to a tender seedling, so why do we do it to our children? We tend to forget they are like tiny plants: beautiful, fragile, and in need of the utmost care, love and tenderness to thrive.

Deep down, we know this. We know what a mother needs and what a baby needs – we just need reminding. It’s time to reframe pregnancy as a natural state of being rather than a medical condition, mothers as intuitive powerhouses and not patients, and babies as fragile miracles, not miniature adults.

I hope you will tune in to my conversation with Nickita. In particular, I hope that midwives and doctors will listen to her insights and be open to encouraging women to have a doula to support them. And, I hope many women will tune in just to get an invigorating dose of Nickita’s wonderful energy, and reimagine how childbirth can be: joyful and supportive, as nature intended.

I will post the video of our conversation here on Sunday morning before it goes public the following Tuesday, so stay tuned.