Midwives and doulas, doulas and midwives. A report, which we showed you a few days ago, that has made social networks burn by starting a war that probably leaves aside, probably, the people who most need support and care, women giving birth. They do not need others to fight to take care of them, but someone to take care of them.
Midwives are supposed to be the ones doing that function. Do they really do it? Don't they do it because they don't know or because they can't? And after these questions, What can lead a woman to end up requesting the assistance of a doula? We assume that the doulas report speaks through the mouth of the midwifery collective. However, after the publication of the report, voices emerged with much more important and complex concerns than a war to see who cares more or better.
David Benito Sánchez He is a midwife, a WHO certified director in Breastfeeding and a Gender Violence trainer, and has been unmarked from the aforementioned report with a knock at the table that says the real problem is not that.
Isn't that the real problem?
No. The real problem is that we drag many years of health care to women in general, and to childbirth and birth in particular, which, to put it mildly, leaves much to be desired. It is a logical consequence that people, and in this case women, seek other resources.
So, have the doulas appeared in response to a need that was not being met?
You are right. In a way, yes, although of course many other factors influence. But I would not say that they have appeared, but that they have resurfaced. Perhaps over time, midwives will realize that when we know how to fulfill that function, women will not require them.
What do you think of the role of the doulas in accompanying women?
I think of them what of any person who meets a series of conditions to be next to another who suffers, is sick, or who is in a moment of vital crisis such as motherhood and childbirth ... These "special" people they have been required by those throughout the history of care sciences. They can be family, friends or intimate friends, or just people with skills for it. We well know as nurses how important they are as our allies in care. If they form above, then much better.
Have you ever worked with any doula, or have you attended a birth where there was a doula present?
No. Doulas as such no, but with people who, as I said in the previous point, have developed that role, and it really is as worthy as it is valuable.
And what do your colleagues think about all this? I refer to the doulas report, the subject of intrusion, if they consider them as dangerous as they explain to us ...
Well, there is everything. Since the paradigm of attention to women in their reproductive process began to change and has transcended on a social and institutional level, we are clearly divided into two sides.
The protocols have been modernized at the state level for several years now, with the strategies for normal delivery, do not these developments reach the delivery centers?
If women are wise at any time in their lives, it is when they will be mothers
Well, there is also everything. In some something, in others a lot and in others nothing. In a high percentage no. These changes have not arrived. Anyway, structural changes are of little use if people, who are the most important part of an organization, do not change their point of view.
The doulas report will go to the Prosecutor's Office, so they can take action on the matter. Is this the solution, eliminate them?
Absolutely. In fact it will be impossible. I am very sorry that our Professional Association is located in those parts and not in others that are much more needed for Nurses, and also for users of the system.
Others that we really need? How to start fighting for the profession? Many midwives, especially the new ones, say that when they arrive at the hospitals with everything they have learned they take a huge slap when they see how they work in the hospitals, sometimes very far from the theory they have received, does this still happen?
That's. I've been hearing for years about the increase in Nursing competencies, about their social recognition and dignity, about their autonomy ... And the Midwives more of the same. But I see the years go by and we don't move forward. No wonder the new specialists are disappointed.
And while doulas and midwives engage in war, what can / should mothers say?
I am not who to answer that question. They know. They have always known. If women are wise at some point in their lives, it is when they will be mothers. Midwives and birth attendants have always existed and will always exist.
Without more, thank David Benito his time and his words because, as Jesusa Ricoy explained to us a few days ago, in the end the most important thing is that women can give birth in the best conditions, and it seems that this goal is not always the first for everyone.
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