The small matter or nuance 🙄

🥴I cannot stand lack of nuance🥴

(Though I’m sure I’m also guilty of leaving out nuance at times 😬)

Every time we give a blanket statement, we miss out nuance. The grey between the black and the white. The complexity of situations and choices.

Every time someone says:

🧐 ‘you need antibiotics with GBS’ (no…..you will be offered them, you assess your own opinion on your own needs yourself)

🧐‘we have to monitor the baby to make sure they are ok’ (no one HAS to, and we actually have evidence that continuous monitoring specifically leads to worse outcomes’)

🧐‘there is meconium, we have to transfer into the hospital’ (there is meconium and there is MECONIUM…nuanced discussing about the range of scenarios regarding mec is needed to make a decision)

they are missing out vital information, and fail to acknowledge the whole truth through lack of nuance.

It stops people making decisions that are right for them, and it often leads to regret and resentment (and often unwanted intervention).

But this does not only apply to the people/birthworkers communicating more interventionist leanings though.

I’m particularly bothered by lack of nuance in the ‘we support choice 100%’ birth world, as I feel that we should pride ourselves on accuracy of information ☺️

And accuracy also includes the dark side of pregnancy and birth and new parenthood 🖤 .

A few examples:

🧐’placentas just come out if you keep the oxytocin high and chill’(they usually do, absolutely, but *some* placentas are less cooperative and cause a great deal of mischief for a variety of reasons…..unfortunately)

🧐‘ shoulder dystocias happen to people on beds, and anyway, midwives can resolve them’ (certainly the chances of a shoulder dystocia are low at home, but absolutely not nonexistent. Most shoulder dystocias can be resolved, some not in a timely manner though. Unlikely but possible.)

🧐‘Just call an ambulance if there is no midwife and you need help during your homebirth, that’s all a midwife would do in case of complications anyway’. (Calling an ambulance is absolutely an option, but the awareness that an ‘unplanned freebirth’ comes with potential downsides, just like a midwife attended birth or a planned freebirth’ is vital. Midwives do a LOT more than simply call for help in the case of an emergency.)

All those things are said to take fear way, empower and reassure, just like the interventionalist examples are said to achieve compliance and adherence to guidelines and in the spirit of risk reduction.

But is withholding accurate information *either way* helpful?

I don’t think so.

Birth is complex.

It is physiological.

It usually works just fine, either all by itself, or with support.

But sometimes Mother Nature is quite the bitch.

Nature has a higher tolerance for loss than we do, and there is little we can do about it other then to stack the odds in our favour, however people choose to do this.

🔴Achieving compliance by omitting truth is wrong.

🔴Equally, eliminating fear/worry by leaving out the full picture is ALSO wrong.

People can deal with honesty, let’s not patronise them by sugarcoating reality.

(I’m aware I might get some stick for this post 😳😬)