Declining Clients
Lately, on many private doula pages, I am on, there have been doulas discussing watching their clients being abused and what the role of a doula is when that happens. And it is a difficult situation. We can not give medical advice nor be disrespectful to a care provider, but when we see abuse and have to stand quietly out of the way it is very difficult. What many doulas have done, and I personally have chosen to do is to step away from taking clients who have abusive providers.
Recently I had to decline to be the doula for a client whom I have been the doula for twice before. She continues to go to the same provider although she is not listened to and is even abused in my eyes. I wanted to be there for her but I can not enable her to continue on the path she chooses. And I am not going to get into why women allow this to happen to them… the vulnerability and issues behind it are outside of my understanding.
We watch women being lied to…outright lies. They are told things that are not evidenced-based and are totally biased. We watch women have their cervix stripped after asking to not have it be done. We have women have rough vaginal exams in labor only to be told that is why they need to choose an epidural. We have women have their amniotic sac broken without consent and sometimes even after telling the doctor they did not want that to be done. We watch their perineum being sliced without consent. We watch women get bamboozled into inductions that are not warranted and into medication they did not desire. And for some of us, we see worse. When we see women shut down- not listened to- not being heard when they speak- not having a say in their births, we want to yell STOP! But we can’t. We can stand by her side and remind her of what she desired and try to help her find her power. But some women give their power away. They know what they wanted but they are quick to give it away. It makes us go home and cry for that woman and that baby and that birth experience.
I have attended over 700 births and I realized after the first couple of hundred that I had to put my foot down and protect myself from burning out. I had to say, no I will not be a party to watching that abuse, that birth rape occur in my presence again, feeling powerless and being damaged emotionally by watching it. So there are providers that if a mom chooses that provider, I have to decline being her doula. There are only a few- one at Gwinnett Medical and two at Northside. I am reminded of something an OB told me years ago, “ObGyns are either one of two kinds of people. Those who hate women and want to control them, and those who love women and want to support them.” I have found this to be true.
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