After the witch burnings that targeted the elimination of midwives, wise-women, and healers, the male physician took up residence in the women's domain of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum. Quickly thereafter, obstetrics become the greatest threat to women and their greatest exterminator. Not with the same intent, but just as deadly. Women could no longer serve each other in their homes and were moved to lying in hospitals where up to 1 in 4 women died at the (filthy) hands of physicians. It took them a long time to agree to wash their hands before penetrating the genitals of a labouring woman and once they did, maternal mortality dropped by 90%. It never occurred to them to just stop penetrating the women.
Eventually, midwifery was 'allowed' back under the training and supervision of obstetrics. What we have around the world today is the wholesale colonisation of birth by medical men and their perceptions of our experiences as women, although many obstetricians today are women. And they got it wrong. We don't labour and birth according to the clock. We don't need gloved fingers up our vaginas to chart our progress. We don't need their inductions and rituals the vast majority of the time. And we don't need their coercion, bullying, threats, and cult-like rituals.
We need safer and saner options for pregnancy and birth.
As obstetrics is a self-regulating profession and is backed by powerful and well-funded associations, they have been pretty much unchecked in how they've evolved their services. In Canada and beyond, women can expect:
1/3 to 1/2 will have a traumatic experience
1/8 to 1/3 will emerge with a physical brain injury called PTSD
1/10 will have thoughts of self-harm in the first year
1/3 will suffer with postpartum depression and/or anxiety
25% - 70% will emerge with a scar on their uterus (depends on location & culture)
rising maternal mortality
rising neonatal mortality
rising interventions with no proven benefit
most will be the recipient of obstetric violence
Obstetric violence is broadly defined as interactions or conditions deemed humiliating or undignified by local consensus and interactions or conditions experienced as or intended to be humiliating or undignifying. The recognised seven categories of abusive or disrespectful care are physical abuse, non-consented clinical care, non-confidential care, non-dignified care, discrimination, abandonment, and detention in health facilities. Obstetric violence is further defined as turning a physiological process into a pathological one for no reason other than cult(ure), training, habit, power, or profit.
Women tell horror stories about their births because their births were horrible.
Rampant, systemic disrespectful behaviour in hospital births has been well documented around the world. In fact, it was reported in a 2019 study that about 80% of women can expect to be treated disrespectfully for committing the crime of having a difference of opinion from the maternity service provider. The 'dead baby' card is an over-used ploy to garner acquiescence to procedures the maternity service provider chooses. And now, calls to children protective services are increasing as a tool for either gaining acquiescence or punishing families who strayed from the obstetrical path.
Women and families need an alternative to this coercive madness. They need safer options to care for themselves and their babies.
The time has come to end the tyranny of the medicalised technocratic birth services industry. Medical care is no longer beneficent when it's applied with coercion, bullying, threats, mistreatment, or violence. It's no long beneficent when procedures that might benefit a few are applied universally hurting many. It's no longer beneficent when outdated and harmful routines are still applied without consent.
Change is not coming from within this system as it's not broken.
We are a group of women and men who are choosing something different for ourselves and our children. We are restoring common wisdom to common families concerning pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, holistic family wellness, and so much more. We are pursuing a better education by melding modern research with traditional knowledge. And we are accessing existing legacy institutions according to our needs rather than through expectation or fear.
We are building a community governed by Natural Law where moral and ethical behaviour prevails, ensuring we communicate and transact with each other honestly and transparently in mutual respect and dignity. We are taking ourselves and our families into the private realm to reclaim our sovereignty and build peaceful communities where we all can thrive.
The Hive Collective is a private membership association that evolved from its origins as The Harrigan Hive. The Hive was an open, friendly, and supportive community where all were welcome to join, share, ask and answer, and connect with a traditional birth companion for their childbirth journey. From there, we created the private Hive Community which serves as the central hub for our Collective's connection and communication. In this private community, we still share, ask and answer, and connect with traditional birth companions.
Our focus is on reclaiming our sovereignty over our bodies, births, babies, families, finances and futures through mutual education and support. We believe that true wellness starts in the womb. We are growing in our knowledge and skills regarding healthy pregnancies and safer births, while also guarding each other's health information and right to choose the health care that best takes care of themselves and their families.
As we continue to grow, we look forward to connecting with more men and women who are specialists in their respective fields who will share their knowledge and wisdom so that we can embrace those strategies that increase our wellness, heal our families, and flourish as interconnected sovereign people who are creating the future we need.
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