CIMS: Reflections on Day 1

For the most part, you should have been able to glean my sentiments from my hella tweets (I tweet like the wind!), but I thought it appropriate that I should post a little bit of a wrap-up.

This was my first time because meetings have not been accessible to me in the past, but now that I have “free time” I can do stuff like this. I had no idea what to expect. I’ll just cut to the chase and say that I like CIMS a lot, and I definitely respect the idea of coalitions, and maybe I’ll join or donate. The one thing on my mind, though, is that I wonder what the points of difference are. From what I can tell, coalition in Birth World looks sort of different from coalition in reproductive justice, or social justice broadly, where we have knock-down, drag-out fights over things, and leave the table angry, and (usually) come back friends.

During the award ceremony at the end of the evening, Ricki Lake talked about a new movie that she’s making, which sounded a little like Our Bodies, Ourselves meets The Business of Being Born, and is supposed to be intended for use in schools to teach young women about childbirth (hopefully as a part of comprehensive sex education, holla!). She seemed to express a little bit of frustration at the “preaching to the choir” element, saying something like she wanted to branch out to women who had not yet had kids because “all these [birth] people know all of this already!!”

And it’s true. Sometimes I can’t read birthy stuff because it’s like yeah yeah, episiotomy bad, upright position good, is there anything really new under the sun… Anyway, even though there were some fascinating data presented (like the stuff about breastfeeding and PPD, which apparently contradicts some of the PPD literature), nothing so far that really shocked the room… with possibly the exception of Raymond DeVries pointing out that “Listening to Mothers II” isn’t all as clear-cut as we make it out to be.  So with so much agreement in the room, I’m interested to see where people disagree. I mean, I get that there are schisms like Bradley vs. Hypno____, and some internal politics among midwives, but being a lawyer and an activist and whatever else I am, I want to know where the dirty laundry is! What does CIMS, as a coalition, have to “work through”? Where are the points of friction?

I was glad to see a little more diversity than I expected–some black/brown faces, some young faces (a smooshy baby face!), some male faces–but I was still reminded of my deep-seated worry about midwifery as an aging profession. I met some young apprentice midwives, but I still feel like there is going to be a big midwifery shortage unless something changes here pretty soon. For those keeping score at home, this applies equally to nursing and (surprise!) abortion providers. So I guess maybe if law doesn’t work out, there’s always healthcare professions…

I was also happy to see that there was respect for the “other side” (although I think that the “other side” is actually a false dichotomy and we’re actually all just birthing women, how about that!). I practically burst with excitement at DeVries talking about “social marketing,” literally selling ideas to people. Because, look, I love birth people, but I’m interested in change. I come from a goldmine, an untapped market of people who Give A Fuck about women. I think that the birthing movement is gaining a lot of traction, but we really, really need to reach and resonate with more women! He hit the nail on the head so very, very hard with some comments about the pitfalls of “us vs. them” thinking, namely underestimating “them,” and failing to see that they have reasons for making the decisions that they do. And, of course, underestimating the powerful force of people clinging tighter to their beliefs even (especially!) in the face of contradictory evidence. Couple it with something as personal as a birth, and you’ve got yourself a hot-button issue! I think that sometimes we fall into a trap of thinking of women who don’t make choices similar to our own as FemBots who more or less deserve what they get if they don’t make the “right” choices in maternity care. Obviously most people are way more nuanced in their thinking about it, but, well, we don’t always sound that way. Sometimes we sound preachy and judgey and, yes, even sanctimonious. It’s clear that we think of ourselves as “non-mainstream,” and as long as we do that, we’ll continue to be seen as “non-mainstream” or even (yikes) “fringe.” As much as I spent my teens and twenties wanting to be “edgy,” seeming like the fringe rather than the Totally Reasonable Side is less than stellar for serious, long-term movement-building.

Again with the superficiality, they kept us fed. Hey, man, I’m an eater! There’s nothing worse than an all-day event with no food, where they’re all “okay, there’s a Quizno’s a block away! See you in 15 minutes!”

Note to self: two comments that I want to write more about (after the smoke from the conference clears… I’m wiped out from adrenaline and expect the same tomorrow…). To sum up:

1) We have crappy maternity care because of abortion.

2) We have crappy maternity care because of feminism.

Exciting, right? Stay tuned.

Tagged as: Birth, childbirth, CIMS, Coalition for Improvement of Maternity Services, messaging, movement-building, Raymond DeVries, Ricki Lake, social marketing