She was labelled “unco-operative” – in her labour, just afterwards and the label remained the following morning on the ward round….I was at her labour. I know what happened.
She was not un-co-operative. She is not a piece of property to manage. She was primal in her labour as every woman should be.
I have seen racism, rudeness and force by the head of departments. I have seen disregard for consent. I have seen midwives joke and poke and stare at various vulva’s when the mother is conscious and her head is behind the screen in preparation for a caeserian section.
When a mother embraces her newborn baby, her third child to her chest with deep loving affection and relief, a few minutes old and you witness the most precious time in a life, and she says “this is the first time I am seeing a newborn”…you wander what is so wrong with the system that she did not have this with her first 2?
