Guest Post: Birth work + Community Work = Birth Activism
Thank you to Amanda of Your Bold Birth for this months Guest Blog!
Speak to any Doula or birth worker today, and they will tell you that you cannot just support birth. Birth work needs birth activism, and you can no longer do one without the other.
This can be intimidating, where do you start? Is it taking on too much? What does activism look like anyway?
One of the easiest, and most effective ways of supporting birthing humans is to engage in your community. Not only is it the most direct and impactful form of birth activism, it’s a great way to build up your reputation in your local area, meet other amazing birth workers and learn how you can best support your local families.
Here are some ideas on how to get started.
Parent & Baby groups - a really lovely, simple place to start is setting up, or offering to support any Mom/Parent & Baby groups in your local area. Coffee groups for pregnant and postnatal parents is an incredible place to offer free support to families. Connection to other parents is shown to reduce the cases of postnatal depression. It offers a place to share information with parents, give pregnant people a place to ask questions and start learning about how to prepare for their birth. Empowering them to start asking questions of their healthcare professionals.
Meet up with other birth workers - Have you met the other birth workers in your area? Bring together a group, meet in free places like coffee shops or parks, and go from there! This group of birth workers will also be an invaluable resource in your work! Is the group just to offer pastoral support to each other? Or, will you set up places for new or planning families to come meet you for support? Will you organise further? Completely up to you!
Set up a WhatsApp group - It could be as simple as this. Have local Birthworkers join a WhatsApp group for information sharing, pastoral support, guidance on local trust, advice on how to approach challenging situations and more. Empower birth workers, ensuring they don’t burn out means that they can keep supporting families in the area.
Support your local Childrens Centres - Are your local childrens centres looking for volunteers to run antenatal sessions, or breastfeeding guidance sessions? Funding for Childrens Centres is dwindling, the best way to keep them open is to demonstrate their importance to the local community. Just pop in and ask if there is any way you can help?
Volunteer - If you have the capacity, and the financial security you can volunteer your time to organisations who provide free doula support to underprivileged and vulnerable groups in society. Organisations like the Doula Access Fund and Doula without Borders are an example, you can find more information about them on Social Media and online.
Keep doing what you’re doing! Doing the work, speaking to Healthcare Practitioners in the NHS every day about why you do what you do, how you plan on doing it, is activism. It’s important that we don’t bring anger or frustration into a birth room - but intelligently advocating on behalf of your client, speaking to you client about how they can advocate for themselves could have the potential to change someones mind.
Many of the above will enrich your birth work, help you build your career, mean you will meet the right people, and build your confidence in birth work. It will add to the fulfilment you feel in the work, and support you when you come up against the inevitable challenges of birth work.