a former maternity nursery nurse reveals scandalous practices

Throughout their maternity journey, women should be guided, reassured, supported. However, due to a system of trivializing violence that is still far too active in maternity hospitals, both public and private, they often face traumatic events. Some people in the medical profession allow themselves the right to manhandle them, to rush them and sometimes even to go much further by deliberately letting them suffer or by undermining their dignity. Hélène, mother of two children, was a pediatric nurse for ten years in France, before moving abroad and creating her parenting support company.

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On Twitter, Tuesday April 5, she decided to tell an experience that marked her when she was still exercising in France. “During an internship in a maternity ward, I saw a bit of everything and anything”, she tells us.

Between risky behavior and illegality

Within maternity hospitals, and even among those close to young mothers, an extremely unfair and brutal culture reigns. Once the pregnancy is over, the unborn child becomes more important than the one who gave it life and all the suffering endured by the latter then takes a back seat. Also, we minimize at all costs, we ask not to complain too much or not to shout too loudly.

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Hélène describes scenes of incredible violence, barely believable, experienced in French medical establishments. “I have seen women who were deliberately allowed to suffer after a cesarean, for example, on the pretext that anyway, they were going to go home soon, were going to be in pain and therefore had to get used to taking care of their babies. in pain. I have heard a lot of racist comments, be they really malicious ones about Roma mothers in particular, who “don’t give a damn about their babies”, or concerning African mothers, to whom we do not care. ‘provided no breastfeeding support because “they can do it”. I attended betting on the time at which mothers who had come with the intention of having a natural childbirth were going to break down and ask for an epidural… ” All these very serious practices have been and continue to be practiced by midwives and doctors, for lack of time, weariness or pure malice, according to Hélène. “Infantilization and objectification take precedence in maternity hospitals, why take the time to explain to these women who do not understand anything how it will happen? she quips. Why are they complaining? They have a healthy baby, that’s all that matters right? I especially learned from contact with women that childbirth does not necessarily have to mean suffering, that pregnancy does not make you stupid, and that birth, if it is respected, is synonymous with power, happiness and pleasure. It should not be treated as a “disaster” that must be addressed. Preventing risks can very well be done in this context. “

A real omerta

The golden rule in cases of sexual, incestuous or physical violence is silence, of course. When it comes to obstetric violence, women, by virtue of the circumstances, are not fully aware of what they are going through at the time. “When I was working in PMI, I realized that it was almost systematic, remembers Hélène. I would go for a home visit and when I asked how the delivery of a patient went, 99% of the time the answer was “it’s okay, great!” But very quickly, we went on to stories as nightmarish as each other, of the style “good on the other hand, my cesarean was sewn up with too tight stitches, I am in great pain or I do not really understand too much, but my husband does not I didn’t like it when the midwife yelled at me, leaned on my stomach and made me bleed a lot… ”” And that, in fact, is something that comes up often: when these women are subjected to violence, they are on the verge of or in the process of giving birth and find themselves completely upset. They are not in a position to react to what is put to them, which allows their perpetrators to indulge in all kinds of abuses. Within the four walls of these hospitals, these practices, these clinics, who will hear them? It is only afterwards, much later that they realize, and it is very hard.

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Video by Sarah polak

In the new country where she lives, Hélène even recently witnessed what can be described as rape. “I accompanied one of my patients to see a midwife. She told her that she was going to do a vaginal examination to see how the cervix was dilating. The moment she put her hand, my patient started screaming in pain, looking at me in complete panic. The midwife told her to relax and that if she was in too much pain she could have the epidural. I had to push her a bit to get her hand out, which was full of blood, and there I understood. She wanted to work her cervix a little, to manually peel off the membranes and thus speed up the work. It is something that I see very often, that I have also seen a lot in France! Still, I’m sure this midwife thought it was a good thing that was going to help her, when no, of course not. And above all, why did she not seek the consent of this woman and deny her pain? ” This kind of violence is commonplace in the area of ​​birth, and it is dramatic. The suffering endured by women is still too trivialized on the pretext that “It’s normal to suffer”. No, it’s not normal to be in pain. No, it is not normal to be yelled at by medical personnel, to be administered products that one had not requested, to be subjected to violent and brutal acts … Women are capable of putting on their children in the world, as they want. The whole culture around motherhood needs to be rethought, adapted, and women and their bodies taken into consideration from start to finish.

In addition, let us not forget that many midwives campaign daily across the world to advance the cause of respectful childbirth. It is thanks to everyone’s work that motherhood and childbirth (which concern both women and men) can finally be approached without violence and with all the respect and serenity that they require.

Barbara ejenguele

A journalism student, Barbara is currently doing a work-study master’s degree and writes on parenthood for the Aufeminin Maman, Parole de Mamans and Avis de Mamans websites. She is also …