Negative Notions of Birth

Blog

This week I went in to my daughter’s Year 3 class at school to give a talk about my job.  I was a bit apprehensive, as I am sure you can imagine, thinking about all those 7 and 8 year olds running home and telling their parents about how they had learnt all about birth, breastfeeding and the like, so decided to focus on the postnatal and baby massage side of my job – on what babies need when they are newborn and how doulas can support mummies and daddies in looking after their precious new baby.  My first question to them all was “What is a doula?”  As expected very few responded, but one little boy, Spike, thrust up his hand.  Surprised, I asked him;  “I know Ab-doula, from Tintin” came the reply.  I’m fairly sure from my rusty memories of Tintin that Abdullah is a man from the Middle East, so I said I didn’t think he did the same thing I did.  When I told them that “doula” comes from the Ancient Greek meaning female slave they found that quite amusing.  Not very women’s lib really is it!
(more…)

Read post