Dear Birth Peeps,
As you know, of all the stories I love to tell pregnant women, I love the stories of Inanna best. Many of you know the story of Inanna's Descent (and all the stories of Inanna) written over four thousand years ago in Sumer. We would not know this story were it not for the archeologists who found the clay tablets on which the poems were written, and for the people who painstakingly deciphered the cuneiform--the first written language.
Samuel Noah Kramer, a renown Sumerologist, was one of the original translators of the epic poems about Inanna. But his work was a direct and scholarly translation; the poems were not in language modern people could relate to. So, Diane Wolkstein, a famous storyteller, spent hours with Kramer, searching for "other words" she could use to re-write the epic poems so we could understand them.
Diane Wolkstein died, suddenly, just a few days ago (January 31, 2013). When the news came to me I had just finished writing the chapter, "Inanna's Descent Into Laborland," for my new book, Birth as a Hero's Journey. I had been thinking about Diane's work all day. Had she not made that beautiful translation available in her book, Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth, I would not have known Inanna. I would not have the internal map of the hero's journey. My life, my births and birth stories, and my work all would be void of this most powerful influence. In fact, I cannot imagine my life without the story of Inanna.
Now the woman who loved Inanna, who brought Inanna to us, has left us. And I want to say thank you to this great storyteller who has touched all of us. Visit Diane's website to learn more about her and her work.
Pam
Hi Birth Peeps,
Happy New Year.
I didn't make too many new year resolutions. Of the three I made, number one is to finish the book, Birth as a Hero's Journey. But I did make another: to blog once a week. Maybe we'll get to the 50th way to change birth in our culture this year. I was kind of hesitating to put too many eggs in that basket just in case the Mayan calendar was right. So here we go.
On December 7, I was invited by Drs. Larry Leeman and Jen Phillips to give a little talk about birthing from within and birth as a hero's journey at Family Practice Grand Rounds at the University of New Mexico Hospital. The room was packed with young docs who I think were just beginning their OB rotation. Larry and Jen had prepared a wonderful power point presentation orienting the new docs to the philosophy of care that they are cultivating at UNM Hospital labor and delivery.
Wow!
Larry and Jen took turns describing the importance of mothers being up, walking about, delayed cord cutting, and doulas... among other things we know matter. The last comment was that women remember the day they give birth, this day matters. The message was to do their best to make the birth experience memorable.
I sat there and said to myself, "This is really amazing. This is not a conversation or orientation new doctors would have had a decade or more ago!" A room full of new doctors were being oriented to mother-centered, midwifery-tinged care... in addition to their medical ob training which still prevails and should in a hospital. (I want to add there are nurse-midwives at this hospital, too, so the midwifery model is also practiced there.)
And yet, under the supervision and modeling from Larry, Jen, Mary and other experienced Family Practice docs and midwives, these new doctors are going to see a different kind of birth management than docs see elsewhere or would have seen anywhere a decade ago.
During this rotation, these new docs are going to have different kind of conversations about cases; they are going to learn to listen to parents and learn how to support them emotionally as well as providing safe birth care. (I recently witnessed the a warm, midwifery-home birth-like hospital birth attended by great nurses and Dr. Leeman... so I know he walks his talk, and this message is one they sincerely want to make happen.)
When these docs graduate and leave UNM and scatter in towns across the country, they will take this philosophical seed of care with them.
And this... the changing attitudes and practice of doctors... is changing birth in our culture.
Hats off to Drs. Larry Leeman, Jen Phillips and all the docs and midwives at UNM.
Pam
