I wanted to share this article Vaginal examinations: a symptom of a cervical-centric birth culture - written by Dr Rachel Reed back in 2015. This article is about our birth culture and the emphasis we put on a womans dilation being measured. This is so culturally ingrained that it isn't easy to birth without thinking about time v's dilation - or an intervention being advised based solely on this.
With baby's number 2 &3 I decided to stay at home, try to avoid vaginal examinations and to not clock watch. But I even found it difficult myself to shake this notion of how many cm I was - and I only felt happy to get into the birth pool when I was 'x' cm dilated. When I finally gave myself permission to enter the pool I must have dilated from 7cm to 10cm in a matter of minutes - dilation is unpredictable.
In my last labour I consented to one VE - if I had routine examinations every four hours perhaps it would have shown that I was only at 'x' amount for 'too long' and if that seed of doubt had been planted , how might that have affected my progression? . What I do know is that my contractions stopped when I was worried about my older children, contractions also slowed down when my midwives first arrived at our home - but soon picked up again once all settled. The link between my emotional state and my progression could not be denied.
