A crisis in maternity care, revealed through the eyes of the women that experienced it.
Luiza Vasiliu
You might always have hoped for a large family. After giving birth to your first child, there is a 75 percent chance that you will try to conceive again. If you’re successful, you may choose to give birth at home to avoid stepping into a hospital again. But there is also a chance that you may no longer want to go through labor again at all. As you regain your strength, you channel some of it into battling the feelings of depression, anxiety and guilt that you are not good enough for your child.
“At the end of the surgery, I felt like a slab of meat, ready to be cut and cleaned. Something inside me was missing; it had been ‘taken out’. I had postpartum depression for two years.”
“I had countless panic attacks whenever I remembered those moments in hospital, alone, when I had to decide things before I could even think.”
“I feel sick just remembering it. Even now, I have nights where I dream… I never had the courage to get pregnant again. Now I regret it, but it’s too late.”
“I know I am not the only one who has gone through this [ordeal]. This is the reason behind the decline in the birth rate! No woman wants to be mutilated for life!”
“I really want a second baby but the fear of giving birth again is much greater than the desire! Every time I hear about beautiful experiences, I start to cry and think, ‘Why not me?’”
You might wonder if it is the same everywhere. It is not. In Italy, Poland or Germany, you can have your partner by your side during labor. If the baby is born healthy, you will not be separated in the hospital. In Germany or the Netherlands, you can go to a birthing center instead of a hospital. It will have trained midwives so as not to overstretch medical staff – a doctor will be present only when needed. Sometimes, it can be good in Romania as well.
“I gave birth with midwives attending to me. It was empowering to give birth with so many women beside me, encouraging me and holding my hand tight.”
“Giving birth was a sublime moment, and I felt as though I was reborn. The pain was unimaginably intense, but the medical staff and I worked as a team.”
“It was uplifting, magical. I stayed at the hospital for five hours after giving birth, with the baby and my husband. No one took the child away from me… I gave birth gently, without interventions, in silence, with the lights off, without rushing, just breathing the baby out.”
But there is a 40 percent chance that you will walk away from the hospital concluding that Romania is not a safe place to give birth.
“Much of what happens in Romania shatters a mother’s confidence in her own body. They tell you that you can’t give birth naturally – your body is defective. You can’t breastfeed – your milk is not good enough. And that you need a handful of drugs. Seriously, if we were that weak, we wouldn’t even exist as a species.”
