Birth Film For Traumatised Fathers
Posted by Madeline Holler at 10:00 AM on June 11, 2009
Until now, all the important birth films — The Business of Being Born, Orgasmic Birth, Baby Mama — have focused on women’s experiences during pregnancy and labour.
But a Missouri filmmaker has turned her lens on fathers and their babies, who, as this eight-minute clip shows, are having traumatic experiences of their own during birth.
What could possibly compete with the pain of a dilating cervix?
Standing by while their babies and partners are assaulted, abused or otherwise mishandled in the hospital, filmmaker L. Janel Martin hopes to show in her as-yet unfinished film The Other Side of the Glass.
This eight-minute clip — Martin is still looking for funding to complete a full-length film — covers quite a bit of ground: trauma from early cord clamping and being unnecessarily suctioned, etc.; mother’s trauma of being unnecessarily separated from baby; father’s trauma from being unable to do anything about any of it and forced to stand-by while their babies and wives are abused, assaulted and ignored.
“Assault” is strong language and it’s tempting to dismiss this notion of father’s being traumatised in birth, but for some fathers there is real pain.
One guy, a real estate developer in California, couldn’t bear to stand on the other side of the glass panels, watching a nurse and doctor handle his baby (it’s unclear from the clip what they’re doing).
“I start pounding on the glass and causing a disturbance. I stopped when security came. I’m not the one harming the baby … arrest the doctor … that nurse needs to be shackled.”
Another carried the guilt of having been powerless in the hospital home. And still another — a soldier! — cried because he couldn’t protect his family.
Still another dad talks about how his wailing baby stops when he hears his father’s voice. Cut to a delivery room scene when a nurse dismisses a baby’s screams — “see, you’ll live” — when that baby was so obviously comforted by daddy’s touch, smell, voice, whatever.
If you’ve seen the Business of Being Born or Orgasmic Birth, you’ll recognize a few of the experts in this clip. If The Other Side of the Glass gets made and released, who knows if it will have the impact on the discussion of birth that these films — especially the BoBB – have had.
I hesitate to get behind notions like “birth trauma.” One father at the beginning of the clip — and also a guy who appears to have made a career of birth trauma therapy — seem to link it to all problems or life’s unhappinesses thereafter. That’s a stretch for me.
That said, I would agree with some of the points the clip illustrates about power dynamics in hospital births (parents finding it difficult to assert themselves and be in charge of their own damn babies right from the start) and how fathers have a role of just kind of standing there taking pictures and then asking permission to hold their own kid. I like the idea of father (and mothers) feeling incredibly protective of their newborns — why shouldn’t they?
Also, regarding the birth trauma for babies point of the clip, among my irritations with my hospital birth was how vigorously the nurses rubbed at my daughter to get all that gunk off. She was wailing already (having been taken away from me and sent off to the French fry warmer) and that just seemed like the most unnecessary thing they had to be doing (that and the routine suctioning/nose hosing). I know she had the rest of her baby days to be gently dabbed at with a Downy soft towel, but still. What’s wrong with a little goo on the baby?
Let’s hear it dads and partners? Did you feel helpless and powerless or totally included in your baby’s birth? Would you consider your baby’s suctioning an assault? Did you have to stand on the other side of the glass (do most hospitals still HAVE nurseries?)
Thank you for this wonderful review of my film, “The Other Side of the Glass”. I appreciate it very much.
I’d like to guide you to look at the information about birth trauma on several sites:
http://www.healyourearlyimprints.com
http://www.beba.org/intro/trauma.php
http://www.emersonbirthrx.com
The latter two have 30+ years each in the trauma healing field. The neuoscience and brain development we know now shows us how it is that the baby’s experience is remembered in the early parts of the brain that is “online” at birth, we know babies are fully sensory beings and memory is also in the body. The prenatal and birth experiences are the roots of current issues. The obstacle to really engaging with this is unfortunate experience the majority of us have had … as babies and giving birth. Our society has not acknowledged and still resists acknowledging the modalites to treat it because to do so is so deep, so primal, and the experience so raw. We have very gentle, kind therapy modalities now that are based in support, protection, and slower pace all focused on preserving, restoring the mother-baby relationship. Anything that disrupts that, as you’ve pointed at out the end, is a disruption in the mother-baby connection. It is the walls after the foundation in prenatal period has been built. I hope you’ll check out the lengths.
And, thank you again, for the well-done, objective and critical view of the film. I really appreciate how you referred to BofBB. When I saw BoBB, my thought was how my film takes off where they left off. Unfortunately, even as successful as it was in creating awareness, somehow, seeing a beautiful, gentle, mother-baby centered birth does not translate to change by medical care givers and even many, many birthing couples. I prefer to see those beautiful births but someone has to speak up for the majority of babies and mothers and fathers who are cared for by professionals who do not value, protect, and preserve the most critical things a baby needs after birthing. Mother. So, I speak for the babies, and I show the images that we’d like to think don’t matter. They do.
I am close to having part one done. I am still self-funded. I am a granny on a mission. The baby in the hospital birth is my grandson. He was ripped from his mama’s hands for unnecessary, deep, damaging suctioning while she cried, “nooooo”, while her entire birth plan for everything that IS scientifically sounds. My daughter. The film is for them … I am telling their story … to bring the healing and integrationg work to them, to make meaning of their experience, to prevent it. But mostly, it’s for them. It will be done.
Oh, you can listen to podcasts of my radio show, “Thought Crime Radio, Voices for the Human Rights of Children” on http://www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com. It is live every Monday at 5 Pm central on http://www.kopn.org. Dr. Chamberlain, whom you refer to was a guest this month and Veronica Monet also spoke about early trauma.
All the best,
janel