Rebecca Schiller – Birth Confidence Summit
Links to BirthRights Fact Sheets, Aims and Rebecca's books. Scroll down for time stamps and Rebecca's bio.
BirthRights A charity dedicated to ensuring women receive the dignity and respect they deserve in pregnancy and childbirth Find a range of Factsheets to support you in every birth situation.
AIMS - The Association for Improvement in the Maternity Services - campaigning for a better birth for all. They sell a fantastic range of small books and leaflets including Am I allowed? for a small cost.
Rebecca is the author of two books:
Rebecca Schiller's Bio
Rebecca Schiller is the co-founder of Birthrights, the human rights in childbirth charity and an occasional doula. She writes about parenting, women's health and lifestyle and is a regular contributor to the Guardian and a wide-range of publications. She is the author of Your No Guilt Pregnancy Plan. and Why Human Rights in Childbirth Matter. She's mostly found on her ramshackle smallholding with her husband, two children, a motley crew of animals and an overgrown garden.
Time Stamps:
We start with how in a short space of time Rebecca went from a dream job with American Human Rights NGO to becoming a Doula and co-founding a charity working with human rights in childbirth after the birth of her first child threw her into a completely new world.
3.20 Consent and the long term larger impacts of subjects that may seem of minimal importance in larger conversations such as a healthy baby is all that matters. Plus the mismatch that exists between women's rights ( in UK) and the idea of consent and equality and the reality on the ground.
14.30 A summary of the main rights and knowing that you should have everything explained to you in a way that's relevant to you and that you can understand. Know that you can for whatever, reason irrational or rational or for no reason at all decline anything that is offered to you without undue pressure or coercion.
17.39 Being lucky in her first pregnancy when she did not know her rights or the system. For example was under the clock for induction after my waters broke and would have had the induction because she didn't know she could refuse, but labour started just in time.
21.00 Looking at what leads to birth trauma- and what protects you from feeling traumatised no matter what happens in your birth. Particularly being listened to, aware of what is going on and having some level of control over the process.
26.30 The special patriarchal trick that is a red herring for women and birth workers: To debate which kind of birth is best and put our energies against each other instead or joining together.
3030 Defining positive birth so that positive and medicalised are not in opposition to each other particularly as currently most women do have some kind of intervention and are in hospital. Her No Guilt Pregnancy guide helps you to consider what you need that transcends place of birth and can be achieved no matter what kind of birth you have.
32.20 Elective c-sections are one of biggest area of her work in human rights with some of the most distressing stories. The hard no in response to the request creates distrust, anxiety and fear. Encouraging kindness and support instead of the brutality of the system
40.43 How both of Rebecca's children surprised her with their births and what she learnt about herself in the process.
46.30 The importance of investing in support as you can never prepare for the surprises but can be supported through the unexpected.
Reframing language so that on a subtle level a woman's body belongs to her not to the establishment. My house my rules. Why home birth is a great choice for people-pleasers and rule -followers.
1hr09 The woman is always the greatest expert in the room and her birth.
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