BIRTH AROUND THE WORLD – CIRCLE OF BIRTH PODCAST SERIES 🌍 💫 – HOLLAND 🌷
I am so excited to introduce Yvonne as my first guest talking birth around the world! Yvonne is going to share her take on the birthing system in Holland, what her job is in birth and postpartum care and then tell us her own birth story in a hospital in Holland.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:20 — 37.9MB)
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We hear firstly about the model of care you can choose in Holland that being you can choose an obstetrician or midwifery care. There is a struggle here with midwives pushing for more women centred care and choice for women. Yvonne describes a clear divide. Yvonne is part of a subsidised program that offers families daily postpartum care for up to and over 8 weeks. She works for an agency where, once you are pregnant you subscribe to the service thus allowing you care for your postpartum or birth journey. Yvonne talks here about her work, and different roles in managing the very sensitive time post birth. In her role she will spend 8 hours at the family home per day doing things such as cooking, cleaning, and helping with the mother and baby bonding not to mention checking to make sure the mother is emotionally well. This does not stop here as Yvonne describes the emotional support that she has given to new mothers especially dealing with loss and greif when welcoming a new child into the family. However with this agency Yvonne works for you dont get to meet up with her prior, so, both the family and Yvonne get a nice surprise! We talk more about what her work exactly involves with postpartum care, maternity leave in Holland, and how the birthing system is looked at from Yvonne’s eyes.
Yvonne then shares with us her birth journey with her son who is now 2 years old. Yvonne describes her pregnancy as an exciting surprise as they were still renovating their house. During the show she describes dealing with Crohn’s Disease during the pregnancy and how she was told that she might have a ‘big baby’ and diabeties. They both are tall people with her partner being 2m! They told her that she needs to deliver at 37 weeks, Yvonne had to do allot of ‘standing up for herself’ and fighting for her decisions. However at 39 weeks the induction process began. It got fast and quick and Yvonne recalls asking the doctors to ‘stay away from down there’. Towards the end, the pushing phase was difficult as Yvonne was quite tired, she recalled wondering if he was coming out the ‘right way’ she said it was such a strange feeling! When he entered earth side she describes the sense of relief that it was over. Due to the morphine injection during labour he come across with breathing difficulty, she sent her partner with her baby to intensive care mainly to make sure he had the right name tag! Yvonne describes the strange feeling of having a baby then being alone again. 2 hours later she was reconnected with him.
Yvonne was glad to go home with her family in the matter of 1 day. She decided that she did not want to choose the path of breastfeeding and was happy with her decision around her life. In Holland most women do start with breastfeeding yet only 35 – 40% of women will continue, Yvonne describes this as a issue at the hospital with time for the nurses to help with the breastfeeding, yet in her job she does help women with breastfeeding.
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