Have you ever stopped to think about your birth?
Were you born normal birth?
Or a cesarean?
Do you know the context of your birth?
You know if it might be cherished
in your mother’s lap when you were born?
Did you have the opportunity to be breastfed in the first hours of life?
To your mother, the experience of your birth
Was it a joyful, happy experience?
Or a painful, traumatic experience?
Why do we need to talk about human birth?
Could it be that the way we are born can have repercussions on who we are?
Or how do we relate to ourselves and others?
Several studies point out that yes.
That events related to birth
can have profound impacts on our physical and emotional health.
In the short, medium and long term.
Already a famous French obstetrician and researcher named Michel Odent says:
“To change the world, you have to change the way you are born.”
And how are you born here in Brazil?
For those who do not know, Brazil is the champion of cesarean countries in the world.
Here in Brazil, more than 55% of births take place surgically.
If we especially pick people who have access to health insurance
these statistics can reach more than 85%.
And these statistics are very far
of the statistics recommended by the World Health Organization,
which says that cesarean rates should be around 15% more.
If we think a little more, we also have another context related
to obstetric care here in Brazil.
In our country, we have a context of obstetric care
interventions and obstetric violence.
How did all this happen?
If we looked 30, 40 years ago, births were attended to in the households.
The women gave birth accompanied by midwives, women of the community …
And as obstetric knowledge progressed, obstetric science evolved,
the deliveries left the homes and began to be attended in hospitals.
They left the midwife’s
and went to the doctors’ assistance.
And because of that, the birth has changed.
Instead of this woman having access,
have freedom to move about in labor,
she is placed in the hospital, attached to a bed.
Instead of this woman being able to have the release of her natural hormones,
which are produced in labor,
is added a serum with synthetic oxytocin,
a hormone that will increase the amount and intensity of uterine contractions.
Instead of this woman power, at the time of the expulsion of the baby
adopt vertical positions, which favor the descent of the baby,
it is placed in the lying position, with the legs up,
where nature does not help.
Instead of her having the opportunity to let the baby stretch her perineum
and there is natural expulsion of the baby, that perineum is cut.
Instead of having time to let this baby out naturally happen,
She has her belly pushed.
With all this context of procedures,
of interventions that have been added in childbirth care,
what we call the technocratic, interventionist model emerged,
medical-centered and hospital-centered.
And that is why here in Brazil a study shows that 25% of Brazilian women
who have suffered obstetric violence
in the moment that should be the most sublime moment of their lives.
And if we think a little further,
many of these interventions, such procedures
which are considered violent,
are disguised in normal hospital procedures and protocols.
And it was within that context that I graduated.
I did a public college in Espírito Santo
and I remember well that when I was a student,
we attended the women in labor,
they were in a collective pre-delivery,
they did not have accompaniment of their spouses of their companions, they were alone,
and we hardly knew their names.
She was the patient in bed two, the woman in bed number five.
We were worried about uterine contractions,
if they were effective,
with the dilation of the cervix, was evolving happily,
with the descent of the baby.
But we were not worried about: who was that woman?
What did the birth of that baby mean?
In what context would she receive this new life?
But even so, in giving birth to her babies,
even in such an unfavorable environment, those women smiled
and wept with emotion, and received their babies with all the love in the world.
And that’s what made me fall in love with obstetrics.
I came to Ribeirão Preto in the year 2000.
I went to do a residency in the medical school of Ribeirão Preto,
an excellent medical residence.
And, after I finished the residence, I started to work,
I opened an office, I attended a health plan.
And within this context, my obstetric practice began
to be difficult to frame.
Because?
Because I had a lot of women to attend to.
Labor takes hours.
The compensation for the agreement was very bad.
And the way that we found to equate all this
was to schedule cesarean sections.
And in a few years of my practice,
I was practically no longer attending normal birth.
And that gave me a frustration
and even a decision to quit obstetrics.
I thought, “This obstetrics is not correct, is not it?”
And then I left the obstetrics, I went to work in other areas of gynecology,
because I have a subspecialty in gynecological surgery.
And in the meantime came the pregnancy of my first child.
In miraculous circumstances, because I could not have children.
I was diagnosed at age 32 of an early menopause
and by divine intervention I was able to generate my first baby.
And like any other woman, I went to prepare myself.
I set up a beautiful trousseau, a wonderful little room,
I packed the maternity suitcase, made some souvenirs,
but I did not prepare for childbirth, after all, I was an obstetrician.
What else did I need to know about childbirth?
And the end of gestation came, with 39 weeks, came the fear.
The fears came and I could not handle it.
And my choice was precisely to reproduce the assistance model
which I once offered to those women.
I scheduled a cesarean section, and my son, Rodriguinho,
was born in the cold and noisy environment of a surgical center.
He was born and gone away from me, stayed five hours in the nursery,
and we lose skin-to-skin contact immediately,
the first blowjob,
and I got lost in the mud of motherhood.
Following my postpartum period, I began to reevaluate all that and think:
“It is not possible for women to have experiences like this.”
Because I was looking at my baby and I could not recognize him.
Breastfeeding problems only intensified,
with two months he was weaned.
At the time I had set up a Facebook group
to exchange ideas and information with other women about motherhood.
And in this group, I met women who had had experiences
very different from mine.
Women who had had natural births, who were breastfeeding their babies,
who had another type of affective attachment to their babies.
And that started to cause me a flea behind my ear.
And in search of a baby carrier, on the internet, called a “sling,”
I met a woman who changed my life.
She is called Taiane Caetano and is a manufacturer of these loaders,
but she had also had a home birth.
And her delivery report was on the internet.
I started to read that story
and, rationally, I began to make several mental elocubrations, thinking,
“How crazy! Who has a home birth in the 21st century?”
And at the same time that I criticized her,
Something in that reported experience made sense to me.
And I wanted to meet this woman,
and then I met so many other women who were introduced to me through her,
and through that Facebook group.
And a new world opened up for me.
And this woman gave me her hand to show me
that the obstetric assistance she received at her house,
but could also be offered in a hospital,
this assistance had much scientific evidence.
And I rediscovered obstetrics.
I fell so in love with this new world,
and soon after I got pregnant.
I got pregnant from my second child,
of Bianca, on the day of my son’s one-year anniversary.
And the day I took that pregnancy test, I said to myself,
“Now I’m going to do everything different.”
And I got ready.
I prepared myself as a woman, attended groups of pregnant women,
I did yoga during pregnancy.
And I sought support with them, with women.
To empower me, to strengthen me,
to inform me, and to be able to rewrite this story.
During this process, I watched the documentary “The rebirth of childbirth”,
which was released in that year of 2013, and from that documentary,
I made the decision to have Bianca at home.
You can not imagine the countless criticisms and absurdities that I have received
their own medical colleagues and so many others.
And yet, I was convinced, my husband supported me the whole time,
and, on December 28, 2013, Bianca gave its first signs,
my bag broke at one o’clock in the morning,
soon after the contractions came, I could feel the power of nature,
my body working, the pains intensifying,
advanced labor
and the end of it all, the prize I received:
to be able to receive Bianca in my arms,
feel her warm, her body slipping,
still, all vernix.
I could breastfeed her in the first minutes of life,
I was able to stay there with her,
along with my husband, with my family.
And that experience was the most transformative experience of my life.
Bianca was born, but another Flávia, a new mother
and a new obstetrician.
A little before Bianca was born,
mid-October, November 2013 I went back to attend obstetrics.
I took courage, I was very much in love with it.
And I was able to attend in Ribeirão Preto the first humanized birth of the city.
I remember this experience so much.
Antonio was born in the water
and by the time he was born, I think I cried more than the mother.
I had a belly this size and that was a confirmation from God.
that I was on the right track.
That was a new path, but it was my path, my path.
And after that, after enjoying Bianca’s maternity leave,
I went back to full force.
I studied, I immersed myself in this universe, I assembled team.
And today we already have more than 150 deliveries attended within a model
where the woman is the protagonist of her birth.
Where we offer her all the information we need
so she makes the best decision for you.
Where she can experience the birth process
in a completely natural way,
with interventions that will only be carried out,
if they really are needed.
Where evidence-based medicine is the pillar of this care.
And where transdisciplinarity is a reality.
Today we attend childbirth together with the obstetric nurse,
along with the doula, the physiotherapist,
so it is a set of professionals who help this woman to prepare
to this most sublime moment of your life.
That group of Facebook, that I told you,
today is the reference group in maternity in Ribeirão Preto,
is moving towards being the reference group in maternity in all Brazil.
We have a website, we have a strong, robust group,
which brings together over 17,000 connected women,
seeking information and mutual support.
Because I believe it is from the desire of the woman to live this experience
that we are going to change the Brazilian obstetric system,
so that the statistic that we saw is no longer a reality.
So that we have the opportunity, really, to allow women
to experience human birth in all its fullness.
Is that you?
What can you do to help change this Brazilian scenario?
Help us, tell yourself, support a pregnant woman.
Learn about childbirth. If you’re going to be a mother, get ready.
If you’re going to be a parent, get ready.
If you will not be, support.
We have a great mission ahead,
which is to change the world from changing the way you are born.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Live)
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