Alice's blog...
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Nobody really knows the origin or meaning behind Sheela-Na-Gig figures. They've been discovered all over Europe, usually in places like churches and castles.
There's a theory that some may have been used as 'birthing stones' by women in labour... Perhaps for visualisation and affirmation!
Maybe I could make some...
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For the next twenty years the seaside town of Ilfracombe will play host to 'Verity', Damien Hirst's 70 foot statue of a pregnant woman brandishing a sword. Half her torso is presented in an anatomical style revealing her sleeping baby within. Verity, meaning 'truth' in Italian, represents a “modern allegory of truth and justice."
The local council has received 100 plus complaints from local residents, brandishing the statue outrageous, immoral, bizarre, obscene, offensive, disgusting, distasteful, embarrassing, grotesque, disrespectful, insensitive, inappropriate, a monstrosity, tasteless, ugly, vulgar and not in good taste.
How divorced are we as a society from the realities of being human?! My favourite comment on Verity, on a Facebook thread, simply says:
"She is a fertility Goddess. Oh we forgot about her. We thought cars were more important. She is awesome."
Verity reminds me of something written in a Guardian article I was sent by a friend and former client yesterday. Frances Harrison, on the relationship between being a mother and war correspondant, contemplates how:
"As a mother, I found it harder to fathom the extraordinary cruelty otherwise gentle people are capable of in wars. At night in Sri Lanka, I would sit under the ceiling fan and rock my tiny baby to sleep in my arms, haunted by the stories I reported by day: tales of torture, mass graves and the agony of the missing fighters' mothers who never received a corpse to mourn. Both sides reeled out casualty statistics like cricket scores, forgetting the people they talked about were once someone's baby, loved and protected. It made it hard to get excited about the military hardware side of war – it didn't matter much if it was a T56 or AK-47 that did the killing. In the male-dominated world of foreign reporting I never admitted it, but motherhood did bring a new perspective to the story."
Verity also reminds me that as childbearing women we are powerful, amazing and strong. How striking is the contrast between this and the mainstream perception of pregnant women as delicate, vulnerable and stupid? Similar to Marianne Williamson's poem:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?..."
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In the year 2009/2010, 8.3% of women giving birth at Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske) had an elective caesarean section (NHS Information Centre).
The reasons for choosing a caesarean are varied. For those experiencing a 'low risk' pregnancy and labour, intervention-free, vaginal birth is normally the most advantageous way for a baby to be born (Enkin 2000).
For those who require help - for either physical or unresolved psychological reasons, scheduled caesarean birth from 39 weeks can also be a low risk option, according to Dr Anthony Falconer, Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology President:
"Recent advances in medical science have made the procedure much safer and for most women the complications of this operation are low" (press statement 2011).
Pregnant women should be offered evidence-based information and support to enable them to make informed decisions about childbirth.
Recently updated NICE guidelines state that women who haven't had any problems in their pregnancy, having a first, planned caesarean birth, may be at an increased risk of experiencing the following, compared to if they had a planned vaginal birth:
- baby admitted to neonatal intensive care: 13.9% vs 6.3%
- hysterectomy caused by postpartum haemorrhage: 0.03% vs 0.01%
- cardiac arrest: 0.19% vs 0.03%
- longer hospital stay: 3.96 days vs 2.56 days
(Nice clinical guideline 132, published November 2011)
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| Location | Type | Births per year |
Normal birth rate* | Induction rate |
Caesarean rate |
Instrumental delivery rate | Epidural available? | Birth pool provided? |
| Royal Cornwall Hospital (Treliske) | Consultant-led | 3700 | 38.5% | 22.4% | 22.2% | 13.5% | Yes | No |
| Penrice Birthing Centre | Midwifery-led | 350 | 95.9% | <2% | No | Yes | ||
| Helston Birth Unit | Midwifery-led | 60 | >91% | No | Yes | |||
| St Mary's Hospital (Isles of Scilly) | Midwifery-led | 4 | No | No | ||||
| Homebirth | Midwifery-led | 182 | No | No buy/hire |
*A normal birth is one that avoids the following, according to the Maternity Care Working Party:
The table doesn't cover local data on the intervention rates (induction, instrumental delivery, caesarean etc) of births that transferred into hospital from a midwifery-led setting. However, recent data from all NHS trusts in England found that women planning a birth in a freestanding MLU experienced a 17% intervention rate, and women planning a homebirth experienced a 10% intervention rate (compared to those who planned a hospital birth, who experienced an average 40% intervention rate).
2011 data provided by Birth Choice UK, Dr Foster Health and the Birthplace in England study
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A large study published in 2011 compared death and injury rates for the babies of 64,538 low risk women giving birth in a variety of settings in England between April 2008 and April 2010.
The women planned births either at home or in midwifery-led birth units (like Penrice / Helston) or in consultant-led hospitals (like Treliske).
Research link: