Thoughts on unhindered birth

So, I had a birth this weekend (which was wonderful). I'll post the story soon.

After the Mom gave birth she was all happy and blissful. She looked at me with an amazed look and said, "I just gave birth and you didn't put your hand in my vagina once!". I smiled and said, "yep. Amazing how that works, huh?"

I really feel like the vagina is a sacred place. A place of power and it deserves to be treated as such. I do not take vaginal exams lightly and I do not touch a woman's vagina unless she asks me too. I really don't think that a woman needs to be told when it's ok to push, she knows when she needs to push. So, I don't routinely do vaginal exams to check for full dilation either. Often, when a woman says she has the urge to push I will tell her to listen to her body and to let her uterus do the work. This helps the baby come out gently and I have seen that woman are much more present when they just let birth happen rather than trying to "push push push!"

I am totally convinced that routine vaginal exams are unnecessary. How many other things do we do that we really don't NEED to do? And by doing these unnecessary things are we unconsciously taking power and control away from the mother?

I aim to empower women not to dehumanize them through intervention. As a midwife I want to continue to explore how little I can do!