Being a mother is a life-changing transformation. It is the premise of the midwife and physiotherapist Ascensión Gómez López (Cartagena, 1973), who recounts life after childbirth in the book Puérpera perdida (Oberon) addressing recovery, sex or contraception. She laments the dehumanized social organization that wants women to “get back on the wheel” of their lives before becoming mothers, the sooner the better.
Is a new woman born after childbirth?
I am fully convinced. There are things that change your life, and motherhood is one of them. It is one of the most intense things that can happen to anyone.
That changes?
All. For example, the way of looking: things remain the same but you see them differently. For me the most radical thing is how you see yourself and how you see what happens to you. Everything goes through a filter that was not there before and that is, how does this affect my baby?
If you had to define the puerperium with one word, what would it be?
Unpredictable. It is the adaptation by definition without an instruction manual. It’s a free fall.
He defends that the change that the puerperium supposes is forever.
Of course, because motherhood is never going to end. It’s going to evolve. It’s going to be easier at some times and harder at others. And when you think you have it under control, you realize that you have nothing under control. In this society of control, parenting is absolute lack of control.
Are women prepared a lot for pregnancy and childbirth, but less for what comes after?
Completely. This has a lot to do with the society in which we live where care is undervalued. Neither women nor men are born with the active caregiver gene: it is learning. Everything is very focused on pregnancy and childbirth… and then the puerperium arrives, which is a very long and intense and very unknown stage. But puerperal women are no longer seen, as was the case before. There are no referents.
Many women reach pregnancy with very little information about everything that concerns motherhood.
The sexual and reproductive health of women is the pending subject of medicine. Women don’t know their cycle, they don’t know how their bodies work, they don’t know how fertility works… We keep postponing and moving away from our body. And when we want to be mothers, many times we can’t because our ovarian reserve is low. Everything is pathologized, it seems that medicine is going to solve everything through some pill and this is not always the case.
Is childbirth seen as the end of the process and a return to normality?
Unfortunately yes. Socially, motherhood is something that has to pass through the body of women without leaving a trace. As if it had not existed. But the reality is that it does leave her, in some women more and in others less. The body undergoes a brutal transformation. It must be made visible that the puerperium is a stage of recovery of the body from a super-intense process that it has experienced (a pregnancy and a birth) regardless of whether it has turned out phenomenally or catastrophically. There is not that awareness that women and babies need that time. And babies have the right to be cared for. But they are things that are not valued, it is something that mothers do, they are women’s things. Patriarchy clearer…
Do you agree with how maternity and paternal leave are now considered?
It seems unfair to me. Women have been stuck on maternity leave at 16 weeks for more than 30 years. It is not fair. Motherhood must be protected and valued.
…
We cannot be the same because the body has not undergone the same process. And I don’t care if the non-pregnant couple is a man or a woman. Whoever has lived through this process needs social care… Because without motherhood, society is doomed to failure. We cannot equate in the same way the labor rights of a person who has lived through a whole process. And let’s not say if there have been no complications! Cesarean section is the only surgery that does not have a sick leave. It seems cruel to me.
And how do you think the issue of the drop should have been expanded?
It is a priority to invest those weeks in women, who are the ones who need it the most. It is very good that they extend the permission of couples, but first we are going to take care of the women who have to maternity. The excuse is that it’s so they don’t have job discrimination, but they still have it. It is still women who do not have adequate casualties during pregnancy to live the pregnancy in the best possible way. The extension of paternal leave is phenomenal, but later.
What would be the minimum, the six months recommended by the WHO?
Yes. And in the first year of life or two if not 100%, at least in an interesting percentage. There are countries that have up to three years of life divided between the parents because childhood has rights that we have to take care of and protect. It does not help me that you do nurseries at four months: at that age he needs contact with the mother, even more so if she is breastfeeding. The right to care and not have to outsource care is not protected. Everything is to produce, produce, produce without valuing breeding.
In cases of perinatal bereavement, should there also be specific permissions?
Yes, to be able to mourn. A caesarean section, a complicated delivery, a perinatal death… If you have an accident as a worker, your vacations are paralyzed. This does not happen in maternity: keep the wheel turning no matter how you are.
Is it also more difficult to return to normality in cases of obstetric violence?
Obstetric violence can be from the most subtle to the most aggressive, but the recovery times are the same and the care is the same. The woman may be aware sooner or later, but the whole process is going to be more difficult, more expensive, and she is going to have different needs that have no name or place in our society. Psychological recovery is not covered by anyone.
Spain has duties when it comes to respectful deliveries…
Yes. There are three UN judgments for obstetric violence in which they urge you to review your action protocols at the health and judicial level. And Spain turns a deaf ear. There are many professionals who are trying to change things, but there are still more who are not. And while these are so, Spain owes a debt to care for women in every way.
Mental recovery after childbirth is also important…
Mental health is the great forgotten during pregnancy and after childbirth. And it will condition your physical recovery. In addition, in a process of complete vital adaptation, not only physical recovery will depend on mental health, but also the relationship with the baby, parenting capacity, the ability to return to work. We have to take care of mothers, which is what allows the society of the future to exist. Without mothers there is no humanity.