“Postpartum is the time during which a woman gathers thought to reorganise the world. She must do this for her baby and this means that during this time, anything is possible…she might even see the need to burn her house down”
These words were said to me by a dear medicine man and midwife back in the day when I started my path as a doula in my natal Colombia. I had felt the impending need to discover all the mysteries of the female body and how it so wisely delivers new lives into this world. I had long been in a path of self-discovery of my own menstrual health and even though I hadn’t yet had children, I could sense the tremendous amount of power and opportunity for actualisation that undisturbed birth could bring with it.
This is why, even though I couldn’t quite grasp the whole depth of those words back then, I kept them in my heart for I knew they carried more meaning than I was ready to understand.
Year after year, family after family, birth after birth, they continued to grow larger and deeper and louder; I began to believe that what the western world understands as postpartum depression is actually the full force of a woman crashing against a world incapable of caring for her or her child. A world she knows is unfit to raise her child in. It’s a voiceless scream in the middle of the night when no one else is awake but our babies and us. It’s a cry for help, if not for support at least to be heard, to be seen, to be acknowledged. It’s the sound of our bodies and psyche, and spirits breaking to give way to these souls we brought forward and now demand that we give them the world they deserve.
“I once knew a woman who actually burned her house down”
Turns out that this “thoughts gathering”, this reorganisation of the world, isn’t a quiet and pleasant affair, go figure! It can’t be achieved by asking politely, and it can’t be done by quietly waiting like a nice little girl.
It just so happens that changing the world requires a force wild enough, torrential enough, chaotic enough to make the existing structures tumble down.
This midwife told me he once met a woman who had actually burned her house down. And as “crazy” as this may sound, it doesn’t actually surprise me. If you’ve been through postpartum it might not surprise you either. Because only “crazy” can have a go at “normal”. There’s just no other way.
Maternal suicide
According to the 2022 MBRRACE UK report, suicide remains the leading cause of direct maternal death in the first postnatal year; during 2020 women were 3 times more likely to die by suicide during the period between pregnancy and the six weeks after it, compared to 2017-19.
So what the hell are we doing? Why is this happening? How do we stop it?
I believe a first step would be to look at our craziness, at our rage, at our depression and truly understand why they’re knocking on our door. Validate their existence, listen to these voices of despair. See how real and how necessary they are. Because it is the world that is sick and what we’re feeling, I believe, is truly the most fair and honest reaction to the social sickness that pains us. And this is important at every level of our healing journeys. Not only in maternity! because the truth is, and it’s about time we face this, that no amount of “wellness practices” are going to save us from this disease. They might keep us afloat, but they won’t make us whole. Maybe our strongest weapon against the absurdity and unfairness of the world we live in, is actually this permanent and undeniable sense of dread… and maybe it’s time we harness it.
Another important step is knowing no real change will ever come from above. How can we get better care from a system that has been built on and only survives through inequality? This is what we’re up against. No matter how much we rage. No matter how much we protest. No matter how much we die.
Once we’ve understood the power of our madness and that whatever has caused it will not move a finger to end it, then we’re on to something.
Exercising the power of parenting. Do few things but do them well
I believe in the force of humble work. There’s this song in the film Brother sun, sister moon that says
“…If you want to live life free
Take your time, go slowly
Do few things but do them well
Heartfelt work grows purely”
I fell in love with this film at a very early age and I think of these words a lot ever since. What is more unstoppable, more shuddering, more guerrilla than a movement that starts within the privacy of our homes? Our visions of better worlds pour into our kids without us even trying. If we dare to dream for them, they’ll dare to do. We owe them this act of faith.
But also, we’re the women that care. We’re the wise ones, the healers, the doulas, the teachers, the artists. We are the ones who know. We know what hurts, and how, and we know how to cure it. We just have to remember who we are, what we do: Open the door. Embrace. Talk. Write. Hold.. Give other women what we know. Whatever we know. And I can assure you we know much much more than we dare to believe. Much more than the world cares to admit. Because it is us who are there helping build it everyday. With our care, with our time, with our hands. What would really happen if we fully understood this? If we knew in our bones the strength and the magic that we really carry? Could we start a revolution of care? Could we change the world? Could we finally, burn the house down?
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