International Women’s Day, March for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights March 8, 2015, New York City
If you live near or would like to come visit New York City – let’s create and join the largest walk for Women’s Rights that include health and birth rights for a safe, respectful birth in any setting. Join the march on International Women’s Day (March 8) to bring attention to the need for political commitment to achieve gender equality by 2030 around the world. The march will celebrate achievements women and girls have made since 1995 as we commemorate the 20-year anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action.
The March will start at the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza (47th street and 2nd avenue) at 2:30 pm and end at Times Square (42nd street and 7th avenue) at 5:00 p.m.
The March is the just the beginning as the next two weeks the UN will host The Commission on the Status of Women dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
I will be attending the meetings along with many of our International MotherBaby Childbirth Organizations board along with IMBCO representatives, Hermine Hayes-Klein and Dr. Nick Rubashkin from Human Rights in Childbirth and Elan McAllister founder of Choices in Childbirth.
Adding your voice and joining the march is important as the new Sustainable Development Goals, the successors to the Millennium Development Goals, will transition this year and we are setting the stage and the agenda now for the next targets. The updated global strategy will have a focus on adolescents, education and women’s empowerment. Adding our voice on how the way women are treated and cared for in childbirth, can and should empowering women throughout their lives, I believe is an important message to be heard. As Penny Simkin has long said, “birth is not just another day in a woman’s life, it is one she will remember for ever!” Let’s not let childbirth fall off the agenda in the role it plays to empower women.
To add to the momentum, the newly released book: The Roar Behind the Silence: Why Kindness, Compassion and Respect Matter in Maternity Care highlights how the growing culture of fear in childbirth by providers and being transferred to women increases defensive medicine and thus overuse of technology. In the process human touch and caring is often lost, causing a model that is dis-respectful, and I add, dysfunctional. Yet, we all know how kindness, compassion and being respected can improve a woman’s experience of birth and “data is showing it also improve efficiency, effectiveness, experience and staff morale within healthcare settings too”. The review goes on to say The book “provides information, inspiration and practical suggestions to support maternity care workers, policy makers, and maternity care funders across the world in their quest to deliver sensitive, compassionate and high quality maternity services. The book highlights examples of good practice, and offers practical tools for making change happen, using evidence and stories where appropriate.
It is time that we look at how we are at a time when most of the improvements in childbirth are not all about money, we must reclaim the human connection, more love, respect and dignity for every MotherBaby, to provide choice of birth setting and providers and within the full range of options and comforts to speak about how birth can and should be pleasurable and a peak moment to remember with joy and bliss.
I love this quote that was just posted about our Orgasmic Birth Trailer on YouTube as it sums up my feelings.
“How we treat #women when they give birth reflects on all women throughout their lives. #Orgasmic #Birth is possible” -Forage Botanicals
I hope to see you marching in NYC at the March or at the UN Meetings as together we speak up and out about women’s rights in childbirth.
If you can’t join us in person, add your voice here, post your comments and we will share them for you.
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