This post was prompted by a Twitter discussion about helpful and unhelpful vocabulary in healthcare communication.
The discussion stemmed from a Guardian article bearing the headline “Should pregnant women be encouraged to shun labour wards?”.
The words used in the headline falls into the ‘unhelpful’ category. The article actually includes the experiences of three people: one an advocate for home birth; a mum who chose to give birth in a hospital; and a dad whose wife chose a home birth for their fourth child – there were complications and he advocates choice. In short, the article really says “different women choose different places to give birth for different reasons”.
Articles such as this are all as a result of new NICE guidelines that suggest 45% of births are more suitable for midwife-led care or home birth. Difficulties with healthcare communication and such headlines can arise when words such as ‘are’ and ‘is’ are used. Yes, the guidelines are based on evidence, but when you say ‘are’ and ‘is’, people tend to interpret that as a blanket fact. ‘Could be’ is better than ‘are’ because each woman is an individual, with her own individual needs.
Some commentators are concerned the guidelines could remove choice, rather than giving more, worrying that ‘encouraging’ women to give birth at home is a euphemism for ‘forcing’ them to do so.
This example demonstrates that whenever a new guideline on any health matter is released, it will be met with a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance – people interpreting the news based on their own experiences, expectations, hopes and fears.
Cognitive dissonance happens even if you have evidence for your new guidance coming out of your ears. As an NHS communications manager, countless hours of my life have been spent translating NHS guidance on a range of matters – cancer screening, vaccinations and healthy lifestyles to name just a few – into something that the public can understand, relate to – and hopefully act on.
When writing a press release on a health matter, or a patient information leaflet great caution has to be taken to not over-generalise, raise unrealistic expectations, or be misinterpreted by the media (although with the best will in the world the latter is not always possible).
I understand that years of scare stories about all forms of birth have led to a crippling fear of birth. Balance is what is needed. When talking about home birth or midwife-led care being a safe or a safer (than hospital) option for a certain group of women, we should be careful to emphasise those options are not safe or safer than a hospital birth for every woman. A lack of that emphasis could have the unintended consequence of making women who have to give birth in hospital, or need to have interventions for whatever reason feel less of a woman, or to have failed, or to feel guilty.
Surely none of us want that.
I know a couple of women who have given birth by Caesarean section, both emergency and elective. They said they have had comments from women who have delivered their babies naturally such as women who have had C-sections ‘haven’t really given birth’. What a horrible thing to say! I had an emergency C-section myself, and while I have little doubt pushing a baby out of your vagina hurts (a lot, probably), having your stomach muscles cut open is far from an easy option.
Yes, we need to stop fear of birth. Yes, we need to promote birth as a normal life event. But we should be careful to not encourage or perpetuate bitchiness and competition between women as another unintended consequence of these messages.
This is the kind of statement about birth that I would love to read:
“Individual women have individual needs when giving birth. Many women are able to give birth at home, but because of issues with the current system not all who want to choose a home birth get it. Hospital can be a stressful place to give birth, which can lead to some women having interventions that are unnecessary. That’s why we’d like to give more women, in joint discussion with them, the option to give birth at home if they are considered to be low-risk. However, the needs of mums and babies are paramount, and as birth is not always straightforward there may be mums who need to give birth in hospital, with or without intervention.
“Our ultimate aim is for every woman’s experience of birth to be positive. We will do that by empowering women to be able to voice their opinions, have as many options as possible, and strive to remove fear and guilt by saying there is no right way or place to give birth.”
I know my fantasy statement above is what the guidelines are trying to achieve – this statement from NICE sort of says the same thing.
The trouble is, some people will be literal and translate the key point into ‘they’re saying home birth is safer, that means hospital birth must be dangerous’. This isn’t helped by headlines such as this one from The Mirror: “Mums-to-be warned: ‘Have your baby at home, it’s safer’”.
Many people are too busy to delve in to the facts behind the story (or just can’t be bothered to look). That results in a perception that the guidelines are saying something like:
“Home is the safest place to have your baby! Good luck to you if you have to give birth in hospital. They’re scary places, staffed by evil obstetricians whose greatest pleasure comes from inflicting pain by doing things to you that you don’t need.”
Ergo, more fear is created by stigmatising hospital birth. We don’t want such a vicious circle. So, balance. When talking about birth, think about helpful and unhelpful words, how they might be interpreted and their consequences.
We also need a greater emphasis on patient feedback, so services know what to focus on. Happily, more hospitals throughout the NHS are doing this.
As well as listening to negative experiences so services can improved, we need also need to promote the positive experiences – fear not, there are plenty of them, wherever the mum gives birth, and however the baby comes out.
Note: I called the statement a ‘fantasy’ for sake of the avoidance of doubt that it’s not an official statement.