Our #everywordcounts campaign
“Poor communication contributed to 9 in 10 cases of birth trauma.”
- Birth Trauma Association Survey, 2020
‘Who let you push for that long?’, ‘Let’s just give her meds and send her down to the holding pen’, ‘Big baby’. In 2018 we asked people to share the words and phrases said to them during pregnancy and birth. Because language is a crucial part of having a good birth experience. With our campaign we encouraged those accompanying or working with women and birthing people to consider the impact of their words.
Themes from our analysis
Five insights.
We studied over 100 different phrases and categorised the results into the following:
The Birth Test. Value judgements: that there is a success or failure element.
Denying Reality. Diminishing the experience: what you’re feeling isn’t real, we know best.
You’re Nothing Special. Not valuing or honouring the individual experience, not meeting requested needs.
Birth Should Be Feared. Fear-promoting language. Important to note here, that there are times this is necessary medically. It doesn’t have to be harmful as long as it’s explained (later).
Not Your Choice. Removal of agency: anything that addressed the power imbalance and took away women's choice.
We completed the campaign by creating this short video, to encourage those accompanying or working with women and birthing people during birth to consider the impact of their words.
If you would like to deepen your learning on how communication and language used in the birth space can affect trauma, please check out our free 30 minute training session Language matters: why every word counts with Dr Rebecca Moore here.