Birth in a slaughterhouse: Our pain, your shame

At the moment when this text is written, several hundred women are standing and protesting in front of the Ministry of Health of Serbia. They were gathered by the organization "Women's Solidarity", at a protest against obstetric violence. The women holding the banners are young and some of them probably want to give birth to a child one day. They want to, but they know what can happen to them, that giving birth in Serbia is a lottery in which the head is often lost. Mother or child. And the only reason is the absence of humanity. The gathered women shout: "Justice for Marica!"

The news about the way it is Marica Mihajlović from Šid lost a newborn baby in the maternity hospital in Sremska Mitrovica shook us all. For those who missed the story, in short: Marica was admitted to the maternity hospital on January 12 and due to complications, she had to give birth by caesarean section. According to her, the doctor who was supposed to deliver her, refused and insisted on a natural delivery. He jumped on her stomach because the baby wouldn't go down, he slapped her and insulted her because she was Roma. Marica's daughter got stuck in the birth canal, vomited, was able to inhale but not exhale and passed away.

I hope I speak for all women when I say that we thought it would violence in maternity hospitals to stop after the terrible experiences of women who went public last year and the year before last. After the inhumane treatment according to Milica Filipović from Šabac, who herself had to give birth to a dead child in the toilet of GAK Narodni Front. After death of the mother in labor, Bobana Momčilović Veličković because the doctor who gave birth did not react to eclampsia... After the confession of journalist Dragana Pandurević Jovović, to whom the midwives shouted during the birth: "For sure she suffocated!" But no... It happened again, it happened to Marica Mihajlović. And these are only women whose stories have reached the public.

Harassment, slaps, sewing without anesthesia...

According to everything we know so far from the testimonies of women giving birth in Serbia, women in maternity hospitals are slapped, beaten, broken ribs, cut or stitched up without anesthesia, the medical staff does not listen to them and does not believe them. Women die during childbirth or immediately after it, they have spontaneous abortions in the toilet, even though they are in the hospital, they give birth to children who die after birth... These are the experiences of women giving birth in Serbia, and some would say that incidents of this kind are possible everywhere. But there are too many incidents like this that we have heard about so that we can easily state that, well, sometimes it just happens.

The problem exists and we must find the root of it. But the root of the problem is not neglected maternity wards, beds without sheets, bathrooms without hot (or any) water, inedible food... The root of the problem is the attitude of medicine in Serbia towards pregnancy and childbirth.

That root of the problem has been described and precisely defined several times by Jovana Ružić, activist of the Center for Moms. Namely, she gave birth at the same moment when her mother was admitted to the hospital because of a health problem she had. In several media appearances, Ružić explained that her mother, who was hospitalized for a problem that affects men and women equally, received far more humane and dignified treatment in the hospital than she did when she gave birth.

The root of the problem

Pregnancy is not a disease and childbirth is not a health problem, we often hear some doctors tell us. But we know that, we don't need a medical degree to know that. Just as we know that pregnancy and childbirth are conditions and situations in which many things can go wrong and that the doctor does not have one, but two patients in front of him: the mother and the baby.

And here is the root of the problem: the doctor often does not see the woman in front of him, for some doctors she is an object, an inanimate object from which another object needs to be extracted. The root of the problem of violence in maternity hospitals lies in the fact that many obstetricians pride themselves on the fact that they do not treat diseases and that their patients are not sick. That is true, but they are still human beings, with fears, pains, possible complications and, most importantly: with free will and insight into their own conditions and the changes they feel in their bodies. And we had one case here the birth will be streamed live on Tiktok without the knowledge of the woman giving birth.

On what planet can the fact that pregnancy is not a disease and childbirth is not a health problem justify yelling, insults, slaps and refusing to cooperate with a woman? How is it even possible for someone to scream at a young woman in labor, threaten to hit her so that she will have two skulls, curse her "gypsy mother"?

“Our pain, your shame”

Only where the attitude towards the animal in the slaughterhouse is more humane than towards the woman giving birth. Mothers in Serbia are not looking for apartments and chefs with a Michelin star. They don't even ask for whole, untorn sheets, or hot water in the bathroom. All they ask is to be treated better than animals in slaughterhouses, as persons, human beings, who, by the very fact that they exist, deserve basic decency and respect. Because it seems that the lack of respect for them costs some women their lives.

"What we experienced is not normal and it is not our fault. We were not less valuable, we were not uncooperative, we were not rude, we were not unreasonable, we were not spoiled, we were not crazy. This cycle of violence ends with us. At the moment when a woman gives birth, she needs all the support, because she is giving birth. Not a doctor, not a midwife, a woman gives birth," Dragana Pandurević Jovović said at the Women's Solidarity protest.

"Our pain, your shame", was the exclamation that echoed through Nemanja Street when Pandurević Jovović finished her speech.