Tuesday, November 13, 2012

The elephant in the room: Circumcision

Since the beginning of my journey as a doula, I have felt it is not my place to offer an opinion on contraversial subjects such as circumcision, vaccines or various parenting choices. I feel that I need to stick with pregnancy and birth when it comes to sharing information, and even that has its limits. After all, I am a doula, not a medical care provider.

Thankfully I have never been asked my opinions on circumcision, but the topic does come up every now and then. I never thought much about sharing information with clients until a certain rather well-known and respected doctor in our community said something to my clients about it that was blatantly incorrect (at best it was a half-truth) right there in the delivery room shortly after the baby was born. I did not say anything about it because it's not my place, but I have thought a lot about it since then. Should I share information with clients? How do I share it? What do other doulas do? 

Tonight I am attending a class just for doulas about how to talk to clients about circumcision. I am looking forward to learning ideas that will hopefully help me better serve my clients and their precious babies. 

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Should doulas share information about circumcision with their clients? Did your doula share information with you about circumcision? How did you feel about it? 

1 comment:

  1. I was googling for information on this issue and came across your blog. I am going through the same thing right now. I am an intactivist and this is something that is very important to me. I would like to include providing information on circumcision, vaccines, etc in my doula services, but how without being too forward? I also don't believe in remaining silent and allowing bad things to happen just because you know it will offend someone. I'm torn. What did you learn about this at the class you attended?

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