A note on failure

by laura , Last updated March 28th, 2023

When thinking back to the birth of my child, I found myself reflecting on the language used in maternity and the postnatal period, which admittedly had a profound impact in those early weeks that followed.

Sparing the details of my firstborn’s arrival into the world, I ended up with an unplanned caesarean. As part of my training I’ve assisted in a lot of caesareans, so thought i’d know what to expect. The reality of the situation being so far removed from how I had imagined meeting my baby was tough to accept.

My body was exhausted from a long labour and to top it off, emergency surgery with significant blood loss. But over the weeks that followed, as I physically improved, emotionally I was left with deep feelings of failure.

There is a huge emphasis on “natural” birth – there’s a huge presence of companies coaching women to achieve the perfect natural vaginal birth, intervention free. Although I didn’t do a hypnobirthing course, i listened to some podcasts, practised my breathing, attended prenatal yoga and bought into the idea that my body was equipped with everything it needed to birth this baby.

The labour was tough. I wanted pain relief but was told my baby would be here so soon. Why couldn’t I cope with the pain? I felt there was something wrong with me for finding it too much. Once my baby had arrived, instead of being delighted to meet him I felt like i’d failed at giving birth. How could I be a good mother if I couldn’t even complete the task to become one? And when the paperwork from the hospital notes “failure to progress” – I failed, and everyone else thought so too.

My baby struggled with weight gain, probably a combination of undiagnosed tongue tie and reduced milk production following a traumatic birth with significant blood loss. We were admitted to hospital with “failure to thrive” – once again, only 6 weeks in to motherhood, I was failing.

Years later I can look back on this and see that I didn’t fail, not at all. Since the advent of assisted childbirth (including instrumental (forceps/ventouse) delivery and caesarean section) plus other advances in obstetric care, maternal mortality during childbirth has fallen massively. Less than 100 years ago, women were almost 40 times more likely to die giving birth than today.

The tide is turning though. The language used in maternity care is changing to reflect the significant impact “failure speak” can have on women. I wonder if the pressure we put on ourselves to have the perfect birth needs to change too, and can now reflect that in my case, intervention saved the life of me and my baby. For this I am eternally grateful and now can celebrate this, rather than see it as a failure.

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Privacy Policy

Updated: 18th May 2023 This privacy policy explains how Mumie ("we" or "us") collects, uses, and shares information about you when you access or use our website or web application ("App") collectively our "Services". Mumie is committed to complying with data protection and privacy law. We take your privacy seriously and are committed to protecting your personal information. Please read this policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data.

Information We Collect

We may collect the following types of information when you use our Services:

Personal Information: We may collect personal information, such as your name, email address, baby's date of birth and contact information when you create an account.
Health Information: We may collect health information such as your demographics and aspects of your medical history to provide you with personalised health recommendations and to help you track your progress
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Website usage: Website users do not create accounts, however, may still be subject to certain passive data collection. Such passive data collection may include cookies (please refer to separate Cookie Policy), IP address information, location information, and certain browser data, such as history and/or session information.

Mumie is intended to be used by women who have recently given birth. It is not intended to be used by children.

How We Use Your Information

We may use the information we collect for the following purposes:

To Provide Services: We use the information to provide you with the services offered by the App, including personalised health recommendations, and to improve the quality of those services.
To Communicate: We may use your contact information to communicate with you about our Services, including updates, promotions, and other news.
To Improve the App: We use the information to understand how users interact with the App and to improve its design, content and functionality.
To Comply with Legal Obligations: We may use your information to comply with legal obligations, such as responding to court orders or complying with applicable laws.

We will store this information within our App so that you can have access to it for as long as you are our registered user. We may also use it for statistical and research purposes, but only in an aggregated and anonymised format (i.e., in a format that does not allow us to identify who this information relates to). The information you provide will be processed on one or more of the following lawful bases:

The consent you provide to us at the point of collection of your personal information, including explicit consent for processing special personal data to include health data
The performance of the contract we have with you
The compliance of a legal obligation to which we are subject
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We may share your information with the following types of entities:

Service Providers: We may share your information with service providers that help us operate the App or provide the services offered through the App.
Business Partners: We may share your information with business partners, such as insurers or healthcare providers, to provide you with more personalised health recommendations.
Legal Authorities: We may share your information with legal authorities, such as law enforcement agencies or courts, to comply with legal obligations or in response to a legal request.

We may share your information with other parties with your consent. Your information will not be transferred out of the UK.

Third-party links

The App and/or website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy notices and practices. When you leave the Web App or Website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website or app you visit. In the event of acquisition of Mumie, your data may be shared with the new owners.

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We may use your contact details to provide you with information about our work, events, services and/or activities which we consider may be of interest to you. Where we do this via email, SMS, or telephone, we will not do so without your prior consent. You are free to opt out from receiving marketing communications by following the "unsubscribe" link in our email, or by contacting us directly. We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Security of Your Information

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. Your data will be stored on a secure web server, with the app hosted on a trusted host provider with regular security update enhancements. Your personal data can only be accessed by those within Mumie who have a genuine need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instruction, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal data, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason, we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred via the internet. We can not be held responsible for unauthorised access or use of your information that is beyond our control.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you. Typically, we will not keep your personal data for longer than 5 years after you have closed your account on our App or stopped using it, after which point personal data will be destroyed. We may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your Rights

You have the right to access and control your personal information, including the right to be informed about what data we hold, the right to access this data, the right to rectify inaccurate data, the right to erase your data, the right to restrict or object to your information being used, and the right to move your data to another business. If you have any questions about your rights or would like to exercise your rights, please contact us using the information provided at the end of this policy. When signing up to our app you will be asked to provide your consent to share your information. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time and may do so by contacting us. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (ico.org.uk) We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of the policy and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our website homepage or sending you a notification). We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access the Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you. Your continued use of our services after the effective date of the updated policy will constitute your acceptance of the revised policy.

Contact Us

The Party responsible for the processing of your personal data is Mama Health Ltd. The Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Dr Laura Davies. The Data Protection Officer may be contacted using the contact us page on the website. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact us using the contact page on our website or by emailing us at hello@mumie.health

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