Here's the reality ... it's really hard to talk to pregnant women about what they need because they have not been around lots of births. Birth and death ... two hidden transitions of life. Death is more common now with hospice however having birth centers (which would sort of be an analogy) still does not involve the whole family.
Rarely do families want lots of friends and family with them during the birthing process. This hinders the ability for our societies to change what is expected of expectant parents!
When my New Zealand friend, Andrea, who works as a midwife talks about births ... these are also 'birth stories' but told from the viewpoint of a birth professional ... she will talk about what she sees.
What she sees is both how the woman is coping or handling the situation, what the father is doing and what is happening with the birth process and need for medical care. By the way, having increased medical care does not change how the woman is managing or what the father is doing! This is where the viewpoint of a birth professional is so very different from the perceptive of the mother and father.
For example, within the Natural Birth Movement there is a belief that 'birth should be natural unless there is a real medical need'. But what does that mean in how women and men deal with the process. In other words, increased foetal monitoring doesn't stop a woman from using relaxation or good breathing skills nor does having an internal foetal monitor stop a father from helping the woman cope with increased pain of having to remain in bed. Nor does it stop both of them from rearranging the pillows so the woman is more comfortable and can partly lie on one side or another.
Just because there is heaps of medical care any birthing woman and man can use all The Pink Kit skills as needed.
So birth professionals see heaps of births. They know that every woman will eventually 'get through' the birth ... one way or another! That means the birth professionals are trying to prevent a woman from perceiving her experience as 'suffering' (which is a word used to indicate a woman is not coping well ... which is another way of saying she does not have the right skills or she is not using the skills she has been taught) and to safeguard the wellbeing of the woman and baby.
Most birth professionals do not believe ... rightly so ... that how a woman copes with the process or how a father helps is their business. It isn't. It's our business as society! Presently, our societal attitudes of childbirth actually block any consideration for having skills be a natural part of pregnancy and birth preparation and management. How sad that is.
Sometimes I do have a sadness. In the past 40 years since The Pink Kit evolved there have been millions of families who have given birth without these skills. In New Zealand alone, since 2001 when the original Pink Kit resource was launched there have been almost 500,000 births. Andrea only attends 60-80/year. This means those families who she has encouraged, inspired, required, educated, demanded or insisted to self learn the skills are a unique few compared to what families in New Zealand could experience.
And New Zealand has a midwifery model of care and you would think that women who work as midwives would want to work with skilled families rather than work with women who are 'getting through' the birth and most fathers standing around or not really knowing what to do. But women who work as midwives in New Zealand have been strong advocates of 'birth is natural and there is nothing a woman needs to know.'
So birth providers see lots of births. That means they are actually ok with women moaning and groaning their way through birth and they are ok, even if irritated, with the lack of skills of fathers-to-be. Most birth professionals will praise women for just getting through birth ... which is right to do ... it's monumental enough to just get through labor. However, what if more families actually skillfully worked with their baby's efforts to be born whether having a natural or medical birth? What would birth providers see? More families being skilled! Won't that be nice for everyone?
From the view point of families having babies. Most just don't know what birth is like therefore they have no idea that birth is about coping, managing, dealing with, working with a dynamic process. Most families, if they ever see a birth video, will see 'the birth' ... the last 20 minutes or so. The Birth is usually the easiest part! It's the labor that families need to work with. And few birth videos show the hours and hours of labor ... people would be bored! That's sad in a way.
But I understand the boredom because it's very boring to be with a woman who is not coping. There's not much anyone can do except 'coach' her but that is absolutely exhausting if you have to do it again and again for hours and hours .... particularly with women who don't respond to coaching.
Sadly in the Natural Birth Movement there is a viewpoint that 'women shouldn't be coached, they should be left alone to discover birth themselves'. Wow, do we really want other women to just face this dynamic experience without any skills, knowledge or help? That's a profound societal viewpoint. If we want women to be left alone then they should be informed that no one will help them and they are just on their own.
In fact this is what we didn't want when we demanded our husbands be present. We did not want to be left alone because we knew we weren't skilled and at least we wanted someone with us. But then Lamaze was the class that gave both of us skills and for years families used Lamaze in whatever birth they had.
But Lamaze also promoted 'natural birth' so often people stopped using the skills if more medical care was needed or felt they didn't work. The Pink Kit skills work in every birth because every birth should be a skillful experience.
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