I had a talk with a friend of mine who works as a midwife in New Zealand the other day. She requires (yes, requires) her clients to use (not just look at) The Pink Kit Package. Now there's a long story about our relationship that you need to know.
When many of us were having babies way back then (I lived in the US then) there was a movement to shift birth away from the modern maternity system into a direct entry midwifery care model. There was a belief that the statistics or high rates of 'medical intervention' was due to over aggressive doctors who were too keen to intervene and midwives would permit women to birth naturally without intervention.
I happened to immigrate to New Zealand in 1995, knowing absolutely nothing about birth politics in that country. Since I've never been involved with the 'politics' surrounding birth I didn't investigate either.
Certainly from the 1970s when The Pink Kit was evolving there were many families who also hired midwives and had home births. Was there fewer 'natural' births? Yes and no. There was much fewer standards of care that included some assessments, monitoring and procedures yet there were not more women who knew how to labor well or men who knew how to help the woman manage well. And there certainly were many problems unseen that then required women to head to hospital.
Over the years I've heard tens of thousands of stories about childbirth ... many from women planning, attempting and having home births as well as those who birthed in hospital with midwifery care as well as more conventional hospital + obstetrician. Just having a home birth or working with a midwife does not change either 'outcomes' nor how women feel about how they coped with the experience.
Having a home birth and working with a midwife does change how women feel about their surroundings and the attention they receive during pregnancy ... although not always at the birth ... nor always after the birth. Most women love having a midwife during pregnancy. A significant number are disappointed with the relationship during the birth or after the birth.
However, this entry is not about home births or midwives ... it's about the New Zealand midwife and her relationship to The Pink Kit and her clients.
When I arrived in NZ in 1995, women who work as midwives had become Lead Maternity Carers in 1990. There was great hope in the midwifery community that this change would create more natural births ... preferably at home. When I arrived the hope was high.
However, by 2000 the c/s rate had almost doubled to 28% or greater and home births were rare. New Zealand midwives were not interested in the concept of growing a skilled birthing population. They strongly advocated, as they do today, that birth is natural and women don't need to be taught how to birth. This is 180 degrees from the concept of The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® skills that have been used by multitudes of expectant families because they believed they should be skilled!
My friend, A ..., finally became involved with The PK ... mostly because she was totally exhausted by seeing so many expectant parents just not have a clue, rely on her too much and just being around. She often explained that going to 6 or more births each month where women groaned their way through labor and fathers stood around feeling useless was just so tiring.
Certainly as a professional she has always been expected to update her education so she and her colleagues are always looking for things that they can learn. The idea that you insist your clients learn The Pink Kit skills themselves just bent her sideways.
She didn't know how to tell her clients this was not a choice. She matured over the years ... and this entry is not about her growth in her profession and how she has grown a skilled birthing population of her clients but you can see her statistics.
Anyway, years down the road she is always frustrated when new clients aren't already on board, but she understands that there is no social expectation that expectant families be skilled!
Although she is known in her local areas as a midwife who works with The PK, sometimes couples use the 'reasonable reasons why not' when being told to work through the PK. So here I am at the punch line.
The other day she told a story about going to a family's house for an ante-natal visit. The woman hadn't gotten into The Pink Kit at all ... 'I'm too busy at work. I take maternity leave at 38 weeks so I'll get into it then'.
Andrea said she just felt so frustrated yet again. She noticed there was lots of information about baby strollers on the table. She asked the woman how long she'd been looking through the information about strollers.
The woman responded 'Since I got pregnancy I've been going over each one to decide which to get'.
Andrea's response. 'You mean to tell me you've spent the time finding out about strollers but don't have time to teach yourself the birth skills and prepare your body to give birth?'
Andrea said the woman was shocked. That's how far we need to go ... a long, long way to change attitudes.
Here's how you can help:
- Donate Look at the bottom of the right menu
- Editing
- Lay-out
- Design
- Illustration
- Computer animation
- Publishing
- Translation
Find out more about our New Zealand registered charitable Trust, Common Knowledge
Go right to and purchase a Pink Kit Package for someone you know and love who is pregnant
http://thepinkkitforpositivebirth.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/PinKitPregnancy
http://expectantfathers.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment