Archives

Questions During Labor

Dec20

One of the things I talk about in birth classes is about avoiding asking the laboring woman too many questions. Questions make her leave “birth brain” and throw off her rhythm and coping skills. I recently read a newsletter from Birthing from Within that touches on this issue in a beautifully articulate way:

“Watching this scene reminded me of what frequently happens to mothers in labor being admitted to the hospital. A mother is mustering up courage and immersed in the profound act of creation and personal transformation–but that is overlooked when she is asked, ‘When did you have your last bowel movement?’ and twenty other questions! When we recognize the hard work and intensity of labor, and stay present to the birthing woman’s experience, rather than blindly following our own agenda, we honor her Warrior spirit.“

New Birth Classes for 2009!

Dec13

In addition to my usual six week class series and the single night class options, as of January 2009 I am offering several new classes to meet the varying needs of families in the community.

  1. A four week series of classes for people who are well-read about birth and their choices in childbirth and/or who are having a subsequent child (the six week series is recommended for people expecting their first baby).
  2. A three week “birth share” series–an informal, Q & A, spontaneous approach to childbirth education.
  3. A weekend refresher series (or CBE crash course) offered on a Saturday and Sunday for 3 hours each day.
  4. A 3-4 week Creative Birth series that focuses on birth art and a personal growth approach to birth education (this series is still under development).

Fathers at Birth Book

Dec11

Today, I was extremely excited to learn about a new book called Fathers at Birth by Rose St. John. I am really looking forward to reading it and I think there is a deep need for a book like this in the birth community. I am mindful of the need to include father-specific information in my birth classes, but I find it difficult sometimes to locate many good resources for fathers, or to develop class content that engages fathers in a relevant and connected way.

I will post more when I’ve read it!

Edited to add: I posted more about this book and fathers at birth here.

Personal Mastery and Birth

Nov29

I wanted to share a link to a post I wrote recently for the ICEA blog. In this post I discussed some research from the book Childbirth Education: Research, Practice, & Theory:

The book also shares the research that when mothers were interviewed postpartum who had had epidurals, their comments following birth focused almost totally on the baby. Women who had relied on relaxation and other non-pharmaceutical coping methods talked about the baby AND about the emotional and psychological benefits of their birth experiences. Women in both groups expressed satisfaction with their birth experiences, but for those in the epidural group “the element of personal accomplishment or mastery was missing in their comments.”

I believe that starting out the parenting adventure with a sense of “personal accomplishment and mastery” is a tremendous gift and I wish all expectant couples had the opportunity to experience birth in this way. In my classes, I strive to emphasize that both process (giving birth) and product (healthy baby, healthy mom) are important!

As long as I’m discussing posts I’ve made elsewhere, I wanted to also link to my CfM blog post this week which was about what are we thankful for? (in the “birth world”). I have a lot to be thankful for and hope you do as well!

Who is your birth link?

Oct29

There is a survey up on the Independent Childbirth blog asking who your “birth link” is—your primary connection to information about birth. Traditionally, women learned about birth from other women—informal, woman-to-woman birth sharing. Culturally, we’ve moved away from this as our primary information source (often to our detriment!).

Of course, I think independent childbirth educators and independent birth classes are great “birth links” 🙂

Thinking back to my first pregnancy, my primary birth link was the newsgroup misc.kids.pregnancy. I learned so much there and they really shaped my attitudes and beliefs about birth. I have a very birth-positive mother, but I didn’t really go to her for birth information. I felt the need for my “peers” and I found those most readily online. My other link was reading (of course!). I read voraciously and always have. It was hard to transfer “book learning” to really feeling *prepared* to actually give birth though.

I also took an independent birth class. Since I was so extensively read, I do not remember feeling like I learned many new things from the classes.

During my second pregnancy, books were huge again, but this time around my in-person friends were also a very valuable birth link. I am lucky to have a wonderful network of birthy friends who can talk about birth with me for hours on end. One friend in particular was very inspiring to me as I worked through some “issues” I had from my first birth (the birthing itself was tremendously empowering and beautiful, but afterwards I had sequestered clots and a painful manual extraction of those, a pitocin shot, and also tearing that was traumatic for me for some time to come). My friend is a fabulous example of someone who really “trusts birth” and it was so great to talk with her during the course of my pregnancy <waves to Shauna…>

Right Brain Learning Activities

Oct13

I have mentioned several times that I strive to orient my classes to “right brain” learning activities. I like this explanation of “why” to take this approach, from Family Centered Education: The Process of Teaching Birth by Trish Booth:

“In the past, much of childbirth education has been weighted toward left hemispheric functions of analysis and linear learning…However, the experience of labor and birth is not necessarily orderly and rational. In fact, emotions and beliefs play a significant role both in how a woman copes with her labor and how it progresses. Therefore, childbirth education is beginning to look at more creative, inutitive, right brain approaches to teaching…If families needed only to take a paper and pencil test or write and essay on birth, the more analytical, rational approach might suffice. However, families must experience the physical and emotional as well as intellectual parts of labor. In order to be better prepared for this intense and integrated experience, they need more integrated learning activities.”

A Father’s Role

Oct11

I recently finished reading the new book Labor of Love by Cara Muhlhahn and I was struck by this quote:

“Anyone would cry to see the way families interact around a homebirth. In a home environment, the intimacy and integrity of the family, especially the father or partner, often have pivotal roles to play. In the hospital, these key players are mostly cast aside except to hold the woman’s hand and cheer her on: ‘Push!” At home, they can support the mother in any number of invaluable ways, from regulating the temperature of the water in the pool to preparing food or choosing her favorite music.”

I have noticed this as well–I recently watched the new documentary Orgasmic Birth and was struck by the glaring differences in how fathers behaved at home compared to in hospitals. At home, they embraced their wives. They danced, they murmured, they stroked, they kissed, they held. At the hospital, they held her hand or tentatively stroked her back (with body at a distance–just a hand reaching out to lightly touch her). I’ve seen this in real life as well. I tell men in my classes not to be “scared” of their wives in labor, but to walk through the waves (of discomfort, anxiety, whatever) and just hold and love her. I tell them that they do not need to be “trained” to be more “special” or different than they are. They don’t need to be doulas. What they need to do is love her the way they love her and reach out to her to show her that. I tell them that hospitals can be intimidating and it can be awkward to show physical affection in that setting, but to do reach past that and do it anyway. I’ve read a number of posts and emails recently about whether fathers belong at birth–I think they do, but I also think that the hospital climate too often discourages them from having a real role or being valuable. I think they can be stripped of their position as “lover” and “father” and left feeling helpless and useless.

More Thoughts on Birth as a Creative Process

Oct10

I am reading a book from the late 80’s right now called Giving Birth: How it Really Feels. It is by Sheila Kitzinger and I had never heard of it until this week. Some time ago I posted a quote about birth as a creative process. I’m only a few chapters into this book and it has so much that relates to the idea of birth as a creative process that I just had to make a new post about it.

“I believe that this is one of the important things about preparation for childbirth–that it should not simply superimpose a series of techniques, conditioned responses to stimuli, on the labouring woman, but that it can be a truly creative act in which she spontaneously expresses herself and the sort of person she is. Education for birth consists not, as some would have it, of ‘conditioning,’ but aims at giving a woman the means by which she can express her own personality creatively in childbirth.”

“The point of education for birth is that childbirth becomes not something that simply happens to a woman, in which the question of how to cope with pain is paramount, but a process in which she actively and gladly expresses herself. It is not a performance to be enacted, nor an examination that must be passed, but is a profound and all-enveloping experience in which she opens herself to the creative power of the uterus…no woman should have to suffer in labour. Instead it becomes an exciting adventure that brings with it a sense of deep satisfaction, thrilling achievement, and triumph.”

“…many women looking ahead to labour worry that childbirth pain will prove too much for them, and they they will somehow ‘give way’ and reveal their true selves. The implication is that our ‘real’ selves are nastier than the images we ordinarily present to the world–and that we require a mask to hide the unpleasantness of our inner natures. But it is this real inner self, capable of the hieghts and depths of emotion, which is also the self which can relish the excitement, drama and tumult of labor and the intensely moving and passionate experience of bringing new life into the world…a woman is completely caught up in the passionate act of creation, utterly committed to the feelings of the moment and to the vivid sensations with which her whole being is flooded.”

I personally identified with these quotes in many ways. I remember feeling that preparing for birth felt like preparing for the biggest test of my life. I remember fearing losing myself and “freaking out.” And, I remember the feeling of utter trimuph and exhaltation after giving birth. It was the most empowering and triumphant experience of my life. I felt like the outer self was stripped away and my real self was revealed and it was NOT ugly, or “mean,” or unworthy, but was beautiful, strong, powerful, magical, and of fundamental worth and value. I felt better about myself after giving birth than I’ve ever felt in my life.