Tag Archive | childbirth education

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!

What’s at the root?

Nov19

On a discussion board this week in the birth professionals section (doulas, midwives, birth educators), someone asked the question “what’s at the root of your love of birth?” I was still for a moment and let my intuitive, heart-felt, gut level response come to me and it was this:

Women.

Women’s health, women’s issues, women’s empowerment, women’s rights.

Social justice.

…..

And, that feeling. The “birth power” feeling–that laughing/crying, euphoric, climbed-the-mountain, glowing, rapture…feeling. The transformative, empowering, triumphant, powerful, I DID IT, feeling.

I want all women to have the chance to experience that.

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As I look at my list above and invert it, it becomes my “tree” of birthwork–with women as the root and then spreading up to blossom with that birth-power-feeling. 🙂

To any birth professionals reading this, how about you? What’s at the root for you?

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.”

Why Honey Sticks During Labor?

Oct13

May 2015 146I have already written about eating during labor. One of my suggestions is honey sticks–but why honey sticks and where to buy them? Honey sticks, also called honey straws, are plastic tubes of honey similar in size to a drinking straw. During labor, honey sticks can provide an instant energy boost for a laboring mother. They are especially good to pack along if you are going to be laboring in a birth setting with restrictions on food or drink intake (read more here about why withholding food and drink from laboring women is not a good idea!). They are also handy if a mother is very tired and needs some quick energy, but is not interested in eating anything more substantial. Dads who are feeling a little tired or woozy in the birth room may also find honey sticks a quick boost for themselves as well! The sticks hold about a teaspoon of honey and you can  easily pop the end open with your teeth and suck the honey out.

Where to buy? Here are a couple of ideas:

Online store where you can buy individual fruit-flavored honey sticks.

Online store that carries plain honey sticks.

Online store that carries honey sticks in large quantities (perhaps you have lots of friends who’d like to share?)

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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.

Which Pelvis Model to Buy?

Sep17

The content in the post was originally made in response to a question on a message board regarding what type of pelvis model do childbirth educators suggest for use in birth classes. I’m posting similar content here for any fellow childbirth educators who may come to this blog looking for pelvis feedback 🙂 Some people had expressed disappointment with a very tiny pelvis model that is out there for sale (and looks deceptively larger in photos) and others were concerned about whether the pelvis was flexible or not and also whether it had “bolts” at the joints for flexibility. Here is my response:

  • I have a non-mobile pelvis I bought from ebay (around $50) and like it quite a lot. It doesn’t have the flexibility elements, but I point to each joint and describe how it can flex, and that seems to be enough for most people. (The seller was “vanscience” when my husband got it for me for Christmas, not sure what is on there now.)

  • Then, I have the very tiny one as well (purchased from ebay, not from the Doula Shop). It is only about two inches probably. This is the one I actually prefer to use to show some of the cardinal movements and posterior/anterior positioning of the baby. I have a tiny fetus that I picked up from Birthright. It is a “12 weeks fetus,” but in an odd twist of providence, it fits PERFECTLY through that tiny, cheap pelvis that I regretting having for a long time. Now, I love it and find it really useful. My mom knitted me a tiny uterus with dilating cervix that exactly fits the tiny baby as well! The tiny baby even gets “stuck” on the back of the pelvis when it posterior and then when it rotates to anterior, it slides right through with a little “push.” It is like they were made to go together. The baby is hard plastic, so I can’t flex it to show all the movements, but they get the idea. I just share that babies go through a series of cardinal movements, but I don’t go through a big demo of exactly each one, I just show the baby rotating and slipping through.

  • I find the tiny set really easy to manipulate and convenient to demo with. The large one works well for tipping back and forth to show how different positions might compress or open and to point out the parts that are flexible in real life. But, I actually find that people seemed more interested in the positioning of the baby when I started to use the tiny set to show that part. I generally teach private, one-on-one classes, so that might be why it works so well for me. It would not work well in an up-in-front-of-a-class setting.

  • So, I use the big pelvis and big uterus and big baby each as separate teaching tools and then the little pelvis and baby as a “unit.”

  • Just wanted to share that that tiny pelvis isn’t all horrible! (though, man, was I disappointed when I got it and saw its microscopic nature. I was like, “this is a rat pelvis!”)