| Consider
this. In the US, 3,680,000 women give birth each year, in
the UK 700,000 do, Melbourne, Australia 58,000 and the same
in New Zealand. Where Common Knowledge Trust is located 1,000
women give birth. New Zealand is unique. In 1995 midwives
became autonomous, lead maternity carers.
Direct entry 3 year educational
programs were set up, they are paid by Government to provide
ante-natal, delivery and post-natal care within the concept
of continuity of care. Women can choose birth home or hospital
with the same midwife. There is no shared care. Over 85% of
all pregnant N Z women have a continuity of care midwife.
Women choosing to birth in hospital, even when referred to
a specialist, will have team midwifery care. Ideal isn't it?
Since 1995, the caesarean rate has doubled to over 27% nationally.
What's wrong with the picture?
In modern societies where blame, shame and
guilt are raging emotions often associated with birth, changing
the system doesn't seem to have worked. It's so easy to ask...'so
who is to blame?' Gotcha.
I want a new blue car to drive. I'm planning
chicken, salad and apple pie for dinner. When my husband and
I have sex this weekend, I want to have the most delicious
orgasm. I'll breastfeed. These sentences have two elements.
The most obvious are the choices. The less
obvious are the skills. Driving is a learned skill, so is
cooking, making love well and breast feeding. Within these
skills are some that relate to natural physiological human
urges: hunger, sex, breastfeeding. Somehow we know that we
have, or haven't or need to develop skills around these natural
physiological experiences. Birth is no different.
Common Knowledge Trust is located in New Zealand,
yet all The Pink Kit Method for birthing better™ resources
that are and will become available developed in the US in
the 1970s when 'choices' for expectant couples opened up possibilities
unheard of for our mothers and grandmothers.
Little focus has been on the skills birthing
women and coaching partners need, although Lamaze, Bradley
and Birthworks have offered couples tools and skills to work
with the birth plans or choices couples are making.
There are so many choices for modern women
and such a focus on individuality that we have lost sight
of something very important. We are all one humanity. Every
woman throughout Time or Place on this planet has given birth
out the same hole. Birth is essentially the same process:
one contraction following another until something comes out
our vagina. We share the same body and can prepare our birthing
body the same way.
We discovered this in the 1970s. Stick to
the shared body and share a common language. This is The Pink
Kit Method for birthing better™. and every expectant
couple can teach themselves in the privacy of their own home,
along with whatever they are doing to plan or prepare for
childbirth. The skills adapt to your individual situation,
because they are your skills!
Many birth plans have been foiled by the unexpected.
Birth plans are about choice. Birth is about reality and what
is happening now. Couple our own skills to the choices we
make. When the unexpected happens we have the skills to take
into whatever situation we find ourselves. The reason we have
so often heard 'There's no way to prepare for birth', is because
the unexpected is common place.
We do not know what our labour will be like,
if we'll birth on our due date or go over 4 weeks, whether
our water bag will leak for 2 weeks, our birth professional
be sick, the hot water didn't work to fill the pool, our baby
turned breech and we're faced with a c/s...and on and on.
We learned in the 1970s with skills, we can use them in all
situations. Nothing has to stop us. We adjust.
The Pink Kit Method for birthing better™
can become the common knowledge skills for expectant couples
worldwide. This will happen because you make the resources
available in your local community.
We don't need another professionally trained
group to teach us about our birthing body, we can do it ourselves
at home. We (both mother and father) can all learn how to
Map the pelvis, know what positions keep us open, to relax
inside The Pelvic Clock, to do Kate's Cat, Hip Lifts, Sit
Bone Spreads, use a common language and common touch at any
birth. And there's more!.
Five years of statistics show that couples
who learn and use the skills have about 7% c/s. Some of those
couples said they did the work, but really didn't and gave
up in labour. This is compared to the 27% ...all having access
to midwifery car, childbirth education, yoga, natural therapies...choices.
Childbirth can change...one labour at a time...one
contraction at a time in even around all the assessments,
monitoring and procedures being done. If women wanted natural
birth, they'd go bush. We take aspirin for headaches, antibiotics,
immunise...the normal and natural is no longer.
If birth was so natural, why are direct entry
midwives trained for 3 years? Birth is natural. It will happen
at the end of pregnancy. If you're planning a labouring birth,
then become skilled. If you're planning or needing a non-labouring
birth then treat yourself to becoming skilled and use the
skills in the birth of your child. Every expectant parent
can become involved in birth preparation and have a more positive
and fulfilling birth. Don't expect perfect.
|
