I ran into the most amazing introduction to birth trauma and a course available. I know nothing about this woman but her introduction video is absolutely spot on. She asks the pertinent questions for the cause of your traumatic birth experience and your response to it. She gives all the reasons women give for feeling traumatized. She nails it. In response, our Trust has written to her to see if she wants to do some partnership with us. Birthing Better is all about preventing the trauma in the first place. If you have experienced a traumatic birth you really should consider buying her course … and tell her Birthing Better Childbirth Preparation told you about her work. She doesn’t know us!
If you want to prevent trauma then please, please become skilled and use your skills to override the reactions that plague unskilled birthing women and definitely unskilled fathers-to-be! Over 30% of our Facebook Birthing Better community will have experienced a birth trauma because of a lack of fundamental birth and birth-coaching skills or they used skills that didn’t work when circumstances changed. PLEASE GET SKILLED in the right way … for whatever type of birth unfolds for you! We can reduce and prevent this cascade of shame, blame, guilt, disappointment, anger, frustration and confusion that plagues so many families today because of their baby’s birth. #WeCanBirthBetter
Do you really know us?
If you know anything about our Trust, Common Knowledge, then you know Birthing Better Childbirth Preparations skills-based approach is for all pregnancies and every birth.
- And, that all these skills were developed by hundreds of fathers and mothers.
- And, that these families and the many thousands who have self-learned Birthing Better skills do so to reduce and prevent birth trauma of any kind … not because these skills can prevent traumatic births … but we can use skills to stay focused, in control, able to manage, cope, deal with, handle and stay on top of 99% of the causes of women and men feeling traumatized after their baby’s birth. This means our skills can’t change what might be traumatic but we are not left feeling traumatized. This is a HUGE difference.
- And, that Birthing Better families also want to deeply enrich their own ability to work through their baby’s birth journey no matter where they birth, with whom and what happens to and around them.
There is no doubt in my 45 years of experience that TABS or trauma after birth syndrome has exploded since the early 1980s when the present Choice-based Childbirth Trend became wide spread. This woman, Jennifer, asks the questions, defines the issues and explains the reasons. Here are some quotes from her introduction:
These are the questions Jennifer asks:
- ‘Did your birth unfold differently than what you planned?
- Did you feel powerless of overwhelmed by the experience?
- Did you feel abandoned during labor or terrified by the event?
- Did you have trouble connecting to your newborn?
- Are you flooded with uncomfortable memories of your birth experience?
- Do you avoid talking about your birth experience?
- Did you experience violating procedures or feel disrespected during labor and birth?
- Do you feel something was lost or robbed throughout the process?’
Then Jennifer goes on to say about what she (and we hear) from too many women: ‘You thought you were prepared and thought your body would know how to give birth but what unfolded was not what you had expected and it took you by surprise.’
She follows this with these thoughts: ‘They thought they had read all the right books, asked all the right questions, took all the right classes and this left them feeling confused and wondering why ‘my birth didn’t turn out the way I imagined and hoped it would’. And eventually feeling somehow that their body failed them and it was to some degree it was their fault.’
This is crazy
Read those questions again and the following quotes … all of this represents a society in which ‘choice, hope, wish, imagine’ is the childbirth trend. This approach to birth is not based on the reality … you can’t plan your birth! You ‘do’ your birth. Birth is a natural part of life but that does not mean women naturally know how-to do the experience of giving birth. A child is hungry but has to learn skills about what foods to eat. We are constantly taking things out of the mouth. Hungry and knowing what to eat or how to cook are different things. Sex … the same! We can be randy but knowing how-to be a good lover is learned skills. Birth is no different … just more infrequent. We have to do better at birthing.
What’s so sad is the last quote on this page … Women feel they have done all the right things. They have within the present system but our present system DOES NOT INCLUDE BECOMING SKILLED! Reading the right books, asking the right questions and taking the right classes says nothing about learning the right skills.
This is tricky for some of you who have learned skills such as Lamaze, Bradley, Hypnobirthing, Hypnobabies, Birthing Within, Calm Birth … and those skills worked or they didn’t.
- If those skills worked then you don’t know what the problem is. Women who give birth easily have no understanding why/how a birth can be difficult for another woman. A woman who has had a trouble birth can’t get her head wrapped around how some women birth easily.
- If those skills didn’t work for you then you fall right into that last sentence of Jennifer’s … you felt you learned the right skills
There are skills and then there are Skills
And this is where Birthing Better just stands out from the crowd and is such an amazing resource that is a stand-alone set of skills or fills in the gaps of these other methods.
- You want skills that adjust to changes in your birth circumstances because if you’re learning skills in order to achieve a natural birth and that’s not what happens then you are prime for TABS!
- You need skills to prepare your pregnant body to birth because the most common causes of more medical interventions (that lead to TABS) is directly due to your inability to open up and let your baby come down, through and out your body.
- You need both effective birth and birth-coaching skills that work with and around everything that happens inside and outside you because the other common reason you’ll have more medical interventions is directly due to your inability to cope and manage labor pain.
The ‘Cascade of Interventions’ is a direct result in most circumstances to things you can change by becoming skilled in the right way.