This talk was given at the Australian Birth & Post-Natal Services Conference April 28, 2007 in Melbourne. There have been some modifications for clarification.
I want to thank Kelly for inviting me as a trustee to CKT that produces The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® to speak at this conference. We have had a long discussion about the seven years of statistics collected about The Pink Kit resources and also why the c/s rate in NZ has more than doubled under midwifery care since 1990. She encouraged me to bring some new thoughts and ideas to a very complex political situation.
As a trustee to CKT, I have a particular mandate and that is to grow a skilled birthing population. Before I start you might want to know something about me personally. First, I have never had an interest in the politics of childbirth. I’m not a birth professional in any form. Second, my personal passion is personal skills, mastery of any task from making fire without matches to changing tires. This either makes me the worst or the best person to speak about childbirth skills and how they fit into maternity services.
Although the c/s rate is close to 30% and rising in NZ, I don’t think the Midwifery Model has failed. As the voice of CKT we just think we need to grow a skilled birthing population. We can do that by using The Pink Kit Package as the foundation resource for all expectant parents.
The PK Package contains all our how-to birth skills for all of us in ALL births and are directed equally to mothers and fathers-to-be or our partners, friends or relative who will help us during labour. {Now there are 19 BirthingBetter online courses ranging from The Complete Skills to First-time birth, Breech birth, Home or Hospital Birth … and more}
I’ve been asked by marketing people: What is your ‘target’ market and as a trustee to CKT I will always say: all expectant families.
In reality the greatest number of people at the present who will have an interest in learning how-to birth will be families who will birth in hospital and who are more likely to want or accept medical care.
This is by far the largest group of expectant families. The conventional general population of expectant parents has always loved the skills once they realize the skills are not about ‘natural’ or ‘alternative’ births, which is the focus of so many contemporary resources. Instead The Pink Kit Package offers practical and effective birth and birth coaching skills that work well with all forms of medical care.
Also the target market is men. Men love the skills and this inspires confidence in the women. With The Pink Kit skills, fathers-to-be find the skills appropriate to their role in helping their partner cope with the natural occurring pain of birth contractions.
Since this is a business conference, our Trust made a business boo-boo. We produced a multi-media resource thinking it would be sold in bookstores in 2001 when the original Pink Kit was launched. Bookstores primarily carry books and only recently multi-media. But what pregnant person will look in the DVD section for childbirth information?
So I’m here to encourage each of you to become a distributor of The PK Package. Get it out into your broader community and work toward growing a skilled birthing population. I’m here to ask you to make a vital resource available in your community that has proven to improve all birth experiences for all expectant parents. I’ll show you the seven years of statistics later in this talk. The PowerPoint from which these statistics are taken will be available at our table to view. Helen, who is here with me has used The Pk in her two births and is now a PK Presenter. She’s here to answer your questions about another business opportunity … becoming a Pink Kit Presenter.
I’m here to invite you, along with what other hats you wear to put on another and new HAT … the PK hat. I’m here to explain, enthuse and inspire you to join us in growing a skilled birthing population.
Let me start by asking all of you this question:
‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?’
Answer this for yourself as I take you on a journey so that when we arrive at the end, you will understand the Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® and the vital role it can play in achieving the goal of having men and women be skilled at giving birth in all births and all situations. The PK MFBB crosses over all borders and boundaries because it’s based on our shared human body and behaviors … our skills, our mastery.
When I show the statistics, I will compare Andrea and Suzie’ (two New Zealand midwives) Practice Based Evidence to the ‘national average’. The national average is still based on continuity of care midwifery for over 85% of pregnant women whether they birth in hospital or home. When women who work as midwives in NZ became the Lead Maternity Carers in 1990, the c/s rate was 12.9%. Something is causing the rise to close to 30%.
Now I know that there are people here and in NZ who believe this rate of c/s has nothing to do with midwives but rather the present day obstetrical model. For whatever reason: ‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population as one major way to deal with the present day childbirth trends?
Let’s think about epidurals for a moment. It’s true that epidurals are not available in rural community hospitals. If epidurals/cs/gas/pethidine/inductions/augments etc weren’t never made available then the statistics would be different in both urban and rural hospitals
But we must ask why are women using epidurals, gas or pethidine? Many of us find it hard to cope with the naturally occurring birth pain. The reason CKT believes women have trouble coping with labour pain is that they lack the full range of appropriate birth skills and their partners lack effective birth coaching skills. We can remove pain relief options but does that mean that women feel good about how they coped with labour or that the father really knew how to help. The Pink Kit skills are focused on our ability to manage, cope and work with our baby’s efforts to be born as best we can … and some women will still use medical pain relief.
I hope to stimulate in you an eagerness to spend as much time or more growing a skilled birthing population as in trying to change the maternity system. Take a moment to think about all the women and men right now giving birth in Melbourne. Imagine every single couple right now using their own good birthing skills in whatever birth they are having right now. Let’s keep asking this question.
‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?’
Keep in mind that the PK resources only see birth from the viewpoint of the consumer, the pregnant family, the woman, father-to-be … all of ourselves as expectant parents.
In order to understand why all of us are included in these PK skills let me ask you to answer this question with a show of hands. I’ve written four terms up on the board.
Choose only one you honestly identify with the most:
Woman, Midwife/Doula, Mother, Human
Consider this:
Often when we are asked ‘What do you do? We answer … ‘I am a…’ In reality that is our occupation, no matter how much we love our work. It’s what we ‘do’ not what we ‘am’. Primarily and fore most we are human beings. Each of you is already skilled in the work you do. CKT works to make certain that all of us as human beings (pregnant and giving birth) have a set of universal birth and birth coaching skills.
As human beings we all blink, cough … and that is the basis of the PK.
In fact we are so strongly human beings that, both men and women have the same bodies and can blink, cough and we can all tighten up rectum. Remember the ‘men’ who are so often made fun of when speaking about birth are our husbands, our sons, our brothers. They want to know how-to help and we want them to know how-to.
This is the basis for the PK skills … our commonality as both human women and men as applied to the commonality of childbirth.
Although there are many factors that focus on our unique differences during pregnancy and birth (our culture, religion, beliefs about birth, our choices or lack of, our health issues etc), birth is fundamentally one contraction following another through which we will continue to breathe and our body will be in some position.
The contractions get closer together, stronger (more painful) and longer. Not one of us gives birth out the top of our head or from the tips of our fingers. Babies are not delivered by storks or found in the cabbage patch. If we are having a c/s, we still breathe and our body is still in some place. This commonality is the basis for the PK skills. Using skills in all our births and weaving these skills into our unique lives is the basis for growing a skilled birthing population while respecting our uniqueness? The Pink Kit skills are the core, fundamental and universal skills that fit easily into all the many choices available.
Remember my purpose today, as a Trustee to Common Knowledge Trust is to convince each of you to become a wholesaler of The Pink Kit Package in our effort to Directly Market this valuable resource. If you have a website to also join the affiliate program like Kelly has. If the PKP is not sold in bookstores expectant parents will have no access to the PKP because they won’t know it exists. So I’m intentionally leading you down a specific path.
Now I’d like to do something else with you. I’d like everyone who has given birth to raise their hand and keep it up until. If you’ve had more than one birth, then you have to personally decide how to respond to my instructions.
Lower your hand:
- If you gave birth in hospital.
So everyone who is left has given birth at home or birth center (even one attached to hospital) or taxi.
Lower your hand if:
- You transferred to hospital anytime during or after the birth.
- Didn’t birth in water.
- Had a VE done.
- Your birth provider ruptured your membrane.
- Was told to pant during 2nd stage.
- Had cord traction applied in 3rd stage?
- Tore or cut.
- Baby needed attention.
- Needed syntocin for bleeding.
The women who are left are those whose birth fits the iconic and ideal birth promoted today by birth advocates. The woman birthed at home with a midwife, in water, didn’t have a vaginal exam done, had a spontaneous rupture of membranes, spontaneous delivery of baby without a tear, spontaneous delivery of placenta, the baby was fine and she didn’t bleed. More than that, the woman was left alone to discover her own unique way to birth and she loved the whole experience … and had an orgasmic and ecstatic birth.
What % of women in this population has achieved this? (*About 1% kept their hand up and most were women who were birth providers and one would think knew how to birth.) Imagine the 58,000 births/Melbourne and consider how many women are not right now achieving this preferred birth experience. What about them? Many of you believe that once midwives achieve professional autonomy then the majority of women will achieve this birth. That is why the NZ statistics must make us stop and think.
Place the above birth on the top of a pyramid. This is the iconic birth.
Let’s now look at the birth pyramid of birth from a PK perspective.
Raise your hands if you laboured during birth whether you had a vaginal birth or ended up with an emergency c/s.
- Keep your hands up if during your labour you had another contraction. !00% of you have kept your hand up. Therefore every single one of us could use and benefit from having our own PK skills to manage each contraction using one or more of these universal skills. Now lower your hand.
Raise your hand if you had a c/s either elective or emergency.
- Keep your hands up if you breathed or your body was in some position before, during and after the surgery. 100% of you have kept your hand up. Therefore every single one of you could use and benefit from having your own PK skills, learning them in pregnancy and using them during the surgery and in recovery.
So we have an inverted pyramid. CKT through The Pink Kit resources wants to define a new iconic birth with the majority of families achieving a positive birth experience through using these birth skills in whatever birth they experience. So few have achieved the pinnacle of birth desired in the present image of birth, no wonder there is so much shame, blame and guilt.
We have a modern maternity service and we have to work with it. Even Direct Entry midwives work within the framework of care advocated by the World Health Organization and that is medically based. The PK skills work well with and around all assessments, monitoring and procedures.
Also consider this. Many of you had medical procedures done at home. We tend to ignore this fact yet be outraged if they are done in hospital
Remember I’m here to sell you a concept and to answer this question. : ‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?
CKT will work with you to develop this new trend and paradigm shift. We respect all types of maternity care and all choices women make. As a Charitable organization with a goal to grow a skilled birthing population, we must always remain neutral to all the ‘choices’ each family makes. We believe that all choices work well with The Pink Kit Package as the foundation skills that expectant parents should teach themselves during the last weeks of pregnancy. This change will take time.
Now let me lead you down a side path in this journey.
Looking at birth from a midwife’s perspective and what they offer women. I know there are women who work as doulas here as well.
We have looked at the pinnacle of birth success for women and men both from the contemporary viewpoint and from The PK. Now let’s look at women who work as midwives. In NZ they have achieved the pinnacle of success for their profession and this model is considered to be the very best for maternity care. Midwives see themselves as a profession that supports natural, physiological birth for healthy women and normal births. In remaining neutral, CKT speaks for the many women who fall outside this professional mandate as well as those who benefit from having midwives as their birth provider.
New Zealand midwives are paid by the Government, work autonomously and don’t share care with doctors. They can be Direct Entry trained in a 3-year program. Over 85% of women have the choice of home or hospital birth and their midwife attends them in both. Midwives totally support women’s choices and provide continuity of care. Yet, the c/s rate has more than doubled from 12.9% to close to 30% in 17 years.
In this Partnership relationship, midwives totally support women’s choices.
It is very, very common for NZ women to choose to stay at home with their continuity of care midwife as long as they can and then choose to go to hospital for an epidural when they find contractions painful. When ‘choice’ is the basis for birth planning, people don’t always choose what others would like for them.
At the beginning of this talk, we discussed the inability of rural women to access epidurals. Should women not be given the ‘choice?’ Women who want the choice of epidurals are going to urban hospital from rural communities. Women who are considered to be ‘high risk’ are moved to urban hospitals from rural areas. Because a woman has no access to pain relief, this does not mean she felt she coped with birth pain or that her partner knew how to help her.
Although we might want each other to have that ‘birth orgasm’ many of us are just bloody relieved it’s over. And shouldn’t women who need or want medical care have great birth skills to use as well?
The PK skills have proven to be 100% successful because success is broadly defined and achieved by small things we do for ourselves. Unfortunately part of the issue with birth is the judgment that is often placed on each other by other women and this is very difficult to change.
A Pink Kit birth might sound like this: ‘My husband was great, we worked together beautifully. I had an epidural hours after I thought I would’. For people advocating the natural birth model, this birth would be a failure but not to herself and The PK MFBB.
When we have skills then we’ll use them as best as we can in whatever birth we have. All humans like to feel competent and capable. How many people actually truly feel comfortable staying in the primal for an extended period of time … and with pain? Women are ‘choosing’ pain relief as a way to cope with the naturally occurring pain because they lack skills.
I read something recently in an Automobile Association magazine about the word ‘instinct’.
‘Pre-planning works. Winging it, rarely does. The most mysterious thing at first glance is why the driver doesn’t get out of the way when something unexpected happens. The answer lies in a thing called ‘IQ Dump’. In a highly charged situation, an unprepared brain doesn’t work too well. The enormity of the situation overwhelms it. The brain can’t process all the information and order the body to take the best action. Instead, the brain works on instinct and usually simply tells the body to react. Instinctive reactions can kill you. If you are driving on instinct your brain won’t tell your arms what’s the best and safest thing to do. To beat these dangerous instincts, you have to seriously develop your skill options for a variety of situations so you know exactly what to do.’
How does this apply to birth and why do so few women seem to just instinctively labour? If you touch something hot, do you instinctively pull back? Do you know that pulling back is an action that creates tension? If we feel pain, we often instinctively react by tensing up. It is so natural to tense up that we don’t think about it but if we tense up in labour then it hinders our baby’s efforts to be born no matter where or with whom we birth, our choices or lack of, health issues or our beliefs about birth.
So we have to ask this question.
‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?
Our Pink Kit skills help us overcome the instinctive and natural reaction to pain. We can consciously choose to let go of tension because we know where and how to do that. Without the skills, we still get through birth because 100% of all pregnant women will give birth but often we feel it just happened to us and bowled us over rather than having the ability to work with our baby’s efforts to be born.
Unlike animals that are not taught to birth, as humans we have an amazing brain. When we couple our brain to our body with skills then we achieve mastery. That’s the success of the PK skills in absolutely all births.
So the PK skills are never about midwives/doulas, home, hospital, natural or medical, interventions or even life style. They are just a set of skills we learn for ourselves in the privacy of our own home in the last 16 weeks of pregnancy. Once we have learned the skills then it’s our choice whether we use them but we need to learn them first in order to make that decision.
The PKP is the ‘mother’ teacher because it passes on all the skills that come from us as women and men, about our human body and our human behaviors as they apply to our unique birth. In order for this concept to grow, we have to promote a message that links being pregnant to learning how to birth and birth coach. Without this message, we will never know how a skilled birthing population will impact the birth trends except through the statistic collected by Andrea and Suzie.
So, I encourage you to become part of the newest trend in childbirth … to encourage all expectant parents to teach themselves the PK skills by Direct Marketing The PKP.
I have to say that women who work as midwives and doulas sometimes believe they should either be the teacher or ‘do’ the PK techniques on women in labour. But this doesn’t work. I can discuss this later with people. I am saying this from 35 years of experience.
From a business perspective, the PK Package needs to be a stand-alone resource because it works best that way. This is why CKT has recently decided to train Pink Kit Presenters … those people who will show couples how best to work through and use this resource. Helen who is here can talk about her experience.
By having The PK Method be a stand-alone concept everyone will come to understand the value of these distinct skills in all births. There has been too much splitting of ‘natural, home birth, midwifery birth’ from medical, hospital and doctor birth. The PK can bridge that unnecessary gap … either way a woman in labour will still breathe and her body will be in some position and her partner can always work with her.
Also CKT holds the international copyright and trademark to all the skills, knowledge and information in all forms and we ask this be respected. We will have more success together growing a skilled birthing population if we all work with what works well. CKT knows what and how to do that and we will work with each of you to make it happen.
So let’s go back to the original question. ‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?
Is there anything else waiting in the wings that can reach the vast majority of expectant parents who will have another contraction? Or who will take another breath or whose body will be in some position?
In Melbourne, the orthodox Jewish women are the ones who primarily use The Pink Kit skills. I’ve just returned from Pakistan and presenting to ultra orthodox Muslim women and CKT will produce a resource for women in developing country. The PK skills are accepted IF people truly take on the job of learning how-to birth.
Each of us can apply self-learned skills at any moment of our birth experience … that is really our ‘choice’ when and how we use our PK skills or we can IQ Dump and just react. But we need to learn the skills first.
Now to the statistics.
In 35 years and in many countries, I’ve listened to tens of thousands of birth stories worldwide. I’m the storyteller. These are some of the stories.
There is a huge % of women who had ‘good outcomes’ and hated birth.
There is a large % of women who gave birth at home (whether in traditional or modern countries) who say they didn’t feel they had a clue what was happening to them.
There is an incredibly large % of women who birthed in hospital quite happily and didn’t give a damn about whether they had ‘interventions’.
There are many more women who were relieved birth was over than those who had birth orgasms. There are many more men who felt helpless and useless then been truly able to help.
The primary determinant to a progressive birth is mechanical in nature. If the object (the baby) can easily fit through the container (the woman’s body), if there is limited internal tension and if the container is not bent or compressed then labour will progress. The Pink Kit skills help us create internal relaxation, stay open, find positions that create effective contractions and work with the pain of contractions rather than resist them and creating tension.
There are several Truths about birth. One of them is this … 100% of all pregnant women will give birth one way or another. Keep in mind that the word ‘suffering’ and childbirth often went hand in hand. In the tens of thousands of stories, I’ve heard 5 stories of women who felt no pain. About 10% felt labour was absolute hell. About 10-15% felt it was really, really manageable and the rest of us 75% range from feeling ‘it’s manageable but hard, to it’s hard but manageable to it’s really hard and almost didn’t manage it to it was a struggle and I didn’t feel that I managed well.
If women don’t choose epidurals or they aren’t available, many, many women still use other types of pain relief because they don’t have the skills to cope with labour. Fathers are still bewildered and know they aren’t really help even if they are present.
When The PK Method was evolving in the 1970s, we wanted to cope with labour pain and we wanted our husband, partner, friend or relative to really know how to help us. Many PK women will say ‘I hated birth, but I managed it really well.’ Fathers become the wonderful birth help they want to be and we want them to be. This builds closer families.
Those women who had great births use the PK skills to have much more conscious births or to work more closely with their loved one.
Certainly there are women who have lucky births, good births, easy births and some who have the iconic birth who don’t have these skills. The Pink Kit Package can just produce a majority of women who cope and manage birth well and have husbands or partners who really help them achieve a well-managed, positive birth experience.
True personal empowerment comes from having and using skills to deal with a challenging situation which labour often is and feeling that you managed yourself with grace and dignity.
What the statistics aren’t able to show is that Andrea and Suzie are seeing many more women cope with birth rather then the few. And they are seeing many, many more fathers who really help rather than just being there. What they are also experiencing is less dependency on them as midwives.
For whatever reason … there is a 30% c/s rate under midwifery care in NZ. When women were given choices they have voted to have more epidurals and more elective cesareans.
But you do not need to wait in Australia before you grow a skilled birthing population. What if you changed to a midwifery model and the same thing happened here? Why not have a parallel plan … grow a skilled birthing population for all expectant parents. Let’s not deny any one good birth skills. Birth skills adapt to any situation if we have them. Let’s develop a social expectation that pregnancy and learning how-to birth go naturally hand in hand.
So these statistics show that a change in current trends is possible when implemented in a certain manner.
Andrea and Suzie followed the guidelines set forth by CKT to achieve a consistent, long-term success. They inspired their clients to make the ‘choice’ to take ‘responsibility’ to teach themselves The PK skills in the last 16 weeks of pregnancy. This was an educational process.
Families who learned PK skills in pregnancy and then applied their skills in birth self reduced all types of medical interventions. However, this isn’t the goal, it’s the very positive side effects.
Andrea’s and Suzie’s clients were ordinary families. Because 85% of all pregnant women have their own midwife, many of their clients were also under the care of an obstetrician. Many birthed in hospital and had health issues requiring medical procedures. Some had births at home. Some elected to have a c/s delivery. All the families who taught themselves The Pink Kits and used their skills report that it was these skills they primarily used to have a positive birth. Many attended excellent childbirth classes. Both Andrea and Suzie spend an hour with each woman at each appointment going over many health, wellness and birth plan choices. The Pink Kit skills were still the primary skills the families report using.
Statistics don’t tell ‘birth stories’. What both Andrea and Suzie discovered is that they began to see childbirth not from ‘outcomes’ but the joy of being with a majority of their clients who work so well together during the birth of their children. Birth stories were now more about how good the woman felt about how she had coped and managed and how terrific her partner was in helping her. That has been the shared pleasure of Pink Kit births.
All birth professionals from staff midwives, obstetrical nurses, GPs, Obstetricians, independent midwives and doulas love seeing women cope well with labour and fathers (others) helping her really well rather than just holding her hand or being hung on for hours.
PK births aren’t perfect, they’re conscious. They don’t try to achieve the iconic birth so promoted today and so difficult to achieve. Instead Pink Kit births achieve 100% positive births when expectant parents use their skills. Women and men who do not really self-learn The PK do not experience the benefits. Expectant parents must spend the time over a number of weeks to integrate these skills into their body and then use them through early to progressive labour. These skills are not intellectually learned. They are learned in the body.
As we reach the end of this journey together a new one can begin. CKT knows that The PKPackage will never really become mainstream until it gets into bookstores or we can get huge numbers of Direct Marketers to sell/rent this resource to expectant parents in their local area and beyond.
To grow a skilled birthing population is an educational process not a political one. We have to develop a high socially accepted expectation that when you are pregnant you need to learn how-to birth and your partner to know how-to help you. We have a high social expectation that women take care of their monthly periods and we have a high social expectation that everyone who wants to drive an automobile must learn a collective set of skills.
So let’s do another show and tell.
How many of you do drive a car? Let’s imagine that everyone is told they can only learn during a 16-week period. You will have to learn on a manual transmission, drive in a city and have to pass a driving test and drive safely.
Let’s raise hands. How many of you would put 5 minutes/ EACH day to learn to drive safely over that period? 15 min? 30min, 1 hour?
Anyone who is committed to self-learning a task well will put in the necessary time to practice the necessary skills. Labour is not a passive experience like sitting in the dentist chair. It’s active like driving a car. We must learn how then do it and do it reasonably well.
Now lets imagine you are all 24 weeks pregnant and the birth is your driving test … which it sort of is. Here’s the driving manual … The Pink Kit Package. How many of you would be as thorough in practicing those skills as practicing to drive? As birth professionals how many of you would educate your clients as to their need to learn how-to birth?
Do we value one over the other? Yes, at the present time our society does value learning how to drive a car then learn how-to birth. Common Knowledge Trust wants to change that and wants you to join us.
Now let’s think about another similarity between driving a car and childbirth. Every time we drive, we have to use our skills to handle our vehicle, which is an extension of our body and do that at every single nano-second of time. We just can’t hold on to the steering wheel and put the pedal to the metal.
We also have to pay attention to everything around us… the weather, other traffic, road conditions, signs, random actions etc. When we drive, we must remain hyper-vigilant at all times and join our personal skills to what is happening around us. When we space out and suddenly wake up, we realize we could have put ourselves, others or things in danger. Our societies have a high social expectation that we all learn to drive pretty much in the same way, pass a driving test and continue to drive responsibly. Society does not give people the choice.
Labour is much like driving a car on a prolonged journey. It’s the only thing happening right then. Instead of having an extension to our body, we have to learn how to handle our body. And instead of being hyper-vigilant to what’s around us, we are hyper-vigilant to what is going on inside us. With these universal childbirth skills we will work with what is happening inside us … our baby’s effort to be born.
Without skills many of us IQ Dump, we react! Our mind does not always tell us what to do that is right and safe … and that is why we see so many women tense up when labour contractions become painful and feel out of control and often seek pain relief: gas, pethidine or epidurals. Pre-planning, loading the body and mind with skills is what works.
‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?
How did Andrea and Suzie deal with this educational process? By the way Andrea will be speaking at a conference in Adelaide in either Oct or Nov. Sorry don’t know the name of it
They first had to believe women and men needed birth skills and then convince their clients. They discovered that initially 30% of couples were thrilled to have something they could do together in the privacy of their own home. That left 70% that were ‘choosing’ not to learn. Both Andrea and Suzie believed The PK skills didn’t work!
In reality if 30% of expectant parents wanted to learn these skills, that’s a huge number. These 30% had better birth experiences regardless of outcome regardless of what the circumstances and what other childbirth approaches the couples used. One hundred percent of these families said that it was the Pink Kit skills they used during birth.
But Andrea and Suzie wanted 100% of their clients to do the work and that’s unrealistic. As midwives who are in Partnership with women based on ‘choice’ they had to respect the 70% who ‘chose’ NOT to teach themselves.
However, they wanted a higher % of families choosing to take the responsibility to learn how to birth using the original Pink Kit.
They began to project a very high societal expectation that their clients do the work. Ultimately 5% absolutely will not. Another 10-15% say they do but don’t.
That means 80-85% in total will teach them selves then use their skills. Andrea and Suzie did discover that they had to encourage the families to use their skills during labour. We can discuss this later about how people step back for their professional to take care of them. They had to explain that as a care provider they do take care of them but they had to do the labour.
CKT is faced with a problem. The general public doesn’t know about The PKP and it would cost about $200,000NZ to get this resource into bookstores worldwide with a more contemporary, updated and complete resource.
There is also a bit of danger in our meeting today. Each of you may see The PKP as something only for your clients rather than for the general public so you never hang up the sales flyer (The present one only sells The Pink Kit and not the Package. You have your own approach to birth. You share that with your clients who come to you because of your particular and unique approach. There is no doubt the Pink Kit skills will fit within every approach to birth. Yet, there are thousands of families who will not have access to you who are entitled and deserve a positive birth. We encourage you to develop multiple streams of income. Within the business of The Pink Kit you can become a Direct Marketer and become a wholesaler, you can join the affiliate program and you can become a Pink Kit Presenter who shows families how to use this dynamic resource.
We’re working on a sales flyer so right now you can design your own and promote it more broadly. We need to change the world of childbirth.
Why should we change the world? We are hardwired to know that 100% of us will give birth one way or another. We have to think of the legacy of childbirth passed on from one generation to another. What did your mother tell you about birth? Nothing, very little, it hurts you’ll get over it?
I have a story to tell you of how women pass on knowledge to each other.
STORY: There was a young woman who became pregnant. No one taught her anything about childbirth but during labour she discovered for herself that if she slowly breathed in her nose and slowly exhaled out her mouth that she could even cope with the most painful contractions.
She gave birth to a little girl. In time, her daughter grew up, got married and became pregnant. Her daughter asked her during her pregnancy ‘Mama, tell me what to do in labour’. Her mother said: ‘Just breathe’.
Her daughter went into labour and when the pains came strongly she screamed and screamed. Her mother was shocked and said to her ‘Why are you BREATHING like that?’ Her daughter said: ‘You told me ‘just breathe’.
We can all know how-to give birth and pass on specific how-to skills to our children. We also reduce many of the common problems associated with the need for more medical care … long, tiring labours with exhausted mothers.
But before I close, let me ask for another show of hands. How many of you will (not might) become distributors of The PK Package and get it out to the general population?Given that show of hands … ‘Is there any reason why we can’t or shouldn’t have a skilled birthing population?‘