Lack of movement
Hospitals
Cervical sweeps
Forceps/ventouse
Beds
Scalp electrodes
When running a workshop to Strengthen The Partnership Model between New Zealand midwives and their clients, our Trust asked:
‘What is your goal as a profession?’ (NZ midwives give Continuity of Care to about 97% of New Zealand expectant families)
The answer was: “More natural births”
‘What’s stopping that from happening?”
“Interventions”
“Let’s make a list”
We did. There were 30 items on that list. This means, YOU, have to avoid having any of these 30 things or your birth is not a ‘natural’ birth! Does that sound right, logical, achievable, sensible? Just this simple list explains one element of the childbirth conversation that has gone bonkers over the past 40 years.
Women are just making it too hard for themselves and other Women to feel empowered by their birth experience. Why?
- Those Women who seek a ‘natural’ birth are hardly likely to achieve it under this defined standard.
- Those Women who do not want or achieve a natural birth can feel they have failed.
- The Birth Stories we tell are often full of ‘I had this and that and this and that’ rather than ‘I used great breathing and relaxation skills throughout’
- The Birth Stories we tell each other are often full of ‘I didn’t want this but had it anyway’ or ‘I had this, that and other things’ and rarely help other women know the importance of having skills to work through the activity of giving birth
The Childbirth Conversation must change, whether YOU are in a ‘partnership’ with a midwife or ‘following your doctor’s orders’. YOU are the ONLY one birthing your baby.
How, where, who, what and why is less important than simply having skills to work through the activity of birthing your baby.
Together we can grow a skilled birthing population. It’s simple. When you’re pregnant, it’s normal and natural to self-learn birth and birth-coaching skills then use those skills as you do the activity of birthing your baby no matter what. You got pregnant to have a baby. Use some level of skill to ‘do’ the activity no matter where you birth, who is present, your circumstances, your choices or lack of choices or change of choices or what happens to or around you.
‘Interventions’ used to be simply: assessments, monitoring and procedures. Does having any of these assessments, monitoring or procedures stop you from using skills to work through your baby’s birth journey? NO, because we’ve just changed our perception. Like it or not, medical care is full of assessments, monitoring and procedures. None of that stops you from doing the ‘activity’ of birthing your baby.