Why did the natural birth and midwifery movement so strongly promote The Choice-based childbirth trend and be so dismissive of the Skills-based childbirth trend? This is important to investigate.
One reason certainly was philosophical … a belief that this natural part of women’s lives just happened, was primal in nature and didn’t require anyone to know how-to do it. This seems to make sense given that women have always given birth and there’s no way to know what your birth will be like. Therefore it’s reasoned … there’s nothing you can really do to prepare for it and certainly nothing you can do to control it. Somehow it then sounds reasonable that having choices makes sense and just letting it happen is the best we can do within the choices we make.
But that reasoning is full of holes and the 1,2,3 skip a few 99,100 viewpoint.
In the 1960s/70s Lamaze was the rage. There was a societal expectation that families learn skills. Both Lamaze and Bradley were obstetricians who believed that breathing and relaxation techniques made a big difference. They were right. At the same time, they taught techniques because the deeper level of skills was not yet understood. Since the 1970s the world has changed … we are more aware of ourselves as one planet with internet capacities that also make us aware that humans everywhere are the same human being living in different places with different cultures and religions.
At the same time, we share the same human body and this knowledge as permitted birth skills to evolve beyond the birth techniques of the 1960s/70s.
A technique is a form of skill for sure. Unfortunately it’s not very adjustable or adaptable to changed situations. This is what happened with the early childbirth ‘skills’. The type of breathing taught didn’t work for many women. The type of relaxation didn’t either.
Here are some examples of how techniques become problematic. Anyone who knows of the early Lamaze breathing … quick in/out mouth breathing knows that cannot be sustained for long periods of time. Humans just cannot breathe that way for long. It causes hyper-ventilation, dry mouth and lungs and is exhausting. This was recognized so breathing techniques changed to in nose/out mouth. But if you play around with this you will shortly find that you can create both relaxation and screaming by breathing in your nose and breathing out your mouth. You can create calming sounds or very distressing ones. The ‘technique’ says to breathe in your nose and breathe out your mouth yet doesn’t help you understand how to create the most relaxation in your body.
Another example is the external rag doll relaxation. For some women this worked wonders. For too many women relaxing on the outside does not create relaxation on the inside of their body which is where it’s needed. This can be easily felt by flopping your arms around and tightening up ‘down there’. Easy to do. On the other hand you can tighten up your arms and relax ‘down there’ as well. This means internal and external relaxation are different.
Skills are as easily shared and passed on as techniques are while providing the ability to adapt and adjust. This is an important difference. Skills work because they are best suited for a very specific activity. Although there is HUGE focus on each birth being unique and different, in fact every birth is more similar than different and that’s why skills are so suited for this particular activity.
If a woman has contractions, every woman has a contraction in her uterus and not some having contractions of their ear lobes. Sure some contractions are more painful yet every contraction has 5 phases: start, build, peak, easing off and space in between. Techniques tend to work for a range of pain but are often more difficult to apply when the pain becomes very intense, the contractions are induced or the contractions come very close together. Skills, however, are suited for all contractions and their variations. Skills are more integrated into the Body/Mind connectivity then techniques.
This means the new evolution for a Skills-based approach to all pregnancies and every birth can be achieved now because techniques are being replaced with skills.
Yes, The Pink Kit is the leader in this. The skills evolved when the techniques were being used. Families wanted more skills and more user friendly ones and that’s what makes The Pink Kit unique and the gold standard for birth and coaching skills for all pregnancies and every birth.
For those who want a time line for working through The Pink Kit here’s a link. This link will be put on all the posts. Kristen has 6 kids, the last 3 are PK babies. She KNOWS about birth and is one of our affiliates. That means if you purchase The Pink Kit through her she gets a commission. Her husband Scott’s first baby was a Pink Kit experience. He’ll explain how The Pink Kit made certain he was able to become a skilled birth coach to a woman who had previously had three great births.!
Kristen’s written a time-line calendar for use of The Pink Kit. You just need to sign up to her mail list (we don’t keep a mail list) and she’ll send you the Time Line. She’s worked through both Edition #2 and #3 of The PInk Kit so she knows all it’s imperfections and la-dee-dahs past them to the skills she wants to improve for each birth. Can women and men have better births each time? Sure can! The more skilled, the more we master the experience.
http://blog.naturalbirthandbabycare.com/pink-kit-timeline-from-natural-birth-and-baby-care-com/
Please join the Movement to grow a Skills-based childbirth trend. Don’t’ let another birth go by without that family being skilled.