Birth, birth, birth, giving birth, having a baby … words and phrases that actually create a boring and general few of what is the most dynamic, Life-changing, transforming, intense and often physically demanding activity that every pregnant woman must do. How can we make this Primary Event, this Primary Activity, and this HUGE Experience finally come alive so that you, your friends and family begin to include skills that prepare your body for birth as well as birth and coaching skills for use throughout your baby’s birth journey?
What do we need to do as Birthing Better families to convince, inspire, educate, share and encourage all pregnant women and expectant fathers/others to become skilled birthing parents?
We’ve taken you through each week of pregnancy from 24 weeks pregnant to 42 weeks pregnant. We’ve shown you what specific skills you should learn at each week from 24 weeks pregnant onward using our Birthing Better Complete Birth Skills
24 weeks pregnant to Birth
- 24 weeks pregnant … Lesson ONE … Understand why our individuality is trumped by our commonality. Your individuality will either collide with our commonality or you’ll use what is fundamental to all us as humans to become a skilled birthing mother and birth-coaching father/other.
- 25 weeks pregnant … Lesson TWO … How can you prevent birth trauma no matter how your birth unfolds? It’s simpler than you think. Become skilled. Skilled birthing women may have a traumatic or challenging birth experience but are rarely left feeling traumatized no matter the circumstances. Skills give you the ability to work with and alongside what is unfolding.
- 26 weeks pregnant … Lesson THREE … The type of birth you have is only a variation on the theme of birthing your baby. You are always doing birth. Birth is your most important life event next to dying. Birth is the hard edge of Life and Death, empowerment and traumatized. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to take your skills into your birth no matter where birth unfolds … guaranteed as the completion of pregnancy.
- 27 weeks pregnant … Lesson FOUR … Here you are in lesson four but learning about the skills connected to the Twos and Threes. For example, you absolutely must make Two Birth Plans. One is your conventional Birth Plan. Two is your skills Birth Plan. You need to know about Teamwork (usually you and your partner). Don’t forget Two Birthing Behaviours. Either you will behave as though you are coping or you will behave as though you feel overwhelmed. Then you need to understand the Three Birth Roles so you and your partner can bring your skills into each role and leave your birth professional doing theirs.
- 28 weeks pregnant … Lesson FIVE … Skills to prepare your pregnant body to give birth is vital. A big object has to come out so don’t make that journey hard on your baby or yourself. You want to open up not be damaged. This lesson introduces you to Body Skills Overview which includes: Bony Pelvis, Soft Tissue Pelvis, and Positions.
- 29 weeks pregnant … Lesson SIX … The videos in this lesson about our Bony Pelvis will have you and your partner rolling on the floor with laughter because you’ll have one AhHa moment after another followed by ‘Wow!’ Men and women share the exact same human body with minor exceptions … pregnancy and birth is one of them. However, the biomechanics of getting a baby out of your body actually brings alive our sameness. Your partner’s hip blades can be moved as can their tailbone, pubic arch or sacrum. As they discover their similarity, you gain confidence in their ability to really help you through birth.
- 30 weeks pregnant … Lesson SEVEN… The videos and eBook in this lesson focus on our Soft Tissue that most of us won’t know if it slapped us in the face. Oh, sorry, we are mostly soft tissue … our skin, fat, muscles, tendons, ligaments and all our connective tissue. We should know it like the back of our hand … ooops … we know the back of our hand better than we know how our soft tissue can impact our baby’s birth and our responses to pain and discomfort. We’re teaching you.
- 31 weeks pregnant … Lesson EIGHT … Positions, positions and let’s add postures. In reality, without exception, we are either in some position along with some posture at every single moment of our life. Mostly who cares? Our baby cares. He/she is big and has to navigate out our body if we labor and have a vaginal birth. Every position and posture either hinders or helps our baby come down, through and out our body.
- 32 weeks pregnant … Lesson NINE … Grab hold of your WTF factor with this lesson. You have to prepare inside your baby’s birth passage, your VeeJayJay. Oh yes, you do. How big is your baby? His/her head is the size of a grapefruit. If you can stick one up, you can get one out. Your VeeJayJay is all soft tissue and responds quickly to massage … It takes about 8 weeks. 80% of fathers/others gladly do this and it’s good for you too as well. You should never be bewildered by birth, it’s mysterious enough that it doesn’t have to be a mystery. You’ll also learn to check yourself. Others check you! What are they looking for? You can feel a change and be inspired at every moment.
- 33 weeks pregnant … Lesson TEN … Great lesson is full of breathing, communication and touch skills. Breathing is your go-to skill for every moment of giving birth. Communication skills can be verbal or non-verbal so you feel understood and your partner can truly help you stay in control. Touch? You’ll learn the right Time, right Way and right Place so that touch becomes a cue to you to soften. And one more eBook about having negative thoughts and how to bring forward great skills even if you hate or fear every moment of birth.
- 34 weeks pregnant … Lesson ELEVEN … This lesson will give you skills to reduce tension and increasing your ability to soften inside your body. You have the power to be in control over your body while you birth.
- 35 weeks pregnant … Lesson TWELVE … These are the skills you want to learn so you can use your other skills! You’ve been learning skills to prepare your body to give birth. You’re learning birth and birth-coaching skills. You may have a non-laboring Caesarean and use these skills brilliantly. You may labor and have an unplanned Cesarean and can use your skills. If you labour and have a vaginal birth then you want your labor progress. Here’s how. Learn how to use your skills to keep your labor progressing. This lesson ties back to postures and positions. Your baby tells you whether you have tension, need to get into a position he/she likes. You learn how to read your baby’s messages in each contraction.
- 36 weeks pregnant … Lesson THIRTEEN … The white elephant in the room so we saved the best for last … PAIN! Women who labor expect labor pains but women having a non-laboring Cesarean don’t … until they do! You want to use your skills so you manage, cope, deal with, work through, stay on top of and in control when you are experiencing pain. You cannot stop the pain unless you become numb or unconscious. However, you can effectively manage labor contraction pains (and other pains throughout Life).
So here we are giving you lessons up to 36 weeks pregnant. For the next few weeks, you get to refine and practice all your skills. Also, you are having Braxton-Hicks contractions that are early labor contractions to practice to.
Make a cheat sheet of skills for birth
There are heaps of Birthing Better skills so just make a simple list. You can refer back to the list. Birth is your Olympic Event or your climb up Mt. Everest. We’ve got the skills. We hope you have learned over the past weeks all the great Birthing Better skills developed by hundreds of fathers and mothers like yourself. We have your back. Will you use your skills to birth your baby? We hope so.
Birthing Better skills were developed by moms and dads in the early 1970s in the US and used by many thousands globally in all types of birth. Birthing Better online birthing classes are housed in Common Knowledge Trust.