Here’s the sad fact, until the shift in the childbirth trend that occurred in the 1980s … The Choice-based Childbirth Trend … there were few women (at least in the US) who were left with the shame, blame, guilt, disappointment, frustration, and anger that has just exploded.
Consider this. Around the world and throughout time, Women have given birth mostly without any medical care or modern conveniences. We had to make everything for ourselves from our own health systems, food, clothes, shelter, water, fire. Life was vigorous (hard work).
Even today, women living traditionally know life can be hard and that there were risks that could become tragedies. That was accepted. Modern people don’t want a hard life and they certainly don’t want tragedies.
In fact, the largest effort in maternity care was to reduce the ‘suffering’ so many women experienced which had nothing to do with
Then something weird happened in the mid1960s in the US when the post WW2 modernization occurred. Part of that was bringing women into hospital to give birth and all the assessments, monitoring and procedures that involved.
At the same time, 3 famous male obstetricians (Lamaze, Bradley, Grantly Dick-Read) had a concern that modern obstetrics was treating all pregnant birthing women alike. They were the first to do two things:
1) Really dividing pregnant women into ‘high risk’ and ‘low risk’ which is curious since ‘risks’ were considered to be normal, natural and physiological and the 4.5% C-section rate in 1970 meant that all of us still labored when we had risks.
2) They also introduced the first ever Childbirth Preparation Classes … The Skills-based Childbirth Trend.
I’m going to explain what went wrong and why you are just one of so many millions of women who are left with birth trauma whereas the multiple millions of US women/men who birthed between 1960s-mid1970s were left feeling empowered.
And, I’m going to share with you some of the skills Birthing Better fathers and mothers developed.