‘I bought one of your pink kits a few weeks back. I got about 3/4 of the way through the resource before lending it out to one of my clients. Then I passed it to another one immediately after it was returned. so I haven’t gone through all of it yet. But already it has been miraculous! A third woman (lower on my list of priorities for lending the kit to, as she was having her fourth baby) went into labour with her baby in LOL position at station -2. To cut a long story shorter, she made good progress then went backwards from 9cm to 5-6c and didn’t seem to be progressing from there. I wasn’t sure I could remember any of the skills on the pink kit but she and her husband took charge. He told her to lie down and together they did a hip lift between contractions. Immediately she had another one and jumped up and started pushing. I couldn’t believe it. I checked her and the baby had completed rotated to ROA and she was almost fully dilated. Her baby was born 15 minutes later. After the birth the husband told me that he hadn’t wanted to interfere with my professional skills so he had waited and waited for several hours before suggesting the hip lift. Gosh, that must have been hard for him! You know what I realized? That when families are skilled we need to encourage them to use their skills rather than appear so professional that they rely on us’.
This is such a powerful birth story isn’t it? What do we want from our midwives or doctors? Their expertise! That’s nothing new. We take our car to a mechanic and expect professional service. We send our kids to school to professionals. You might be a professional and work with clients who rely on you and expect you to use your best expertise to help them do something they are not skilled at doing.
For too long obstetricians have been vilified for their skills … why’s that? For too long midwives have been elevated for their skills … why’s that?
If your kid is sick and you take him/her to the doctor then you expect them to use their professional skills to help your child recover. Of course, you might also go to a natural health provider and you do so because you want their skills to help you. We expect professional expertise. Or you may have your own skills. There, we’ve said it … you having your own skills! And this Birth Story is all about one family’s skills. Skills you could have.
BTW … your kid being sick is natural. So is having a heart attack, stroke, car accident, the flu. Birth and being sick might be different but whatever happens to you or any of us throughout our Life is natural and normal … it occurs and is frequent enough. We have to stop treating birth as though it’s a different form of ‘natural’.
BTW … do you really NOT want any medical care during your pregnancy or baby’s birth? If so never go to a midwife or doctor. Your midwife (no matter what she claims) has a medical mind set and will do tests, use medical assessments, monitoring and procedures and pass you on to a professional with a higher level of skill when necessary. We’ve got to stop bashing or unreasonably elevating birth professionals and the best way to do that is to get our own set of birth and coaching skills. This midwife discovered this incredible Truth.
She had a really profound experience. A couple, who she would NEVER have assumed would need any skills, taught her that they understood that birth and coaching skills were best held within their sphere as a family. Yet, both the mother and father waited and waited for their professional to solve the problem … or perhaps like many midwives she would have been content to just let the birth run it’s ‘natural’ course. What would have that been? Or had this been an obstetrician you know they would be all over the woman trying to resolve the stalled labor with medical fiddles and faddles. There needs to be a Middle Path … birth and coaching skills.
This midwife is telling you that this couple could have used their birth and coaching skills no matter where they birthed or with whom or what was happening to or around them. The only real issue is the professional obstacle that we all encounter. So we’ll tell you … get over it. Use your birth and coaching skills throughout your baby’s birth. Don’t wait for the professional to ‘do it’ for you.
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 her first 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! You can find their interviews on our YouTube channel.
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.