You Are Part Of Both A Whole New Approach To Childbirth.
Unfortunately at the moment in childbirth we too often hear this concept of suffering in many birth stories today:
- ‘The labour was horrible, terrible’
- ‘The worst experience in my life’
- ‘I thought I was going to die’
- ‘It was so intense’.
- ‘I’ll never let my husband near me again’.
- ‘I’ll never have another child.
- ‘NO ONE TOLD ME!’
Here is where you need to develop a clear awareness of the subtle distinction between ‘feeling intense pain or discomfort’ from ‘being adversely affected by something’.
When women feel they ‘suffer’ in childbirth, they imply the latter but most often experience the former. Instead of the natural pain of labour being accepted, it is shunned. This is where your BirthingBetter skills can make all the difference in the world. You do not have to like labour pains. You just need to use your Management Voice and Positive Birthing Behaviors to work your way through each contraction and each rest period.
When women work hard with their baby’s efforts to be born even if they feel a lot of pain or discomfort they feel very empowered after they have given birth as long as they don’t feel out of control! This empowerment is achievable in whichever birth you have and they realize they have triumphed over a monumental task, done by gezillions of women since the Beginning of Time. This is an incredibly potent awareness when you feel connected to all women. Your essential nature has been fulfilled in some manner.
Is this just a thin edge of rhetoric?
- Labour and vaginal delivery, labour and emergency Caesarean, VBAC
No, with skills you can feel competent, able and remain in control of your responses. Without skills labour can sweep you along and you can feel totally out of control. And it does not matter at all whether you have tubes coming out of every hole or in the back sit of a car. Your skills are what you can focus on and use during the birth of your child. Everything else is out of your control. You are in control of you!
- Elective Caesarean
No, with skills you can totally be involved with the process even when you are numbed from the waist down. Your mind is still yours and so is your body. You just need to use your skills in order to fulfill your role as a mother and not be passive during this new, modern experience of childbirth.
Unfortunately, the birth stories today are hardly inspirational and encouraging because there has been so much focus on an inaccurate belief that only a ‘natural’ birth is a good one. All births can be good and that’s what your Pink Kit skills will prove to you.
In other words, everything is included in childbirth and that’s why your BirthingBetter skills work in whatever birth you have. The time has come to stop saying childbirth is one thing or another and we absolutely must stop implying that one type of birth is better than another. This is mean spirited and does not honor the true reality of this magnificent Rite of Passage for you, your partner and baby.
STORY
“There’s a professional who lived for many years with a very traditional tribe in Brazil. He discovered something unique about this tribe’s language. It didn’t fit a pattern found in most languages that has been considered a ‘definite aspect of human language’. When he wrote about his find, he caused a stir in his field. When asked about the forceful discussions that occurred, he made a very wise comment during an interview about all the uproar he had created that echoes itself within childbirth”.
He mentioned that the hot debate about this issue expressed by members of the Linguist community is not relevant to people outside this field.
Although obstetricians and midwives argue about which type of birth is safest, most families really either don’t care or have very strong opinions. You’re likely to hear women who are perfectly comfortable with having a hospital birth, won’t think of birthing with a midwife or at home and feel all the medical care is safest for their baby … ‘I don’t need BirthingBetter because I’m not looking for an alternative birth. I’ll just go along with my doctor’.
And you’re likely to hear women who would only birth at home with a midwife say: ‘I don’t need BirthingBetter because birth is natural and my midwife will take care of me.’
This is how far our societies have removed STOPPED … there’s no societal expectation that because you’re pregnant you need skills to do this activity of giving birth whether you follow your doctor or have your baby at home. You still need to do this activity.
There’s so much more to giving birth
Childbirth is full of the unexpected and it makes sense for you to prepare as though this could be the worst experience in your life and then deal with the experience at the time. You may surprise yourself and find childbirth to be one of the most fulfilling experiences. You’ll find birth stories that are glorious and there are groups that promote the pleasure of giving birth. There are many women who have felt this way … but not enough. BirthingBetter aims at exponentially increasing the number of women who feel wonderful about their birth experience for their Life time.
Yet, to be frank there are too many distressing birth stories. Often these stories are told by women who didn’t have skills! They ‘get through’ labour because pregnancy requires some type of birth. Yes, the pain can be THAT intense. No wonder pain relief seems like a godsend and labour avoiding surgical births are on the rise. Neither of which are wrong. This is just a modern medical response focused on reducing ‘suffering’. Of course, there are many surgical births for both medical reasons and because of previous surgical deliveries. With a Caesarean rate climbing above 33% there would be a health crisis if that many babies and mothers would be dead or injured without one
But you have to practice until you absolutely, absolutely know that you will use your skills in whatever birth you have … and then use your skills. Now the ‘activity’ of giving birth can be linked to good, honest hard work but no longer ‘suffering’.
This is the big time Pay-Off and the goal of BirthingBetter and what makes birth more than what it is now. These empowered feelings will become the strong foundation for your capacity to cope in your parenting role.
As one woman said: ‘If I had known how hard taking care of a baby was and how much time I had to put into the first six weeks of my baby’s life, my 20 hour labour would have seemed like a piece of cake.’