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By Pernille, on April 20th, 2012 This article was written by Jesper Juul and translated by Hayes van der Meer – FamilyLab Australia/New Zealand – www.familylab.com.au
 It was probably easier raising children centuries ago. Ideas and methods only changed
slightly from one generation to the next. Parents simply raised their children the way they
had been raised themselves. They knew what to do and how to do it.
…Until recently! Since 1990s a new major trend has been introduced every four years or
so. In a highly chaotic fashion the media, mothers’ groups, friends and experts have
developed and introduced new techniques with rapid speed. These fads, which many of
them become, end up as must-do’s for new parents who desperately try to find a way to
keep up – and adapt. One of these trends, which has been in vogue for a decade or so is
the necessity for us to “bring up” children.
“Bringing up” children means that we try to achieve something. We want the children to do
something or be a certain way – our way. It might be as mundane as wanting them to sit
nicely at the table and eat up, or we might want them to speak properly and show good
manners. Perhaps we also strive for more long-term goals, which tend to be combinations
of our own norms, values and social ambitions.
It is worthwhile pondering “What kind of children do we want?”, “What kind of children does
society want?” and “What kind of children do the children themselves want to be?”
When experts talk about “bringing up” they really mean “socialisation”. The need for
children to learn to adapt to the norms and cultures of society. When parents talk about
“bringing up” they really mean the need for children to learn to respect their parents and
educational institutions. What everyone ends up doing is “conditioning”. Reward our
children when they do the right things and punish them when they get it wrong.
“Osmosis” is most effective. Continue reading Do not “bring up” children
By Pernille, on April 20th, 2012  Women have birthed babies successfully for millenniums. We don’t know if they were scared. Some of them probably were. It would be pretty unnatural not to have worries and even fear of something so epic and unknown in many ways. The difference, I suppose is that women in the past, partly was part of birth from a very early age, as birth just happened in amongst life in general, but they also had women around them, who they knew, had relationships with and whom they had seen help other women to birth. This, I imagine, must have provided some sort of emotional safety feeling, even if birth was riskier and life very hard. I wonder if that made birth less scary?
These days birth is so much more unknown to women. Even just that fact, can make it much more scary. As women we don’t really have any exposure to real birth, unless we were invited into the birth of a sibling or had a mother in the birth industry. Most of what we see and hear of birth in our society, is from TV sitcoms and can be summed up as scary, emergency, green clad people with face masks, or embarrassing 2 minute labours, and then birthing in the middle of the court room.
In the written media, it is all about how dangerous birth is and statistics of dead babies. Even more so in the way our home birth debate is being conducted. If you are not exposed to other images than that, of course birth is going to stand in front of you as very scary and very unsafe.
We also have a custom as a culture, of casually telling first time pregnant women the most horrific birth stories, even if they did not in any way invite anyone to tell them anything at all. With this I don’t mean that women, who experience a difficult birth, shouldn’t speak up and tell the truth about their birth. But I think it would be useful, if particularly those kinds of stories were mostly told in a more intimate setting, where the whole story could be told and maybe even discussed.
It can very easily seem that it is very difficult to have a good birth in today’s modern birth culture. And perhaps it is, if we don’t acquire some necessary knowledge, support and skills. Continue reading Fear of Birth
By Pernille, on April 4th, 2012
By Pernille, on March 20th, 2012  Photo by GutekSutek - http://www.flickr.com/photos/gucman007/3222872644/ How to write a meaningful birth plan.
The birth plan has become an integral part of our modern birth culture. Most women, particular women wishing for a natural birth, will document what they want and what they don’t want for their labour and birth. But is it beneficial to do this exercise (or might we even call it ritual?) and do medical caregivers read them and take them seriously? Or are women just setting themselves up for failure by thinking they can control their birth in this manner?
The practice of encouraging parents to write birth plans began with the positive intention of getting parents to take a more active role in their labour and birth, learning about their hospitals routines (mostly with the intentions of avoiding them) and creating a dialogue with doctors and midwives about their practices. All very positive stuff.
But these days it seems that writing a birth plan has taken on new meaning. Mostly, I am finding that women write a very defensive birth plan, stating all the things they don’t want. And then if things take a detour & the birth doesn’t go according to plan, many feel like failures and/or betrayed by caregivers, by partners and even by themselves. This could be known as the ‘birth plan trap’.
Continue reading The trials and tribulations of the Birth Plan
By Pernille, on February 12th, 2012
 The key to meaningful birth preparation:
Prepare for pain, intensity and the unexpected
There seem to be a common belief in our culture today; that as long as a woman thinks positively about birth & is determined to birth without drugs, then that will give her a good birth. And if a woman worries about cesareans or pain, that will somehow manifest itself for her birth. I remember it well myself, giving birth to my first child about 10 years ago. I was determined to prove that birth was natural and that I would show them all where to put their epidurals. I don’t think I would have even answered honestly if someone had asked me if I had worries or fears about my birth. I did of course 
Feeling respected, listened to and dealt with in a non-judgmental way, is a very important part of preparing for birth. I had great fear of not being able to push my baby out, I had great fears of losing control in hospital with all sorts of interventions put on me and I had an agreement with myself about not letting my baby ever being taken to the nursery. As it turned out, all three fears manifested themselves to some degree in the birth. Now, I don’t believe that because these were my fears, they happened, but I do believe if I had been helped to take my worries more seriously, I would have had a much better birth – even if it unfolded exactly the same way – and felt much less traumatised.
Continue reading The key to meaningful birth preparation
By Pernille, on February 3rd, 2012  Sunshine Coast University is screening the new movie Face of Birth.
15th of March at 6.30pm in lecture theatre 7
Saturday the 24th of March at 2.30pm in Lecture Theatre 3.
After the movie there will be a panel of local birth people to answer questions, and some light refreshments.
This is a film about families that choose to give birth at home, the midwives and health professionals who support them and a system that works against them. And it couldn’t really be more relevant than right in these times of lots of bickering after the tragic death of a birthing Mum in Victoria. It would be great to see lots of people there and to have lots of questions for the panel afterwards.
I have mentioned this plenty of times in other blogs and Facebook notices before, about how important it is that we women stay together at the moment regardless of where our preferred birthing place is. It is about the human right to choose where you want to give birth to your baby and how we can support women’s choices in the safest and most respectful way. Like we always talk about in BaBs; women don’t need other women to judge them, we need each others’ support. Let’s keep the focus on the woman, not on her personal birth choices ?
Tickets are available from Michelle on 5456 5031 or Leonie on 5459 4549
$25 pr tickets and $20 for Students
By Pernille, on January 5th, 2012  By Jesper Juul
translated from Danish by Hayes van der Meer
www.familylab.com.au
When two people fall in love and move in together they “give birth” to their first baby – their relationship. When their second child arrives there is a risk that their first ends up as a neglected child. The relationship will, just like any neglected child, become difficult and cause lots of trouble – in the hope of getting some proper attention.
For most couples, the job of parenting requires their full-time attention, so it is understandable that the relationship suffers. In fact, the symptoms often begin already during pregnancy. The woman might become introverted and focussed on what is happening to her. She might even feel guilty about it. Her partner will feel his first bout of jealousy, envy and longing. All this continues and further develops as soon as the child is born. From then on the parents will be busy trying to figure out what it means to be a parent as well as how to live up to their new family member’s requirements. “Should the baby be comforted at the sound of every cry?”, “How much time should they spend nursing the baby?” and so on.
First time parents are particularly uncertain about how much attention to give. Therefore, they are more likely to give a little extra out of the fear for later to discover that the child has been neglected. It is not possible to say exactly how much care is enough, except that a 0-3 year old child simply cannot receive too much parental contact. Keep in mind though, that this should not continue. In the long run, no children benefit from parents who sacrifice themselves and their lives for their sake. Firstly; it will without doubt create a level of debt, which it is impossible for the child to re-pay. Secondly; the child will actually be better off with less attention than with two parents who argue because they do not have enough time and energy for each other.
Continue reading Partner first – then parent
By Pernille, on October 26th, 2011  Most couples in Australia do pre-natal preparation classes before the birth of their child. Most of us feel it is important to get information about this big event, which is foreign to most of us in our culture today. For others it is about taking time to focus on baby, in their otherwise busy lives and maybe to connect with other families in the same situation. All these reasons are important and valid. But what might we learn in a typical pre-natal class? And what do we actually really need to learn to feel prepared, as we don’t know how our births will unfold?
On the Coast most prenatal education happens in our hospitals. These classes are taught from the hospital’s point of view within the particular hospitals policies. It can be useful information for a couple to know what their chosen hospital’s policies are, but does it prepare them for birth?
You will more than likely learn about the stages of labour and how the epidural procedure happens. Or you might learn to go to hospital, when contractions are five minutes apart, which can be a reassuring guideline. But what if their never is five minutes between your contractions? Continue reading Soulful birth preparation
By Pernille, on August 28th, 2011 It is needless to say that birth in our culture, is very different to what it used to be and also to what it was meant to be. We save more mothers and babies than we used to in poorer times, but we are now at a place where the medicalisation of birth, is continuing without additional benefits for mothers and babies and often, in my opinion, at great expense to the birthing process in general and mothers emotional health. As a doula I see women paying for our cultural choices of safety. I meet women who was treated with disrespect, I hear about the manipulation during a woman’s most vulnerable state. I see mountains of practice that has no ground in best medical practice and I talk to a lot of wounded Mums. This is not what birth is about and it is not needed to keep a good standard of safety. It is not healthy for our society and we pay so dearly in PND, disconnection, and lack of ‘mothering’ self-esteem. This is what brings out my inner birth activist.
Continue reading Birth Activism or Mother celebrations?
By Pernille, on June 15th, 2011 Based on a presentation by midwife and lecturer Rachel Reed. Check out her very informative website: MidwifeThinking
 Birth is rarely described as easy, and in today’s culture birth is surrounded by lots of fear and feelings of danger and risk. However, for most women the safest and healthiest way to birth is a normal, vaginal birth with no unnecessary interventions. In today’s Australia though, only a minority of women birth in this safest and healthiest way.
According to Neonatal Perinatal Statistics, only 37% of women in Queensland, go into labour themselves and birth their baby without medical or surgical assistance. This matters because women rate their birth experience as important as their wedding day and we know that a woman’s experience of birth has long lasting effects on her health and on her baby’s health. The feelings we bring home from our birth experience affects our experience of parenting our new baby. Medical intervention increases the risk of post- partum depression and post- traumatic stress syndrome and we know that in general, women who birth without intervention report greater satisfaction with their experience.
There is of course no doubt that necessary caesareans and other interventions save lives, but unnecessary caesareans and interventions increase the risk for mothers and babies. With every intervention there is a risk of more intervention. This is known among health professionals as the “cascade of intervention”. Over the last ten years Australia’s caesarean rate has increased more than 52% without any evidence that this is making birth safer for women or babies, meaning we are not saving more babies or mothers by doing this. The national caesarean rate in Australia is now 31.1% with the Queensland caesarean rate at 33%. The World Health Organisation recommends a caesarean rate of about 10 – 15% and states that there are ‘no additional benefits for a rate any higher than that’. Apart from this, caesareans are very costly for our society and our health budget, compared to normal, vaginal births. So all in all, we are not seeing any benefits to women, babies or our society from this trend. Continue reading Is Birth Getting Harder?
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It was probably easier raising children centuries ago. Ideas and methods only changed
