Birth Connection

Do not “bring up” children

Pernille — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:29:35 +0000

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.
Lately we have seen two very unfortunate trends. As parents, we increasingly have
unrealistic expectations to how soon our children are able to learn what we want them to
learn. The second trend is that we are desperately looking for conditioning tricks. “What
can I do to get the child I want?” These trends obviously stress our children unduly as they
are under pressure to perform. They know that it is up to them to make us happy. They see
it as their responsibility that we are happy.
“Is that fair on the children?” one might ask. Not really, but that is not the main concern.
More importantly, it is heart-rending for us as parents. We can become stressed and loose
the ability to enjoy our children. Happiness is replaced by worry. We neglect ourselves and
each other and thereby deprive our children from something fundamentally important.
During the first three to four years of a child’s life there really is no reason to bring them
up. All they need is friendly and empathetic guidance.
Well…, maybe that is not all. The truth is that most of the important stuff happens “between
the lines.” This is difficult to control and it certainly does not happen when we step into the
role of parenting and focus on bringing them up.
Children learn to sit nicely at the table when we do. They learn to express themselves and
speak properly if that is what we do. And when we are able to co-operate with each other
our children will also learn to do that. But they obviously pick up our bad habits as well.

Children are a bit like frogs who soak water by the process of osmosis. Frogs just sit in the
water and automatically soak it up. Our children are like that, without noticing they soak up
everything around them – everything we do.
The problem is that we are not prepared to wait the four or five years it takes for our
children to be able to integrate all the things we want them to. A few generations ago the
command was: “Behave properly!” These days the demand and expectation is: “Hurry up!”
There is no doubt that what happens between the lines is crucial. But it goes deeper than
that. It is more than just about what we do. The really important aspect is how and why we
do it. Do I do what I do because I genuinely feel that this has long term benefits for my
child? Am I doing this to achieve something right here and now? Might I do it to support my
own image status? Am I trying to avoid conflict? Do I just want to do the right thing? – or
even worse, am I trying to be perfect?
The “see-vitamin” must be taken at home.
Something magic happens when a genuine interaction between us and our children
occurs. It is ideal when we are able to combine our children’s abilities to co-operate, adjust
and test their limits with our abilities to guide them and ultimately adjust our own
behaviour.
Reality is, that most children spend a substantial amount of their important years in care.
This is not necessarily detrimental to them but unfortunately some of the vitamins they
need are only available at home. One of the most important ones is the “see-vitamin”. Our
ability and willingness to “see” our children as they are instead of focussing on their ability
to adjust and fit in with the systems and the world around them.
When children are exposed to ambitious and focussed upbringing things will inevitably go
wrong. Try to pull at the grass in an effort to make it grow faster. Every child knows that the
opposite will happen when they are being pulled. The roots become weak and they slowly
loose their ability to absorb nutrition from their surroundings. The impatient gardener can
purchase ready made turf neatly delivered in rolls. As parents we are better off showing
patience and letting our children set the pace.
“From couple to family” © FamilyLab 2012.

Fear of Birth

Pernille — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:51:46 +0000

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.

On the other hand, we are also told that if we are scared, we will feel more pain and birth will be worse and that we shouldn’t feel scared of something so natural and normal. Our bodies are made for birthing. This knowledge can be helpful in many ways for many women, but I wonder if it is helpful if you are feeling really scared and lost already. So now we have lots of sacred women, who also now knows that what they are feeling is wrong and will give them more pain.

So what can women do with all this fear? How do we as women approach birth, when it scares and stresses us to death?

I think the first thing is to accept that this is how you are feeling and that it is very understandable that you can have feelings like this. Nervousness and worries are normal and beneficial things during pregnancy, but real fear needs to be dealt with in a non-judgmental way.

Secondly, I think it is worth reading and listening to strong and positive stories. I don’t mean just natural and blissful stories, because that is just as polarizing, as the totally horrific ones and not really helpful to gain a realistic picture. Sunshine Coast BaBs (Birthing and Babies) are running an evening session on ‘positive birth stories’, and all kinds of births, where women and their partners felt positive and strong, are told. This is a great place to start and to realise that birth, regardless of what happened at the birth, can be a good experience.

Thirdly, it is imperative to choose a good independent childbirth preparation class. When you choose an independent class you will get more objectivity than in the hospital classes, who are bound to policies and protocols, when they teach about birth. Policies and protocols are not necessarily researched best medical practice! You are also likely to gain better skills in how to better birth in our modern birth culture.
These could be skills like understanding how birth works, gaining tools to deal with intensity and pain, know how the hospital works, how to communicate effectively and ask questions that will give you the best opportunity to make decisions suitable for you and your family.

Apart from these things, I think one of the most important things in preparing for birth and having a positive post natal time is, to surround yourself with support and to create community. Somehow too many women in our society are isolated during their pregnancy and early parenting times. As Bec Jenkinson from Maternity Coalition wrote in the latest Birth Matters (vol 16/1): “a significant proportion of ‘postnatal depression’ might be re-diagnosed as ‘lack of support’. This was never a journey we were meant to go alone. Attending a support group means you have somewhere to take your questions and worries outside of the medical scope and get inspired by different women’s different experiences and knowledge. Sunshine Coast BaBs group also runs, at the moment, once a month in the morning and we always have really lovely women from all walks of life and all different kinds of birth plans and birth experiences. At BaBs we don’t tell you how to birth, but we do talk about how your birth is yours and that it is an option to say no to procedures and tests, get second opinions or to ask for evidence about a procedure before consenting. A common feedback we get from the women is that this was one of the major things they have learnt and what has really made them feel more in charge of their experience. Too many women don’t know that they don’t have to do as they are told!

Now sometimes fear can be stubborn and you might need to work a little harder to come to a place where birth seems exciting rather than a dread. Often this kind of fear will be seeded even deeper in your heart and may need some one-on-one preparation to get to the bottom of. What is actually scaring you and how is it a problem for you? What might you do if exactly what you fear most, happens? There are many different ways to deal with fear issues, many different philosophies. Even here on the coast we have a few different approaches. But there is support out there, if you need it.

And that leads me to support during labour. Having those known women around you! In our modern times it is unlikely that we would benefit from inviting our mum, aunty, sister, or neighbours to our labours. But hiring a doula, who has experience in birth work and can fill the gap in our maternity systems of emotional care and support, is very beneficial. “Asking your husband to be your sole guide through labour, says Pam England founder of ‘Birthing From Within’, is like asking him to lead the way on a climb to Mt. Everest. He may be smart and trustworthy, you may love him, but in the Himalayas you’d both be a lot better off with a Sperpa”.

Overcoming fear of childbirth can be a big job. Birth can be the most amazing and transformative event in your life and maybe conquering this fear is part of your transformation. Birth doesn’t have to be really, really scary, and it is possible to take steps during your pregnancy and surround yourself with support of different kinds to guide you through to a positive, good birth, whatever that looks like for you.

BaBs in the news

Pernille — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 00:32:08 +0000

Click on the image to read the full article as a PDF file

Older articles mentioning Pernille.

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2011/03/16/kids-ok-to-share-bed-expert-sids-manietta/

http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/story/2010/04/20/no-written-manual-babies/

The trials and tribulations of the Birth Plan

Pernille — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 11:00:01 +0000

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’.

Ideally we wouldn’t need to write birth plans. If pregnant women had a real choice of birth place, as in hospitals with different philosophies, birth centers and homebirth, they would be able to choose a place that suited their values and situation. This would already make the need for a birth plan much smaller. And then, if women had access to continuity of care, to choosing her caregiver, so she felt confident that she was cared for in the best possible manner according to her own values, and was able to develop trust in that relationship during pregnancy, she might then be able to let go of control and just focus on her inner journey. Then the birth plan would be, pretty much, completely unnecessary.

But in today’s Australian birth culture, women don’t have this kind of choice. This means that they possibly go into birth without really agreeing with the philosophies of the birth place and caregiver, and they therefore feel like the need to be very assertive about their care.

After much thought, debate and discussion, also with myself, about birth plans and their benefits and traps, I have come to a place where I find the birth plan, if written in a particular manner, can be very beneficial, and that it is possible to mostly avoid the birth plan trap if a few things are carefully considered.

I now encourage women to write a birth plan, but always coming from the intention of helping her caregiver, whom she most likely won’t know, to understand how she, the birthing woman, feels supported, who she is and what is important to her. It is very important not to be too outcome focused, as of course birth can’t be controlled and nobody can know if an epidural might be needed, even if this is not what you wanted beforehand. Whenever we have to ‘let go’ of a sentence stating something we ‘don’t want’, it is a great opportunity to dig deeper and explore how this particular intervention or issue is a problem for us and how we might cope if this particular situation occurred.

It is nice for a midwife to know what a woman thinks about certain issues and how she feel supported. Plainly writing ‘I don’t want’ pain medication for instance, is unhelpful for partners and caregiver and birthing women themselves. But writing that you are aware of all the medical pain relief options, and that you prefer them not to be offered, but will ask if you come to a point of needing them, can be very beneficial. It doesn’t mean that no one will offer them, but the chances are certainly higher. And you haven’t made an agreement with anyone, least of all yourself, that accepting pain relief is out of the question.

Another important point when writing a birth plan is to come to an understanding of how birth works, and therefore how intervention can lead to more intervention. If it is the epidural that is the big thing for you, then it is important to investigate when epidurals are mostly needed. This might lead to beneficial exploration and questioning on induction procedures and alternatives and research about overdue dates to minimise the possibilities of needing an epidural.

Again, rather than writing; “I don’t want to be induced”, and turning it into a positive statement like; “I am happy to let my baby come in its own time”, then there is still an option for choosing to be induced in an informed way without having ‘failed’, but still letting caregivers know that you are not one to choose induction without serious medical reasons.

Making decisions in labour and birth is very difficult. Some women go into labour with very little knowledge and very few tools to navigate our modern culture, and without questioning procedures and protocols at all. Others go into labour ready to fight and determined not to let anyone do anything or even come near them. Neither of these approaches are very beneficial for birth. Finding the balance, being present in the moment, asking lots of questions and then doing what is best for this situation and the moment is much gentler on you and more realistic too. You have to bear in mind how ridiculously difficult it is, if not impossible, to be rational when you are in labour land; in your “old” brain & doped by endorphins. This is why birth preparation is so important for partners, so they can be more ready to do the rational work to help make those decisions.

Understanding how the hospital works can be another excellent way to improve communication, partly on the day, but also in the language you choose to use in your birth plan. The rules and protocols applied in hospital (and during homebirths too) are a lot about responsibility and the avoiding the possibility of being sued. This means that hospitals and caregivers have to cover their backs first and foremost. And this creates worst case scenario caretaking at the best of times. If you are willing to sign and take on responsibility for decisions that goes against the stream, you might find staff very willing and accommodating and even exited.

And last but not least, I hear again and again about women, who were so set on a particular type of birth, that they didn’t look into less desirable options like cesarean birth for instance. Now, if a woman like this happens to need a cesarean she will probably feel very unprepared. Not looking at the difficult issues will not make them go away and not happen. It is great to use a cesarean birth plan to really be aware of your own feeling and thoughts, and then think through how a cesarean birth could be most positive for you.

Now after all that we obviously still have the problem of the birth plan being read and taken seriously. I find that if the birth plan is written in positive terms, in a manner of working together and respecting that you have chosen to birth under these peoples’ care (this doesn’t mean you have to do what they say, it is only in the attitude) then there is much more willingness to take a birth plan seriously. It is smart to make sure there is a copy in your file already, that you have one to hang up in the birth room, maybe even laminated, and preferably over the sink where caregivers wash their hands all the time. Have several copies in your bag to hand out to caregivers and shift-changing caregivers on the day as well.

So writing a birth plan takes a lot of thinking, exploring and investigating. I have only just touched on some of the issues here. There is exploring and investigating thing with your caregiver, but more importantly there is lots to be done within yourself. “How do I feel about this? How might this be a problem for me, if it happens?” It is a great tool to do your preparation with, if you allow yourself to dig deeper and touch the difficult issues it might bring up. Having some support doing this can make to process even more exiting.

But before we even get to the Birth Plan……..choose your birth place and caregivers wisely, shop around, talk to more obstetricians and midwives and hospitals, so your ‘external’ need for a birth plan is as small as possible.

The key to meaningful birth preparation

Pernille — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 11:54:03 +0000

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.

Worry is the work of pregnancy and it is there for a good reason. It drives us to sort out how to deal with the situations, we most hope won’t happen. We can’t prepare for all situations, but it is the ones we fear the most that will be most difficult, if left unattended.

The other thing that is creeping into our culture, is a polarized attitude about pain. On one hand there is an attitude that believes if we don’t mention the word pain, labour will be pain free. The other attitude is evidenced by all the horrendous stories about the agony and the suffering women will go through in birth. I think that in traditional birth classes, in general, we spend too little time preparing women and their partners for the intensity and pain of labour. Most women all over the world report some sort of pain involved with childbirth. And I don’t think counting on a pain free birth is realistic. More often than not, that t is likely going to fail; leaving women totally overwhelmed and with no tools to deal with the reality. But obviously being scared senseless is not beneficial either. If women are not prepared for the fact that birth is painful and intense, they are very likely to be very surprised and very overwhelmed during labour. And if it turns out to be not painful for them, it will be a fantastic bonus.

I have struggled with the issue of how to prepare for birth for ages. I want to pass on my passion, my respect and amazement for birth to parents. But I also want to prepare them for what birth is like in our modern culture, where birth is easily more complicated than it needs to be. We don’t know how a particular woman will feel throughout her birth, and often the unknown is the scariest aspect for both women and caregivers. Striking a balance of strength, confidence and determination with an open heart and a willingness to work with caregivers, and to do whatever is needed of you, without giving your power away, is, I think, the ultimate. Helping women to be compassionate to themselves, while being realistic about what birth is, as well as being savvy in communicating effectively with hospital staff, is the key. These are skills to prioritise, when preparing for birth.

Being positive about birth does not have to exclude taking fears and worries seriously. And it doesn’t mean that we can’t talk about other types of births than natural ones. I believe that the positive in preparation comes in through making time to celebrate birth with all its challenges and joys. Birth is an unbelievably amazing, challenging, awesome, hard, and transformative event and celebrating with rituals for instance, can help women and their partners embrace birth for whatever it will be for them, pain or no pain, home or hospital, medical help or not. Happy birthing

Face of Birth

Pernille — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:40:23 +0000

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

Partner first – then parent

Pernille — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:02:30 +0000

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.

The woman will usually be the one who spends more and more time with the child. As a result, the man will be the one who feels more and more neglected and thereby relegated to second position on her hit list. His loss, which often sounds like jealousy, is the first sign that their relationship is neglected.

The father’s jealousy

Jealousy should almost never be taken at face value – certainly not in this case. When he says: “Why do you always have to spend so much time with the child?” he really does not mean that the child gets too much attention but that he (and thereby she) does not get enough. If he is able to focus on the relationship as his first priority chances are that the outcome of the conflict will be very positive indeed.

Let us look at a concrete example: Most children love to cuddle up in their parents’ bed in the evening, and sneak in during the night or early morning. Absolutely wonderful! …at least, that is what the child and the mother might think. The father, however, most likely feels his privacy violated. Perhaps, he thinks it is too much of a good thing that the child invades the double bed and thus the possibility of a spontaneous sex life. Yet, when he tries to express this, it will most likely sound something like: “You spoil the child!”

This will essentially come across as an attack on the mother’s way of being a mum. He needs to talk about the relationship, instead he ends up criticising her role as a parent. As we know, criticism is not very seductive, so things obviously end in a deadlock.

If he is able to express himself as a responsible partner rather than a jealous father there is a much greater chance that she will do anything she can to be his lover.

A similar, yet opposite, example: the father is writing when his 2 year old daughter wants him to play. What happens next is different to what would happen if she went to her mother. Dad would pick his daughter up, chat with her and let her look through his papers for a few minutes. Then he would say: “That’s enough. I need to work. Off you go!” and that is what she would do.

The mother would let it go on for much longer. The daughter would not only look through her papers, she would also draw on them, scrunch them up and throw some of them on the floor. When she eventually tries to put her daughter down she will inevitably become clingy and start to whinge. The mum will become frustrated and take it out on the father by saying: “You really should look after her more often. I also have to be able to do some work…”

This time, her comments come across as a criticism of the father’s way of being a father. Eventually, it becomes a pointless argument about who does what and about quality versus quantity and other nonsense – another destructive argument between the parents.

Instead, there is a need for the father to focus on the relationship. He needs to be able to see that, in this situation, it is not about who does what. It is about the mother finding it difficult to get on with her work – more difficult than he does. When the daughter crosses the mother’s boundaries she needs to be able to say: “Stop!” – and feel all right about it. Right now, she needs some urgent assistance. Then she needs the opportunity to talk about the importance of taking time for her own life even when the child’s needs seem endless. She does need help to learn to look after her own life just as she looks after her daughter’s life.

Less mum – more dad.

It is no coincidence that there are so many examples of mothers who are too much mothers. This makes it very difficult for dads to be dads in the same way as mums are mums. From the mother’s point of view she will often feel like being a single mother – even though the dad might look after half (or more) of the practical tasks. She has the responsibility and he completes the tasks. As a result, many mothers turn into super-mums – because they do not have a partner who shares responsibility.

Things are off to a bad start already before it all starts. Parenthood is out of balance during pregnancy because the mother at that early stage is able to integrate the child into her life. She will continue to do so while she is breast feeding. This allows her to develop a “radar system”, which means that she always knows where the child is, what it needs, whether it needs a nappy change, and if he/she can handle an argument with a sibling or if there is a need to interfere, etc. As a consequence, most mothers will shake their heads and roll their eyes at their husbands because there are so many things they do not see – even the most simple and obvious things!

Fathers can obviously also develop this radar system, if they are given the space – or rather, if they claim the space. Co-responsibility is not something that is given to you as a gift, it is something, which you have to claim. If the father is changing the nappy and the mother walks past and reminds him not to do it up too tightly, she obviously has no bad intentions. She does it because she cares for the child. Nevertheless, it remains a “mother” comment much more than a “partner” comment. There are plenty of examples of this: the dad is taking the children to the beach. As they walk out the mother tells him that he does not have the right towels.

Fathers must claim their right to go through their own parental experiences. Even if he has to pay the price of being called stupid, childish and stubborn – and perhaps even a bad father if the children come home with wet noses or bleeding knees after a trip to the beach. A father who reduces himself to “assistant mother” deprives himself and short-change the rest of the family. Due to the fact that the mother tries to be a super-mum, it is often the man’s job to stick to the partnership at the same time as he tries to claim his position as a father. When the mother is tired it will be more helpful if he invites her to the movies or out for dinner rather than to do a few extra of the practical tasks, which have to be done.

This must not sound as if mothers are incapable of doing anything to support their husbands: It is Friday evening and Dad has been away all week. Now, he wants to put the baby to bed. “No!” says the child “Mum has to!”

It is a harsh rejection especially when you have been looking forward to being with your child. In such a situation many fathers will hand over to the mother out of consideration for the child or because he fears that a conflict will make things worse. However, the conflict should be taken. The mother must support him no matter how angry or sad the child becomes. The alternative will be a vicious cycle: the father and child will never really become close. The mother’s job is to support her husband’s relationship with the child, rather than to prevent the child’s sadness right here and now.

Children and the parents’ arguments

The relationship between parents is not just something, which happens when the children are in bed. “But…!” you might think “…it surely isn’t good for the children to watch the parents argue?”

That depends if the parents are wearing the “parent hats” or the “adult hats”. If the argument develops and you start criticising each other’s ways of being parents, then that is destructive – even to the children. Obviously, parents cannot, neither should they, agree on everything related to the raising of their children. In fact, it is really unfortunate if the two parents always agree. One important reason why children are born with two parents is exactly that the parents are different.

Parenthood must never become a power struggle where one is sabotaging the ideas of the other. Even though, you might completely disagree with what your partner is doing or saying it is important to be loyal and count to 10 and remember that no lasting harm is done from one potentially destructive episode. Leave it – rather than begin to defend the children or air your own excellence as a parent. Later on, when you are both able to see things in perspective, talk about it if you do not like your family to operate in that particular manner. This frank and possibly passionate discussion is one, which the children will benefit from listening to. It is about, which norms and values are being applied in your family so it is a unique opportunity for them to learn something about how to resolve conflicts and negotiate a satisfactory solution between two people. Why should they miss out on that?

Good parenting

Parenting is generally defined far too narrowly. Often, it only concerns issues relating to what we provide for our children: food, , nappies, contact, full lunch boxes, help with homework, etc. Of course, this needs to be done but it really is the least important aspect of what we give them. We are preparing them for life. A life as future adults, future partners and parents. So we ought to demonstrate the practical expressions of how to live a life together, with children and with an adult partner. The way to do this, is to show them. We can tell them what life was like in the old days, how the earth rotates around the sun and explain to them the ins and outs of the government’s balance of payments (maybe). Any other, real parenting issues, we can only show them. Children are put together in such a clever way that they learn much more from what we do than what we say.

So, there is no use in lecturing to them. It does not make sense to tell them how terrible it is to lie, if we ourselves tell a little white lie every now and then. Neither is there any point in telling them they should stop arguing with each other, if we as parents regularly have arguments or power struggles.

It is during our mundane daily lives that we show them. We show them either how adults negotiate differences without necessarily crowning a winner and a loser, or we show them how most effectively to put someone down with or without a discussion. So, there is a limit to the benefits of long lectures about the true values of life. On the other hand, there are almost no limits to how many valuable experiences you can give them by converting these values into action.

Responsibilities and tasks

Some couples frequently have arguments. It is usually the man who is accused of doing too little in relation to the children, washing, cooking, cleaning… or all of the above.

These conflicts are often based on the woman’s experience of “being left alone with it all” and “everything is up to her”. This might be her experience, even though the man actually does solve a lot of tasks. The reason is often because the two of them do not distinguish between responsibilities and tasks. Many men solve many tasks but leave the responsibility with the woman, and because responsibility requires much more energy compared to tasks, it may be the reason why she feels overloaded. There are two options:

1: The man steps up and takes more responsibility for specific areas.

2: They have a thorough discussion about how the responsibilities (and tasks) are in fact divided between them. They also need to talk about whether or not this distribution suits each of them individually. It need not be a 50/50 split but it is important that the division is open for revision.

Jesper Juul. Family therapist, author and founder of FamilyLab International.

Text by Hayes van der Meer, FamilyLab ANZ.

For more information and other articles please visit: www.familylab.com.au

FamilyLab ANZ

www.familylab.com.au PO Box 354. Summer Hill. NSW 2130. 02-9799 2424. 04 313 977 21.

Soulful birth preparation

Pernille — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 06:28:46 +0000

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?

Birth preparation, in my opinion, needs to be much more soulful than what is offered in most places. Birth is so much more than getting that baby out. It is an overwhelming transition to a very different stage of your life. We can’t prepare us to a specific kind of birth, but we can prepare more deeply to be ready for whatever comes our way. There is no right or wrong way to give birth, but it is important that it is a good experience. To do this we need much more than labour stages and obstetric procedures.

In soulful preparation there is emphasis on your specific journey, and how you can make good decision for yourself and be present in the situation. This could involve practicing getting information about a procedure, or ask questions to work out, what is really needed and what is routine policy.

It also means building a strong and deep connection with your partner so he has good understanding of how to support you, and has explored how he might feel watching his woman in that very intense late labour place.

And then of course working on how to cope in labour by building a pain-coping mindset. This part is often very small in basic birth preparation classes. Or it is taught as a specific technique that has to be followed to birth ‘right’. This might be helpful to some Mums, but what about all the others? Building a pain coping mindset doesn’t mean that there will be no pain. It means building up resources within to deal with labour and birth, whatever the journey looks like. It is an awareness tool that might also help you cope in general with the enormity and intensity of birthing a baby and even into your parenting.

Soulful preparation offers many more things of course, apart from offering a caring, nurturing environment where you can safely and respectfully explore your inner resources to meet your birth experience with confidence.

So, just like it is crucial to shop around when you are choosing your birth place and your caregiver, it is also important to consider what you need to feel prepared for your birth? What information and support will be helpful for you? This is one option which takes a different approach to your normal basic hospital preparation class.

Congratulations on your pregnancy and on taking the time to investigate what is the right choice for you and your baby.

Birth Connection’s Childbirth preparation classes offer soulful preparation based on the popular book and philosophy “Birthing From Within“.

Birth Activism or Mother celebrations?

Pernille — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 10:15:05 +0000

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.

Australia is proud to say that we are the lucky country, but in birth I am no longer so sure. Midwives are struggling to practice their trade and are bullied into doing things that they don’t believe in. We are breaking our women and letting money rule over good medical practice. And I am not just talking about the disgraceful caesarean rates, particularly in our private sector. I am talking about the missing link in birth called nurture and respect for the fact that a mother has great knowing about her body and her unborn baby and that there is a whole other side to birth than a baby coming out of a woman. Our birth culture really needs to change, but how do we go about it? So many good people are fighting and working so hard to make even just small, but important changes in a very set system. But doulas, midwives and mothers can’t fight this fight in the birth room. We need to fight that fight outside of the birthing situation and we need women and mothers to speak up and make a bit of a fuss about what they want. I believe we have some work to do here, as women as well, and we need to get all sorts of women on board, if we want to make any changes. We will have to separate what we are fighting for, and how we help and support mothers. It is so incredibly important that birth activism doesn’t become judgment on women’s choices, their birth journeys, their needs, and their emotional state etc. If we as women polarise ourselves in the ‘natural birthers’ against the big bad medicalisation, and the ones who will snot nose the hippie natural birthing, we have lost this fight already. We are going to need to stand together in our differences and unify the fight towards women being treated with decency and respect, having the right to choose where to birth and to be helped by ‘best practice – research evidence’ procedures rather than standard routines and time schedules.

As a Doula I need to leave my birth activism at the door, when I enter a birthing woman’s space. Even when I enter a pregnant woman’s space. Birth activism is fought politically for better conditions, for less un-necessary interventions, for choice in childbirth, for respect for women and their ability to birth, however their journey unfold. But this energy is not beneficial for a mother about to give birth.
This doesn’t mean that all is lost and we are helpless in the hands of caregivers, but it means that our attitude needs to be one of working with the people and birth place we have chosen. It means taking responsibility for your birth place choice, your caregiver choice, for getting the information you need to make good decisions for yourself and your birth. The separation of birth activism and birth work/preparation is a tricky but very important one. Birth is not a medical event, even when medical help is needed. This means that all women go through the transformation to motherhood and they all go through the ‘Rite of Passage’. We need to accept this statement from both sides of the fence. We need women to gather and push for maternity reform, not controlled by the AMA, but by women and evidence – best practice – care.

In birth activism we easily end up in ‘one right way’ to birth, but all births, no matter what they look like, take you to the edge and then ask you to keep going, and this is something worth celebrating. Women go the distance every day. Nobody can judge what a mothers edge looks like and what her challenge might be. It could be a woman birthing for hours, right to where she feels like she can’t go on any longer, and her quest to keep going might be that very difficult, and maybe for her, disappointing decision of having an epidural or surrendering to a caesarean that she had so hoped to avoid. Or it might be a woman, who didn’t make it to hospital and had to cope on her own, even though that was the last thing she wanted. It is her reality and if we don’t spend our energy celebrating the strength our mothers show, in whatever capacity was needed of her, we are missing the point. I strongly believe that if we emphasise an energy of being in awe of ‘birthing’ women and mothers, we can change how important this issue is, on a cultural level. And that is very important to change in maternity care.

Preparing to birth in the system of our birth culture is a difficult one. It is important to be informed and it is important to feel empowered. It is important to know that you don’t have to say ‘yes’ to anything you don’t want to and that you have the right to ask lots of questions, and get second opinions, before you make your decision.
It is also important not to go into birth thinking you can control the event, we can influence it with certain choices, but we can’t control it. We need to encourage women to make good birth place choices, a birth place that suits her specific personality and situation. And we need to help women birth empowered no matter how and where they end up birthing. We need to fight for the right to choose homebirth, and to be able to choose our midwife too, whether you are classified ‘high’ or ‘low risk’. And last but not least we need to help women stay empowered, when birth doesn’t go the way she hoped.

I wonder if women of the world started celebrating each other for the womanly strength we all exceed in birth, with no judgment, could we change the atmosphere and the general feeling of how important this issue is and would that in the end have more power than out political birth activism?

What you can do on birth activist level ?

Join the Maternity Coalition

Talk to your local politician and let them know that women deserve respect and choice and that maternity reform is important to you.

Join the Birth center group ‘Friends of the Birth Center, Sunshine Coast. Find them on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FBCSC and become a member.

And on a celebrative level:
Create a mother blessing for your friend. http://pregnancy.about.com/cs/blessingway/a/aa102202a.htm
Always validate a mother for all the things going well for her and for the strength she excerpted during birth.
Bring her food, massage her feet, but let her work out how she wants to mother her child. Spoil her!!!!!!!!

Is Birth Getting Harder?

Pernille — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 23:39:00 +0000

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.

In order to understand why birth seems to be getting harder, we need to look back in history and also understand how birth works. For millions of years the majority of women have given birth successfully. Our human race depended on that. Later on science has given us the ability to study anatomy, physiology and birth, and instruments were designed to assist women when birth became abnormal and did save lots of lives. Then doctors began to compete with midwives for ‘normal’ births and the most effective way to do this, was to get birth into hospitals. The move to get all births into hospital happened under the guise of “safety”, though a large Cochrane review has later found that this was not supported by good evidence, and may have resulted in increased intervention and complications without any benefit for low risk women.

In today’s Australia, birth has become a medical event controlled by obstetricians. Most women undergo some form of medical intervention during their birth, reinforcing their own and society’s lack of confidence in women’s ability to give birth.

So what might make birth easier?

When women give birth they use the old part of their brain. The part that stands for instinctual behaviour and ‘gut’ knowing. They need an environment that allows them to use that old brain and turn off our new brain, the neocortex, which is the part of the brain that analyses, thinks and uses logic. She also needs an environment conducive to the release of a beautiful concoction of birth hormones. These particular hormones will help her birth her baby. One of the hormones in labour is called Endorphins. This hormone helps a woman cope with the pain and stress of labour by relaxing her and putting her in a spacy place also known as ‘labour land’. When a woman is in labour land she is in the old brain. The main hormone involved in birth though, is the love hormone oxytocin. Oxytocin creates contractions and thereby dilation of the cervix, so baby can be born and also makes us fall totally in love with our baby when we see him or her.

Oxytocin is inhibited by bright light, strangers, questions and fear

Fear in labour not only interferes with oxytocin release, but also reduces the blood flow to the placenta, and thereby to the baby, which can lead to foetal distress. This is what we call the fight or flight response.

Of caesareans carried out during labour: 33% = ‘failure to progress’ and 30.5% = ‘fetal distress’

Oxytocin is increased by privacy, darkness, people we know and feel safe with and touch; this makes home is an ideal oxytocin environment and we now know that a planned homebirth is as safe as a hospital birth for low risk women, despite all the obstrically induced media hype. (And for the politicians; it is also much cheaper)

We also know that women, who has midwives as their primary caregiver, has a much higher chance of a normal birth without intervention. A midwife is highly skilled in normal, natural birth and works from a woman centered belief. Obstetricians on the other hand, are highly skilled doctors, specialising in high risk pregnancy, complications and surgery. A midwife knows when birth is no longer safe and normal and will call in the obstetrician and his/her skills in dealing with complications that are outside the midwife’s scope.

But how does it work in real life? When you birth in the private system in Australia, your main care provider is always an obstetrician and although they rarely care for the woman during her labour, they do make decisions regarding her care (often via the phone). They also, in most cases, attend when the baby is emerging.

Compared to women birthing in public hospitals, women birthing in private hospitals:

• are significantly more likely to have interventions during labour

• have a 15.3% chance of forceps or vacuum birth (public 10.2%)

• have a 41.3% chance (18.2% with no labour) of having a caesarean (public 28.1%)

Another major factor which seems to increase satisfaction for women and lower the intervention rates significantly, is continuity of care. This means that a woman receives all her care from a known midwife. Women who receive continuity of care and who have continues care during labour as well:

• are less likely to be admitted to hospital during their pregnancy

• have a shorter labours • use less drugs during their labour

• have less intervention during labour

• are more likely to have a normal birth

• their babies are less likely to need resuscitation

• are more likely to be pleased with their care.

Doulas and continuity of care during labour

A doula is a trained birth support person and is ideal for providing support (emotional and physical) for women and their partners during labour and birth. She spends time with a couple getting to know them during pregnancy, helps them with issues, fears and wishes, so she knows them when labour and birth is happening. A doula is not medically trained and cannot replace a midwife, but can provide their care without the distractions a midwife may encounter, due to professional responsibilities and documenting. The benefits associated with continuous care in labour are even greater, when a Doula is part of the care.

So in summary:

A good birth environment conducive to oxytocin release and birthing from the primitive brain

Midwifery led care, so the person you deal with through your pregnancy is a midwife and only if complications arise do you see the obstetrician.

Continuity of care, care from a known midwife all the way through your pregnancy, birth and early postpartum

Support during labour from a Midwife and a trained birth doula

This makes birth easier!

But before women even become pregnant they have been socialised into perceiving birth as a risky event with medical technology and intervention as the key to reducing this risk. This picture of birth is also perpetuated in the media. Here on the Sunshine Coast we don’t have any options for birthing the easy way. Many have a medicalised birth, which reinforces the risk and danger of birth and the lack of confidence in the natural process……. they tell their birth story to other women…..

But what if all women could choose their own midwife early in pregnancy and build up a relationship of trust, had access to evidence based information about their options throughout pregnancy, felt confident in her ability to birth her baby, could choose where to birth (home, birth center or hospital), had the support of a known doula throughout her labour, had an empowering birth experience told their birth story to other women…….

How can we move towards easier birth in our community?

At the moment here on the Sunshine Coast, a group of women are fighting to get a birth center with the new hospital being built in Kawana. Please join them on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/FBCSC to see what you can do. If we don’t have the voice of the women, who are going to use these facilities we have much less power. Also the Maternity Coalition of Australia is working very hard to ensure that homebirth won’t be made illegal by 2012 as it is predicted to be. Join them on http://www.facebook.com/Maternity.Coalition?ref=ts&sk=wall.

We can’t predict how our birth journey’s will unfold. Some births need medical intervention and this is not wrong. But we can do so much more and so much better for our birthing women. Even if your birth turns high risk and needs intervention, you still deserve having a known midwife, a doula, and continuity of care. Let’s tell politicians how our birth experiences could be better and more positive, regardless of how our birth journeys unfold . Knowledge is power in this situation. Where do you want to birth?