Another Pink Kit Story

6 Jan 2007

Here's another woman's personal experience with The Pink Kit. I can shout from the top of the roofs that The Pink Kit is absolutely going to change the world of childbirth, but what's the use if there aren't personal stories.

Keep yours coming in and we'll publish them. Sadly, The Pink Kit Package is not sold in bookstores. It is a multimedia product and bookstores carry books so you can only get it at www.birthingbetter.com

by Lynne on Fri 13 Oct 2006 02:19 AM EDT

I gave birth to my second child using 'The Pink Kit', a multimedia resource that teaches women and men child birth skills. It can be used by the pregnant women, her partner and their support and care providers.

I have shared the Kit with friends and we have discovered its benefits through putting the exercises and knowledge into practice. We found that we experienced smoother births that were shorter, progressive and that we had the skills necessary to deal with the pain and unforseen possibilities.

The Kit teachs how to 'map' your pelvis, use the breathe to open through contractions, relax tension while experiencing pain, how your unique body shape and babies position impacts the choices you make in labour and how to artfully communicate what you need during the process.

The Common Knowledge Trust who have developed this work also provide CD resources for specific birth situations that include first time mothers, vaginal birth after cesareans, multiple births, first time fathers, birth after a traumatic previous birth and staff midwives and obstetrical nurses.

Pregnancy is a changing evolving experience and this Kit has been developed over years of women working and learning through every conceivable possibility that this transition can throw at them. It is practical and specific to individual needs and couples have found their own paths through the extensive resource, based on their own particular story.

It has been found to be helpful for working with bigger babies , posterior babies, babies who stay 'high' in the pelvis and babies who are birthed after previous VBAC or traumatic births. The Kit deals with all these situations specifically. It alleviates fear in first time mums and dads as they gain confidence in their body and their ability to birth. It helps those who have had previous good births to refine and deepen the experience.

All the information in the Kit can be used regardless of circumstances such as home birth, water birth, natural or birth with intervention.

The Pink Kit is aptly named 'Essential Preparations For Your Birthing Body' . Women who have used it have experienced a greater ability to cope and deeper feelings of satisfaction with themselves and their partners. It is also very beneficial in enabling them to have a smoother transition to parenting.

Cultures, birth, women and....

4 Jan 2007

I've just finished reading a book call Red Dust by Ma Jian. It was published in 2001 but his 3 year journey through China took place in the 1980s.

I'd like to quote some passages:

'Before my departure, Yan Hu agrees to show me the maternity ward. I have always wantd to visit one, but would never get a change in a city hospital. The ward is so crowded the women have to sleep two to a bed. Four women lie in the delivery room with their legs wide open. A piece of string tied to a jar of water dangles form one womans vagina. Drops of blood fall into a washbowl below. Yan Hu tells me the other end is hooked to a five-month-old foetus.
'She's an unmarried mother. Doctors don'thave time to give women like her a proper abortion, so they just attach the string and let gravity do the rest.' I wantch her pale, damp face stare at the ceiling and wish someone would put an end to her agony.

The woman on the next bed screams as a doctor drops a slimy infant into the nurse's hands'.

Well, CKT would certainly like The Pink Kit skills to be available to this woman.

This is a passage about one of the tribal groups:

'The .... came here when I was a girl and took twenty-four of s to Guangzhou. were were exhibited in iron cages in Yanghan Park for three whole months. They told visitors the Li are born from monkeys and raised by snakes.

Definitely the concept that we are One Humanity is not always recognized or acknowledged. We're seeing the results of that with all the war worldwide that's happening now. How can we fight against ourselves?

But Common Knowledge Trust understands why people have difficulty believing there is a universal way to prepare for childbirth.

Here's another passage:

'Jinuo custom allows members of the same clan to fall in love, but not to marry. When the time comes for a clan couple to separate, they exchange gifts with each other as pledges of undying love. The girl gives a leather belt and the boy gives a felt bag. These gifts are then taken to their new marital homes and displayed on the wall. When the clan lovers die, they carry their gifts to the mythical Nine Crossroads, meet up and travel together to the underworld where they can marry each other at last. For the Jinuo, husbands and wives in this world are mere companions of the road, true love must wait for the afterlife. I have seen these belts and bags hanging on the walls of several village huts. When a girl gets married, her clan lover spalshes her with water from a dirty washing-up bowls as a show of jealousy. It is considered a great humilation for a bride not to be drenched at her wedding'.

Here's another passage:

'The people live differently here' he says. 'There are a hundred families in the village, and in nineteen of them, the brothers all share the same wife'.

'You could go to prison for that in China. Although in Yunnan, I visited a Naxi village which still practices the Azhu system. Women can take as many lovers as they like. The more they have the higher their prestige.'

Our cultural diversity is like the most beautiful palette of colours.

While we share one body ... we blink, cough, put food in our mouth and not in our ear and have that 'opposable thumb' yet we have the most complex of Minds. And with our amazing Mind we create such diversity in how we live, what we value and see the world.

Yet, when we give birth, we essentially drop back into the one body reality (That's The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better®) that we can then surround with our cultural Ways.

Hope you enjoyed a wee travel through someone else's culture.

Pink Kit Testimonial

3 Jan 2007

We get emails from ordinary women and men like you who tell us their Pink Kit story. We got this one today. I haven't included this woman's name because I've just asked her if she'll send a photo and let us use her name.

This is a perfect Pink Kit story... and this woman just had two components of The Pink Kit and not the whole Pink Kit Package.

Enjoy, enjoy and enjoy... then tell everyone about about The Pink Kit and let's change childbirth just as this woman and man did for themselves.

'Hi there, i just wanted to send a very belated, yet heartfelt thank you to you all.

I had a manageable 6 hour first stage, followed by a horrendous 6.5 hour second stage with my 1st child. I had been terrified my bowel would fall out if i pushed down 'that way', so was terrified when the midwife kept insisting i sit in a birthing chair and felt scared and frustrated when she refused to get a doctor to check if i was fully dialated as i could not tell her definately if a had ' the irrestistable urge to push' or not, i just knew i had to bear down. Mind you, i was in a 'family birth centre', with a locum midwife and no back up due to staff shortages in other areas of the hospital. The result; - moved to main hospital due to babies heart rate being erratic, offered a wheel chair to sit on despite visual of Graces head with each contraction! Given oxytocin 4 hours into 2nd stage labour, and finally a very pointy headed angry looking little girl was vacuumed out of me! (sorry still a bit bitter!) If only i had seen the pink kit before then!!!

My second daughter was born 7 months ago. 4 weeks before her birth, i was given the old video and pink kit from a midwife student. By studying the book and watching the video i realised many things i had done to hinder my 1st daughters exit from me and how by not relaxing i actually sent my labour backward. I vowed that this time would be different.
Even with the disappointment and fear of having to be induced, given oxytocin and linked to a heart monitor, i armed myself with the pink kit book to use as a reminder. I used the directed breathing during first stage and easily managed the contractions (by removing the fear and feeling a part of the journey, i could feel her move down with each contraction, and was not in pain - even enjoyed the process!) The midwife was incredibly supportive and relaxed. It was not until second stage (and max levels of oxytocin pumped into me) that the contractions began to hurt. My husband and i had practiced, him holding me and me relaxing by bowel and allowing the baby to pass. I had so many plans about controlling her exit. This was not possible, as soon as i stated to my husband that the baby was in my birth canal and i had to to relax, i relaxed and she flew out! 2nd stage was less than 6 minutes. Next time i hope to avoid the inducing and drip and be able to breath my next child out, with out ripping. Lets hope.

I informed everyone of my relativelt pain free fast labour thanks to The pink kit and have loaned my copy of the pink kit to a couple of friends. The midwife student has ensured her uni has 3 curent dvd copies of the pink kit to help women, and the hospital family birth unit staff, planned to hunt down a copy to have available for their patients. I don't understand why the directed breathing, relaxation and other information in the book is not told to every expectant mother. Its not just interesting, its imperitive, indespensible!!

Thank you again!'

Comparing tasks

30 Dec 2006

Let's go back and compare 3 sixteen week tasks.

1. Getting a driver's license so you can drive safely.
2. Taking care of a baby from newborn through month so the baby and mother thrive.
3. Learning how-to give birth so you can reduce suffering and reduce or prevent common birth problems such as delayed births, tired women, stuck baby, tears or cuts.

As you can see in society we put more public pressure on people learning to drive a car, sit the exams and show they can drive safely than learning how-to give birth. We also place a higher societal pressure on families to take care of their newborns through 4 months and well beyond than we do on learning how-to give birth.

Yet of these three learning how-to give birth is by far the most important. A baby's life has a much better start when it's efforts to be born are easy. For mothers this is true as well. If a woman has a positive birth experience, isn't traumatized or having to recover from medically assisted births she is more likely to move easily into her role as a mother.

In order to learn how-to birth we must have specific skills. We can't just tell women ... breath. It's like telling a person to put their foot on the gas in order to drive a car or just pick up the baby every time it cries. We all know there's more to driving a car and taking care of a baby.

So go to The Pink Kit Package

Tomorrow I'm going to pass on some cultural tidbits from a book I've read about how some cultures do things.

It's a huge interest to find out how other people and cultures view the world. These are our cultural differences but when it comes down to it, childbirth is a shared human experience. That's why it's so easy to develop skills we can all share.