Where the Pink Kit fits into the 'system'

12 Jan 2007

Here's another comment from a childbirth chat group. These were sent to me. I actually don't go to forums very much. I always appreciate hearing what is being discussed.

Since the concepts, skills and resources that are found in The Pink Kit Package evolved during the 1970s, many of the political discussions were taking place during those years. In fact, the discussions don't seem to have changed much. That's what makes The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® stand out. These skills have nothing what so ever to do with the politics.

It's like there are two different worlds. One world is our individual birth experience and the other world is this overarching 'system' that people get politically heated about.

So this comment below sees birth from the view point of 'midwives'. The Pink Kit Method always sees birth from our own personal experience. Many of us had great births with doctors, while some didn't. Others had terrible births with midwives and some had great births. In the story posted 1/3/07 this woman had this to say about the midwife at her first birth

'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.'

This individual midwife was probably very competent and compassionate. Afterall she was working in a Birth Centre so she had to philosophically support less technical birth. She probably also was frustrated with the woman's inability to get on and birth her baby. Most often we, as birthing women, are reactive to our birth provider's style or if we feel understood by them.

In fact this woman doesn't even mention whether she was attended by a doctor or midwife in her second birth. She just raves about her own ability.

By relying on any profession to provide us with the best or greatest birth causes huge problems. We are responsible for our own best or greatest birth. Having a good birth isn't a choice, it's a moment to moment action just as that woman in the posting describes. Her best and greatest birth came from her own awareness based on a set of skills she took time to learn in her pregnancy.

'Midwifery led care is the best way to get a great birth. However if you are working inside a big system you are a product of what is on offer. Even though the midwives may be doing a great job ( and most are) you cannot get away from the constraints placed on you by policy and procedure'.

Another important issue is addressed in the above comments. Families giving birth do that within a system whether it is in hospital, birth center or home. In the years I've travelled and spoken with thousands of women, men and birth providers, everyone works within a system. These may be called 'policy' or 'safety guidelines' or 'standards of practice'.

Even Direct Entry midwives abide by what is now called Evidence Based Practice. Curiously Andrea and Suzie who collected the statistics developed Practice Based Evidence within the defined standards of practice. The reason they were able to do that succesfully is directly related to couples teaching themselves The Pink Kit and using their own skills in birth.

This meant that Andrea and Suzie did not have to challenge or work outside their standard of practice. The couples just had more effective births so that they did not have experiences that required Andrea or Suzie to make decisions for increased medical attention unless needed.

Pink Kit births by the thousands have taken place in hospitals because birth is less about what 'they' do then how we do.

The Pink Kit in relationship to birth politics

11 Jan 2007

I've decided to take some recent correspondence sent to me from a number of birth forums and discuss how The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better ® resources fit into the issues brought up in these conversations.

Please read this entry and then my comments below. Keep in mind that I make comments as a Trustee to Common Knowledge Trust.

As a Trustee I'm obliged to speak on behalf of how all expectant parents can benefit from learning how-to birth and coach when their child is born.

'I get so fustrated when I know people who choose subordinate (in my opinion)
levels of care. What I mean is, healthy women who choose care under an
obstetrician. They get roped into the high tech repeated u/s, monitoring,
for the "just in case" ignorant way of thinking. They end up having highly
intervened vaginal births (but they see as 'natural birth' because it is
vaginal) or worse a necessary unnecessary cs. Does this make sense?

I have been up most of the night stewing over this, because a 4 of my
rellies have recently choosen this type of care to end up with the same
results... and they think I'm weird because I choose to birth at home! OK
so I'm a midwife (new at the game, but still), so maybe the extra knowledge
helped me to make 'good' or appropriate choices for me, but what stops women
from investigating choices for themselves? Why do they so blindly give
themselves to medical men in every sense of the word? Do women really
believe that they don't have the power to birth themselves and that they
really need help? Do they really think nature got it that wrong? AHH!!

How do you get 'over it'? How do you talk with these women about birth in
social conversatin without lecturing them?'

All of us understand personal frustration, but from the view point of The Pink Kit why does another person have the right to be frustrated on our behalf? The birth of our children is always a personal decision. Every parent wants the best for our children and the decisions we make come from wanting the best.

Using the modern maternity system goes hand in hand with medical care as it does with the concepts of 'natural' birth. Having your own set of skills works well in hospital or home.

Even with the most rigorous medical attention, we will still take a number of breath cycles during each contraction and the space inbetween. Learning to breathe in a relaxed and focused manner works well in all births. Just because a family perceives that hospital and medical care is safest is an entirely different aspect of birth than learning how to use relaxing breath patterns.

The medical profession puts no restriction on our own skills. In fact doctors and staff love to see women cope with labour and adore the father who really helps beyond just taking a supporting role.

Imagine a world where all families have taught themselves The Pink Kit Method and gone into hospital when they believe that's the best for them. This woman won't feel the frustration when she knew her relatives had managed, coped and worked well with the process of birth.

An email mess today

11 Jan 2007

Well it has been one of those love/irritable days today. I shifted to a new home (actually a granny flat below where my son, financee and another couple will now be living. Broadband had never been connected to the house so it's taken close to a week to get it up and running.

That's fine. Then for some reason my outmail won't work and then for some reason my whole MAIL (I'm a Mac user) vanished from the computer. I lost all my mailboxes. How unnerving. However, my dear friend gathered them back into the fold and now everything is humming along.

The past few weeks I've been corresponding to a wonderful woman called Kelly Zanty. She has a website www.bellybelly.com.au. She's organizing a conference the end of April about how to run a successful birth business and afterbabycare business. She has a passion for birth and we've been discussing why under midwifery care the c/s rate has doubled and is as high or higher than countries that have obstetrical care.

At first she wanted me to come over and talk about the 'failure of the midwifery model'. But I told her that the midwifery model hasn't failed, it's just been put into place without a skilled birthing population to make it work.

Then I thought about an analogy. Most of us would have been taught to make our bed (whether we do it or not). That's a task, but that task is fulll of small, discreet little skills. Each one can be refined. Those people who refine those small steps or skills really make a neat bed. At first they have to be very conscious of what they are doing. Then after a while, they become competent and do it with ease.

We're more likely to be taught to make our bed then learn how-to birth. Isn't that sad really? But childbirth, learning to cope with the naturally occurring pain of contractions is another task that can be filled with small, discreet skills. These found in The Pink Kit Package.

Won't it be wonderful if as many people who knew how to make their bed, knew how to birth with a sense of competency? We like to be masters of skill.

Anyway, that's my blurb for today.