Conversations about birth

18 Jan 2007

I received an email today from a woman who had watched a DVD about birth. She used The Pink Kit during her second birth and had an absolutely wonderful birth. But when she viewed this DVD she then compared her Pink Kit birth to what she saw.

'I also bought a copy of her DVD, which is absolutely beautiful. She certainly does work with some very special families. However the first time I watched it I found it quite shocking, and distressing. The birth she portrays is such a far cry from the real experiences of so many of the women I talk to, I wondered how they could relate to it. They are all very non-medical, alternative, home births that are shown and talked about. I guess i did feel like my hospital birth, which until this point I had thought was the most perfect experience, was not as "perfect" as the births that she portrayed. Once I overcame the part of me that said, "but birth just isn't like that for so many women", I could watch the DVD and take the valuable lessons that these women had learned from their births.'

There is no doubt that the people who are very much into natural and home birth seem a far cry from those of us who give birth in hospital but why should that be? And why should the woman who sent me her comments about this DVD feel that her Pink Kit birth was less of a perfect experience?

Sadly there's a strong message given to many women nowadays. The message is simple... if you have a hospital birth you can not have a positive experience. The only way to have a positive experience is to have a home birth.

Pink Kit families have positive experiences whether they birth in hospital or at home. In both places, using their skills, they have a conscious birth. A conscious birth is simple. When we use our Pink Kit skills to take every breath in ... in a relaxed manner and every exhale ... in a relaxed manner and we consciously do this then we are having a PK experience.

I have not seen the DVD but this I know is true from the thousands of birth stories I've heard over the years ... many women who have home births don't feel in control or conscious about their birth experience. This can be true of women birthing in hospital or birth center as well.

Showing women birthing at home has absolutely nothing to do with whether they feel good about how they behaved or worked with labour pains but often they feel better than women birthing in hospital just because they gave birth at home.

It's as though the external image is more important than the internal perception. The woman who sent me these comments really birthed consciously with her Pink Kit skills. Isn't it sad, even tragic that she would feel that her conscious birth was less than perfect because it didn't take place at home.

Not only that. Isn't it sad that people who are strong home birth advocates would deny her perception of a conscious (and to her perfect birth) just because she birthed in hospital. If a DVD had been made of her birth people would look at the exterior (the hospital) and just say 'you couldn't have had a good birth because you were in hospital.'

This has to change. Any woman can have an incredibly positive, conscious and self- empowering birth when she uses her Pink Kit skills where ever she births, with whomever she births and regardless of what is happening to her or around her.

Where ever we birth, we benefit from being and feeling skilled. This is just as true for men as for women. If a father has great coaching skills that move him well beyond just supporting his partner to really helping her cope with labour pain then he is having a positive, conscious and empowered birth experience.

We have got to stop tearing the fabric of society apart with such a strong and strange belief that it is the place of birth that 'gives' us the good birth.

Instead we need to create within our society an accepted expectation that when you are pregnant you need to learn how-to birth and how to be a great birth coach.