Kelly ... Our vibrant Pink Kit Distributor/Wholesaler

6 Oct 2007

Common Knowledge Trust wants to welcome Kelly Zanty from www.bellybelly.com.au as both an Australian distributor and wholesaler of The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® resources.

Kelly is a dynamo! We met online as she was organizing her absolutely fantastic conference in Melbourne this past April. She brought together prenatal and postnatal services into a business conference ... first of a kind and brilliant. I was honored to speak at the conference.

I'm old enough to be Kelly's mom and she's been one of my business mentors so we've settled into what's called 'a friendship'.

There are some skilled people that you hope will look your way and bring their skills to help meet your goal ... Kelly is one of those people. So, our Trust has made a very special relationship with her.

Although The Pink Kit resources are sold through Capers Bookstore in Australia, Kelly will be able to set up wholesale accounts as well as sell retail.

We hope eventually she will train more committed people to become distributors who can then also train other wholesalers both in Australia and elsewhere. Direct Marketing requires many people and many avenues of sales. Why not come on board?

You don't have to be involved with birth to become a Pink Kit wholesaler. You can sell or rent The Pink Kit Package or Just For Series to expectant parents even if you know nothing about birth. This might be alongside other products or as part of your multiple streams of income. In Australia there are about 250,000 births each year! In the UK there are close to 800,000/year and in the US there are 3,600,000/year! Birth is never ending.

Plenty of opportunities to sell Pink Kit Packages to expectant parents.

Kelly is also one of our affiliates. This means she has joined our affiliate program, placed a photo of The Pink Kit Package (or text) on her website. For every 'click through sale', she receives 15% commission and we ship. So the benefit can be two fold as a wholesaler and affiiliate.

You can earn from two Pink Kit options at the same time. Wholesaling tends to reach local people and affiliate sales come from all over the world. What a neat way to spread the message ... Let's grow a skilled birthing population for all expectant parents in all births! Yes, let's do that.

At the moment, you can make your own sales flyer and if you have a good one let us take a look and perhaps it will be just the right one for us to put on our website and there will be a special treat for producing the 'right' one.

So, welcome Kelly!

She also wants to organize for me to come to Melbourne to train Pink Kit sometime before April 2008. So contact Kelly (kelly@bellybelly.com.au) if you have an interest in being able to give a One Day, experience filled Pink Kit Presentation which gives added-value to families who will be using their own Pink Kit Package.

Who is the Pink Kit Package for?

5 Oct 2007

Sometimes I feel I have two conversations. The first and most important is with expectant parents. These are the people with whom I worked in the 1970s and from where these skills developed.

The skills developed over time and certainly I passed them on because they were compiled and collected in my head and because I worked with bad backs ... both pregnant women have them and women who had given birth many years before.

However, pregnancy was only a small percent of my individual practice and the politics of birth have never been a sore point for me. I'm much more politically triggered by environmental issues rather than diet, exercise, smoking, drinking or other things we do as humans. I'm more concerned when there is only 5% of rain forest left in Sumatra.

But that's another thing. I'm just me. Perhaps it's unfortunate that these skills came from me. Perhaps if I had been more birth aware, or been a doctor, midwife, childbirth educator ... or someone ... but that's the reality, I'm not.

Anyway, this hasn't stopped me from recognizing the value of these skills. Since I had my children 12 years apart, I used them at one of those births and there was a difference to me in how I felt I coped and managed the birth of my son ... and his was a much more 'medical' birth because he was 8 weeks premature.

Anyway, first, as a trustee to Common Knowledge Trust ... which is where I placed these skills ... my job is to convince, inspire, enthuse, encourage all expectant parents to become skilled during their pregnancy so when they give birth they work with their baby's efforts by using skills throughout the birth.

This can mean something so simple as to inhale and exhale in a relaxed manner. This is getting down to every breath ... why not? This can be as simple as going around inside your pelvis and relaxing all the soft tissue and this can be done during and after every contraction ... why not?

I was recently informed that the average birth has 135 contractions ... and there is time in between and those contractions can be very painful! So our job as parents is to work with all the energy of these contractions ... which are our baby's efforts to be born. The energy is so great that it can cause us to become tense, frightened and tired. With skills we manage better. Full stop. We manage better.

So primarily I talk to expectant parents because birth is birth no matter where or with whom or any factor around it. We will inhale and exhale and our body will be in some posture or position and therefore, we can use skills at each breath and at any moment to relax inside our body. Why not?

Then there some conversation I've been having with independent midwives and doulas. What I hear again and again is that each of them see their role as 'supporting' women. Great. So, where does the PK come into that? Simple. Your clients will support the midwife or doula by becoming a skilled birthing woman and skilled birth coach father, partner, friend or relative. Why not?

For some reason, I can't get that idea across. Too bad really because I hear all the time how overwhelmed, tired, exhausted and burnt out women in these two professions feel.

Go back to the statistics that Andrea and Suzie collected. They could see that expectant parents who taught themselves The PK skills then used the skills during whatever birth they had:

1. Could self reduce many of the common medical interventions, they felt better about their own births.
2. Felt better about births that required medical care.
3. Worked as a team and that had a very positive impact on early parenting as a family.
4. AND made birth more enjoyable for them as midwives. They were less tired!
5. Saw many, many more women cope with birth and most fathers really know how to coach rather than passively 'support'.
   

Isn't this a good thing. And they also learned something else. They did not have to take on one more 'I have to do this' by believing they had to teach or do the Pink Kit on their clients. They loved inspiring their clients to do the work themselves. In fact, they now insist that their clients come to birth prepared with skills to do the work! Fair enough really.

However, we must not focus on The Pink Kit as though it is tied to midwifery care. The Pink Kit skills are for absolutely ALL births including the joy of preparing for birth and using the skills during the surgery of a c/s. Why not?

So here is my political statement about birth.

1. We need to grow a skilled birthing population, not for the providers or to reduce medical intervention but for ourselves and child.
   
2. We need to grow a skilled birthing population because birth is an active event, experience, test, performance, big moment, important and such a unique experience that it deserves our skills.
   
3. We need to grow a skilled birthing population so we can step into the role of parenting during pregnancy and do what is necessary to work with our baby's efforts to be born during it's birth.
   
4. We have to grow a skilled birthing population because all humans like to feel competent at any task they do and giving birth is a big task that requires specific skills for us to use and at the moment most don't.
5. We have to grow a skilled birthing population because every mother and father-to-be deserves and is entitled to using their own set of skills no matter where or with whom they birth or what is happening to them or around them.
6. We have to grow a skilled birthing population because it is our responsibility as parents to do what we can to reduce, prevent or eliminate many of the common 'problems' that occur during labour that can be prevented by preparing for birth and using skills in labour.

So there you have it. If you're a doula or midwife reading this then become a distributor of The Pink Kit Package not just to your clients so they support you but to all families in your area. Why not?

And if you are an expectant parent who is reading this. Why not become skilled?

Does the Pink Kit work well under midwifery care?

4 Oct 2007

I have recently received a correspondence from a friend who is on a midwifery forum. She sent me some comments by a midwife who says: 'I also have concerns about the derision towards midwives that the developer/promoter has.'

Since this is a comment I've personally heard for the past 30 something years, needless to say I'm always interested as to why this perception still abounds.

I believe the clue lies in another correspondence I received by another midwife:

“All midwives know how the pelvis works in labour to expand and make space for the baby to slip through. If you've been to one of my Active Birth workshops (and I'll bet that's most of you!) you'll rememebr how to get this message across to the women you meet. This is indeed common knowledge and if every midwife took 10 minutes to show a pregnant woman how it works, the message would get around without the woman needing to buy a kit. Midwives don't need special training to pass this message on, just a few clues about how to present it'.

And here is the crux of what is a potentially difficult issue. Who needs to know about the pelvis? And what does 'knowing' mean? There is a huge difference between 'knowledge' and 'skills' and a different need of a birth professional and a woman giving birth.

Since my relationship to birth has always been from the viewpoint of us as ordinary women and men rather than from those in the profession of being a birth provider, I can only tell you what thousands and thousands of women/men have told me and helped me understand.

We don't know about our own pelvis. Think about all the things happening 'down there' and how open we are discussing it ... NOT.

Ninety% of families who were instrumental in developing the Pink Kit skills in the 1970s were well read, gone to classes and had been informed, told and shown how their baby will move through the pelvis. This was true back in the 1970s! By the 1980s every single childbirth educator had a model of a baby and pelvis. Beautiful illustrations abound. Books all go through the anatomy and physiology of the pelvis and how the baby moves through. This 'information' has little to do with how we experience birth and the sensations produced by our baby moving through our body.

That is why too many women/men will say 'everything I learned went out the window'. Knowledge and skills are different. Knowing and feeling are different.

As pregnant families, we were informed about where our baby was ... 'Engaged and 2 cm dilate and 80% effaced'. But rarely understood what that 'felt' like in our body.

Information about the pelvis is part of birth preparation today and has been for over 30 years yet something seems to be missing.

Another percent of pregnant women attended yoga classes, had chiropractic or osteopathic care as well. These also focus on the pelvis, keeping it aligned, open and flexible.

Yet, something didn't connect with too many of us. When we were in labour, the sensations we experienced had nothing to do with the information we received. So, the Pink Kit skills filled in some gap that existed. These skills taught us how to become aware, feel and experience our pelvis rather than learn about it in a way many of us were not receiving through all the excellent and diverse things we were doing. All those things are great and bring benefits to us and yet there was a gap. The PK fills the gap and that's ok without being perceived of as 'better than'.

These skills started to developed because most of us realized we didn't have a clue about our pelvis really or how to control internal tension when we had labour pain. As for making 'space' and 'opening the pelvis', well we really didn't have a clue.

For too many women, the positions that we were told did those things hadn't worked in our individual births. While for other women, the positions that we were told 'closed' us actually didn't stop our baby from being born. Confusion abounds still.

So, knowing about the pelvis and knowing our own pelvis are two different things. Having the analytic knowledge about our pelvis and what we experience are also two different things. The Pink Kit definitely fills in that gap. But the Pink Kit is not just about the pelvis but all the birth and coaching skills we need to learn.

Why should we learn? Because we are pregnant! And when we are pregnant there should be a learning how-to birth and coach as well as gathering information and making choices. Being pregnant and learning how to birth are two things which should just go hand and hand. Just like getting a driver's license requires us to learn a set of multiple skills.

However, the comments made above by that midwife who speaks about the pelvis also says something else. It says that midwives will be able to give their clients all the knowledge they need. And for this person ... in a 'ten minute' session.

So, what is this particular person saying?

1. Knowing the pelvis is easy ... which it isn't ... not because I say so because the tens of thousands of women/men I've listened to and talked to in many, many countries ... don't know. And the pain that goes on inside the pelvis is what throws us off during labour. We wanted more control over the pain or our response to it.
   
2. Midwives don't need special training to teach women about the pelvis. They get special training as they become midwives. They learn the anatomy and physiology. We, pregnant women/our partners, need special training to learn about what to do with the sensations we'll have in our pelvis during labour ... and how to reduce internal tension at every single moment of birth. These two groups need different information, knowledge and skills.
   

If my passing on the needs of all these families (which without a doubt says that the knowledge we are receiving about the pelvis is not really helping us cope with labour pain), appears to be 'derisive' to midwives that's inaccurate.

As a trustee to Common Knowledge Trust, my role is to promote the concept of growing a skilled birthing population through self learning. This self learning works with all type of care and information gathered elsewhere ... the more the merrier.

As women, we need to know our own pelvis, how we can relax inside, what positions keep us open, what positions our baby likes during labour, how to move our body to create the greatest space and mobility. This is something that does take time to self learn.

Ask yourself right now these questions:

1. Can you move your sacrum right now?
2. Can you create more space between the bones you sit on?
3. Can you relax inside your Pelvic Clock?

If that's a bit bewildering to you then The Pink Kit Package will give you the skills you need so you do know when you are into labour how to work with the sensations in your pelvis ... skills you can use at any moment so you can work with your baby's efforts to come through your pelvis, open your cervix and come down into your birth canal.

Back online and having had one big trip

1 Oct 2007

Well, I'm back online and posting. I've just biked for 1850kms up the Danube Valley in Austria and then throughout Holland. Here are some photos and I'll get back online tomorrow and talk about things.

I actually don't know how to manipulate the photos on this blog, nor put on titles or put there where I want them. Shocking how techno-stupid I can be. I couldn't even keep them in the order of my trip so forgive me.

So looking at the photos from the top, going from left to right:

1. Lots of bikes in downtown Groningen, Holland.
2. Blue bikes for rent in Austria ... every town should have these.
3. Swimming in Vienna on the Danube.
4. Bike Museum in Nijmegen, Holland
5. The two photos of my bike ... two different paths in Holland.
6. The gate with the flowers in front is an old gate to a town in Austria
7. Gates within gates is one of my favorite photos and that's in Spitz, Austria
8. Me, going up the Danube in the rain.
   

I'm talking to two groups this month in the UK if you want to come. First in S. London on 9th Oct and then in Birmingham 19th Oct.