Follow Up With District Health Board

2 February 2008

Yesterday I posted an invitation put forward by our District Health Board ... inviting Common Knowledge Trust to be involved with the 20 year plan.

This is the email response I sent to Jennifer who is organizing the feedback from all 'stakeholders'.

Hello Jennifer:

Thank you for making contact with me as one of the trustees to Common Knowledge Trust that produces The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® resources.

I'll be meeting with Andrea Vincent tomorrow. She is the midwife who has collected Pink Kit statistics for the past 7 years and is speaking to the DHB on 5 Feb.

She and I have worked closely since 2000 to grow a skilled birthing population. She has done this by requiring and insisting her clients teach themselves The Pink Kit skills and come to their birth prepared to work with their baby's efforts to be born ... in whatever birth circumstances.

When I read your attachment, I was struck by the approach to maternity care ... it's all about delivery of maternity services to ...

Our Trust's approach to maternity care is about creating a societal expectation that when a woman is pregnant this is the time to learn how-to birth through preparing her body to let her baby out safely with reduced trauma to her body and baby ... and to use birth skills to work with her baby's efforts to be born.

This is equally true for expectant fathers, partners, friends or relatives who will 'support' the woman. They must move beyond 'being there' to learning how-to 'coach' (the ability to support and to help/guide/work work with the woman so that she can cope with the naturally occurring pain).

CKT sees birth as the gateway between being pregnant and becoming a parent and is an activity (even if an elective c/s). We strongly believe the 'doing' of this activity (giving birth) requires self learned skills, preparation of the pregnant/birthing body and the use of these skills during the activity of birth.

We would like to see a greater emphasis on the maternity Partnership toward growing a skilled birthing population within quality maternity services. We believe this is an educational issue (not political nor anti-medical nor toward reducing interventions nor toward increasing more 'natural birth'). Birth is birth and birth skills help families participate more in the activity of giving birth under all circumstances.

Andrea's statistics clearly show that families who teach themselves The PK skills self reduce many of the common medical interventions. However, this is a happy side effect.

Those families who require medical care still have the skills and work well with and around medical assessments, monitoring and procedures leaving them feeling equally positive about their birth experience and this extends to women who have surgical deliveries.

The true benefits of having a skilled birthing population are:

* Women feeling more in control of the process of birth
* Fathers more able to help so the couple works as a team
* Increasing the bond within the family
* Decreasing post natal anxiety because the family is ready to move into parenting without lingering emotional feelings about the birth experience.

We would like very much to participate in developing a skilled birthing population alongside a quality maternity service ... which we believe already exists. We strongly believe the perceived failure stems from a basic lack of societal expectation that learning to birth and being pregnant are essential for all families.

Recently the Government has been educating people not to drive when tired ... m/w, specialists and cbes can simply provide the message .. 'when you're pregnant you need to learn birth/coaching skills. Here are a number of resources that provide you with these skills to learn'. I know Andrea is going to recommend to the DHB that they purchase a sufficient number of Pink Kit Packages to be given to every couple coming through the hospital classes (to be returned after birth). We absolutely know that when women are giving the 'choice' they do not do the work. When they are given The Pink Kit Package and explained the importance of both themselves and their partner learning, practicing and using these skills they are more likely to take on that responsibility.

All birth providers love to see women cope with labour and fathers really help. Too many of them see women not coping and fathers not knowing how to help. This can easily be changed with a few years of an educational message and free access to The Pink Kit resource.

How is this possible? Consider driving a car for a moment. Does the Government give people the 'choice' of whether to learn good driving skills in order to drive a car or to just get in a car and go for a ride? No. The Government acknowledges that everyone who wants to drive a car must learn a set of complex skills, put those skills into use every time they get behind the wheel of a car and pass a practical driving test. People don't have to become mechanics to drive and driving instructors can't practice and apply the skills ... you have to practice, practice and practice and then perform. Birth is similar. It's an activity that requires a set of complex yet simple, common sense skills and really shouldn't be left to 'choice'. Childbirth leaves too many memories and has a huge impact on families.

There can become a high societal expectation that learning to birth and being pregnant require a level of practice, practice and practice of birth skills coupled with an expectation that the skills be encouraged during the birth process by m/w and specialists.

The PK Package is the driving instructor and the skills are best self learned. Although CKT was set up in 1996 when I immigrated to New Zealand, these skills have been used since 1970s when they developed with the families with whom I worked. They are 100% successful as the quotes below will show. They work in every single birth experience and work well with all birth providers.

These quotes would be typical Pink Kit stories. There are quite a number of PK families in Nelson who would appreciate being heard by you.

There is one dramatic difference between the PK and how you language the maternity services in NZ. The PK is about both women and men ... mothers and fathers-to-be. These skills are equal to both. The Pink Kit is not about 'women' then 'their babies' and then 'the family'.

Fathers do not fall into the last catagory. When women wanted their husbands in birth, they wanted them to do more than stand there, wipe the brow, be hung on, hold hands, rub the back or give a sip of water. Men wanted to know how to help. The PK skills are a shared set of skills that stem from our shared human body and behaviors ... equally learned by women and men.

The maternity services in NZ would do well to increase the Partnership expectation of families. Childbirth will always be an activity to be 'done' by the woman and helped by the family member she wants with her along with the care given by birth providers.

Thank you for letting me clarify our position and our goal. We look forward to working with you and we hope to get a number of Pink Kit families explaining how The PK is vital.

One other thing before the quotes. There is a woman doing her Master's (this year) and eventually her Doctorate Thesis on the PK (later) at Otago University Psychology Dept. She would like to be included somehow.

I've got a first draft of the birth story for our son. This is the quickie report. She did a little bit of
reading, watching and listening (to the CD). I went through almost all of it. With the
skills I had from the PK, we had a wonderful birth. I feel that it could have been
even better, but it went very smoothly, so there really isn't anything to complain
about. Got to the hospital on Jan 5 a bit after 9:30am, her water broke at 10:10
and I was catching my son at 11:23am. We both agree that had you and I
not met (*on a train) and we (mostly me) not had the PK skills the birth would have been
very different and much the same as her first two births. I had to play a bit more
of a director then a coach, but we worked well.

Warmth and love,

Greg
PS: we did not fail. We didn't get all we could have, but what we did was wonderful.


I am really interested in the Pink Kit. When I was pregnant with my first child, my midwife borrowed me a copy to read through. I did a little bit of it, but not enough. However I did use one technique that most definately I think prevented me from having any intervention. I went onto have a beautiful, completely natural birth with no intervention and I would like to know more and do more for subsequent pregnancies. A lot of women would not even know what the pink kit is, and I think it is really important for people to understand it. So that is where I am at in a nutshell.

Kind regards,

Wintergreen, trustee