Pinked out women everywhere

23 March 2008

Just to let everyone know, I'm giving the Pink Kit blog a break for a while. Before I sign off for a while I want to give you a recent email we received from someone about their experience (they're in pre-labour now!) with the Pink Kit.

BTW, I think what you do in the Trust is simply amazing. Thank you, on behalf of Pinked out women everywhere!

That about says it all.

I got sent a lovely pregnancy/birth magazine thing put out by a group who wants birth to be a positive experience.

On P. 3 they have 'hot tips'. One of their hot tips is 'You know your body better than anyone so you want to trust that you'll know what to do during birth. Just get out of your head for a few hours and let your body do what it has to do'.

On P. 4, there is a lovely birth story in which a woman says: 'I took all of my concentration and focus to stay relaxed and breathe well.'

Now I have to tell you a story about a ham.

There was a young woman who cooked Xmas ham. She cut off each end of the ham before she cooked it but didn't really know why so she asked her mum. Her mum said 'I don't know why I cut off the ends of the ham either, my mother taught me. Go ask her'.

So the young woman asked her grandmother 'why do you cut off the ends of the ham?' Her grandmother thought a moment and said, 'I don't know why, my mother always did and she taught me'. Go ask your great grandmother.

So the young woman asked her great grandmother why she cut off the ends of the ham. Her great grandmother said: 'I didn't have a pan big enough.'

There's no doubt we do and think things because we've been taught to. For the past 35 years there has been a message given AND accepted that it's best for women to get out of the head in labour. Yet, the women who have the best birth experiences all say the same thing: 'It was my focus and concentration on my skills that got me through'.

Humans have an amazing Mind and we can use it in birth.

Do we know our bodies? Who knows. But we do know our body reacts to pain by instinctively tensing up so it is our head/brain/mind that disciplines our body to open, relax and soften when we want to tense up.

Go figure, there's a lot of ham stories in childbirth and it doesn't have to be that way any more.

See you sometime.

Signing off for now

Wintergreen