28 August 2008
First pregnancy – Help! What’s going to happen?
You’re having your first baby, now you are pregnant and looking toward the future – ‘the birth’ and becoming a parent.
Not many things in Life are so dynamic and full of the unknown and also full of everyone’s opinion.
This article is really about how to prepare for the birth of your first baby. Once you’ve gone past the first 3 months of pregnancy, moved into the 2nd trimester (2nd three months), you begin to not only think about ‘the birth’, you have already begun to research the possibilities.
Preparing for childbirth is not dependent on the choices (or lack of), your health issues, the Doctors or Midwives available, your living or financial situation or even how you feel about becoming a parent.
The reality of pregnancy is the same for all women. Once you are pregnant you will give birth, one way or another. You’ll have to sort out the practical things such as where or with whom you’ll birth. You’ll have to make decisions about what you would like at your birth such as pain relief, the ability to move around or a cesarean delivery.
You’ll also have to fit your whole life’s situation into the plans you make for the birth of your baby. All of this sounds like an awful lot to be doing and it is. Often all the choices, things to think about, the information to gather, the process of birth, what your Doctor or Midwife expects of you, or is offering, take a lot of time and sorting out.
No wonder so many first time mothers either feel they have to have a firm belief about ‘the birth’ or else decide to go along with their birth professionals’ recommendations. This period of pregnancy, usually from about 24 weeks on, is often filled with confusion.
Believe it or not confusion is good. Being in a state of confusion leads us to want to sort things out so we feel more comfortable.
So, let’s look at one door that can open to lead to confidence and a deep sense of being ready to give birth. That one door is your ability to prepare your birthing body and to learn birth skills such as breathing, relaxation, communicating well with your partner and keeping your body open to let your baby out.
Any birth, including a first birth, is actually an exercise in plumbing. Your body is a ‘container’ for your baby and during ‘the birth’ this object has to come out of your ‘container’. You can make that passage much easier, no matter whether you follow all the suggestions of your Doctor or Midwife or make your unique Birth Plans.
By learning birth skills such as Directed Breathing, the Pelvic Clock or Deep Touch Relaxation, you take charge of what you can do for yourself during your first birth. You’ll still have to breathe. Your body will still be in some posture or position.
By learning birth skills, you’ll feel capable, confident and ready to meet the challenge of birth. More importantly, this sense of capability moves you out of confusion into a sense of being in control and being in control is all about having appropriate skills for any specific task.
This is all good because being skilled during ‘the birth’ can work with and around, all the assessments, monitoring and procedures that occur in birth. Not only that, but you will feel more ready to parent when you have worked with your baby’s efforts to come out of your body rather than feel at the mercy of the experience.
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Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Fathers Can Be Traumatized By Childbirth Too
24 August 2008
Fathers who have been traumatized at a birth
Being at a traumatic birth can be devastating to everyone. Sometimes a woman can feel alright about her birth experience, but it may have left the father being so blown out he isn’t sure he wants another baby. Other times the woman is left with the trauma and the father sometimes doesn’t know what she’s upset about.
None of this matters in the long run, if you can do something to heal the experience. There are so many reasons for a traumatic birth and the after affects. No one would have wanted that experience for either you. Being present at a traumatic birth can hinder you from feeling confident as a new parent and that’s not so good.
You might believe that every birth you have from now on will be traumatic. That’s just not true. Every birth is different and there is no way you can predetermine that the next birth will be like. So many personal and political issues surround childbirth that’s really easy to blame yourself or others. Sometimes you just believe whatever Higher Power you turn to has pre-determined this traumatic experience.
The most effective way to produce a positive birth experience is to learn coaching skills during pregnancy. As a man, you may have gone to childbirth classes and learned a lot of information that actually had nothing to do with giving birth. Learning birth skills such as Directed Breathing, The Pelvic Clock and Deep Touch Relaxation are not that common.
People often feel that learning birth skills is about having a ‘natural birth’. Well, that’s true. Everything about birth is natural or normal. But that doesn’t mean that natural means good, easy, with a successful outcome or make people happy.
There are so many factors around childbirth that we cannot control. However, the one thing we can control is our ability to respond to any situation. The more skilled we are the more able we are to respond, rather than react, or to feel swept along by events. Often people feel fine after traumatic experiences if they have been able to use their own set of skills to navigate through the experience. This is the one huge benefit for you as a man, you can learn how to coach at birth and these skills can be used in absolutely any type of birth.
The majority of research done on post traumatic stress has much to do with the ability to respond even if you didn’t see the event coming. Humans like being skilled, men in particular. Men often feel less manly when they move out of their skill range. Childbirth skills have not been part of most men’s upbringing, this can change.
Feeling competent and capable is one of our great desires. We want to be skilled so strongly, that learning new things often affects our self esteem until the skills become second nature.
Helping a woman cope with childbirth is always a challenge. Labour can be very painful and all the medical care in the world can leave a father feeling like a third arm but not if he has good coaching skills.
Coaching skills don’t come naturally. They must be learned and practiced for several weeks before the birth. From 24 weeks of pregnancy onward, a woman’s body is preparing for birth.
Coaching skills come in two forms. The first is learning a set of techniques. The danger of just learning a series of techniques comes when the woman has trouble using them. This leads to her defaulting to stressful behaviours that lead to feeling traumatised.
On the other hand if you learn a set of birth skills that come from our human behaviors then you can both share these skills and use them together. This sharing is so important during birth.
Learning coaching skills based on our human body and behaviours, means you can truly understand how we breathe, what causes our breathing to change and how to use breath to produce the greatest relaxation. Understanding how and why means that you can use the skills when they are necessary they will never fail when they are used.
Childbirth may be full of potentially traumatic experiences but if you have, and use your coaching skills by choice, will power and through determination then you are less likely to feel traumatised.
Often the difference between having a traumatic experience and being traumatised has much more to do with what skills you use than what happens.
Feeling powerless is a statement of lack of skills. This feeling of powerlessness affects both women and men. We must remember that there are many things that happen in our lives that we have absolutely no control over. When we have skills then we can manage the experience even if we don’t like it. Thankfully there are many families who have wonderful birth experiences even though they were difficult or with less preferred outcomes. They achieved this by working together and whether they knew it or not, having skills to do so.
If you have been traumatised by a previous birth, now is the time to learn birth skills, even if your partner is not pregnant. Heal the past so you can meet the future with better skills then you’ll use those skills as birth unfolds.
Never expect anyone to give you or do something for you as your bottom line. No one can make us be happy or sad or angry or calm. These are things we have to do for ourselves in whatever situation. It’s the same with birth coaching skills. Once learned, birth coaching skills are yours forever and are applicable for many other situations in life, believe it or not. Knowing how to use relaxed breathing comes in handy many times in life.
As a Dad who has experienced a previous traumatic birth please know that there is much you can do to heal your partner and yourself. You are not alone.
Fathers who have been traumatized at a birth
Being at a traumatic birth can be devastating to everyone. Sometimes a woman can feel alright about her birth experience, but it may have left the father being so blown out he isn’t sure he wants another baby. Other times the woman is left with the trauma and the father sometimes doesn’t know what she’s upset about.
None of this matters in the long run, if you can do something to heal the experience. There are so many reasons for a traumatic birth and the after affects. No one would have wanted that experience for either you. Being present at a traumatic birth can hinder you from feeling confident as a new parent and that’s not so good.
You might believe that every birth you have from now on will be traumatic. That’s just not true. Every birth is different and there is no way you can predetermine that the next birth will be like. So many personal and political issues surround childbirth that’s really easy to blame yourself or others. Sometimes you just believe whatever Higher Power you turn to has pre-determined this traumatic experience.
The most effective way to produce a positive birth experience is to learn coaching skills during pregnancy. As a man, you may have gone to childbirth classes and learned a lot of information that actually had nothing to do with giving birth. Learning birth skills such as Directed Breathing, The Pelvic Clock and Deep Touch Relaxation are not that common.
People often feel that learning birth skills is about having a ‘natural birth’. Well, that’s true. Everything about birth is natural or normal. But that doesn’t mean that natural means good, easy, with a successful outcome or make people happy.
There are so many factors around childbirth that we cannot control. However, the one thing we can control is our ability to respond to any situation. The more skilled we are the more able we are to respond, rather than react, or to feel swept along by events. Often people feel fine after traumatic experiences if they have been able to use their own set of skills to navigate through the experience. This is the one huge benefit for you as a man, you can learn how to coach at birth and these skills can be used in absolutely any type of birth.
The majority of research done on post traumatic stress has much to do with the ability to respond even if you didn’t see the event coming. Humans like being skilled, men in particular. Men often feel less manly when they move out of their skill range. Childbirth skills have not been part of most men’s upbringing, this can change.
Feeling competent and capable is one of our great desires. We want to be skilled so strongly, that learning new things often affects our self esteem until the skills become second nature.
Helping a woman cope with childbirth is always a challenge. Labour can be very painful and all the medical care in the world can leave a father feeling like a third arm but not if he has good coaching skills.
Coaching skills don’t come naturally. They must be learned and practiced for several weeks before the birth. From 24 weeks of pregnancy onward, a woman’s body is preparing for birth.
Coaching skills come in two forms. The first is learning a set of techniques. The danger of just learning a series of techniques comes when the woman has trouble using them. This leads to her defaulting to stressful behaviours that lead to feeling traumatised.
On the other hand if you learn a set of birth skills that come from our human behaviors then you can both share these skills and use them together. This sharing is so important during birth.
Learning coaching skills based on our human body and behaviours, means you can truly understand how we breathe, what causes our breathing to change and how to use breath to produce the greatest relaxation. Understanding how and why means that you can use the skills when they are necessary they will never fail when they are used.
Childbirth may be full of potentially traumatic experiences but if you have, and use your coaching skills by choice, will power and through determination then you are less likely to feel traumatised.
Often the difference between having a traumatic experience and being traumatised has much more to do with what skills you use than what happens.
Feeling powerless is a statement of lack of skills. This feeling of powerlessness affects both women and men. We must remember that there are many things that happen in our lives that we have absolutely no control over. When we have skills then we can manage the experience even if we don’t like it. Thankfully there are many families who have wonderful birth experiences even though they were difficult or with less preferred outcomes. They achieved this by working together and whether they knew it or not, having skills to do so.
If you have been traumatised by a previous birth, now is the time to learn birth skills, even if your partner is not pregnant. Heal the past so you can meet the future with better skills then you’ll use those skills as birth unfolds.
Never expect anyone to give you or do something for you as your bottom line. No one can make us be happy or sad or angry or calm. These are things we have to do for ourselves in whatever situation. It’s the same with birth coaching skills. Once learned, birth coaching skills are yours forever and are applicable for many other situations in life, believe it or not. Knowing how to use relaxed breathing comes in handy many times in life.
As a Dad who has experienced a previous traumatic birth please know that there is much you can do to heal your partner and yourself. You are not alone.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
A VBAC and Fathers
Fathers Supporting A VBAC
The reason for a previous cesarean delivery unfortunately does not fall into the ‘one only reason’ category. There are so many reasons why a birth ends with a cesarean delivery. Now you are faced with your partner’s decision (which may or may not have been equally or decision) to attempt a vaginal birth after a cesarean or VBAC.
Now you are faced with having to take a role you probably feel totally unprepared for. That’s a natural feeling for fathers to feel. A vaginal birth after a cesarean delivery (vbac) is still a topic of political debate between the medical community and the consumer … or pregnant woman. Often fathers feel excluded fully from the discussion. Your partner has very emotional reasons why she wants to have a vaginal birth.
Often her feelings and emotions seem in conflict with the medical community’s opinion that birth is risky enough much less adding the risk of attempting a vaginal birth after major abdominal surgery. Your partner might find support from other women who have successfully had a vaginal birth, but rarely will you hear from a father who has had to support this experience.
Well things can change. You can’t go back and re-do the previous birth but you can do a great deal to have either a successful vbac or a successful repeat cesarean. Oh goodness, why should this article even include a successful repeat cesarean if the goal is to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean birth?
But it’s important to go down this path as well. There aren’t really any women who will insist on a vaginal birth when they really know their baby is at risk. Parents will lay their life down for their child and that includes women who desperately want a vaginal birth experience.
With the right birth skills, any birth can be a positive experience. Preparing for birth is something that should happen during pregnancy. In fact, pregnancy and giving birth need to be tied together through learning both birth and coaching skills. Your job is to learn coaching skills.
Certainly you’ll be faced with so many things to think about. And many fathers do not feel particularly consulted. Preparing for childbirth is about: the choices/or lack of choice your partner has, the health issues of both your baby and your partner and your doctors or midwives’ opinions about a vaginal birth after a cesarean.
Wrapped around all of these complex issues is your relationship to the mother of your child. Having a vbac is an emotional decision for most women. They feel they have missed out on a primal female experience. There’s not much logic often in the decision. This isn’t right or wrong. And you have the right to ask your partner if she wants a vbac no matter what the outcome.
You’ll learn that women will say ‘I’ll have a cesarean if I think it’s necessary’. What she wants from you is support to try to have a vaginal birth as long as she and your baby are fine. And this is reasonable.
If you want to help make this happen, you must get your head turned in the right direction. It’s important for you as a man to realize that all pregnant women (100%) will give birth one way or another. This is essential to really know. Once you totally ‘get this’, you can take the next step and realize that during pregnancy is the time to learn birth skills (for your partner) and coaching skills for you.
Enjoying preparing for the birth of your baby can take place whether the birth is vaginal or by surgery. Birth is birth. This means as a father, you absolutely must learn a good set of coaching skills. Coaching moves beyond ‘support’. To support a woman in labour is basically a rather passive role. Coaching is not telling women what to do. It means working with the woman at every moment of this dynamic process whether this is one contraction following another or whether it’s during the surgery.
As long as the woman is awake and not unconscious, she still will breathe and her body will be in some position. This means she can always use breathing and internal relaxation skills at every moment of the birth process. You can help her do that and be an equal participant to that process.
Birth is actually a verb rather than a noun. Birth is also a process rather than an outcome. That’s why taking time during the last 16 weeks in pregnancy to learn birth and coaching skills adds a wonderful component to your partnership and your closeness to your child.
Another thing about birth that men have to understand is that it’s a very physical experience to our body. This body is something that both women and men share in common. We all have the same bones, muscles, can blink, cough and relax when we pay attention to doing that.
This means there are a set of coaching skills that fathers can learn and practice during pregnancy that increase confidence, brings you closer to your partner and baby. This is all good.
Then you can take a natural leap into ‘The Birth’. There are women who labour and then have a cesarean delivery. There are women who labour and have a vaginal delivery. There are women who have a cesarean delivery without having contractions. But keep in mind, birth is birth and all pregnant women will give birth one way or another.
This means as a man, you can see birth as an equal opportunity experience. You can bring your coaching skills to whatever birth your partner has. By working together with a shared set of birth skills based on our human body means that both of you can have a positive and fulfilling birth experience.
Just remember to bring your coaching skills into whatever birth is happening. Bring breathing, relaxation and great communication skills to your birth. Your doctor or midwife will love to see you, as a man, really helping your partner give birth. Birth is an action and coaching is the action that helps the woman accomplish her task.
Is a vaginal birth after a cesarean possible? Of course it is. This is much easier to accomplish when you have great coaching skills such as Directed Breathing, The Pelvic Clock and Deep Touch Relaxation and have taken the time during pregnancy to learn them. However, your goal must be deeper. Your goal must be to learn coaching skills during pregnancy and use those coaching skills in whatever birth you have.
Birth is birth and every birth can be the most enjoyable experience as well as an experience that grows your closeness as a couple and family. No family should be left with shame, blame and guilt around the birth of their children.
When pregnancy becomes connected to learning how to birth for the woman and how to coach for the father, then birth will become something we do no matter what by working together. When a vbac has been achieved because of the childbirth preparation you have done during pregnancy, then you realize that there are very specific skills you do need to accomplish the task.
So, as a father supporting a vbac, get stuck into learning coaching skills from 24 weeks of pregnancy. Every day that you practice together breathing and relaxation, you both feel more confident.
The reason for a previous cesarean delivery unfortunately does not fall into the ‘one only reason’ category. There are so many reasons why a birth ends with a cesarean delivery. Now you are faced with your partner’s decision (which may or may not have been equally or decision) to attempt a vaginal birth after a cesarean or VBAC.
Now you are faced with having to take a role you probably feel totally unprepared for. That’s a natural feeling for fathers to feel. A vaginal birth after a cesarean delivery (vbac) is still a topic of political debate between the medical community and the consumer … or pregnant woman. Often fathers feel excluded fully from the discussion. Your partner has very emotional reasons why she wants to have a vaginal birth.
Often her feelings and emotions seem in conflict with the medical community’s opinion that birth is risky enough much less adding the risk of attempting a vaginal birth after major abdominal surgery. Your partner might find support from other women who have successfully had a vaginal birth, but rarely will you hear from a father who has had to support this experience.
Well things can change. You can’t go back and re-do the previous birth but you can do a great deal to have either a successful vbac or a successful repeat cesarean. Oh goodness, why should this article even include a successful repeat cesarean if the goal is to have a vaginal birth after a cesarean birth?
But it’s important to go down this path as well. There aren’t really any women who will insist on a vaginal birth when they really know their baby is at risk. Parents will lay their life down for their child and that includes women who desperately want a vaginal birth experience.
With the right birth skills, any birth can be a positive experience. Preparing for birth is something that should happen during pregnancy. In fact, pregnancy and giving birth need to be tied together through learning both birth and coaching skills. Your job is to learn coaching skills.
Certainly you’ll be faced with so many things to think about. And many fathers do not feel particularly consulted. Preparing for childbirth is about: the choices/or lack of choice your partner has, the health issues of both your baby and your partner and your doctors or midwives’ opinions about a vaginal birth after a cesarean.
Wrapped around all of these complex issues is your relationship to the mother of your child. Having a vbac is an emotional decision for most women. They feel they have missed out on a primal female experience. There’s not much logic often in the decision. This isn’t right or wrong. And you have the right to ask your partner if she wants a vbac no matter what the outcome.
You’ll learn that women will say ‘I’ll have a cesarean if I think it’s necessary’. What she wants from you is support to try to have a vaginal birth as long as she and your baby are fine. And this is reasonable.
If you want to help make this happen, you must get your head turned in the right direction. It’s important for you as a man to realize that all pregnant women (100%) will give birth one way or another. This is essential to really know. Once you totally ‘get this’, you can take the next step and realize that during pregnancy is the time to learn birth skills (for your partner) and coaching skills for you.
Enjoying preparing for the birth of your baby can take place whether the birth is vaginal or by surgery. Birth is birth. This means as a father, you absolutely must learn a good set of coaching skills. Coaching moves beyond ‘support’. To support a woman in labour is basically a rather passive role. Coaching is not telling women what to do. It means working with the woman at every moment of this dynamic process whether this is one contraction following another or whether it’s during the surgery.
As long as the woman is awake and not unconscious, she still will breathe and her body will be in some position. This means she can always use breathing and internal relaxation skills at every moment of the birth process. You can help her do that and be an equal participant to that process.
Birth is actually a verb rather than a noun. Birth is also a process rather than an outcome. That’s why taking time during the last 16 weeks in pregnancy to learn birth and coaching skills adds a wonderful component to your partnership and your closeness to your child.
Another thing about birth that men have to understand is that it’s a very physical experience to our body. This body is something that both women and men share in common. We all have the same bones, muscles, can blink, cough and relax when we pay attention to doing that.
This means there are a set of coaching skills that fathers can learn and practice during pregnancy that increase confidence, brings you closer to your partner and baby. This is all good.
Then you can take a natural leap into ‘The Birth’. There are women who labour and then have a cesarean delivery. There are women who labour and have a vaginal delivery. There are women who have a cesarean delivery without having contractions. But keep in mind, birth is birth and all pregnant women will give birth one way or another.
This means as a man, you can see birth as an equal opportunity experience. You can bring your coaching skills to whatever birth your partner has. By working together with a shared set of birth skills based on our human body means that both of you can have a positive and fulfilling birth experience.
Just remember to bring your coaching skills into whatever birth is happening. Bring breathing, relaxation and great communication skills to your birth. Your doctor or midwife will love to see you, as a man, really helping your partner give birth. Birth is an action and coaching is the action that helps the woman accomplish her task.
Is a vaginal birth after a cesarean possible? Of course it is. This is much easier to accomplish when you have great coaching skills such as Directed Breathing, The Pelvic Clock and Deep Touch Relaxation and have taken the time during pregnancy to learn them. However, your goal must be deeper. Your goal must be to learn coaching skills during pregnancy and use those coaching skills in whatever birth you have.
Birth is birth and every birth can be the most enjoyable experience as well as an experience that grows your closeness as a couple and family. No family should be left with shame, blame and guilt around the birth of their children.
When pregnancy becomes connected to learning how to birth for the woman and how to coach for the father, then birth will become something we do no matter what by working together. When a vbac has been achieved because of the childbirth preparation you have done during pregnancy, then you realize that there are very specific skills you do need to accomplish the task.
So, as a father supporting a vbac, get stuck into learning coaching skills from 24 weeks of pregnancy. Every day that you practice together breathing and relaxation, you both feel more confident.
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