Plastic Packaging Petition

28 March 2009

Given the state of the world I'm about to go off task. Just like with the Victory Bonds for Eco-Recovery, I'm about to recommend that we find a way to petition the US Federal government (and your country as well!) that requires one-off or infrequent use plastics to be made of bio-content materials.

Think about it. We could easily replace these things with corn starch, potato starch, cellulose, sugar cane by-product. These could then be composted easily. If you have an interest in this then contact me at wintergreen at birthingbetter.com.

• picnic supplies
• packaging found on purchases in department stores such as Kmart, Wall-mart, Target, Warehouse
• packaging found around fruit, vegetables, meats and packaged foods in supermarkets
• styrofoam and packaging peanuts
• fast food containers
  

There is no doubt that regulation is a requirement when business does not yet take ethical responsibility to the environment.

In childbirth there is a great deal of emphasis placed on a woman's 'choice'. Do you ever wonder what that means?

The implication is that women will naturally choose a natural birth or one with less medical intervention. Yet in New Zealand where Common Knowledge Trust exists and where we produce The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® resources are produced women are choosing elective Caesareans.

Choice is either respected going in any direction or there has to be guidance about the choices being made.

As regards the environment, we must change what we are doing if our children and grandchildren are going to survive on this planet. We don't have a choice any longer to be careless.

We've moved well beyond 'sustainability' and now must respond with ecological recovery. One way to do that is to require all one-off or infrequent use products or packaging to be made of bio-materials that bio-degrade.

Remember 'eco' is in both 'ecology' and 'economics' so those things are compatible. They just need to come together.

Financial Crisis and childbirth

27 March 2009

What is happening world wide is important although not pleasant. People in the modern world have spent the past 150 years trying to make life easier and wanting to own lots and lots of things.

What has this done to all of us? We've become spoiled. I'm presently listening to National Radio in New Zealand about a US father of two who discovered that they were living well beyond their means. He and his family have made lots of necessary changes.

He talks about spending on 'discretionary' things such as eating out, a cup of coffee a day and lots of clothes.

Hopefully many of you are not cutting down on paying for your health insurance! You must keep that up.

But having health insurance also removes a level of responsibility from you. You believe if you have a health need, the cost should be covered. Yes, that's true. But childbirth is a bit different!

Childbirth is not an illness although you might have health issues during pregnancy and even in birth.

The Pink Kit Package is designed for you to:

• Prepare your pregnant body to give birth.
• Learn the skills (both you as a woman and you as a father-to-be) so you can work with your baby's efforts to be born.
• Know how-to use these skills in whatever birth you have on the day.

You have the power when you work through this incredible resource to help reduce the cost of medical maternity care.

Every birth that is straight forward (even when you or your baby has health issues) saves YOU money!

Every birth that leaves you feeling positive because you birthed better saves YOUR emotional wellbeing and limits shame, blame and guilt.

If you buy only one resource for yourself or your loved one as a baby shower gift ... then you need to buy The Pink Kit Package. It's equal to the cost of 2 tanks of gas or one month of lattes.

Going Back To Basics About Childbirth

26 March 2009

There are 4 Types of birth:

One thing is absolutely certain and guaranteed. Once you are pregnant you will give birth within the year. There is no way to avoid that. At the end of your pregnancy you will have one of these three types of birth. There are no other options:

1. Labour and then a vaginal delivery.
2. Labour and then an ‘emergency Caesarean’.
3. A non-labouring planned Caesarean.

If you plan a vaginal delivery after a previous Caesarean then you will end up with one of the above three.

It does not matter whether you are planning a natural birth or a medical one.

What do all of these share in common?

It's quite simple ... every birth is an activity. You have to do it. We offer the skills for you to do this activity very well.

More than that, you get to enjoy learning these skills during pregnancy. On top of that, you get to help your baby be born by preparing your body to let it out. Then the highlight is your ability to always use your skills in any of those three births.

What a great idea?

But there's more .... your partner gets the skill to help you too and enjoy learning them then using them.

Together you can work with your baby's efforts to be born in whatever birth you have.

This is why you need to get The Pink Kit Package or give it as a gift to someone you know who is expecting.

You will birth better.

Are You Really Serious About Changing Childbirth?

24 March 2009

What a bizarre title to this post! You are not responsible for changing 'Childbirth' ... that's a big ask.

You are responsible for your birth. If you are a care provider, you are not responsible for another woman's birth experience ... she is and so is her partner.

The Pink Kit Method For Birthing Better® has grown since the 1970s yet only been a publicly available resource since 2001.

When the concept of growing a skilled birthing and coaching population was put forth, it was ridiculed by childbirth advocates ... both in the natural birth movement and medical model.

Why should a great concept be ridiculed? Well the Natural Birth Movement laughed at the concept because:

• Isn't birth so natural that women don't need to be taught how to give birth?
• Once women have the choice of a continuity of care midwife and home birth and rejects medical care (unless necessary) then birth will be natural.
• Women don't need to be told what to do, they are mothers and intuitively know what's best for her baby.

The medical model laughed because:

• Too many Birth Plans fail.
• There's no way to know what your birth will be like therefore there's no way to prepare for it.
• If a woman (and her partner) wants to do anything that's their choice.

Years down the road, The Pink Kit Method stopped being ridiculed and then was violently opposed.

Why should that happen?

The medical model opposed the concept that women could learn how to give birth because:

• There's no way to know what a birth will be like so there is nothing you can do. It's out of your control.
• If women and men are skilled they will take unreasonable risks.
• There's no sense in getting a woman's hope up that she'll have a 'natural' birth when she already has health issues that require medical care.

The Natural Birth Movement violently opposed the concept that society needs to expect a skilled birthing population because:

• Birth is natural, cats are taught to birth women don't need to be. Women breathe all the time and will breathe in labour ... what's there to learn?
• Birth is an individual experience and one thing does not fit everyone.
• The reason birth is the way it is has to do with the medical profession that puts fear into women when birth is fundamentally a safe part of a healthy woman's life.

So, where are we now?

Close to the third stage where the concept of having expectant parents:

• Prepare their pregnant body to give birth (because 100% of pregnant women will give birth and pregnancy will make a transition to giving birth without exception).
• Learn both birthing and coaching skills so that you can work together through this activity of giving birth ... whether medical or natural and inclusive of having a non-labouring Caesarean.
• Use their birth and coaching skills to work with their baby's efforts to be born because doing so brings you closer together, fills the time-frame of this activity, works in absolutely all births AND essential to your new activity of being a parent.

This process is nothing new.

"All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident." -Schoepenhouer

What is your role in all of this?

If you're pregnant you need the birth and coaching skills for yourself as both a mother and father-to-be just as you need the complex skills you taught yourself to drive. Without them what would happen if you took a journey (another activity) and didn't know how-to drive?

If you're a birth professional then you absolutely must want to see more women cope, manage, deal with and handle labour pains as a skilled woman rather than just get by and get through birth. Because you see lots of births you absolutely know how many women don't know how-to birth. Your attitude makes a difference. You know that women who feel good about their birth are more ready to parent. AND you absolutely must want men to know how to help more than what you are seeing now. You know that couples who work together are more likely to stay together.

Let's all uplift childbirth to an activity that deserves a high level of skills. If we don't intuitively know what foods are safe or poisonous even though hunger is a natural physiological process then let's acknowledge that birth and coaching skills can be self learned and used in every birth situation.

Together let's imagine a world in which every single mother-to-be feels enjoys taking time during her pregnancy to prepare her body, learn skills that will work in every type of birth then use those skills in whatever birth unfolds ... including cesareans ... Why not?

Together let's imagine a world in which every single father-to-be also enjoys helping his partner prepare her pregnant body to let out a big object (his child), learn the skills to help her do this activity (and build her confidence in him) and use those coaching skills in whatever birth unfolds.

Together we can change childbirth.

Something entirely different .... Margaret Atwood

22 March 2009

Sometimes something SO important accidentally comes into your life that you absolutely must pass it on.

Please find and listen to Margaret Atwood's 5 part talk on DEBT ... 2008 Massey University CBC series.

In the last talk, she mentioned an idea that must be passed on .... Victory Bonds that finance Eco-Recovery.

Tell everyone, pass it on. What a wonderful idea. I would definitely invest and I've sent that information on to some of Obama's websites.

Let's invest in Recovery!