From labor to a vaginal birth

FROM LABOR TO A VAGINAL BIRTH

Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method®www.thepinkkit.com and www.birthingbetter.com

http://www.thepinkkit.com/

http://www.birthingbetter.com/

Road Map • Hard Work = labour

• What kind of birth do women want?

• Is one birth better than another?

• Shouldn’t all births be valued?

• Is birth safe or risky?

• Both

• Two people involved: you and your baby

• Someone can help you and be skilled too

• Skills

• A celebration of your own capability

• Common sense approach to birth




Hard Work • A change from the last few

generations

• Used to only be labour ending with vaginal birth.

Now three types of births:

• Labor leading to vaginal birth.

• Labor with an emergency Caesarean,

• A non-laboring Caesarean, and

• Vaginal birth after a Caesarean will be one of those three.




What Kind of Birth Do Women Want? • First birth

• That your effort (time & energy) will lead to incredible success.

• That you’ll feel relief it’s over with you and baby healthy.

• That you won’t feel angry with things that you didn’t like or want.

• Subsequent birth

• You want to refine how you behave, respond to, react to, cope with and manage the birth.




• Is one birth better than another? At the moment you’d think there is one good birth and lots of bad ones.

a) Insensitivity

b) Superiority

c) Competition

d) Judgment

e) Blaming everyone else

• Society must value ALL births.

• Through our ability and commitment to prepare during pregnancy then birth better in any situation we experience we will stop pitting one birth against another.




Is Birth Safe or Risky?• Consider Scene #1

• There are 400 women sitting in a room. Let’s pretend none of them are pregnant; they’re just gathering to discuss some common interest. They’ve gathered at 10am and will leave in 24 hours. Many will have various medical issues. Is it likely any will have a major ‘problem’ in that 24 hours?

• Actually, the likelihood is in the “rare and infrequent” category, and it is perfectly normal and natural to assume all 400 women (even those with health issues, under medical care, or taking some form of medication) will leave by 24 hours later pretty much the same as they arrived. Nothing dramatic is likely to happen.




• Consider Scene #2• Take the same 400 women and they go into labor around

10am. Well, all sorts of problems can or might happen. That is perfectly normal and natural. Don’t jump to the conclusion that the number of problems is infinite. Problems can range from inability to cope with the natural occurring pain of contractions to health issues before or arising.

• In reality, the likelihood of a number of simple or complex problems occurring in 24 hours is high, common, and to be expected. Not many will be life-threatening, but their mere existence will elicit increased medical assessment, monitoring, and procedures.

• Birth is safe and most of the problems will not lead to death or injury to either mother or baby. On the other hand, there is a high likelihood that a number of the 400 women and babies will bring some issue into the birth or have one or more arise during labor or delivery.




• Pregnant women fall into Scene #2• Skills create multiple opportunities for you to

control how you respond to both the internal sensations of labor and delivery as well as to what is happening to and around you.

• Skills can be used with all ‘problems’.

• You may have no control over anything except how you respond, cope, manage, behave, and handle yourself.

• Skills work with all medical assessments, monitoring and procedures.

• Woman• Prepare your body to let a big object out

• Work with your baby’s effort to come out

• Coach• Help your partner prepare her pregnant body to

let this big object out

• Work together with your partner Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method®www.thepinkkit.com and www.birthingbetter.com



Two People Involved: You and Your Baby• Prepare as if you will do it alone

• Fact is that labor and giving birth are activities ONLY you will do.

• You can trust birth or be afraid – prepare yourself by learning necessary skills that will empower you with confidence and ability to help the process along.

• Best to prepare your body and learn the skills, so that if you do plan to or accidentally have your baby alone, you’ll know how.




• Imagination and Reality Collide• A huge emphasis on imagining and planning your

birth can lead to confusion between what you’d like, what you expect others to provide, and what actually happens to you.

• Having labor & vaginal birth is what;• You plan

• You want

• You hope for

• Others desire for you

• You believe strongly in

• You what you actually have

• No matter what you plan, want, hope for, others desire for you or you strongly believe in birth and birth coaching skills will improve the birth you have.




• If you chose unassisted birth, do two things;

1. Accept that unassisted birth can be complex and not always as you imagine. Take the responsibility for accepting what happens.

2. Try to prevent and reduce any potential risks that are specific to you and your baby.

• If you can’t imagine birthing on your own and want labor and have a vaginal birth within medical system, do two things;

1. Work with and around the care instead of spending your energy fighting.

2. Try to prevent and reduce any potential risks that are specific to you and your baby and that require medical interventions you consider unnecessary.




• The greatest gift you can give your children is to cultivate an ability to rise above what they don’t want, don’t like, and don’t think they deserve.

• Your birth may be nothing like you imagined – just use your skills.

• Without skills you are likely to find your child-self rising and inciting you to feel confused or negative about your birthing experience.

• If you don’t like your birth, all your negative emotions surround your child.

• Change your attitude about giving birth from a making a Plan to having skills to do the Activity.

• Change Birth Plans from wish-list items to what you intend to do to make it happen.




Skills: A Celebration

• You will have the skills to “do” the labor and “do” the birth. • Labor is not something you passively wait to get through in order to arrive at “the birth.” • Your Pink Kit skills are a celebration of birth. Although you are a one-of-a kind person and your Birth Plans and situation are unique to you, focusing on one type of birth only excludes too many women, which is why the Pink Kit was developed by families to accommodate every type of birth.




From labor to a vaginal birth

Health & Medicine

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