What are the problems in childbirth?

Forever and around the world, the issues around childbirth have always been two:

• Women suffering in birth. This has nothing to do with a 'problem' or 'risk'. Women just have lacked birth skills to cope, manage, work through, deal with, handle, stay on top of and feel in control when they are experiencing the naturally occurring and often intense pain of labor contractions.
• Issues/risks that can become 'problems'. If you have 'issues/risks' they may not become 'problems'. There have always been many 'issues/risks' in pregnancy and birth ... some known and many not known.

A birth where there is no medical care

Birth is considered to be 'natural' and anything that could happen might happen even if devastating or infrequent is considered to be 'normal'. This includes women 'suffering' and 'issues/risks' that become 'problems'. All traditional cultures have health systems that focus intensely on pregnancy, birth, early childhood. In fact, in all cultures, until anti-biotics and immunizations were recently developed, we expected 20-30% of our children to die before 5.

Pregnancy, birth, and the newborn period were only considered safe until these fragile periods had passed even though everything was considered 'natural' and 'normal'.

Modern maternity care

The Obstetric profession was established in the US in the 1950s. Ultra-sounds, dopplers, Rhogam for RhNegative, epidurals and on and on and on are recent. Some within my life-time.

Modern consumers are risk-averse and the modern maternity system has responded.

• If you can't cope then the medical profession will try to prevent you from suffering.
• Modern maternity care is full of assessments, monitoring, and procedures that try to reduce or prevent 'issues/risks' from becoming problems.

The modern maternity system considers pregnancy, birth, and the newborn period to only be considered safe until these fragile periods have passed. The Natural Birth Movement considers pregnancy, birth, and the newborn period to be safe until proven otherwise.

Birth skills or none

Neither Obstetricians, Midwives, or Doulas focus on you becoming skilled and able to cope and manage well in your birth.

• The medical profession doesn't think it's part of their job to encourage you to become skilled
• Midwives insist that 'cows and cats aren't taught to birth so women don't need to be' or 'birth is instinctive, women know how to birth'.
• Doulas have taken the place of your partner/other in the role of birth-coach and may believe you should self-learn skills or rely on their support.

In fact, all three of these groups give a loud and clear message 'anyway a woman behaves in birth is fine'. Birthing women do not want to feel out of control and having good birth skills and a skilled birth-coaching partner/other means you can remain on top of how you feel inside and what is happening to and around you.

In this lesson there is 2 Mp3 audio:

• Childbirth pain - you will not know until it's happening how much pain you'll experience. With good birth skills, you'll be able to adjust and adapt those skills to meet that pain. YOU CAN HATE EVERY SINGLE SECOND and manage brilliantly!
•  Childbirth pain tips - pain is relative to perception. That doesn't help us handle pain. We need skills. See Progression of Labor lesson about 5 Phases of Contractions.

There are 2 PDFs

• The why's and how's of pain in birth - Rarely is childbirth pain an indication of a problem. This is hard for unskilled fathers to understand. They often become scared and want the birth provider to 'do something'. That is good news to birth-coaches. Your job is to help her cope and manage.
• Working with pain - yes you can work with all the pain and discomfort you feel as you work through the activity of birthing your baby. And, you can do it brilliantly with good birth skills and you can still hate it. Liking something is not an indicator of whether you cope and manage.

How does coping with pain help me?

• You cope better throughout the activity of birthing your baby
• As a birth-coach, you can actually help the birthing woman cope and feel on top of all the discomforts she experiences internally or from what is done to and around the birth.
• Your birth provider will negotiate with you better if you're 'behaving' as though you are coping well. Your skills relax the men and women who work as birth providers.
• Your Birth Story is full of how well you did rather than other stories you could tell.