Birthing From Within
Newsletter
January 2008
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Now, read on for Pam's article about what is missing in modern childbirth education...
By Pam England
According to the Listening to Mothers Study II (2005), only 11% of women polled
viewed
childbirth classes as an important part of prenatal care. This statistic surprised many of us.
Perhaps, on second thought, it really shouldn't be all that surprising. In the past
decade, how many parents have we heard say that their childbirth classes were boring, that the "breathing" didn't really help, or that nothing on
their birth plan was realized? Countless mothers and fathers shrug their shoulders in resignation and disappointment and say, "Nothing we learned in
those classes made a difference."
It is too simple to attribute parents' dissatisfaction with childbirth classes to the
childbirth teacher or "method," or to blame the medical model. To find out what was missing, I often ask parents, "If the classes you took
made the
difference you were hoping for, what would have been different?" To this, mothers often answer, "I would have birthed
normally." One bitterly
disappointed mother said, "I would have been a goddess in birth, and not have been exhausted and out of control. I would not have had a
cesarean."
Many fathers have told me, "I would have helped my wife relax more so she wouldn't have needed the drugs."
These
parents' candid answers all point to the standard they used to evaluate
the value
of their classes: their birth outcome. Of course! They used the same
standard that childbirth methods use to market their childbirth
classes!
Marketing and promotion of classes tend to highlight and promise what
outcome parents will get or what they will
avoid. Parents (and teachers)
unwittingly associate achieving particular outcome as proof that they
are a real or natural woman, that they are whole, lovable, or "right."
"Being a
birth goddess" can be translated into: "If do I birth [this way], then I am powerful, I am strong, I am worthy or I am a good
mother." This means they
may also hold the inverse belief: "If I don't birth [this way], then I am weak, I failed, I am not good enough, I am a victim of the
system."
We must not lose sight of the irony here. While birth activists and childbirth teachers
condemn patriarchy's influence over birth management, most childbirth classes are a paragon of patriarchal education. For decades, in order to be
accepted by the dominant forces of our time, childbirth classes modeled themselves after evidence-based patriarchy. Like science and medicine, which
are outcome-focused in their relentless search for rational correlations between cause and effect, many childbirth classes taught parents a method to
reach a desired outcome.
Listening to Mothers informs us that 89% of polled mothers
feel that something
is
missing from childbirth classes. New mothers often can't articulate
what is missing or what they need, especially not before they are
initiated by
birth itself. But they still know something is missing. In no other
society would an uninitiated Maiden* prepare herself
for
her initiation
into mothering through birth. Wise, experienced, initiated women who
already "knew" would initiate her. In no other time would the
uninitiated woman
be expected to "know" what she needed, or find answers to soulful
questions in the right book, or to create her own ritual of preparation.
Can a
child teach herself how to walk and talk without support or modeling?
How can a Child-Mother deeply prepare for and lead herself through
birth?
A certain
kind of factual knowledge can (and still should) be passed on in
classes,
books and videos. But this kind of information alone does not satisfy
expectant parents' gnawing emotional or spiritual hunger. Historically,
"grandmothers" and "grandfathers," for whom life's experiences have
taught the unique tasks of preparation for the transition into
mothering and into
fathering, would invite novice-parents to "come to the table" set for
her or him (not to a classroom). Young people pregnant for the first
time
were not expected to know how to prepare this meal, in other words, how
to initiate themselves. The novice would be nourished through stories,
images,
validation, and given personal tasks of preparation.
Being mentored fills a new parent in a way that being taught
information and
goals do
not.
BIRTHING
FROM WITHIN is immersed in an exciting examination of what childbirth
"preparation" means. We invite all dreamers, Artists of the Spirit, and
fearless visionaries to join us in creating the irresistible, delicious
ritual of preparation new parents are hungry for.
In-Love,
Pam England
* "Maiden" here refers to a
woman who has not yet given birth. She is in the
"not-knowing" place; she has not yet experienced birth from a personal place, from within her own body.
Copyright 2008: Pam England and Birthing From Within.
May not be reproduced in any form without written permission.
