NOW!
Especially for Dads!
MIDWIVES'
POINTS OF VIEW
Valerie Julia Taylor ... is an independent midwife with a thriving practice in Southern England.
Val began working with birth in England in1976 during her studies in nursing. After qualifying as a Registered Nurse, Val received a post-graduate certificate in Intensive Care Nursing, became a Registered Midwife and earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Health Studies. Val has also pursued independent study of personal and professional self-development in birth, pre and perinatal psychology and related fields. During 15 years of working with birth in hospitals she became aware, " there has got to be a better way to care for our mothers and support the birth of our children." In 1990 Val co-created an independent midwifery practice in London. Currently, her Wise Woman Midwifery practice offers home birth support as an alternative to parents who want something more from the birth experience.
Therefore,
one thing you can do is try to find information however you can. It is
especially good to speak to people who have had an ecstatic
birth
or see images of women who have had an ecstatic birth. You may have a little
germ of an idea in your mind that this is how you want it to be, but then doubts
creep in, and you hear other people and your commitment is eroded.
So it is very important to do things to support your commitment.
It is very helpful if you hear from other women, who have had this
experience, you think Yes, I can do that!
So
your lifestyle bears consideration. You
need to have enough sleep and rest and spend time with yourself and with the
baby, connecting with the baby with the awareness that the baby is consciously
aware of what's happening. That's
the physical.
Emotionally
and psychologically you can prepare by having support.
Speak to people; surround yourself with people like birth preparation
teachers, breathwork practitioners, and friends. If you have doubts or your
energy is low you can call upon them and feel positive again.
So, whilst it is important to look after your physical body, eat a good
diet, rest, take long walks in the country, and do things that you like to do,
the real task of pregnancy and preparing for an ecstatic
birth
is the inner work. It's part of the
transformation. Being a woman who is not pregnant, then becoming pregnant and
moving toward giving birth is an inner transformation.
Along the way you will undoubtedly find a lot of fear come up, and it is
very important to be able to talk to other women and to people who have had an ecstatic
birth
and just share your feelings. Most
pregnant women are frightened about the same sorts of things.
A
really crucial part of having an
ecstatic
birth
is the choice of where to give birth. That
is very individual. It can be home
or it can be hospital. That is not
the crucial factor. The crucial
factor is a place where the woman is going to feel safe.
If at all possible, the woman needs to arrange a system of care whereby
she can get to know her midwife and know that that midwife will be with her at
the birth. That is possible to do.
One of the key factors in being able to just let go and let the
physiology and the process of birth just flow is that the woman feels safe,
trusts the people around her and is totally comfortable in the environment she's
in. For some women that's a
hospital room. You can do things to
personalize the room. Bring your
own belongings in, your favorite pillow or throws or tapes.
So long as that's your choice, and you have worked with the midwives that
will be with you to get clear on how you want the birth to be, then you are
really setting it up to work for you. Obviously,
it is a little more difficult in some health authorities because you don't know
the midwife that you are going to meet. In
that case, it is that much more important for you and your partner to have
clarified a plan of birth, so that when you first go in you can introduce
yourself, and you can get clear with the midwife, "This is how I want it to
be. This is what my priorities
are." In an ideal world if you
already know that midwife, it already makes that process a lot easier. So, I do think that setting up your organization of care is a
crucial component of an ecstatic
birth.
Another
useful tool is to visualize how you want your birth to be.
You may say, "Oh, you're creating an ideal fantasy.
It might not work out, so there's no point in doing it.”
It is true that you are not sure how the birth will turn out, and it's
equally useful, however the birth works out to have had a picture of how you
wanted it to work out. That doesn't
mean that you are going to become disappointed if you don't get this particular
birth. The truth is, if you put the energy and the thought into visualizing and
seeing how the birth will be, really creating it like a video, then you have a
very high likelihood of creating that event.
You must really get into it and see it, feel it and smell it. Imagine how
the room looks and what is there, what the sounds are.
Visualize every element. Nothing
is achieved if you don't know where you are going. Obviously, you need to have the thought, AND, I'll change;
however the circumstances develop. It
may be that you are planning a home birth and you have to be transferred to
hospital, but you can also include in your conscious awareness that, however the
birth turns out is exactly how it should be, a success!
You don't need to get into being disappointed because it didn't look this
way. So if you create a visual
picture of how you want it, it doesn't mean that it is the only way that equals
success. It means that's how you
would like it to be, and you have the awareness that there are two of you
co-creating this experience and maybe the baby needs for it to be another way.
That is absolutely OK. You
can also transfer as many elements of exactly how you wanted it to be to the
changed situation. And again, you
can communicate to the people who are around you.
Say, "This is still important to me . . ." You may, for
instance, want to hold the baby first, or prefer that they don't dry the baby
with a towel. Things that were in
your visualization can also be included in the sequence of events that, perhaps,
happen in hospital. A Caesarean or
forceps birth can be equally ecstatic as a normal birth at home. This is not about saying that there is any one way for it to
look and for creating this rather mystical view of this spiritual event at home.
Every birth can be ecstatic, is ecstatic, if the people have the
conscious awareness of that, and accept the perfection of how the birth is
working out. That baby can be born
into an ecstatic world, can be an ecstatic being, if everyone in the room
understands, "This is absolutely perfect".
So, actually preparing for an ecstatic birth, you are guaranteed success
if you hold that viewpoint. However
it looks is an ecstatic
birth.
And, it is very supportive when you are in the process of labor and birth
to have people around you who know what work you've done, know perhaps some of
your doubts and fears, and when your commitment is wavering a little, can remind
you that you can do it. They can
reflect back to you positive statements, or affirmations, and really hold the
vision, "You can do this! This
birth is going to be ecstatic." Because
no woman on the planet is going to go through a birth without some doubt or
concern that she can't do it. So,
having supportive people around is actually part of the process of achieving an ecstatic
birth.
I
think one of the most important aspects of having an
ecstatic
birth
is finding the right people to care for you and support you during the pregnancy
and during the labor. One of the
key supports for a woman who is going to have a baby is the midwife or doctor.
World Health Organization statistics show that 85 to 90 % of women will
have a problem free labor, and midwives are the expert practitioners in normal
birth. So, if there are no problems
then the midwife is fully qualified to look after the pregnant and the laboring
woman. It's such a support for a
woman preparing for an ecstatic birth to know the midwife who is looking after her, and to have worked
with her antenatally. This might be
an appropriate person that she's been discussing her hopes, her fears with.
It is important to then have that midwife that you know when you ring up
and you're in labor; this is the woman who is going to be looking after you.
It already creates such a ground of safety and support that is the first
foundation of then proceeding into the labor, and so that the woman can just let
go and allow her body to work, to maximize all the hormones and optimize, really
the ecstasy of the process.
Val Taylor can be reached in the UK by phone on 44 (0) 1 273 308 885