| By Kathy Welter-Nichols.The USA is in the midst of perhaps the greatest choice point of it's evolution and the world waits and watches!
Choice, makes for Change.
Over the past 100 years, slowly the whole of the birthing model has relocated to within the hospitals with very few births occurring outside a hospital, and generally only by accident! A taxi cab driver - with amazing skills as an OB,
a birth that happens quickly and at home...however, quickly relocated to a hospital because --it's just dangerous at home!
However, consider the birthing world of the future...in places like Holland, 87% of births today happen at home with midwives. In the UK it's been legislated that births without complications will happen at home, with attending MW's or MD's.
It's taking a lot of financial pressure off of hospitals and off of facilities that have to provide for Nursery Care, L&D etc.
Currently in BC., our model includes MW's and they support home and Water Birth. We have about 200 +/- attending now, and their practices are all very busy.
When I birthed in one of our hospitals earlier this year with an MD., I asked her...so how many are in your practice?
How many births this year? She answered, there are 5 of us, and we've done 9 births this year.
I've attended 29 myself? This was the first one with an MD...
As birth moves back into the home, what will be the result in medical facilities?
L&D less needed, only specialized attendees covering because these will be the high risk cases.
Birth attending will reduce and the more home birth and waterbirth are considered as not only safe but exceptional by the purchasing public, more and more women will want to try it out.The more success, the more the families get buy in, and the more the families consider it, the more the rising tide.
What could make this swing different?
Knowing what goes on in a home birth, a water birth, and knowing how to speak with your clients so they have exceptional hospital births as well.
In addition to this, the MW attends the new mother and family at her residence every day for the first three weeks.
She's with her for about an hour. She records baby's statistics, but also now has one on one time, establishing bonding and breastfeeding and ensuring mother is confident and has taken control of her infant.
In the other model, I have to bundle my baby, into the car, then over to the doctor, wait in a room filled with ill people, see him/her for about 5-10 minutes, and then I'm out the door.
In a home setting you have that MW focused only on you, your home, your space, what your baby is doing for at least an hour, EVERY DAY for 3 weeks!
Then she sees you in her office once a week. Then you can either return to a family MD or to an ND which also offers infant care.
The Mother/Infant book of business is truly up for grabs...the care is different the recommendations are different the assistance is different...
This needs consideration in the historical model of medicine if they want to be considered a standard of care that is conducive and comparable with home/water birth & midwifery care.
Do you see the shift in inner consciousness that is happening that people could believe that home and MW care is superior to what is available through the Medical Model today?
How do you change this perspective without using negative priming?
Especially when you know that kind of negative priming is working in reverse on her ability to have a natural unmedicated birth?
What could you do to help your facility gain a greater understanding of what is needed to create rapport and positive priming for parents?
These are times of awareness. If we view change as an attack on us personally, we've associated into the problem. If we can view all of the issues from a dissociated place, can we see this as a great opportunity to create the changes that are needed now? A Door Number One ExperienceSharing this wonderful birth experience with you all and while I know not every birth works out as this one, it seems sad if we can’t share the joyous ones for fear of offending, because another’s birth went in a different direction. In this case, these parents had one of the “other birth” experiences previously with their little five year old, so were ready for something different. Mom wasn’t too sure about waterbirth, or home births and how do you find a midwife?
This couple were having their second child and while the first birth was “ok” in hospital, with epidurals, interventions, slowed labour and eventually birthed after 2 days, mom exhausted, stressed and baby removed from mother for it’s first hours….so the second birth approached and they found me. I was training with Gloria Lemay, and referred them to her as their midwife as I felt they would appreciate her approach to birth, gentle, calm and little interference
Gloria held a “Birthing Way” for a second child at their place with 4 grandmothers attending and the small family! It was a lovely celebration attended by the local ravens! That was ten days ago and then this morning the call at 5:38 am from dad, baby was on her way!
I traveled the short distance in the early August morning, arriving at 6:45 am. Midwives were there, the tub was filling and everything was ready. Mom was in her bath tub working through each of the surges just as she had practiced for months! She looked at me and said, “Kathy I’d have had an epidural 2 hours ago if I was in hospital”….another surge was moving through her, and it was now time to really focus! Her tummy was becoming the flat “messa” I had seen so many times, which meant baby was on her way down, and her back and bum were tightening across her tummy.
Mom was in great spirits and ready to do it. I suggested to her it was ok to just go within, and stay there, she didn’t have to keep coming out anymore and she could connect to baby.
Gloria was delighted with mom’s presence and her ability to manage her body, breath, and her emotions. The surges were starting to string out together with little space between them. She was doing great remaining calm, relaxed and using her deep breathing to remain in touch with baby and her body. Her wonderful rolling whale songs reminded me of a few of the other births I’ve attended…a gentle calm sound that went through the water and I’m sure called and comforted baby too!
…candles glowed in the early morning light, dad took up his position beside her and they were in union the rest of the journey!
At 8:30am mom came out of the tub and felt the need to get back into the tub again..so we relocated her to the big tub in the dinning room. She had another surge and her loving husband lifted her like a feather, baby, mother and all into the warmth of the tub. It was very heart felt as we all witnessed the great love between them. Dad remained close to her, and shortly two strong surges as baby moved down and began to crown.
I suggested to both mom and dad to “see” baby leaving her body now, and making her way out into the world…Gloria announced shortly the baby’s head was there
Another surge and baby was emerging and dad moved to catch the little being in the water. Baby was born fully enclosed in her “sack” a beautiful Lotus Birth, as these are referred to. Another surge and baby emerged completely, mom relaxed in the water, and we moved her around and baby up onto her chest.
It was complete! Mom was grinning ear to ear! She’d done it, her feminine power, her faith in herself, in her body in her ability as a woman, to birth her child! She was delighted and we could see the grinning pleasure on her face as she looked up at us! Just delighted! Baby was in her arms, it was completed!
Her husband suggested that was “easy” and she said “no, not easy, and not orgasmic either…however, better”. Different, strengthening, no fear, lack of panic, feeling in charge of her body and her adventure into birth, knowing what to do, allowing her body, allowing her baby…
In what seemed a few minutes the placenta easily slipped into the water, and there was no bleeding from mom at all. Gloria placed the placenta into a bowl and floated it in the water, allowing all the baby’s blood to transfer into the little one. Mom and dad were bright, alert and delighted with their little daughter.
Baby was bright pink in seconds, and later we helped mom up and out of the tub, and into her bedroom, where Gloria had her resting quietly for about 2 hours.
This allows the uterus in the mom to slowly contract as baby nursed and we left mom, dad and baby to bond and connect with little quiet sounds in the early morning. It was so lovely while the midwives and myself did some laundry, made tea for mom, and cut fruit for parents, leaving them both to be with each other and the early intimacy between parents and their new born.
Gloria explained to us all how these first hours for the little one, allows her to gently unfold in the world, “baby would be aware, awake, nursing and getting to know her parents….finding them and being in their warmth and love” She encouraged both mom and dad to smell their infant, touch her, and let her get used to them both. She said in about two hours baby would go into a deep sleep for about 6 hours restoring herself next to her mother and father, then begin the ritual of feeding every two hours. Baby weighted 7.2oz and was just beautiful.
Dad cut the cord about three hours later, and baby released the organ that truly belongs to her, the placenta. As one midwife told me once, “it’s considered baby’s tree of life”, and Barbara Harper refers to it as baby's connection to it's Consciousness.
Now the placenta was relocated for examining by the midwives, and finally a little while later the midwives did the quick review of the mom and found the perineum intact as they knew it would be. Not a suture needed and swelling was going down already, just a few hours after the birth!
Not an aspirin passed through mom or baby, a Tylenol either! In a few short hours, the birth complete, baby receiving perhaps the very special gift of being born at home, in water, to the exclusion of the world, just her loving parents, welcoming her, allowing her, falling in love with her and she…unfolding into the world where she had created herself. After a time, it seemed her father could not resist kissing her little cheeks, mom laughing said “you’d better get used to that”
Another beautiful birth experience in under a few hours of gentle focused breathing.
DOOR NUMBER TWO: In Hospital, with little intervention
“In hospital, with attending MD, however, unassisted and little to no interventions, a solid birth plan and not arriving at the hospital too early.”
This mom had an early pregnancy several years ago, and there was still some emotions around that birth. She had her daughter with her mother attending her in hospital, and realized during our HB sessions, that she just wasn’t ready to have a baby then. She was single then and very young. Part way through the labour she had said to her mom “I want to go home, I don’t want to do this”. The labour was long, and the placenta did not detach. She lost a lot of blood and needed surgery to detach the placenta afterwards.
As we cleared this in the sessions we did together, she realized she'd been holding back, not ready to become a mother, fearful of what that might ask of her. It played out in her birth experience with an extracted period of labour and the placenta not letting go either. A lot of fear, tension & pain.
This time, her current birth, it was a very different story. Her husband her daughter were so supportive and would be with her. Her mother would attend soon after.
Everyone was ready, mom still had some fear issues around her uterus and placenta and her doctor advised her not to worry he had everything in hand and she should just relax and keep doing what she was doing. We did the Fear Release and let go of all unnecessary fears around this birth, and had a final session in preparation for baby.
Baby was due on the last weekend of October, however, mom had concert tickets to Madonna and said, “If baby waits, I’m going”.
The week following baby’s “due in date”, mom returned an email “I’m still here, pregnant and waiting”….
the Madonna concert came and went so I called on Saturday to no answer!
Hmm maybe things are happening! A few minutes later she called me back with the news.
She’d gone to the concert! Friends and family stayed close at hand in case she needed to leave quickly! She got home at 11pm and the surges started, she and her husband decided on bed, and she slept through to 4am. She woke her husband and they relocated to the hospital to find she was 7cm! Doing great!
They carried on together without intervention until the doctor arrived
At that time, mom was in the hospital bed, with a monitor on, babies heart rate slid down to 97, and the doctor advised he wanted the infant out now. Baby’s heart rate resumed instantly, however, the coached PUSHING began, and then a suction on baby’s head and the doctor pulled during the surges.
From there – sutures were needed for mom’s torn perineum and he also elected to cut the cord immediately even though it was not around the infants neck (this was one of the mom’s who was working with the mirror neurons during birth – so baby was on the left side, head down, and cord floating free! It worked YES!!)
Now this doctor had assured the parents over and over around doing what they wanted. They had a birth plan and had reviewed with him many times. He assured them even though his Section rate was 15% that he believed in natural calm birth. He would delay cord cutting, and her husband would cut the cord. He would allow them to do mother directed pushing and breathing. He agreed that she did not have to be on the monitors for birthing.
However, at the last moment, things changed. What might have caused baby’s heart rate to fluctuate ONCE might have been position of baby on the cord, might have been baby slipped down and was no longer being picked up by the monitor and instead it was reading mom. The Heart monitor reads a heart beat even if it loses baby's because baby has moved, so it then picks up moms heart rate. There are many things that affect baby’s heart rate during birth, however, when it returns to normal directly thereafter, and never slips again, why the increased flurry of crazy?
He decided baby had to be out now! He attached the suction to baby’s head, and gave the orders for the mother to PUSH. She did, the purple pushing…past what her body wanted to do, (definitely not HB) past what her labour wanted, and in five surges baby was extracted from the womb. Cord not around the infants neck.
From there he clamped and cut the cord immediately forgetting that the dad wanted to do this and there was no delay, more immanent fears of the infant in distress.
Baby was separated from mom for the usual that is done in a hospital and so while everything at home, progressed beautifully, to 7 cm on their own, arriving at the hospital at 4am – from that time to 6am, just two short hours, this was not fast enough to avoid the interferences of the medical teams? Triggered by a scare? Triggered by time? Triggered by….we can’t know for certain, because afterwards everyone was in congratulations, elated that everything went so perfectly and how much better this had been than the last birth, in awe with the kindness of everyone!
They returned home on Saturday morning, delighted with the great experience, including their assistance by the doctor and RN’s that probably saved the day. Baby’s healing contusion on his head is minimal considering what “might have happened”
Cord cutting was not delayed even though this was one of the first things we’d done with mom’s sending images of baby to have the back on the left side, head down and the cord “floating free” and guess what – that’s exactly what happened. Why the cord was cut in seconds after birth we can’t say. The father said it looked white and non pulsing, however, it was clamped and then cut anyway and not by him. Oxytocin was given by injection and the placenta birthed immediately.
Mom needed suturing, do to the intense pulling and coached pushing. She said she felt her body pushing however, they coached her to push when she didn’t feel it. She did exactly as she was told.
On her back, on monitors, this is birthing ….who’s way?
Ultimately this is where we have to understand it is indeed HER WAY.
She had many opportunities to interrupt or challenge what they were saying to her. Including baby’s heart rate raising up again directly after it went low the ONE TIME, and never returning to that rate again.
Cutting the cord instantly was done without interrupting or questioning by the parents, on that decision.
When I asked her about these things she said "I know, I know, I just went along with it, it was all happening so fast...we weren't sure, and I just did it. I could feel my body's pushes, but I pushed anyway."
Their doctor said, “I really respect what you are doing here and you did a great job, but we need to be sure baby is healthy “
So, even when it goes great, there is this need to intervene.
From my perspective the relationship between this infant and it’s mother was well established! Not only did the baby wait for mom to attend the concert, he then proceeded to move himself into the world with little inconvenience to her at all. Essentially it was from 4-6 am that she was birthing him consciously.
Two hours. What a great kid!
In these “agreements’ where parents are fearful of honoring their infants experience you have to consider the trust between them, he just asked for a couple of hours of her time…she was fearful of questioning the MD and asking them to respect her time, her baby and her process. She gave into the pressure that can be applied during birth, because it's their space, their rules, their language. And they help us believe they know best.
What happens in the outer world when they start telling her what she needs to do with her son?
What about overriding her feelings and following what the world out there says to do?
But this little guy was so intuned to his mom, he waited until the concert was over and then only asked a few hours of her time...
And yet it was a great birth, so much better than her first one. And she is elated that her body actually does work….just like we had rehearsed, even to baby position and cord floating free, just like she imagined it!
And she was delighted with the mirror neurons working perfectly, so much so, that she is using them to help him latch on and suckle and he’s doing great with breastfeeding. So much so, that she is a little rattled that she didn’t trust herself and listened instead to the outside influences and their intensity in moments when the mother is very deep in her work and not able to truthfully agree or disagree.
At that point she’s counting on those she’s hired to help her get her through to a reasonable outcome, however, if you are in a hospital with an MD or OB, what are you paying them for? They do not sit around when there is a chance for action. You just have to know that.
This was pretty reasonable and certainly a wonderful birth experience, however, with just a few choices made at different times, this could have been a magical one, in a hospital no less!
We’re getting closer, we’re getting so much closer to women securing the birth they want without interferences no matter where they are or who is with them!
Door number two….Medicalized Birth, with little to no interventions.
Kathy
PS: She shared she knew exactly what she was doing all the way through this time. Every step of the way, she knew and knew just what to do. We’ d rehearsed for months together there was not one thing that surprised her, not one moment where she was uncertain…She said that part was just so great for her, knowing exactly what was happening and where he was and what to do next....until they commanded her to push and decided to haul the baby out themselves rather than let him do it himself.
Awesome….next birth she’s birthing at home in water with Midwives.
When you know, you just can’t un-know it. DOOR NUMBER THREE - The Planned C-SectionThe Planned Cesarean Section
My parents were professionals, he a business owner and pilot, she an medical physician.
They both had busy lives and heavy commitments and now a baby!
They started sessions with me shortly after the 4th month. Everything progressed perfectly and all the work we did together moving us towards the birth experience they wanted for their child and themselves.
It was to be home, in water, with midwives attending.
This woman and her mother had some long outstanding issues and she had forever been the caretaker for the family. Not just her siblings but also her mother and her drinking problems. She wasn’t quite the carpet under their feet, however, they had regularly trashed her life with their behaviors and lack of respect for who she was. Her husband was patient and supportive.
As the birth neared the mother took extra special opportunity to create chaos and difficulty and the managing of this really was out of anyone’s control. Finally her husband put his foot down and asked the family to remain away until after the birth.
The next session, my mom presents in a full Frank Breech. She’d been cleaning the bathroom, and the tub and leaned over to reach a far corner and felt baby do the big summersault in her tummy.
We were two weeks out from the “due in date” and baby was not budging. In fact she had her feet crossed and head under mom’s diaphragm she was staying put!
We tried everything, including some private sessions which were great in clearing issues between she and her own mother, however, baby was not budging.
The Midwives had given her a week, and then referred her to an OB. The OB said it could be done, however it would involve a lot of twisting and turning of baby and baby might not stay in that position.
We regrouped the week before. Looked at all the options and possibilities and outcomes and various potentials. Then reviewed it all again!
Finally the decision was made, and they agreed to simply allow their daughter her space, and both of them to surrender the birth and allow it to flow effortlessly, as effortlessly as they could. A C-Section was agreed to.
The doctors scheduled it for the following Tuesday morning and we met for a last session the Friday before.
This time we changed a lot. We added permissions for this infant, we connected to her fully and let her know her position was not going to be taken from her.
We then prepared the cells around the area where the incision would take place, and I guided mom to let them know, this was coming.
During the procedure she would be listening to the induction again and allowing the cells to accept the incision, with little bleeding and when it was complete had her visualizing the cells in the area of the incision returning to their normal position as quickly and effortlessly as possible. There would be little to no bleeding and baby would effortlessly release in a minimum of upset to herself, her body and to her baby.
Through the whole procedure she was to stay focused on baby and opening her heart to baby. Through the weekend she and her husband would spend it together and just fall in love again! They did, they danced, they walked, they slept, they played with baby and her things and rested.
Tuesday morning the procedure started at 11 am and baby was born at 11:28.
Three days later they went home, and I visited them on the following Friday just a week since we had done the preparation induction! She was glowing, the incision almost disappeared. The third day had been the hardest and yet it is for any new mother and she relaxed knowing this was not too different for her either then.
She was smiling and within the following weekend out walking with baby. Baby was quiet, sleeping, easy to feed, easy to be with, there was no shift in baby from any other infant that had experienced the pregnancy of relaxation, peace and preparation.
Mom was elated. We reframed a few little concerns mom had about whether she should have tried harder, and I reminded her, we’d already accepted this was what her daughter had chosen and she had agreed.
It was the start of a new legacy within their family. One where the mother pays attention to the daughter, and does not ask the daughter to sacrifice her journey to her mother.
Oh and the Dad? Well, he was over the moon with his family of women and a whole new level of determination to protect both his daughter and his wife from the external world!
So he kept the rollicking external family at bay for 40 days and 40 nights!
Perfect healing, no lesions, adhesions, pain or suffering. Meds to a low minimum, pain almost nil.
Recovery within a week, 5 weeks of gentle care and total healing without further issues.
Another beautiful birth – Door number three,
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