Teaching about Birth

One of the things that I have long pondered as a childbirth educator, and many other educators do as well, is how to reach pregnant women and their partners in class.. I mean really reach them. Not just laying our perceptions of birth on their conscience, whether that be "how to be a good patient" or "natural birth is the only way." What I have found in teaching both pregnant couples and birth professionals is that we need to teach skills not just provide information.

Information can be found in any number of books, but birth skills are not common knowledge in today's medicalized birth atmosphere. Where once these skills were handed down from mother to daughter as daughters grew up seeing, understanding and knowing birth from a young age, now you would be hard pressed to find a women who has attended a birth prior to giving birth to her first born. I am not talking about the popular birth shows sensationalized to the point where every birth is deemed a life or death emergency... "Will mother and baby survive? Find out after this commercial... "

This leaves chidlbirth educators with the struggle of teaching women how to give birth despite the miriad of distractions, interruptions and interventions common in obstetrics today. The answer? By women having the skills to birth no matter what the situation... something that is NOT taught in most prenatal class and which is essential if women are to survive institutionalized birth emotionally and physically unharmed.