Virginia Bobro at Birthing From Within responds to the Huffington Post article as follows: There are many ways to prepare for the intense, life-changing experience of giving birth and becoming a mother. Reading, planning, and educating oneself is intellectual preparation. Caring for her body (yoga, walking/swimming, eating well, prenatal health-care) is another important element of preparing for the rigors of birth and to reduce the risk of complications. What is often overlooked is the emotional and psychological preparation, much of which means: prepare to be unprepared... expect the unexpected .... and get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Cultivating self-love, flexibility, and resilience are crucial to comprehensive childbirth preparation. It is also important that the pregnant womans partner is also prepared emotionally and practically for being present at the birth. His (or her) experience is often undervalued and over-looked. BIRTHING FROM WITHIN has been offering this typical of emotional preparation for nearly two decades. Helping parents learn about the physiology of birth and what is important to them is only the TIP of the iceberg. We stress mindfulness and letting go of attachment to outcome. We distinguish between preparation and planning; there are many things that pregnant women have influence over, but birth cannot be controlled. We strive to help expectant parents loosen their grip on the outcome of the birth, especially when their sense of self worth and value seems linked to getting the right kind of birth. This attachment to outcome is one of the biggest tasks of preparation that a pregnant women can undertake. All the information in the world will not create a particular birth outcome (and may actually increase the risk of emotional trauma, if the woman thinks she *can* choose her birth). But she can (through the guidance of a skilled, compassionate Mentor and a supported path of self-awareness) decrease the suffering she experiences, both physically and emotionally. It is essential that her birth preparation is one of expanding possibilities (what might happen, and ways she can respond in the face of surprises), rather than narrowing them. Rigid expectations, promises that if you do X, you will get Y, and judgment have NO PLACE in caring and effective birth preparation. When birth becomes solely about outcome, when it becomes about success or failure, then there is only more polarization, comparison, emotional trauma, and judgment in our mothering and birth communities. Another possibility is to cultivate wisdom in the face of this tremendous experience: to know oneself, to think in a more nuanced way, and to not hinge our self-worth on the outcome of our birth. huffingtonpost/2014/08/29/perfect-birth_n_5597119.html?ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000037
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 15:37:25 +0000
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