
Are you like I was during my first pregnancy? You want a physiological birth, you’re excited and fully confident you’ll rise to the challenge?
Maybe you are less certain. You’ll prepare as best you can, but you want to be realistic and you’ll wait and see what unfolds.
Or perhaps you’ve already had a birth experience that was not what you’d dreamed. You’re determined things will go differently this time.
Whatever your story, my hope is the same – for you to understand why simply wanting a physiological birth is not enough.
This is certainly what I found out with the birth of my first baby (no, it didn’t go as planned), and from my birth debriefing work I know that not a lot has changed. In fact, things have gotten much worse for those who want physiological birth today.
The good news is that your own choices and preparation really can change how your birth will unfold!
When you reframe your attitude to pain; when you understand what makes your ‘fight’, ‘flight’, ‘freeze’ and ‘fawn’ response so important; when you understand the impact of the place you choose to birth, the people you choose to have with you and the ways that you are supported can actually increase your pain tolerance and capacity for physiological birth – this is when you will birth with confidence.
If you’ve already had a disappointing or traumatic birth experience, I hope my work will help you to understand what unfolded. If you are approaching your first birth, I trust it will prepare you for the birth you want.
Want to know more?
My first book Birth With Confidence brings together all the key concepts I share with parents-to-be in my workshops.
I describe how in many countries around the world, including Australia, intervention rates are well above those recommended by the World Health Organisation and climbing – and how this makes physiological birth almost impossible in our current birth culture. I then share what you can do to beat those odds.
You’ll learn about the ‘crisis of confidence’, the emotional crisis that is so predicable in labour (and is not to be confused with transition to second stage), and what you can do to prepare yourself and your team for these moments.
You’ll understand how the various ‘circles of influence’ around you — from your friends and family to the wider culture — can support or sabotage your birthing potential.
You’ll identify your own attitude to pain — your ‘pain type’ — what it will mean for your birth, and the practical and emotional steps you can take to raise your pain tolerance level.
And you’ll build a framework for deciding on the best caregivers and support people to help you through.
Go deeper ...
Have you read my first book Birth With Confidence or attended my workshops and want to go deeper in your birth preparation?
Beyond the Birth Plan began life as the ‘second half’ of my first book, but when I realised how much I was trying to fit in I decided it needed to be a book of its own! Core to this second book is my understanding of how our emotional preparation for physiological birth can be just as important – if not more so – than our physical preparation.
Our emotional patterns – the habituated stress responses that we have developed from infancy, through childhood and into our adult lives – have huge impacts on labour. (As you can guess, they also have a big impact on our parenting.)
In Beyond the Birth Plan I invite you to explore how your ‘fight’, ‘flight’, ‘freeze’ and ‘fawn’ responses and your unique style of attachment in relationships may play out in labour.
I share stories drawn from the hundreds of women I have supported in birth, to illustrate how many impactful life experiences, such as loss, grief and abuse, can influence pregnancy, labour and birth.
So, if you’re ready for the next step in your birth preparation, join me to go deeper.