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Hi my
name is Wintergreen. Some of you know me as a Trustee to Common Knowledge
Trust. We produce the Pink Kit method for birthing better resources. This
is the third of a 16 week talk on childbirth preparation. This is a talk
for mums and dads, who are about 26 weeks pregnant, give or take a few
weeks. Dads are looking for the answer to this big question – How do I know
when she needs my help?
In the
last two talks we answered that same question from the ability to see and
hear whether a woman is coping with each contraction. But a big question
such as this has more than one answer when seen from different perspectives
so today we are going to approach that same question from the understanding
of a father’s role in childbirth.
In
your family, a relative partner or friend may be helping you so don’t get
stuck on the term that I’ll be using today a dad’s role is your role. Most
of us really begin to think about birth at about 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Each day now brings us closer to that one big and unavoidable event.
Getting your childbirth skills ready now means that both of you will go into
labor feeling confident.
You
wouldn’t think of running a marathon without training and no one denies what
a big experience and effort giving birth is. Preparing is much more
important than preparing for a marathon. Knowing when to help a woman in
labor requires some type of job description. For example your Doctor or
Midwife is there to help if there is a problem but they are not there to
help her to relax, that is your job.
Your
job is to help her relax even when contractions are painful. Once your job
has a title you will know what your role is and you will know what skills
you will need. With your own role and skills you won’t confuse it with
other people’s role. For years people have been confusing the words
coaching and supporting.
Part
of the reason dads don’t know when to help is because they aren’t certain
about whether they are coaching or supporting. When I gave birth in 1970
the word birth coach was used by the 1980’s when I had my son the word birth
support was being used and it still is. Now why did the job title and
description change?
Well
people often felt that coach a woman in labor implied that someone was on
the sideline telling a woman what to do. In fact that is what directing
means, directing means giving woman lots of direction but giving her little
or no support. That isn’t what a coach a does. Coaching means giving the
woman both high direction and high support.
Having
a skilled birth coach is about working together as an equal team because
people confuse the terms directing and coaching they began to use the word
birth support however supporting only offers a woman high support with
little or no direction. This is the two frequents of image of zillions of
supporting dads that didn’t have a clue of how to really help but were hung
on throughout labor.
It’s
great to have support but it’s much better for both of you to share a common
set of skills so that the woman can use those skills and her partner can
really help her when she needs assistance. This is birth coaching. Many
woman giving birth made a good birth coach who knows how to help her and
when.
The
best person to be a birth coach is someone who really knows you
intimately. When a coaching dad can really work with the birthing woman
the couple will share a huge intimacy that doesn’t always occur when dads
just support. Whether you use the word birth coach, birth support, birth
helper, birth assistance just remember that the goal is to have someone that
knows you really well be able to help you, give you high direction and high
support.
You
can always come to our website
www.birthingbetter.com and check out the Pink Kit Method resources.
Remember these are childbirth skills that come from ordinary people just
like ourselves. There are skills from both mums and dads. See ya next
time.
