The further I delve into the world of pregnancy and birth, the more I realise that forming a wonderful working relationship with your care provider is paramount to a positive birth.
I think there would be three types of mums when it comes to care provider communication.
- The Informed MummaShe’s done the HypnoBirthing course and she and her birth companion feel confident in negotiating with their midwife or obstetrician. She uses the following game-changing tool to make sure she is totally informed of all her options and can weigh up the risks and benefits that are important to her. B – What are the Benefits (to me and to my baby)
R – What are the Risks (to me and to my baby)
A – What are my Alternatives?
I – What is my Intuition telling me?
N – What if we did Nothing?
S – Please give us some Space to make our decision.She is all over informed consent and knows that hospital policy is not the law.She can accept or decline any procedure she wishes and she works through these decisions in an open, non-confrontational way. - The Go With The Flow NewbieThis is the most common mum-to-be. She’s chilled out and happy to go with the flow when it comes to pregnancy and birth.Going with the flow is not always a good thing and is potentially dangerous when it comes to labour.When a mum goes with the flow, she takes her care providers word as gospel without any understanding of evidence based care, how her care provider might be biased or what the ‘Cascade of Interventions’ is.This mumma is likely to agree to an induction, a stretch and sweep or to have her membranes broken etc etc without fully understanding the risks.Some of these mums have a positive birth experience but many are left traumtised at how things turned out and have no idea why.
- The Defiant Mumma BearThis is the poor mumma who has experienced a traumatic hospital birth first hand.
She is angry at the hospital system full of routines tests, procedures and policies. My hope is that she will complete a HypnoBirthing course and do some Birth Trauma Clearing work, therefore learning those essential communication and negotiation tools we teach. My concern is that her fear and anger will fester, that it will affect her pregnancy and her birth.It may mean that she makes poor decisions in regards to her care.
There is a rising number of women who choose to ‘Free Birth’ at the moment.
Free Birthing is choosing to birth unassisted by anyone in a medical capacity.
Some Free Birthing mum’s hire a doula to be present, some invite family or friends to support them and some birth only with their partner there or even alone.
Some of these women fall into The Informed Mumma group. She is well informed, low risk and well supported at home.
Many of these women are so disappointed with the hospital system that they refuse to birth there.
Some may not be able to afford the cost of an independent midwife and therefore feel like they have no choice but to go it alone.
My wish is for all women to feel informed.
HypnoBirthing – The Mongan Method does this.
It’s an incredible course that leaves mum AND her birth companion feeling like they are in the driver’s seat of their birth.
Yes, they may choose to birth in a hospital and know they are agreeing to certain things by doing that but they also have some wonderful tools to use to communicate their wishes.
Learn more about our HypnoBirthing course here.
