• for the mind...Advanced Training Workshop Integrating the Mind and Body for a Healthy Pregnancy, A Safe Birth
• for the body... Vaginal Birth After Cesarean: What the newest research is really telling us!
• for the spirit...A Sister's Story
• Schedule of remaining 2001-2002 Childbirth Educator, Labor Doula and Postpartum Doula Training Workshops!
• Support our Sponsors! Advertise online with Midwifery Today's Birth Market

...for the mind

Advanced Training Workshop! Visualization: Integrating the Mind and Body for a Healthy Pregnancy, A Safe Birth Memory is a very powerful thing and how we imagine ourselves giving birth can have a great impact on our experience of birth. Visualization has been known to turn breech babies, lower blood pressure and even contol fibroid growth. In the practice of visualization we are able to understand that the mind and body truly work together.

Birth Works classes have long used visualization activities to assist women and their partners in preparing for their births. Taking a woman through a birth visualization from early contractions to the birth of the placenta and holding her newborn, is an effective way to help her internalize and create a strong memory of a safe and healthy birth. A woman experiencing a birth visualization is not seeing someone else on a video. She is experiencing birth for herself, in her mind's eye. For first time moms, a birth visualization can serve to replace fearful, media images with more realistic associations of labor. For a woman whose only birth experience has been a previous traumatic cesarean delivery, she can imagine a vaginal birth which will help increase her confidence and sense of healing as she prepares for her VBAC.

Multi-sensory visualization techniques use all the senses to create an experience for the listener. Varying our tone and the intensity of the voice to mirror a contraction for example, stimulates the mind to receive the visualization more deeply. Learning where to pause and how to use techniques such as embedded commands can be very helpful in making a visualization more effective. Writing our own visualizations can make them more real to the listener as well. Many birth metaphors come from a keen observation of nature, flowers opening, waves coming to shore, etc.

...for the body

Vaginal Birth After Cesarean: What the newest research is really telling us! Most of us concerned about women, babies and the culture of birth today cannot help but be dismayed by the publicity surrounding a recent research study on VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) by Mona Lydon-Rochelle et al. published July 5th in the New England Journal of Medicine. Most experts admit that this study held little new information for us. In fact, uterine rupture rates (partial to complete separation of the uterine muscle during labor which is a serious complication to mother and baby) were similar or better to other studies. At 0.6% overall, these rates were well within the range of what was considered relatively safe by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. We work to prevent unnecessary primary cesareans because it is true that there is an increased risk of uterine rupture and placental complications in a subsequent pregnancy. However, one must weigh this risk against the multiple risks of elective repeat cesarean surgery...maternal infection, hemorrhage, complications from anesthesia, rupture, neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, etc. Equally important are factors such as the nutritional status of the mother and her level of fear or faith in her body.

What this research is really telling us which IS significant but has not been as highly publicized, is that we should not introduce additional risk by using medical interventions and chemicals which interfere with the natural flow of labor. This study again confirms the dramatic increase of rupture when a woman has been induced by pitocin and more significantly prostaglandins (2.45%), a common practice today. This important finding has been almost entirely lost in a whirlwind of fear generated by distorted editorials written to justify a return to high cesarean rates. We must now all work to get past the fears and distortions that are driving the cesarean rate up once more...fear of litigation, guilt and blame.

Birth Works educators and doulas remain committed to informing the public about the safety and joys of VBAC and helping women prepare for vaginal birth after cesarean. Visit http://www.birthworks.org/education.html to learn more about the Birth Works classes. To find a Birth Works Educator or Doula in your area visit http://www.birthworks.org/directory.phtml.

...for the spirit

A Sister's Story

Stories are part of every culture. Birth stories are legacies for women, for their children and grandchildren. They connect our spirits...one woman to another.

My sister was pregnant for the first time. She found out during Thanksgiving holiday and while I basted the turkey, she ran to the drug store to choose a home pregnancy test. I assured her and her husband that the line was indeed pink. She went back to her home after that holiday with as many books and videos as we could stuff in her suitcase. Little did she know how many more books and Mothering magazines were soon to be shipped up to her. The Childbirth Educator in me is alive and well. My little sister has listened to me wax philosophical for years on birth...telling her that when her time came, the universe would open up to her in a way that it never had before. I imagined at times she thought my rantings were completely off the deep end. Nevertheless, I knew that she had incredible strength and ability to trust birth.

There were many ups and a few downs in this pregnancy...the insurance company denying an out of network birth center birth, a high glucose screen, and fear of low amniotic fluid towards the end of the pregnancy. Each time one of these challenges arose, I marveled at her ability to tune into her body, turn off the noise of tests and listen to the music of her heart. She told me that her instincts told her all was well, that her baby was healthy and that she knew she was doing all she can to have a healthy pregnancy and baby. Yes, there were moments of doubt, but she remembered to breathe and look inside for the truth, not the tests, not the numbers.

Her baby was born in the water after an hour of pushing and a steadily progressing labor that had begun the day before. She walked, vocalized, grunted and sipped fluids and flowed with her labor like she had given birth a thousand times before. In a way, maybe she had, for birth has been with us from the beginning. It connects women, it is a universal, instinctual experience found in our very deepest brain. Emma was born into the loving hands of her mother and father who lifted her gently out of the water into the world. I will always remember my sister saying shortly after birth, "I felt like I've never felt before..." Music to my ears. I imagine we will be telling this story for some time to come.

Birth Works is pleased to offer many unique books and videos for expectant couples and birth professionals. For a complete description of our products and to place an order, visit our online store at http://www.birthworks.org/store.phtml.

Remaining 2001 Birth Works Training Workshops

Upcoming 2002 Birth Works Training Workshops

Entry into our educator, doula, or postpartum doula certification programs is a prerequisite for attendance at the training workshop. Go to http://www.birthworks.org/cecert.html for Educator Certification and http://www.birthworks.org/doulacert.html for Doula Certification.