I tackled the issue of controlled breathing when I arrived in the USA in
1973 from Australia and found childbirth preparation to be a Lamaze
dominated huff and puff program for the very last few weeks of pregnancy.
Unfortunately, well-meaning experts want to rescue their
clients/patients with techniques which often end up disempowering the
woman's instrinsic resources. I feel very strongly that women should
understand that birth is as safe as life can every be (quote from
Harriette Hartigan, midwife in Michigan), that women have to find their
own power. One good way to start is to ENTERTAIN the idea of giving birth
ALONE (I am NOT advocating unattended birth...but dwelling on the
possibility, which becomes a reality for some during earthquakes,
hurricanes, snowstorms etc) is very empowering.) Specifically to address
such controversies, I wrote Childbirth with Insight in the late
seventies, which has not a single exercise or technique, but ways of
looking at the power of birth as privilege, not a threat.
Physiologically and pyschologically, controlled breathing
are exhausting and raise anxiety levels.
Women being autonomous in birth has never been popular with the
establishment, so the book has been out of print for a long time, despite
midwives often buying copies in bulk! There are some copies in Sydney
with Julia Sundin. (02 9417 6467). (There may be some still with
Specialist Publications in Mortlake, NSW, who distribute Essential
Exercises for the Childbirth Year)
The other important work that needs to be done is for the couple to
access as much as possible their OWN birth experiences�work that was
pioneered by the late Melbourne psychiatrist Graham Farrant. This is now
being carried on by pediatrician John Spensley in Melbourne, and Philip
Hall, a gynecologist in Ballarat, while not doing obstetrics anymore, is
a good resource as to the value of this work in his own life.
I gave up teaching antenatal "classes" over a decade ago. Instead I
prefer to hold "Pregnancy Playshops" for 5 couples over a weekend ( 16
hours) with lunch together on each day. Entirely different dynamics
emerge. Before the weekend, each partner has to complete a questionnaire
that includes family health history, birth order, and what they know
about their own conception, gestation and birth. In addition they list
their major life crises and attach a one-page autobiography. During the
weekend, they each write a Birth Story, of the birth as if it had already
happened and read it to the group. (This is all described in another out
of print book, Primal Connections: How Our Experience from Conception to
Birth Influences are Emotions, Behavior and Health...JuJu Sundin has some
copies of that.). Obstetrician Leo Leader and pediatrician George
Williams are good resources for this material in Sydney�they organized my
workshop there this year on these very topics. (Unfortunately
psychiatrists were the dominant group in the audience, not maternity care
providers!)
In my opinion, our time is better spent NOT training women to pattern
their respiration, but to honor the body's natural responses to labor.
More important is for women to "stand on their own two feet", to "stand
up for what they want" to "stand up to those around them who are
disempowering" and to "Stand and Deliver"! The body works as a pump, and
the feet play a role as well as the thoracic and pelvic diaphragms. That
is the subject of my forthcoming book...
For 30 years I have heard mothers, midwives and others say, as did Gaye
Riebau, that the breathing "doesn't seem to work". Those who swear that
it does usually have shorter and easier labors...
Yet often these same people will think it is because they didn't
"practise" enough or they missed Class IV etc. and then they get a guilt
trip! In the States, what has happened that people modifty the breathing
techniques but I believe, and have said so for 2 decades, that it really
is something to let go of. The body that knows how to grow the baby,
knows how to birth the baby! We just have to TRUST!
Of course the breathing is done for "control" (the nature of birth means
NO control but surrender) and for pain relief. But pain results from the
resistance to the process of opening up�on all levels, physical,
spiritual, emotional etc. So the issues to address prenatally are the
conscious and unconscious aspects of that resistance and this requires a
small group and a personalized agenda to explore and affirm personal
realities.
I think one big problem is that most of us were schooled, and we still
think along classroom lines and rote learning. Having homeschooled my
kids, on and off, I know it can be hard to trust that individuals can
learn without having to be taught, and that as organisms they can
function in their own best interests, despite other views by "experts".
Women should be encouraged to keeping breathing in labor, however, since
anxiety often results in breath-holding. And they should be encouraged to
let out their own sounds during second stage, otherwise they will do the
Valsalva maneuver, which is most unphysiological (extensively researched
and published in monograph in the early 80s by the late R.
Caldeyro-Barcia who was then president of FIGO, but no one listened to
him either!). The word "PERSON" comes from the L. p
"per sonare" to sound through...so primal sounds are normal, universal
and OK in birth.
Elizabeth Noble, PT
OB-GYN Courses, New Life Images, Women's Health Resources
448 Pleasant Lake Avenue, Harwich, MA 02645
Ph: (508) 432-8040 Fx: (508) 432-9685
www.capecod.net/newlife
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