Regarding preparation for birth: It strikes me that we prepare ourselves all the time for biological changes and tasks in our lives, and preparing for birth in a way that fits our personal philosophy of it should be no exception. It seems not worthy of comment that we accept women need preparation to breastfeed (another biological process that will happen naturally if left alone for the most part). They receive this preparation first through being breastfed themselves, through watching women breastfeed, through their attitudes to breasts, and through cognitive processes such as teaching and learning of techniques and theories. Why should birthing be any different, especially when in our modern world there is no role-modelling through exposure prior to our own labours?
Other natural processes use training techniques to allow them to occur 'better' either psychologically or psychometically. These include running, walking, jumping, etc. Practice makes perfect. The only way we can practice labour before labour is to fantasize, draw on previously learned resources of strength, courage, coping and trust. Perhaps hypnobirthing is one way of doing this? I have seen it (once) and found it to look, from an outsider's perspective, not dissimilar to meditation techniques such as point of light focusing, chants, breathing, etc. All these techniques assist the woman to 'go to another place' in a way, to remove them a step from their experience. And yet they appear to facilitate the biology and give the woman a sense of mastery of her experience. She gets that rush that she did it herself, and I haven't heard one say she didn't experience it..... Whatever works, I say. As to failure: we need to be educating women from a very early age (kindergarten) that birth is hard work that can only be done by women, that women can for the most part do it, that it is rewarding and important, and that just because the biology doesn't work sometimes, it doesn't mean they as persons have failed. Trish -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
