October 05, 2002

Britain's first conference for childbirth educators

It’s been a hectic week (as usual!).

Thursday was the conference in Birmingham: “Antenatal Education, but not as you know it”, which was billed as the first conference for antenatal educators in Britain. The event was the brainchild of Julie Foster, the Parent Education Coordinator at Birmingham Womens Hospital, who, with the help of NCT on the administrative side, put together a program of presentations from a long list of people, including Mavis Kirkham, Jean Sutton and Judith Schott. There were 400 enthusiastic educators in attendance and it is likely to become an annual event, perhaps moving around the country to give everyone a chance to attend.

One of the most interesting papers was from a member of Fathers Direct, a new organisation that evolved out of an NCT postnatal coffee group. He talked about ways of involving fathers and gave some interesting perspectives on the role fathers do play and would like to play. He said that men don’t really se themselves as “parents” and respond more readily to the term “fathers” or “dads”, so to increase participation rates publicity could include these words, for example” Programs for Expectant Mums and Dads”. Their group is expanding rapidly and are now looking at ways they can become politically involved, for example, by seeking better legislation for paternity leave etc.

I was asked to present a one hour workshop, before the main program and again at the end. I chose the topic “Informed choice or pot luck - making prenatal education relevant” but somehow this was changed to “Empowering women to have a natural birth”. Still, for an hour it didn’t really make much difference! It was really just a taster for my longer workshops and they were well attended - even those who came at the end of a long day (when we were all feeling a bit brain dead after an intense day in a very hot venue) managed to participate and find some energy.

One of the main benefits of these events is that it gives a lot of educators the chance to catch up and network. It was great to meet a lot of people I’ve had in workshops over the past 10 years and to get some amazing feedback. One midwife told me that after attending my Active Birth workshop she enabled her daughter to give birth to a 10lb baby at home, when she was under pressure to be in hospital “because the baby was going to be big”.

The only problem I had with the day was the word “antenatal”. As you know, this is a term I have real problems with, given that it creates a negative impression, even though it is supposed to just mean “before birth”. That’s why I use the term “prenatal” and every time I hear “antenatal” I flinch. Did a lot of that on Thursday!

Yesterday I spent all day travelling to Kilkenny in the south of Ireland. Today I am presenting a weekend workshop for educators and I will definitely be raising this issue of language with them!

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