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A new style of prenatal education for Ireland

I have had a very interesting day today, facilitating a workshop for those involved in parent education throughout Ireland. Many in the group are public health nurses, most are midwives and there are a sprinkling of others, including physiotherapists.

The suggestions I have made, primarily to switch from lecture style classes to facilitated, interactive programs that encourage skills development through participation and practise, have been largely welcomed as different and innovative. Not everyone has agreed - there are always those that see change as threatening and difficult, and who prefer to lecture to parents. Some of the interactions in the group have been lively and instructive for those wanting to know how to manage the group process. One group member was a midwife I met years ago in a workshop in London. She had been inspired by the content of those programs (she had attended both the Active Birth and the Teaching Skills workshop) and had used the information for the births of her children. The first was the standard “active management”, the second was a domino birth with a midwife and the last was a home birth, all in Ireland. It is always very humbling to know that your work has been of practical use to someone and I was thrilled she had found my books so useful too (she said she had read The Midwife Companion about 10 times!).

More importantly, she told me that her midwife didn’t quite make it to the home birth, missing it by about 3 minutes. She had been beating herself up about this for months - perhaps she should have called her midwife sooner, perhaps she should have better recognised the transitional stage of labour and been more aware of where she was up to, etc. I pointed out to her that the late arrival of her midwife could be seen in another way - that she really didn’t need the midwife to be there for the birth, that she was quite capable of giving birth herself, without assistance. If there had been a delay, her midwife would have made it and been on hand to help. This midwife has learned a lot about birth and herself through the births of her babies and this final lesson may be the one she needed to cement her belief in women’s abilities to birth safely and joyfully.

Life has a way of unfolding that gives us many opportunities to learn more about ourselves. As childbirth educators, we have to be aware of the enormous potential we have to support and encourage parents to take that journey of self discovery - and no amount of lecturing them will achieve this.

Posted by andrea at July 07, 2005 05:29 PM