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What images should pregnant women view?

This week has been a hectic round of presentations in the UK to showcase the Essential Educator teaching packages for childbirth and parenting educators.

On Tuesday I was in Dublin as I noted in my last Diary entry. The next day I hosted a group in London who were very enthusiastic. One interesting topic of discussion was the DVD we have included in the labour and Birth kit called “The First Breath”. This is a wonderful collection of images of dozens of women, in all stages of pregnancy, labour, birth and immediately afterwards, with their babies. The gentle music complements the pictures and as there is no spoken commentary, this offers the opportunity for personal comment or interpretation of the various images.

A couple of the midwives were concerned that these images would not be acceptable to the women who attend their programs. I found this interesting for a number of reasons: first that they would make assumptions about what the women would or would not want to see; second that they would contemplate censoring the images to fit their own personal expectations; and the idea that women would not appreciate these magnificent picture of women giving birth in powerful, masterly ways with midwifery help.

Where do women get their ideas about birth anyway? Often from TV, films and the print media. The message of many of these shows is often quite disturbing with women in agony, lots of technology to the rescue and doctors in control of the situations. Why not show women something that is gentle, normal, empowering and completely woman centred? Perhaps it would help to change perceptions of what birth is all about - at least we should give women the option. If they are then disturbed or upset by what they see, clearly some sensitive discussion will be necessary to help resolve their feelings.

I love this DVD - you can buy it separately form the kit. I can see many ways of using it in classes - short snippets to illustrate various aspects of physiology or women’s reactions; as a way of setting the scene at the start of a group; during refreshment breaks to continue the story of natural birth. Why not check it out yourself?

Posted by andrea at September 24, 2006 03:51 AM