The Power of a Few Words and Mental Pictures


I can share the power of a few words in my own experience of  birthing a
premature baby at 32 weeks gestation. After a precipitous labor (90) minutes
and birth, my midwife ( a CNM doing homebirth yet present in the hospital
for the birth) whispered in my ear, "You know, I had a client who did round
the clock kangaroo care with her premature baby, her parents helped, the
baby was always held skin to skin." That was all I needed to hear to stay
with my baby and hold him skin to skin. The seed was planted. I did kangaroo
care for six weeks until we went home. It was a time of  powerful reflection
and grieving that I would not have had without the experience of holding my
baby and fully being present with him as I would have been if he were still
in utero. He is 2 1/2 and thriving today.

Those of us who work with birthing women can plant seeds by telling stories
(we can make them up )

When I worked with teens, we'd visit L & D together. I'd tell birth stories,
sketching pictures of possibiltes. One teen confessed that her aunt said
birth was an orgasmic experience for her. I shared what I had heard about
that. Upon seeing the squat bar, she decided she wanted to birth that way.
She did.  (With father of baby sitting behind her on bed) She was sixteen
years old. She carried those pictures and stories into her experience.

When I did homebirths STS was the norm. Often we would encourage the dad to
take his shirt off too. We'd leave the family together snuggled up in bed
for the first hour or so while the midwives and assistants rustled up food
for the family and did our paperwork. So yes it is part of the US
homebirthing culture too.

In my observations of women in Micronesia newborn babies are always held
against the mothers skin. Bare breasts are no big deal so it is just a
normal way of being and not anything special or different with a name.
Midwives handle nearly all the births on Pohnpei, the island where I lived
and was most exposed to traditional birth practice.

Warmly,

Lisa Boisvert-Mackenzie



on 8/20/2005 1:16 PM, LACTNET automatic digest system at
[log in to unmask] wrote:


I hope we can have a good Lactnet discussion about changing minds on STS.
How about outside the US? Is STS an accepted part of newborn care for
full-term healthy babies in countries where midwives manage most of the
births? Do you have any "lessons learned" to share with us?


Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC
LLL Leader Reserve
working for WIC in South Jersey (Eastern USA)
Co-coordinator, Women & Work Task Force, WABA
 


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