Dear Friends:
The change in attitudes about childbirth classes is sad.
I remember in the late 80s having classes where couples were eager for
information, where classes were routinely packed (I remember some with 25+ couples
in them regularly), and where a woman who was terrified of birth was a
rarity.
Then things started to change in the US, when medicine went corporate (in
the early 90s).........classes shrunk, both in attendance and in length. I
remember couples signing up for a two-day childbirth class and complaining that
some topics weren't covered and at the same time they left early because they
had other things to do.
I feel that part of the problem is the notion that women have to act like
men to do well; so taking the baby out is scheduled, and childbirth classes are
becoming less important.
Another part of the picture is the cooption of the true principles of
childbirth class by hospitals; an end result of this is that childbirth instructors
were suspended or fired for 'teaching too much.' (I published an article
"The Missing Squatting Bar" in Midwifery Today about 8 years ago about this
very topic.) Hospital childbirth classes are much more about teaching families
how to be patients in the institution than anything else. Anesthesiologists
get to talk at childbirth class. Paolo Freire, the Brazilian educator who
stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble by teaching poor people to read, said that
education can either liberate or oppress; it can not be used to hold the
status quo.
But then, we have corporate sponsorship of education materials, and
companies like Mead-Johnson getting on the agenda at childbirth education staff
meetings to present about their new supplements for pregnant women.
Technology and profit play a bigger role in birth today (for the most part)
than women do. The new Listening to Mothers survey
(_www.childbirthconnection.org_ (http://www.childbirthconnection.org) ) found that only 2% of mothers
surveyed experienced practices that promote normal birth, as endorsed by Lamaze
International.
61% of women wanted to breastfeed exclusively; at one week only 51% of women
were doing so. Obstetricians are managing most of the births, 5% of women
are using midwives and only 11% of this sample are using doulas.
Birth in the US in 2005 is as disconnected from normal process as it was in
the 1940s and 50s; it just has a different set of disconnects. Amazing that
breastfeeding is happening at all!
warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Lactation Consultant, Philadephia Department of Public Health
Maternal-Child Adjunct Faculty, Union Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human Lactation
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com
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