Vaginal birth after a caesarean

VAGINAL BIRTH AFTER A CAESAREAN

Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method®www.thepinkkit.com and www.birthingbetter.com

http://www.thepinkkit.com/

http://www.birthingbetter.com/

ROAD MAP You and your upcoming VBAC Vaginal births in modern societies

Politics versus your skills The Pink Kit came from our own stories

You are no less a woman You are pregnant right now = you need skills Birth is complex, and so is your body Birth is not a noun. It’s an activity of doing.

Fathers supporting a VBAC What makes a birth “perfect” to a woman? Your partner is pregnant = you have a job, too

Pregnancy and Birth: A change of attitude from ‘choice-focus’ to ‘skills-focus’.




YOU AND YOUR UPCOMING VBAC

You may have some aspects of your previous Caesarean you still have questions about.

The Pink Kit skills were developed by women and men like you.

Pink Kit skills focus on you and will guide you to prevent, eliminate or reduce the need for a subsequent unnecessary Caesarean.

Growing your own skills for this life experience can lend toward healing a lot of the shame, blame, and guilt that often surrounds your previous birth.




VAGINAL BIRTHS IN MODERN SOCIETIES




POLITICS VS YOUR SKILLS Make certain you have not fallen

into a psychological trap – ‘only vaginal births are “better births”’.

Need to focus entirely on what you are doing rather than what is being done to you

Skills give you an alternative to feeling pissed off and that you’ve lost control. They give you power to remain active in your birth through to the end, no matter how it ends.

Birth techniques and birth skills give you a very different perspective and capability.




PINK KIT CAME FROM OUR OWN STORIES

Pink Kit resources come from thousands of diverse families.

We changed our attitudes about childbirth

If you go into birth with an ideal, rather than common sense and skills, you are more likely to be disappointed.

Don’t have to like the medical profession but if we use that system, we have to work with it rather than rail against it.

Birth and birth coaching skills gave us huge power.




STORIES What do you need us to do?

We discovered that, no matter what happened at our birth, when we had the appropriate skills, we could always “birth better” even if we didn’t have a “better birth” and this led to personal pride and satisfaction

As soon as she coped, we got through the VBAC. We discovered that absolutely no one could give us a good birth

experience except ourselves. By using our skills, every single type of birth could be positive. When we didn’t use our skills, we became passive and stopped taking charge of ourselves.

No one can do this birth but me, and I have to learn how I got pregnant one more time in order to get it right. I had tried

changing places and people. I created more elaborate Birth Plans. I fought against everyone who wasn’t going to do it my way. And in the midst of this my husbands persuaded me to learn skills with him. That was the answer all the time. I finally learned how to birth!




YOU ARE NO LESS A WOMAN




YOU ARE PREGNANT RIGHT NOW = YOU NEED SKILLS Figure out what problems can impact your potential vaginal birth. Pink Kit teach women the skills for knowing how to prepare your body

to open up, create space and soften inside, how to cope with labor, whether birth is natural or infused with medical care or severe health problems.

The Pink Kit skills help you focus on the hard work of ‘labor’ so you can get to the vaginal part.

Without preparing your body to give birth, without the skills to cope with the labor, and without having done any internal work to prepare your birth canal, you are setting yourself up for more interventions than you would want.

With skills, you can make more realistic choices and decisions. You can communicate with others in a more competent and

comfortable manner, not defensively or aggressively. You can take control of you body as you work with your baby. You are able to work with your baby’s efforts to be born. Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method®

www.thepinkkit.com and www.birthingbetter.com



BIRTH IS COMPLEX, AND SO IS YOUR BODY

When birth is painful, women innately tense up in response to labor pains just like we yank our hand back from touching a hot stove.

Tension inside your body can hinder your baby’s passage down, through and out your body.

It takes willpower and skills not react by tensing up when you experience labor contraction pain. Skills give you’re the ability to be counterintuitive.

To transform your pregnant body into a birthing body and open you body to allow your baby to journey through it, learn these skills; Your pelvic map Soften the muscles and tissue inside your vagina How to align your body to give your baby the best pathway How to create mobility in your sacrum How to check yourself when your labor notches up a peg and you

aren’t certain “where you are”.




BIRTH IS NOT A NOUN Giving birth is an activity that

unfolds moment by moment and is something you should be prepared to do – not a noun or inaction

Combined activity that includes both you and your baby.

Important that you work with your baby by reading the language of birth – birth happens inside you, not to you.




FATHERS SUPPORTING A VBAC




REPEATING WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T

Stop blaming “the male-dominated, patriarchal society” and stop listening to other women dismissing the value of your baby’s birth no matter how your baby is born.

Stop focusing on your experience and focus on your relationship with your baby’s birth journey and become skilled to do the activity of birthing your baby.

Stop focusing on The Birth and focus on getting through the hard work of the labor … and do it well … so you can get to the vaginal part.

Stop thinking you can’t use skills even if your birth involves surgery or lots of medical care. You can always use your birth and coaching skills.

Stop looking for others to give you what you want. Use your skills and you’ll birth better.




WHAT MAKES A BIRTH “PERFECT”?

Your use of skills provides more positive impact on your baby’s birth than any other factor.

Pink Kit can give you the right and appropriate skills so that, together, you can aim for the better labor and vaginal birth.

Skills give you the ability to ‘perfect’ your ability rather than to believe you have to have a ‘perfect’ birth.




YOUR PARTNER IS PREGNANT = YOU HAVE A JOB, TOO. During pregnancy, uncover under what

circumstances your partner will accept medical intervention (including another Caesarean) without feeling let down in the future.

You and your partner have to educate yourselves about specific issues of medical need and establish under what specific circumstances or “needs” heightened medical care is acceptable.

You can help your partner give the simple “No” when she is at her most vulnerable.

Lead the way by learning the coaching skills and being absolutely committed to using them

Support your partner as she uses her birthing skills during the birth.

Continue to use your skills deeply as a team Birthing Better with The Pink Kit Method®www.thepinkkit.com and www.birthingbetter.com



PREGNANCY AND BIRTH: A CHANGE OF ATTITUDE

To change attitudes, first, acknowledge that having a VBAC is an emotional decision for most women, and a political one.

Recognise we have options and choices in how we behave even if we have few choices.

Decide and not allow yourself to feel shame, blame or guilt.

Tie pregnancy and giving birth together by preparing the pregnant body for birth and learning both birth and coaching skills.

Work toward the goal of having a positive birth.




Health & Medicine

Vaginal birth after a caesarean