Recent Posts

Oh, Kathy, I'm sorry you have to witness this kind of abuse.  I'd like to kick that doctor in his tender region.
Gloria

Door Number Two: 

“In hospital, with attending MD, however, unassisted and no interventions, a solid birth plan and not arriving at the hospital too early.”

This mom had a child 13 years ago, and there was still some emotions around that birth. She had her daughter with her mother attending her in hospital, and realized during our HB sessions, that she just wasn’t ready to have a baby then. She was single then and very young. Part way through the labour she said to her mom “I want to go home, I don’t want to do this”.  The labour was long, and the placenta did not detach. She lost a lot of blood and needed surgery to detach the placenta afterwards. 

She is now married and a great mom, and was so excited about the baby and birth, as was her now 13 year old daughter who attended one the third class on “falling in love with baby”. 

Everyone was ready, mom still had some fear issues around her uterus and placenta and her doctor advised her not to worry he had everything in hand and she should just relax and keep doing what she was doing. We did the Fear Release and let go of all unnecessary fears around this birth, and had a final session in preparation for baby.

Baby was due on the last weekend of October, however, mom had concert tickets to Madonna and said, “If baby waits, I’m going”.

The week following baby’s “due in date”, mom returned an email “I’m still here, pregnant and waiting”….

the Madonna concert came and went so I called on Saturday to no answer!
Hmm maybe things are happening!  A few minutes later she called me back with the news. 

She’d gone to the concert! Friends and family stayed close at hand in case she needed to leave quickly! She got home at 11pm and the surges started, she and her husband decided on bed, and she slept through to 4am. She woke her husband and they relocated to the hospital to find she was 7cm! Doing great!

They carried on together without intervention until the doctor arrived 

At that time, mom was in the hospital bed, with a monitor on, babies heart rate slid down to 97, and the doctor advised he wanted the infant out now. Baby’s heart rate resumed instantly,  however, the coached PUSHING began, and then a suction on baby’s head and the doctor pulled during the surges. 

From there – sutures were needed for mom’s torn perineum and he also elected to cut the cord immediately even though it was not around the infants neck (this was one of the mom’s who was working with the mirror neurons during birth – so baby was on the left side, head down, and cord floating free!  It worked YES!!) 

Now this doctor had assured the parents over and over around doing what they wanted. They had a birth plan and had reviewed with him many times.He assured them even though his Section rate was 15% that he believed in natural calm birth. He would delay cord cutting, and her husband would cut the cord. He would allow them to do mother directed pushing and breathing. He agreed that she did not have to be on the monitors for birthing. 

However, at the last moment, things changed. What might have caused baby’s heart rate to fluctuate ONCE might have been position of baby on the cord, might have been baby slipped down and was no longer being picked up by the monitor and instead it was reading mom. There are many things that affect baby’s heart rate during birth, however, when it returns to normal directly thereafter, and never slips again, why the increased flurry of crazy?

He decided baby had to be out now!  He attached the suction to baby’s head, and gave the orders for the mother to PUSH. She did, the purple pushing…past what her body wanted to do, (definitely not HB) past what her labour wanted, and in five surges baby was extracted from the womb. Cord not around the infants neck. 

From there he clamped and cut the cord immediately forgetting that the dad wanted to do this and there was no delay, more immanent fears of the infant in distress. 

Baby was separated from mom for the usual that is done in a hospital and so while everything at home, progressed beautifully, to 7 cm on their own, arriving at the hospital at 4am – from that time to 6am, just two short hours, this was not fast enough to avoid the interferences of the medical teams? Triggered by a scare? Triggered by time? Triggered by….we can’t know for certain, because afterwards everyone was in congratulations, elated that everything went so perfectly and how much better this had been than the last birth, in awe with the kindness of everyone!

They returned home on Saturday morning, delighted with the great experience, including their assistance by the doctor and RN’s that probably saved the day. Baby’s healing contusion on his head is minimal considering what “might have happened” 

Cord cutting was not delayed even though this was one of the first we’d done with mom’s sending images of baby to have the back on the left side, head down and the cord “floating free” and guess what – that’s exactly what happened. Why the cord was cut in seconds after birth we can’t say. The father said it looked white and non pulsing, however, it was clamped and then cut anyway and not by him. Oxytocin was given by injection and the placenta birthed immediately.

Mom needed suturing, do to the intense pulling and coached pushing.  She said she felt her body pushing however, they coached her to push when she didn’t feel it. And she did what her body was trying to tell her not to. On her back, on monitors, this is birthing ….who’s way? 

Ultimately this is where we have to understand it is indeed HER WAY.
She had many opportunities to interrupt or challenge what they were saying to her. Including baby’s heart rate raising up again directly after it went low the ONE TIME, and never returning to that rate again.
Cutting the cord instantly was done without interrupting or questioning by the parents, on that decision.

Their doctor said, “I really respect what you are doing here and you did a great job, but we need to be sure baby is healthy “So, even when it goes great, there is this need to intervene. 

From my perspective the relationship between this infant and it’s mother was well established! Not only did the baby wait for mom to attend the concert, he then proceeded to move himself into the world with little inconvenience to her at all. Essentially it was from 4-6 am that she was birthing him consciously.

Two hours.  What a great kid! 

In these “agreements’ where parents are fearful of honoring their infants experience you have to consider the trust between them, he just asked for a couple of hours of her time…she didn’t want to fight for her space or trust her body and her baby or fight for him, and in that moment and gave in. 

What happens in the outer world when they start telling her what she needs to do with her son?
What about overriding her feelings and following what the world out there says to do? 

And yet it was a great birth, so much better than her first one. And she is elated that her body actually does work….just like we had rehearsed, even to baby position and cord floating free, just like she imagined it!
And she was delighted with the mirror neurons working perfectly, so much so, that she is using them to help him latch on and suckle and he’s doing great with breastfeeding.  So much so, that she is a little rattled that she didn’t trust herself and listened instead to the outside influences and their intensity in moments when the mother is very deep in her work and not able to truthfully agree or disagree. 

At that point she’s counting on those she’s hired to help her get her through to a reasonable outcome, however, if you are in a hospital with an MD or OB, what are you paying them for? They do not sit around when there is a chance for action. You just have to know that.

This was pretty reasonable and certainly a wonderful birth experience, however, with just a few choices made at different times, this could have been a magical one, in a hospital no less!
 
We’re getting closer, we’re getting so much closer to women securing the birth they want without interferences no matter where they are or who is with them!

Door number two….Medicalized Birth, with little to no interventions. Kathy

 PS: She shared she knew exactly what she was doing all the way through this time. Every step of the way, she knew and knew just what to do. We’ d rehearsed for months together there was not one thing that surprised her, not one moment where she was uncertain…until they commanded her to push and decided to haul the baby out themselves rather than let him do it.   She said that part was just so great for her, knowing exactly what was happening and where he was and what to do next.

Congratulations, Kathy, great work.  Gloria

www.glorialemay.com/blog

"Kathy

 I just wanted to send you a quick thank you. Yasmin has said to me that
she was so glad you were there and I couldn’t agree more. We are so glad
that you were there to share in the birth of our BEAUTIFUL little girl.
You really made things easier for Yasmin and I can’t express my
gratitude enough.
 

Kind regards,

Duncan"

*** My review of the birth:

At 6am Friday her water broke and her husband called me. I spoke with the mom and we did a few surges together over the phone. They were present, however, she was talking about going off to Safeway,  so I said, "lets chat later".
 
At 12:28 I called again, and this time mom didn't want to speak with me, so I said, I'm coming now!
 
I arrived at just a little after 1pm.
 
After arriving, it seemed things were progressing nicely and when the tub was filled enough we got mom into it. It definitely makes the early labour move quickly and also relaxes mom so much so she can really have her space and remain focused. The water was very warm, and so a fan was called for as was the breezes from the open door.  Her Mom was amazing preparing food and carrying water, as was Dad, and gradually the tub filled.
 
At about 2pm another Doula arrived and began to worry that the MW was not returning her calls. She finally tracked her down after expressing concern this mom was in active labour with ruptured membranes and no MW on site or responding to our calls.  The MW was in Coquitlam and we were in Kits!
 
We kept all that "excitement" away from mom, and just kept doing the deep breathing and relaxing through each surge as they were coming closer together and a feeling of them lengthening some of them one on top of the other.  Perfect Labour… truly! And perfectly managed by Mom using her breath and her focus taking her inward with each surge.
 
Finally at 3pm MW arrived and called it in "A home birth in progress" and all was well…we kept moving forward not knowing where the end was. A few trips to the bathroom, and finding other positions to labour in.  We were starting to see some good "birthing show" as mom progressed doing her deep breathing, and relaxing while breathing deep into baby.  Checking the cervix the MW wanted the intensity to slow down so she guided mom in blowing off the surges, delaying any pushing from mom's body.  Finally the cervix was fully dilated and the MW gave the go ahead to follow her body's lead.
 
Fluids into mom whenever we could, and finally Dad climbed into the pool at 4:01pm.  From here on in, he could really support mom during the surges by doing the pressure on the hips and relieving her back strain, and also some Light Touch Massage and even when she left the tub, he remained waiting until she returned.
 
At 5pm mom looked up at the MW and asked how much longer? The MW said, maybe 3-4 hours more once she reached the "pushing" stage.  Somewhere we have to find a new term for the "pushing" stage because that just seems to get it into everyone's head it has to be so intense, when really the body will just do it, and all mom really has to do is co operate with it and help it with her breath and her voice and her body…which was exactly what this mom was doing, perfectly!  Mother Directed means she follows her body's lead without any outside directives or instructions.  Well we try!
 
And yet between the surges mom would "sink in" into the inner places, inward, resting her body and her baby, and waiting on the next surge, knowing it would bring her back "out" and up and she would manage it just as she had all the rest of them. That deep sinking in during the last stages of birth really allow moms to rest and recapture their space, prepare for the next one, and take deep rests, almost falling deep into sleep.  It's perfectly ok as it allows the whole process to slow down, slowing the inner body systems, resting them, allowing for baby to rest in the birth canal, and allowing all the muscles to rest and relax.
 
It's really perfect if moms will let this happen and let go of any anxiety or stressors here, it's just the best for opening and letting baby move down. Now is the perfect time for parents to begin to "see" their baby out in the water. This is the use of the mirror neurons and these parents started to do this too.
 
Mom came out of the water, and the MW could see babies head emerging, so could Dad from inside the pool as mom bent over.  Mom opted for returning to the pool and baby was emerging into the pool, surges were intense now, and the stretching can be challenging here, however, as mom, waited and was careful listening to her body and her baby, and gently opening to allow baby to emerg.
 
It was three more connected surges and baby had negotiated her way out of mom, and the MW placed her up on her chest and baby was giving mom and dad a loud greeting!  Dad was immersed in the emotions of the moment, and Mom, now fully returned from her long passage in and out of her trance states, now bright eyed, smiled at everyone and said "we did it, I did it, I didn't think I could do it, but I did it".  A delighted grin on her face, that kind of grin that's as pleased as one can be with her work!
 
She then checked and surprised everyone with "it's a girl".   It hadn't taken 3 more hours at all…it was a really done so quickly Baby had lots of vernix, the very best for them is to let the vernix sink right into baby's skin - if the pharmaceutical companies could get a hold of this stuff they surely would, it's just the best for skin softening and I'm sure anti-aging!
 
From there we helped baby and mom out of the tub and onto the bed. They elected to do the Stem Cell Blood Banking and so the cord was cut very shortly thereafter, however, the MW mentioned that it was almost stopped pulsing when she clamped it.  Then she retrieved the blood and mom birthed the Placenta and it was done!
 
Baby was delighted to be on mom, breathing easily and quiet now, she was with her mom and dad, and all three delighted with the new family. A new mother was born with this infants arrival as was a new Grandmother born, as this was her mothers  first grandchild.
 
Dads words were "Another Princess in the house"   Perfect!  Just like her sweet little pink toes and fingers…Perfect!
 
 
It's just a day later and thinking tonight as I write this new family are either feeding baby, changing her, or trying to get some rest themselves…no matter the time of day or night, for the next few weeks it will be pretty solid focus as the family adjusts …
 
So all in all, active labour start to finish, was from 1pm to 5:49pm --- 
 
Great stuff, and yet speed is the least on the list of importance to this process when considering the positive experience of the mother, the empowerment of the father, the health of the infant and the intact perineum! 

Using these same techniques I’ve now added having mothers and fathers visualize the baby outside of mom’s body once the baby has moved into transition and we are doing the birth breathing.

What happens in the moms often feel the change and panic. AGGGGH Something is happening!  Well, yes, baby is moving down, time to birth your baby, and unfortunately that panic attack can delay the birth for about an hour longer or even more, as it shoots catecholamine through the mothers body and stops the production of oxytocin.

This gets everyone in the medical model all excited and worried and stresses baby too, it makes for a messy and stressed birth! Which we don’t need. You name it forceps, suction, drugs...they will bring it all on if mom is stressing here!

So as soon as mom has that inner feeling baby is in the birth path, I have BOTH parents (baby is 50/50 here part of mom and part of dad so he has to participate to) visualize the baby emerging out of mom.

So mostly what we’re doing during the last 40-50 minutes of the birth is slowing mom down so she births her child and has an intact perineum as well!

And it’s working great!  Who knew!

Quiet during the last stages, just let this happen and it will every time, every time, every time!

Thanks for posting this story, Kathy.  I'm surprised that more women don't "jump ship" from midwives when they get to the end of their pregnancies and the midwives start backtracking on what they have promised.

As Gloria says: "good for her!"

On Solstice too..being a mother that has had unassisted births twice..it can be an amazing and empowering experience.

Had a very interesting birth today! 

This mom is really independent and will not be directed! We worked together over 6 months doing HB and NLP to prepare her, however, being she's a solid earth mother, who was home birthed herself, she had every confidence in her body and birthing. She also was having nothing to do with additional tests, meds or interventions.

So she fired her first midwives as they were too aggressive and went with an older one, however, baby was 9 days over and MW was pushing So she FIRED HER TOO yesterday!

I was in Kelowna and snow bound, called her this morning at 9”30- and she had just birthed her first baby, at home, on her OWN!

Yes…her husband was there, and a friend. That was it!

All good, cord around the neck but loose and baby was out and on her chest and then the placenta birthed directly thereafter within ten minutes.

They left it attached to the baby for 24 hours, and I called Gloria, she’s in Victoria, so she referred me to Hope = one of her students and she went over, just to do a check up and check on baby and mother!

How is that for MY BIRTH: My Way! 

They didn’t have a lot of money and so didn’t want to hire me, and Gloria was right out of the question…so she did it herself!

You see it’s totally possible and our bodies do work!

Her husband was really concerned when she fired the second midwife, knowing it was going to fall to him, however, we'd covered off the whole of the birthing process and they were in great shape to proceed and did just that!

Now I don't TEACH unassisted home birth, that's not my preference and as you can see I was not invited either, however, there's still the taxi cab births and births in airplanes...so it can happen naturally without all the crazy!

This one worked out great!

Just so you know, Gloria's response was "good for her!"   

Bye for now, Kathy

[Here's how:]

One might think they need therapy when they are pregnant, there is enough going on in the pregnant woman's psyche to create an unbelievable amount of chaos, one can only declare "well she's pregnant".

Focus shifts, responses are lost, the "soft frame" of mind is evident everywhere!

With deeper issues, fears or phobic responses to experiences - this can be attended to rather effortlessly through Hypnosis & NLP and relieve the intensity of those "believed outcomes" so that the woman can relax and enjoy her pregnancy!

Here's how:

Fears are, for example, an indication of how wonderfully fast the brain learns a new behaviour. Often it just takes one 'bad' experience for the unconscious mind to generalize behaviours of being terrified of something that can last for years, sometimes a lifetime. Try rehearsing labour from this place, when you have no idea of what is coming and only other peoples stories to learn from.

The good news is that because the brain does learn to be scared so quickly, it can learn a different and more useful behaviour (not to be scared) just as quickly.

These techniques are rapid, comfortable and easy
It usually amazes people to hear they are just no longer fearful of the upcoming birth that the thoughts, feelings and behaviour can change so fast, often within a matter of minutes, and for good.

How Are You Going To Cure My Fear?For many years the only treatment available for people with intense fear was desensitisation. For example, if you had a fear of spiders you would gradually (very gradually) be introduced to the object you feared over a period of months, starting with tiny pictures, moving to slightly bigger pictures and eventually maybe a video and so forth. This was usually a painful process, when it worked at all, with people gradually getting used to the spiders whilst gritting their teeth and often more anchored into the fear than they were before!

Hypnotherapy has been the best approach for decades
The other treatment that had success was hypnotherapy, getting the person to deeply relax and build conditioned responses of calm whilst in a hypnotic trance, and/or/ using direct and indirect metaphor, embedded commands, getting the person to float back through time and 'come to terms' with their experiences amongst many others. Any or all of these techniques are still valid.

Then in the 1970's Richard Bandler, co - creator of NLP, after asking psychiatrists and psychologists what their 'most difficult' clients were and being told 'Phobics!(intense fear) Even talking to them about the phobia freaks them out,' informed them that he was going to find an easy way to cure them.

The psychologists were highly sceptical that this was possible. 'After all,' they said, 'we have been studying them for years'.

The point they had been missing is that they had been studying the one group of people in the world that did not know how to cure a phobia (intense fear) !

Studying the right people   (ask a better question!)
Richard's approach was to find people who had once had a fear and then ask them how they got over it. He expected to find a few people but had hundreds of replies to newspaper adverts for 'ex-phobics' (it turns out that it is quite common for people to get over phobias by themselves) and they all said the same sort of thing - 'I used to have this terrible phobia but one day I said to myself 'enough is enough', I saw myself in the situation and I had to laugh, it was like the straw that broke the camel's back, and ever since that moment it hasn't bothered me a bit'.

And so the Birth of:  'NLP Fast Phobia Cure'. The treatment often takes just a few minutes to resolve even a severe and chronic phobia. (intense fear"

The treatment uses combinations of the fastest and most effective techniques that we have learned over the years and the number of sessions needed to resolve most common phobias is one, or very occasionally two.

So it's become part of the program to release fears in Birthing and it works...everytime! Yes, everytime!

Yes, Every Time...It Works...

Yes, even if you had a disasterous first birth, and you are having another one, yes, it works.

Yes, even if you are having the same doctors, hospital, and probably a C-Section, yes, it works.

Yes, even if you want to stop thinking about the disasterous birth trauma that you had and eventually get on with your life, yes it works.

Yes, Every Time...It Works...

Yes, for that too....whatever the issue, it works. Whatever you are afraid of, it works.

If you re-read the very first part about how the brain actually learns fast...that's why it works every time.

Kathy

...yes, every time.

[RAPPORT BUIDLING 101!!!!]

It may seem complex, however, as you consider this, you are going to recognize you essentially do this all the time!  The differences that occur in the birthing models are when practitioners enter into the room and go into polarity with other care providers. There is NO ROOM for this in the birthing rooms.

I've heard lots of Doula's complaining about RN's and how they treat them as servants or helpers for the RN.
That's polarized and negative priming in the relationships and it needs to change with intention!

RAPPORT BUIDLING 101!!!! We are all doing this all the time anyway, bringing it to consciousness is the awarness to get something shifted when it needs to be and then let it go! 

EXAMPLES

* Try motivating your two year old to eat his breakfast...rapport skills
* Working with your mother to get a family project completed ....rapport skills
* At work trying to get progress in a meeting to ensure the new filing system will operate....rapport building

Ok, lets look at the fundamentals of Rapport Building:


Match vs. Mismatch

Attention is focused on what is the same or what is different.

Matching is important for rapport and relationship building, since connecting with someone, or meeting them in their world view in order to better communicate, involves perceiving and communicating in 'like' ways. The concept of 'like', or match, is built into our language even to the point where, if we want to express an affinity we have with another person, we say we 'like' them. If we have negative feelings about someone, we say we 'dis-like' them. Matching is also important in seeing connections or associations between sets of ideas, motifs, themes and a broad range of integrative processes both within and across different fields of study and endeavor.

Mismatching is essential to sorting, itself. If I can't tell any difference between two or more things, they are effectively the same to me and I have no basis on which to sort them from each other.

Our brains and nervous systems are designed to notice difference. Habituation, where the same stimulus happens over and over again, is the process by which our brains and nervous systems decide that something is no longer different enough to warrant notice and needn't be brought to conscious attention. 'Different' gets our attention, and our awareness of it is important to our survival. Mismatching is also important in discriminating the desirable, sensible or functional from their opposites.

Mismatching takes us OUT OF RAPPORT with others, it allows us to change the subject, just like Raquel today, took us all out of rapport when she changed the pattern and interrupted the conversation- rightly so, we'd still be at it! 

Matching and Mismatching, keys to Rapport, and when you KNOW what you are doing you have the OPTIONS.

BOUNDARIES

As you might expect, matching becomes a problem when it is overused or used without choice. In relationships, over-matching can lead a person to forget their own boundaries and unique sense of self. They may become more compliant or accommodating than is good for either them, their partner, or the relationship as a whole. By matching too exclusively early in a relationship, a person may not discover how the other person will behave when differences emerge later in the relationship after commitments have already been made.

Since adults with full access to both matching and mismatching capabilities realistically expect that no two people are exactly the same, they may view someone who matches too consistently as either lacking in character or having a hidden agenda. 

In other contexts, the overuse of matching can result in the failure to recognize important new information, essential differences which might strongly indicate a different course of action, or failure to appreciate the unique gifts and qualities in any person, team or situation.

Mismatching, when overused, can obstruct productive relationships, contaminate cooperation, reduce available choices, ignore important connections, segregate whole class groups of people, and generally cause strife and conflict. At its extreme, especially when combined with disassociation, it can lead to violence on a scale from interpersonal to international or intercultural.