Birth Plans

Many parents are asked to make Birth Plans during the last stage of their pregnancy. As dads we love plans of course (why ask for directions when you've got a map ...) Well, here's the problem - you can't really plan a birth. What you want might not happen and what you dread might happen (or the other way round). Whatever happens happens. At the end of the day you just don't know beforehand how things will pan out and no one else does either. At a certain level birth is mysterious.

Dear New Zealand DIYFather-to-be

This letter is written specifically to you so you can grow into the father you want to be. You don’t want to wait until your newborn is in your arms to start to develop fathering skills and if you think they will spontaneously erupt out of you like Christmas lights you’re wrong. BTW … mothering skills don’t automatically turn on either.

So this letter is written to encourage you to use pregnancy:

• As your time for ‘becoming’ a dad (grow some great fatherhood skills during the 5 Phases of pregnancy)
• To help your pregnant partner prepare her body to let a very big object out (no, not a watermelon but a big grapefruit).
• To learn your birth coaching/support skills so that you can also effectively work with your baby’s efforts to be born in whatever birth you have even if its not the birth you wanted.

Are you a political animal?

As we all know New Zealand is a unique country in many ways not only because there’s MMP. Besides Number #8 wire, The All Blacks and The Bee Hive, New Zealand is the only country in the world that has a Midwifery led maternity system.

Like most men you are probably couldn’t give a hoot about the politics of childbirth. Frankly it’s boring. However, you’re about to have a baby so both the wonderful aspects of our NZ midwifery centered maternity system and some unintended negative consequences of this system will impact you, your baby and its mother and the experience you have. Even if your baby or partner needs obstetrical care, your midwife or GP will continue with you.

For this short period of your life:

• You need to learn a whole new language about pregnancy and childbirth.
• Figure out what you want and what will happen within this system.
• And determine the best way for you to act, behave, manage, cope and deal with this unique period as a man, partner and father-to-be.

If birth politics really bores you to death then skip over the benefits and cut to the chase. Read the negative aspects because these impact all expectant fathers and you probably don’t know it!

Clap Your Hands

The Birth and Coaching Skills You Need

Dear DIYFather-to-be

Take a deep breath then consider your life: work, sports, hobbies, technical expertise even driving a car or knowing how to wash the dishes. All of these require learned skills and then using them.

Think a bit back to when you were 7 or 8 years old and consider how many skills you’ve learned since then … beyond being able to hold your liquor!

We think skills just arrive

Often we’re not even aware of all the skills we’ve learned, practiced, perfected and use. Learning skills can come so easily to some people and in some areas that people don’t recognize how much time they practiced or repeated doing something over and over again in order to become skilled. But skills can be difficult. If schoolwork was not your strength then you know that learning can be a struggle and unsatisfactory. In fact, you know how badly you can feel when you don’t feel skilled, particularly if those skills are expected of you.

Pain In Childbirth Is Not ‘The Problem’

Dear DIYFather-to-be:

The greatest fear that men have about childbirth is the pain. Pain at any other time of life is connected to: illness, injury and possibly death. It’s very difficult for many people to fully understand that pain in childbirth is unique and must be treated differently.

Here’s the good news:

• There is no medical problem in childbirth that is associated with pain. Pain is part of the natural process of letting a very big object out of a body no matter how much it hurts.
• You and your pregnant partner can learn pain management skills so together you can work with your baby’s efforts to come down, through and out of her body.
• The pain is connected to opening the cervix. It is the management of this pain that makes the difference in how both of you view birth for years afterwards. With skills you can feel wonderful about your combined abilities. Without skills both of you can feel overwhelmed.

Obstetric Specialist

Dear New Zealand DIYFather-to-be:

Many women go into pregnancy with one or more medical issues that have nothing to do with pregnancy. This might be true in your family. During pregnancy there are some medical conditions that require obstetrical care whether they were present prior to pregnancy or developed. This may be true for your family. Some health issues during pregnancy might have to do with your baby’s wellbeing while its pregnant mother is healthy. This might be true in your family.

Your family might require specialist care yet you’ll still retain your ‘continuity of care’ midwife. Whether you and your pregnant partner wanted to be under specialist care its not infrequent even in New Zealand where birth is considered to be natural.

How NZ Midwives See Fathers-to-be … You

Dear New Zealand DIYExpectant Father:

Pregnancy changes everything. Once a woman falls pregnant she comes under the care of a midwife and sometimes a specialist and draws attention from even strangers. The focus is SO on the woman and child that you very well might already feel a bit uncertain about your role. Fathers-to-be can particularly feel this female focus within the NZ Midwifery because the midwifery Partnership model is between midwives and women. What’s your place?

Who honors the fathers-to-be?

Unlike traditional communities, in modern cultures there is little honoring of fathers-to-be and this is incredibly sad. A man, becoming a father, goes through as many changes during pregnancy as does his partner … yet different.

The Role Of Your New Zealand Midwife

Dear New Zealand DIYFather-to-be:

New Zealand has a very unique maternity service that is Midwifery led. You and your partner will have one (or team) of midwives who will be with you throughout the pregnancy, during birth and for 6 weeks afterwards. Nowhere else does a Government pay for that privileged type of midwifery continuity of care.

This ‘continuity of care’ focuses on having one midwife to work with you during this exciting period of your life. However, there are two primary misunderstandings about ‘continuity of care midwifery’ that absolutely must be opened up, looked at and dealt with.

New Zealand midwives base their professional relationship on a Partnership with women to whom they offer this continuity of care.

The Partnership is not working on the same premise

Many New Zealand women have interpreted a continuity of care model means:

• Their midwife will teach them how to birth and …
• Be their primary birth coach/support.

What is the argument between natural and medical birth?

Dear New Zealand DIYFather-to-be

You’re in a bind here torn between two very opposing viewpoints of childbirth. Where should you stand?

On the one hand NZ midwives are strong proponents of ‘natural’ birth, believe childbirth is inherently safe and that a natural birth is better than a medical one. If you think the word ‘natural’ has ever been defined with a common meaning think again.

Let’s be practical. If you lived in a culture where there was no medical care available then anything and everything that happened in birth would be ‘normal’ and ‘natural’ although it might be unpleasant or infrequent. There are still hundreds of millions of people live without access to modern medical care. However, you live in a very modern country with a great maternity health service. In New Zealand the word ‘natural birth’ implies a lack of medical ‘interventions’’ and implies birth will be spontaneously easy as well as safe.

NZ Cesarean Rate Rises Toward Thirty Percent

Dear New Zealand Expectant DIYFather:

When the New Zealand Government instituted a Midwifery Model in 1990 the Cesarean rate was 12.9%. By 2005 the rate was above 25% and rising. Presently the national average is approaching 30%. That means 1 in 3 pregnancy will end in a surgical birth.

Have midwives failed? Does this mean NZ women have something wrong with them? Are NZ babies more at risk from being born? None of these is even part of the reason why. The maternity services have simply missed a major component … the lack of skills by both expectant mothers and fathers. Birth is treated as something that happens to a woman rather than an activity she does. Pregnancy and birth is certainly not treated as something you, as an expectant father, also do. Big mistake.

Childbirth is dynamic.

NZ Midwives Have A Partnership With Women

Dear New Zealand DIYFather-to-be

Women who work as midwives probably have not intentionally left you and other men out of their partnership model but they have.

Like most men, you’re likely to be:

• Totally unconscious or uninterested in the history of childbirth in modern countries such as New Zealand.
• Equally disinterested and put off by the political debates that still rages between midwives and obstetricians.
• Ho hum about the struggles of pregnant women and those who work as midwives to get the NZ Midwifery maternity system developed.

Don’t feel poorly … like most men, you just want to know that your pregnant partner and baby are safe and cared for.

Partnerships have mutual responsibilities