Active Birth, Module 1
Меня наконец-то зачислили на курс Active Birth, который будет проходить в Лондоне 27-30 апреля.
This four-day intensive course covers labour and birth physiology as it unfolds from pre-labour to the first hour after birth. It will enable you to learn new ways to make your pregnancy yoga, parentcraft or birth preparation classes more effective and/or assist you to deepen your knowledge, skills and intuition in the birthplace. You will be encouraged to develop a plan to integrate the course contents into your existing professional activities or to progress to become an Active Birth pregnancy yoga teacher.
Занятие ведет Janet Balaskas, автор чудесной книги про подготовку к родам и активное поведение в них, guest star - Мишель Оден.
Одна из причин, по которой я хочу пройти этот курс - то, что я хочу работать на английском. Я точно знаю, что в Москве рожают англоязычные женщины, что подготовка к родам на английском может понадобиться и им, и парам, где хотя бы один из партнеров плохо говорит по-русски и хорошо - по-английски.
Для того, чтобы меня зачислили, нужно было написать эссе про собственно Active Birth на английском, что я и сделала.
• How would you define an Active Birth? Explain why you think that educating pregnant women about Active Birth is important, and why and how this knowledge makes a difference.
I was lying down 80% of my labour. I also had a male birth attendant. And only spent 10 minutes in the bathtub. And I’m actually very proud of all of this because I have actively chosen to do so. 30 hours after the first contraction I was squatting on our family bed pushing out our first baby girl. Everything in this birth was just right for us.
And this is what we try to pass on to the expectant mothers and families - know all your possibilities and do what feels right for you. We encourage physical activity as one of the key aspects of a healthy and satisfying birth, but our focus is on women and families taking the lead in the process.
I feel like in some regard this is a backlash against what we’ve had here for a couple of decades - an ongoing antagonism of the harsh soviet-era hospital obstetrics and the raw revolutionary homebirth movement. Both have been very rigid. It’s fairly easy for specialists with deep knowledge of something to discount the consumer’s ability to make the right decision and to manipulate him into doing what the knowledgeable person believes is right. As a psychologist I know that this is a very questionable way of helping people.
These days I see lots of positive changes here - the official medicine and the natural birth activists have started making careful steps towards each other. It’s a very delicate process, and unfortunately, the progress is still slow. Some hospitals are ready to satisfy the demand for a natural birth, but it’s still something that women have to initiate and pay extra money for. And how do they know it’s something that they need to do? For this women educate themselves in many different ways.
First, one needs to question her values and attitudes. Does she feel like there’s something important about giving birth, something that makes it worth the trouble to tailor-make her own experience? Does she see it as something she wants to take responsibility for, or is it more of a medical issue for her that she would like to quickly finish with and just have the baby? How well does she know her body? Is she eager to work to make that body her faithful ally?
Then a woman starts looking for information. Here come the friends and colleagues, family, Internet message boards, books and articles, maybe even medical research. The rational part of her (aka. Animus, the male self) is what rules here. She’s becoming an educated consumer who knows what the world has to offer.
The next step is to decide what’s right for her and her family. Ideally, she turns back to herself and examines her expectations, feelings, preferences, etc. What feels right? What can she imagine herself doing? What empowers her and what makes her feel small? What level of responsibility and anxiety can she handle? Where does she feel vulnerable? This is all about honesty and intuition, and this is where she’s in touch with her female self.
It’s tempting to link those steps to trimesters, and there is some truth in it, but in reality they’re all intertwined and follow each other chaotically. The important thing is that a woman has to do all of it. Find her motivation, see what’s there to choose from and make the right choice. Herself.
That’s why I loved the La Leche League philosophy. They’ve got lots of information and practical expertise, but they concentrate on empowering women, not on guiding them. This was totally new for my Russian ears. Even if it’s not always put to practice, it’s a very healthy idea.
If I were to define an Active Birth I would say it’s a birth in which a woman takes lead, where her true body’s capacities are revealed, her wishes are respected and where she’s the one responsible for the success. It’s not about doing everything herself, it’s about doing whatever she chooses to do herself, and having the help and support she wants to have.
So why do I think it’s important to educate women about Active Birth?
- An Active Birth is one of the most intense and fulfilling bodily experiences one can ever have. It’s a woman's body that makes children and feeds them, and it functions better when it and its capacities are known and respected.
- Women deprived of proper physical activity are those who benefit the most from reminding their bodies of their true capacities, and bodies only learn through doing things.
- It’s a vaccine against women being afraid of their wishes and going against them.
- A father who actively helps mother during a birth is more likely to have a positive experience and be empowered by it as well. This is especially important for Russia because the prevailing belief here is that seeing a woman giving birth should be traumatic for a man.
- It prepares the mother to trust her guts when caring for the baby. This is immense - one of the worst parenting problems I see in families of intelligent, active people is not seeing their baby behind the parenting practices.
- It also has somethis to do with politics - the healthiest part of it where it’s not the party leaders who choose the direction, but the usual people who change themselves and make it impossible for the leaders not to notice those massive social changes.
My own interest here is that I want to share the beauty and power of natural birth with other women and their families, and that the only way I see myself doing this is with great respect for their own powers and struggles. I was taught to look at a woman as if she’s not alone, because even if she looks confused and insecure, the fact of her existence tells me that she possesses the powers of all of her ancestors, the females who were strong enough to support life for thousands of years. I feel that only by seeing and admitting those powers I can help that woman to become actively involved in what she’s doing - be it her birth or her life in general.
Получилось помпезненько, но в общем я довольна.
Вторая причина, по которой я хочу поехать туда учиться - я хочу посмотреть на то, как они преподают. Меня не оставляет ощущение, что на Западах преподают в более близкой для меня манере. Меня очень вдохновило то, как преподавала женщина, которая вела у нас курс от La Leche League - было очень много информации (это было оправдано), и в то же время очень заметен был интерес к тому, что мы знаем, что мы думаем, как мы делаем, какие у нас причины делать так, как мы делаем, и т.п. Это было что-то в духе "я преподаю, потому что это моя работа, у меня есть много профессиональной информации, и есть умение передавать ее другим, но главные в этой аудитории - вы".
И на будущее нам ясно дали понять, что наш личный опыт - это не учебное пособие, а в лучшем случае повод для обсуждения. Про него может быть интересно, развлекательно и познавательно узнать, но по большому счету можно провести курс или консультацию без упоминания о чем-то личном.
В общем, я хочу научиться хорошо учить.
This four-day intensive course covers labour and birth physiology as it unfolds from pre-labour to the first hour after birth. It will enable you to learn new ways to make your pregnancy yoga, parentcraft or birth preparation classes more effective and/or assist you to deepen your knowledge, skills and intuition in the birthplace. You will be encouraged to develop a plan to integrate the course contents into your existing professional activities or to progress to become an Active Birth pregnancy yoga teacher.
Занятие ведет Janet Balaskas, автор чудесной книги про подготовку к родам и активное поведение в них, guest star - Мишель Оден.
Одна из причин, по которой я хочу пройти этот курс - то, что я хочу работать на английском. Я точно знаю, что в Москве рожают англоязычные женщины, что подготовка к родам на английском может понадобиться и им, и парам, где хотя бы один из партнеров плохо говорит по-русски и хорошо - по-английски.
Для того, чтобы меня зачислили, нужно было написать эссе про собственно Active Birth на английском, что я и сделала.
• How would you define an Active Birth? Explain why you think that educating pregnant women about Active Birth is important, and why and how this knowledge makes a difference.
I was lying down 80% of my labour. I also had a male birth attendant. And only spent 10 minutes in the bathtub. And I’m actually very proud of all of this because I have actively chosen to do so. 30 hours after the first contraction I was squatting on our family bed pushing out our first baby girl. Everything in this birth was just right for us.
And this is what we try to pass on to the expectant mothers and families - know all your possibilities and do what feels right for you. We encourage physical activity as one of the key aspects of a healthy and satisfying birth, but our focus is on women and families taking the lead in the process.
I feel like in some regard this is a backlash against what we’ve had here for a couple of decades - an ongoing antagonism of the harsh soviet-era hospital obstetrics and the raw revolutionary homebirth movement. Both have been very rigid. It’s fairly easy for specialists with deep knowledge of something to discount the consumer’s ability to make the right decision and to manipulate him into doing what the knowledgeable person believes is right. As a psychologist I know that this is a very questionable way of helping people.
These days I see lots of positive changes here - the official medicine and the natural birth activists have started making careful steps towards each other. It’s a very delicate process, and unfortunately, the progress is still slow. Some hospitals are ready to satisfy the demand for a natural birth, but it’s still something that women have to initiate and pay extra money for. And how do they know it’s something that they need to do? For this women educate themselves in many different ways.
First, one needs to question her values and attitudes. Does she feel like there’s something important about giving birth, something that makes it worth the trouble to tailor-make her own experience? Does she see it as something she wants to take responsibility for, or is it more of a medical issue for her that she would like to quickly finish with and just have the baby? How well does she know her body? Is she eager to work to make that body her faithful ally?
Then a woman starts looking for information. Here come the friends and colleagues, family, Internet message boards, books and articles, maybe even medical research. The rational part of her (aka. Animus, the male self) is what rules here. She’s becoming an educated consumer who knows what the world has to offer.
The next step is to decide what’s right for her and her family. Ideally, she turns back to herself and examines her expectations, feelings, preferences, etc. What feels right? What can she imagine herself doing? What empowers her and what makes her feel small? What level of responsibility and anxiety can she handle? Where does she feel vulnerable? This is all about honesty and intuition, and this is where she’s in touch with her female self.
It’s tempting to link those steps to trimesters, and there is some truth in it, but in reality they’re all intertwined and follow each other chaotically. The important thing is that a woman has to do all of it. Find her motivation, see what’s there to choose from and make the right choice. Herself.
That’s why I loved the La Leche League philosophy. They’ve got lots of information and practical expertise, but they concentrate on empowering women, not on guiding them. This was totally new for my Russian ears. Even if it’s not always put to practice, it’s a very healthy idea.
If I were to define an Active Birth I would say it’s a birth in which a woman takes lead, where her true body’s capacities are revealed, her wishes are respected and where she’s the one responsible for the success. It’s not about doing everything herself, it’s about doing whatever she chooses to do herself, and having the help and support she wants to have.
So why do I think it’s important to educate women about Active Birth?
- An Active Birth is one of the most intense and fulfilling bodily experiences one can ever have. It’s a woman's body that makes children and feeds them, and it functions better when it and its capacities are known and respected.
- Women deprived of proper physical activity are those who benefit the most from reminding their bodies of their true capacities, and bodies only learn through doing things.
- It’s a vaccine against women being afraid of their wishes and going against them.
- A father who actively helps mother during a birth is more likely to have a positive experience and be empowered by it as well. This is especially important for Russia because the prevailing belief here is that seeing a woman giving birth should be traumatic for a man.
- It prepares the mother to trust her guts when caring for the baby. This is immense - one of the worst parenting problems I see in families of intelligent, active people is not seeing their baby behind the parenting practices.
- It also has somethis to do with politics - the healthiest part of it where it’s not the party leaders who choose the direction, but the usual people who change themselves and make it impossible for the leaders not to notice those massive social changes.
My own interest here is that I want to share the beauty and power of natural birth with other women and their families, and that the only way I see myself doing this is with great respect for their own powers and struggles. I was taught to look at a woman as if she’s not alone, because even if she looks confused and insecure, the fact of her existence tells me that she possesses the powers of all of her ancestors, the females who were strong enough to support life for thousands of years. I feel that only by seeing and admitting those powers I can help that woman to become actively involved in what she’s doing - be it her birth or her life in general.
Получилось помпезненько, но в общем я довольна.
Вторая причина, по которой я хочу поехать туда учиться - я хочу посмотреть на то, как они преподают. Меня не оставляет ощущение, что на Западах преподают в более близкой для меня манере. Меня очень вдохновило то, как преподавала женщина, которая вела у нас курс от La Leche League - было очень много информации (это было оправдано), и в то же время очень заметен был интерес к тому, что мы знаем, что мы думаем, как мы делаем, какие у нас причины делать так, как мы делаем, и т.п. Это было что-то в духе "я преподаю, потому что это моя работа, у меня есть много профессиональной информации, и есть умение передавать ее другим, но главные в этой аудитории - вы".
И на будущее нам ясно дали понять, что наш личный опыт - это не учебное пособие, а в лучшем случае повод для обсуждения. Про него может быть интересно, развлекательно и познавательно узнать, но по большому счету можно провести курс или консультацию без упоминания о чем-то личном.
В общем, я хочу научиться хорошо учить.