Birth time: the movie

Birth time is an Australian documentary that involved midwives, Aboriginal midwives, obstetricians, women, and a lot of dads (which was, I think, my biggest take home message).

It was a private screening and actually, there were a lot of students in the room (I later found out).

It talks about the medical model of birth- and how over time this has become the overwhelming option for women who don't know (especially first timers) that they have options. They don't realise how options may be presented to them : and how this can profoundly affect (in both good and bad ways) their experience of birth, their bodies, and their relationship with their child and their partners - well into the future.
( I won a t-shirt! )

I can't wait to wear that t-shirt.

2 pushes and then we'll "help you"

Filed under 'memories from my student days'.

Was this lady who had a cardiac condition she had been born with and always knew about. It didn't change how she lived her life, and was in all other respects healthy and normal.

However when she became pregnant it was a big deal, and she was in the doctors clinic.

They had a plan for her birth. The plan they made was that she was to remain cardiac monitored throughout labour, I think there was a plan for early epidural (and for an induction if she hadn't gone into labour before 39 weeks) and that she would be allowed "two pushes" and then would be "helped" with an instrumental thereafter.

( Stories I don't want to forget from my student days )