Sounding board as they consider their choices.

Through your actions you can either reinforce their

skills in this area (which is an empowering process
for parents) or undermine them. Your role in pre-
natal education, apart from the formal setting of a
class, is vital in supporting parents and building their
confidence. The more practice they have had before
the baby arrives, the more confident they will be
about the responsibilities of parenthood.
The format for classes and the kinds of activities that
can be incorporated as skill building exercises is
beyond the scope of this book. For a further
exploration of these issues, see Empowering women
Teaching active birth (Robertson 1994). Such
classes will be based on experiential learning,
practical sessions, group involvement and discussion.
There will be an emphasis on the needs of the
individual learner and fulfilling their desired
outcomes rather than covering a syllabus set by
others. Opportunities for networking and learning
from peers will be encouraged, and there will be
provision for the exploration of feelings and
emotions that colour many of the decisions parents
make. Another important aspect will be exarnining
cultures, beliefs and attitudes which have a
significant influence on decision-making and the
inclusion of the effects of the medical system on
normal healthy pregnant women.
Pre-natal classes once focused on teaching women
how to behave during labour and birth. "The
breathing" was an integral part of each session, with
women being taught how to consciously relax and
shift their concentration away from their bodies. This
approach was a good example of the medical culture
prescribing a treatment for labour, with the ultimate
goal of having a painless labour if the patient got it
right. Like other aspects of medical care (such as the
"selling" of epidurals, for example) it has become
commercialised, with community groups offering
services based around a product (such as
psychoprophylaxis, "husband coached childbirth,
Lamaze training,
breath awareness, yoga and exercise). It is curious
that this is the only natural bodily function to have
been taken over in this way, and is perhaps a
comment on the commercialisation and
medicalisation of birth in a consumer-based society.
Women do not need to be taught how to give birth or
how to behave. During labour any more than they
need lessons in how to make love or behave during
orgasm. These reproductive behaviours come
naturally, driven by innate instincts present in all
women. To suggest, an sell the idea, that women
cannot give birth successfully without training is an
insult to women and a denigration of their natural
capacity for safe, effective birth, training sessions
based on learning specific techniques undermine a
womans confidence and set her up for failure if she
forgets what to do or the method doesnt have the
desired effect. This is profoundly disempowering for
a new mother, at a time when she needs all the
confidence and heightened feeling of self esteem that
she can muster.