Being in the birthing business means that you often build closer relationships to people you deal with than in other professions. This is the case for a couple and their beautiful baby I met up with recently. We met up to chat about the birth of their second child and how, even though they felt as though they had a good first birth experience, they thought this may not happen for the second. I think there are many people who go through this thought process, which often isn't helped by well meaning friends or relatives claiming that it wouldn’t be the same for the second child, or that it was just luck that it was ok for the first.

This led me to consider how we need to ensure that mums to be and their birth companions understand that although the physical birth outcome is changeable, the skills and resources you have to ensure you have a good birth experience are constant and, like any skill, will only improve with practise.

As I wrote in a previous blog post when I questioned "What Is a Natural Birth?", there are 4 key elements to ensuring mum comes away from her birth recognising that it was a good experience. These are:

• Did mum and birth companion feel in control of their birth?
• Was the birth as calm and gentle as possible?
• Was mum relaxed throughout the birth?
• Did mum feel empowered after the birth?

I know I contradict some of the well known antenatal classes who infer that the best birth experiences are completely 'natural' ones, however I passionately believe that a great birth experience includes those who choose to have gas and air, epidurals, caesarean sections, hospital births and the multpiple other options which are available to help support the arrival of a healthy and happy baby.

A great quote by Jimmy Dean comes to mind when I consider birth - "I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination." A first time mum sails her maiden voyage for her first birth, having learned the skills but never having experienced the changing wind or power of the seas. A second time mum returns to the sea as an experienced sailor, she has the familiarity of the ocean and knows just how to work with that power and how to best harness the energy of nature.

Photo credit: wili_hybrid

A great article was published yesterday, which explains how Midwives in Southampton, England, are helping women who have previously had a caesarean section to choose a normal, natural birth for their next baby.

The article, published on the Medical News Today website stated that nationally, the number of c-sections has dramatically increased over the last decade and that this has led the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement to develop a toolkit to help midwives reduce these numbers.

This toolkit has been in development at Princess Anne Hospital for the last 18 months and during that time there has been a 4 per cent reduction in the number of c-sections. This is double the target reduction.

In 2007, 24 per cent of births were by c-section. In 2008 this dropped to 20 per cent, with just 16 per cent of births by c-section in November.

Interestingly, one of the initiatives is to introduce midwife-led care for women having vaginal birth following a previous caesarean.

Helen Barnes, the consultant midwife trainee who helped set up the project, said: "We try not to medicalise the event, so from the beginning the mother will see a midwife, rather than a doctor. They will have a risk assessment to make sure they are suitable for midwife-led care and VBAC, and we fully explain the risks and benefits so they can make an informed choice."

I'm not sure of the plans for this toolkit, but it if it's working it would be nice to this that this would not only be shared with other UK Hospitals, but also internationally.

If you are planning on having a VBAC, try our free download which will help you relax and work with your body.

For the full article:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/139288.php

Once upon a time, pregnant women were revered as goddesses bringing the gift of life to a family and community. Statues of pregnant women were created, and women gave birth in Temples surrounded by caring female relations together with women who had already given birth. The woman felt supported, nurtured, cared for, relaxed and excited about her birth. Birth was considered a natural, beautiful and spiritual journey to motherhood. It's often talked about how far away we are from that now, but I've certainly started to feel as though a supportive community is beginning to grow. This community is online and it's called Twitter. Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you answer the question, "What are you doing?" by sending short text messages 140 characters in length, called "tweets", to your friends, or "followers."

Unlike other online resources, when you sign up to Twitter you can choose who to follow. This is incredibly important and it is the key to creating your own personal community as you can control the type of people you surround yourself with. Compare this to magazines you may have been reading which document head turning, heart stopping stories which are more about sales that about truly supporting and nurturing a pregnant lady. On Twitter in comparison, as you jot down day by day what you are doing, any concerns you have and what you are feeling, you will receive supportive responses from people who have already given birth plus support from the countless experienced Doulas and Midwives who freely give advice. I too have responded to concerns posted by pregnant people both with advice and by recording downloads and posting them free on my website all available within a matter of days.

Why not also join me on Twittermoms, again, you can choose which communities you join and take part as much as you want too. They have some great communities on there both for when you are pregnant and afterwards, for example you could join the "Calm and Gentle Birth" community and read stories from women who have had great birth experiences. Once you have given birth you could join the "Potty Training" community and the popular wine tasting community where they actually have scheduled wine tasting events.

You could even take this one step further and blog about your pregnancy alongside using Twitter, a great example of this is the blog at www.hisboyscanswim.com "Tarzan" and "Jane" are both completely anonymous in their blog and on Twitter, they are sharing their pregnancy experiences and receive a huge amount of support from their followers (466 replies to their blog posts in 40 days and 4052 followers in Twitter!).

You may think that supporting someone remotely is somehow "less than" supporting them in person, but I can assure you that certainly form the supporter side I feel just as close as if they were in my living room. I've celebrated with people, laughed with people, lay awake at night thinking about how I can help people and also shed a few tears. This is exactly as it should be and although they may have to be virtual rose petals being thrown at the pregnant ladies feet, the sense of being supported and nurtured is as real as it gets.

To get you started, here's the link to Twitter and 10 great people to begin following:

1. Birthdownload (me!)
2. Savvydoula
3. Doulamama
4. LaMamaNaturale
5. Twittermoms
6. Crunchygoddess
7. AngEngland
8. Birthgoddess
9. Doulasurround
10. PeacefulDoulaAK

There are plenty more people you can add to your community, check out who I'm following or search for "Doula" for example.

I look forward to meeting you on Twitter.