Better Birth: The Ultimate Guide to Childbirth from Home Births to Hospitals

Introduction

The way we have come to expect a traditional pregnancy and birthing to look and feel has dramatically changed in our modern, technically enhanced times. The once customary rite of passage, with its inherent understanding that women were designed to give birth, has morphed into a sterile and oftentimes lonely medical procedure. This shift in thinking has inadvertently led us into an era where many women feel as if they are bringing new life into this world without really being present for the experience.

Before the 1920s, most births took place at home and were attended by doctors or midwives, but by the 1930s women were flocking to hospitals, hoping to experience the revolutionary methods of painless childbirth. Even though the doctors of the time did not deliver on this ridiculous promise, we continued to follow and improve on these new scientific practices, and before we knew it, we had unintentionally relinquished control over the entire childbirth experience. Every aspect of hospitalized childbirth became almost mechanical, and they were all orchestrated by a doctor. Women were separated from their husbands, sedated by drugs that made them oblivious to the birthing process, and kept in sterile environments. Breast-feeding was discouraged, and breast milk was replaced by enhanced infant formulas. As time passed, we completely forgot how to own and control pregnancy and childbirth: the natural, normal aspects of delivery no longer existed.

Doctors gave great arguments to pregnant mothers. As Dr. David Chamberlain, an expert in prenatal psychology, said, The doctor’s byline was, ‘Let us do it. Trust me; we know how to do this.’ But they didn’t. All they had to offer was a protocol. They treated every mother the same, every father the same and every baby the same.

According to the World Health Organization, By medicalizing birth, i.e., separating woman from her own environment and surrounding her with strange people using strange machines to do strange things to her in an effort to assist her, the woman’s state of mind and body is so altered that her way of carrying through this intimate act must also be altered and the state of the baby born must equally be altered. The result is that it is no longer possible to know what births would have been like before these manipulations—they have no idea what ‘non-medicalized’ birth is. The entire modern obstetric . . . literature is essentially based on observations of ‘medicalized’ birth.

Before women could muster up opinions to the contrary, technology took hold once again, to the point where today the Cesarean section is the most common form of surgery performed in any hospital. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 1 in 3 babies in the United States is delivered by Cesarean section. USA Today reported that in 2006, 31.1 percent of U.S. births were by C-section, a 50 percent increase over the previous decade. Some doctors are even referring to C-sections as vaginal bypass surgery! While C-sections can be lifesaving operations when either the mother or the baby faces certain health-related problems, many health-care experts believe that a good number of C-sections are performed unnecessarily. Too often, they are scheduled to meet the personal needs of obstetricians or the hospital staff or to conform to the hectic lives of mothers themselves.

In almost every country in the world outside of the United States, 75 to 80 percent of all low-risk pregnancies are attended by midwives. In the United States, most women are still opting for a hospital birth, but many report afterward that their experiences were less than ideal and sometimes traumatic. Often, they are disappointed with the clinical character of the process. Women often say that they felt as if they were not included in their childbirth. Other mothers have told me that even though they were well informed about what to expect, they were too scared of the pain to be emotionally present, so they relinquished control to the medical team. They did not know how to deal with the totality of the experience in real time because they really weren’t prepared.

On top of individual experiences, the main conversation about birthing that is often shared among traditional health-care providers, birthing professionals, and even girlfriends is that childbirth is a painful ordeal, an uncomfortable means to an end. The discussion then compartmentalizes the process into two categories: successful mainstream or alternative vaginal births, and unfortunate or scheduled C-sections.

Yet this negative and limiting conversation doesn’t have to exist at all. Today, many women, as well as mainstream health-care professionals, are speaking up against the current culture of childbirth, and changes are happening, even in hospitals. Doctors and midwives are uniting to find better solutions to the increasing rate of C-sections, as well as the rising costs of hospital births. Husbands and partners have reentered the birthing room. Mothers are encouraged to breast-feed by both ob-gyns and pediatricians: medical statistics now back up what many women have known all along, that breast-feeding is the healthiest feeding option for both mother and baby.

The next step is for pregnant women to relearn the true experience of childbirth. We deserve to have a say in the medications we take or decide not to take. We need options so that we can decide where we will deliver our babies and who will be present at the delivery. We can take personal responsibility in creating exactly the kind of the childbirth we want. We want to be treated as partners instead of as patients. We want to bond with our children immediately after their birth. And we want to design and create a childbirth that is safe, peaceful, and secure. These ideals are what BornClear is all about.

The absolute truth is that there are no rules when it comes to creating what you really want for your childbirth and for every aspect of your life. In fact, there aren’t any rules except the ones you make up. The BornClear program was created out of my own experiences. When I was first pregnant, I searched for new as well as ancient ways to create a peaceful and memorable birth. I wanted to fully educate myself, so I pulled information from many resources, piecing together and creating exactly what I needed to be mentally, emotionally, and physically ready. I started to prepare my body for birth by learning to control the connection between my mind and my body through a variety of mental and physical practices that included prenatal yoga, meditation, and deep relaxation. Over the course of my journey, I became able to fully trust my natural birthing instincts, as well as my body, and I found myself tapping into a deeper, more enlightened space in my mind.

Nine months later, I witnessed the birth of my daughter. What impressed me most was that I felt completely awake and present to the divinity and wonder of the birth. Two years later, I experienced the same with my son, whose birth was also peaceful and beautiful. My life’s work has always been about teaching others how to create lives they can be proud of. After my childbirth experiences, I decided to focus this mission more specifically to be able to share my extensive birthing knowledge and life practice tools with other women.

The BornClear approach that I have developed works whether you plan on giving birth at a hospital, at a birthing center, or at home. What’s most important is being mentally, physically, and spiritually prepared so that you can create the birthing experience you want for yourself and your family.

As a business and life coach I have worked with private individuals and public companies, including Google, Condé Nast, Citibank, Ogilvy & Mather, Dove (Unilever), BBC, Credit Suisse, and others. I have coached CEOs, their teams, entrepreneurs, athletes, celebrities, and hundreds of people just like you. My gift is that I can feel, hear, and see all that is limiting a person and/or a business as well as their gifts. As their coach, I make my agenda their agenda—which is to uncover and actualize their commitment and dreams. I find that I can make the biggest difference when people are willing to look at how their thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, and habits affect their own satisfaction, their lives, and the impact they have on others and the world. I have had the great fortune that my clients have trusted me to help them self-correct, release their fears, and be free to be successful in whatever they are pursuing.

The BornClear course is an extension of this same practice. I started teaching it in 2001 and have been building its success ever since. The classes run every few weeks, and I am creating a nationwide teacher training program, as well as developing a DVD of the course.

BornClear is a one-day program that we teach to a group of ten to fifteen couples. We also provide individual follow-up from the time each couple begins the course until the birth of their child. The class is designed to be completed in one day in order to fit into most people’s busy schedules. More important, the curriculum builds on itself, steeping the couples fully in the space of birth. This book includes all of the elements that are covered in the course.

I find that whether I’m working with couples or expectant mothers, people limit themselves when they don’t take the time to understand their inner selves, including their reactions to the intrinsic fears that prevent them from tapping in to their own power. All of the elements and the dimensions I deal with in my coaching/consulting practice and all of the philosophies and practices I developed in regard to understanding human beings and behavior, plus my own life lessons and experiences, have been integrated into designing and leading the BornClear course and writing this book.

It is always deeply inspiring to watch the couples in the workshop transform. Very often, they start one way—resistant, afraid, confused, disconnected—and end in another: in a place of clarity, empowerment, and deep connection with their dreams, their commitments, and each other. Even after they complete the course, I love to hear from participants how BornClear changed their lives—how it even helped them address issues outside of their birthing experience. It is moving and beautiful when people get to the heart of themselves, where they can discover what really matters to them and their new family. Starting a family—beginning a child’s life—from this place is my gift to these couples, and I am always moved by the knowledge that the babies in the course are learning and experiencing too.

The BornClear Program

The mission of my class and of this book has both individual and global goals. First, this book aims to give you all of the tools—including my extensive knowledge and my best practices—that will help you address and resolve your unique physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual concerns regarding conception and childbirth. This book has been designed to be a comprehensive resource that encompasses everything you will need to be fully prepared.

There are seven basic lessons in the BornClear program. By following the program, you will:

• Understand the power of the mind-body connection and how it relates to every aspect of pregnancy, from conception all the way through childbirth. The mind-body connection actually encourages the body’s ability to produce the natural chemicals that can modulate how we experience the sensations of pregnancy and childbirth. These chemicals are an important aspect of controlling how fast labor comes and how comfortable we are during labor. You will come to understand how your thoughts can affect your pregnancy and birth, on both an emotional and a physical level.

• Determine early in your pregnancy what you deeply desire for your own birthing experience. You will learn how to become more introspective and tap into what you really want and need to fulfill your choices. In order to do this, you will learn how to explore your own fears, concerns, and worries. Once you have managed these issues, you will be able to move past your concerns and become completely at ease with your pregnancy, now and going forward.

• Have the necessary tools to call on during conception, pregnancy, and birth. I call this the BornClear toolbox. Included are original breathing techniques, meditations, visualizations, and other mental and physical exercises that I have developed and successfully used with my clients.

• Connect and align with your baby during pregnancy to create emotional, spiritual, and health bonds that will last a lifetime.

• Fully understand how your body works during pregnancy and childbirth. You will learn how to create a more comfortable birth by deepening your mind-body connection and learning to control your attitudes and thoughts, as well as your physical body. In this way, you will be fully prepared for each stage of labor.

• Have the ability to plan ahead for every contingency. Careful preparation and planning ensure that each parent is clear about the details of childbirth. You will learn how to create and initiate the right conversations, including questions you will need to ask your birth team (doctor/midwife/doula). You will also discover how to create alignment with your partner and how to make plans for the future after the baby is born.

• Begin to envision the first year after birth by learning your options in many realms, including breast-feeding, circumcision, and more. Most important, you will discover how to take care of yourself, your partner, and your baby.

Birthing a New Beginning

Underlying all of the preparations for this pregnancy and childbirth is a second goal: that you will grow personally. You can use this program to become more emotionally fulfilled as you learn how to trust and honor yourself. Once you have completed the exercises and learned the lessons in this book, you will be fully prepared for the challenges that lie ahead, not only when you deliver your new baby, but as you approach your new life as a parent.

This gift of self-awareness is also crucial in having a comfortable childbirth, but it is the one component that women often neglect. Without it, we have been forced to surrender fertility issues and the birthing of our children to a script defined by someone else, be it a doctor, a nurse, a midwife, friends, or even the media. This is why many women describe childbirth merely as the few hours they spent in a delivery room, instead of focusing on the lessons they learned during the entire pregnancy.

My main goal is to globally change the way we perceive and talk about childbirth. I want to empower all women so that childbirth is no longer talked about as surviving an ordeal. For this to happen, women have to take control of this experience. That is why I want every woman to be able to harness this gift—the ability to trust ourselves—so that we can reclaim birthing and make it a unique, individual event that meets our greatest expectations and desires.

As you look more closely at your decisions, while taking an inventory of your life, you need to review your environment. It’s not only the color of your child’s room that’s important: you will be creating both a physical and an emotional environment for which you must accept full responsibility. In many respects, the green way of looking at birth is equivalent to the green vision through which we are learning to take responsibility for cleaning up the environment; by letting consciousness, education, and empowerment inform our actions, we allow mothers and families to make great choices and to take important positive steps for themselves, the future generations, and the world today.

My goal is nothing short of creating a movement, and the movement has already begun. At one point in time, this conversation may have looked airy-fairy. You might have been considered an extremist or far too liberal for wanting to seek a more intuitive birthing process.

But given what’s happening in the world and how we’re becoming more aware of natural processes, learning to take better care of ourselves and our earth, and healing ourselves by integrating Western and Eastern philosophies, it is only natural for you to explore your deepest desires to consciously create the kind of childbirth you want. Just as it’s now mainstream to be considerate about recycling and to choose a fuel-efficient car, that kind of thoughtfulness and the impact of where it leaves us down the road are the same as making conscious choices about your pregnancy and childbirth. It’s all the same process, just another part of the same conversation. So if you desire a more conscious childbirth, no one will think you are an extremist. In fact, most of my clients are amazing everyday women and men just like you.

This book, then, is your access to this new movement, this mainstream conversation. Remember, only fifteen years ago, breast-feeding was regarded as radical; now it is the norm recommended by most doctors. Today, there are more choices for birthing than ever before, and they are becoming consistent with this new conversation. Midwives are returning to the birthing room. Birthing centers are growing in popularity. Creating the vehicles for your personal choices is all part of this movement. This is just the beginning of a global rethinking, recalibrating, and reeducating about the classic parenting paradigm.

It is my pleasure and privilege to be having this conversation with you. Thank you so much in advance for listening and offering your trust. May this newfound knowledge support you in creating everything you want for yourself, your children, your family and friends, and the world.

PART ONE

Inventing the Experience

As a woman in this culture, I have been discouraged from turning inward for answers. But sitting by the river’s edge, listening to her speak to me, within me, I have come to trust my own deep womanly essence—the core of my being as woman on this earth.

My own truth lives in me like a great energy source and cannot be found anywhere else. It moves within me, prompting me toward my highest good, emerging and unfolding in absolute integrity and with complete honesty. This truth runs deep and it runs full and it runs wet and it runs free. It is as unstoppable as the river and as life-giving. It is nourishment and guidance and power. It is wisdom connected to the wisdom of all women who ever were and to the Divine itself. It is the only wisdom deserving of such a radical surrender as trust. And yet, ironically, trusting myself increases my trust in others. I know now that I can access this deep truth by taking my time and listening. And so I am, in all situations, in every time and in every place, with every person and in every relationship, a woman trusting myself.

—Janet F. Quinn, author of

I Am a Woman Finding My Voice

1

The BornClear Philosophy

The core goal of the BornClear program is to prepare you for childbirth on every level: emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical. These four key values are central to the BornClear philosophy, and they work together to help you deeply understand and trust yourself and your body. This sort of preparation can only occur when you feel completely educated and empowered to make the best choices for yourself about your baby’s birth. The process begins when you recognize the deep physical and mental connection that exists within you. This is called the mind-body connection.

The Power of the Mind-Body Connection

The mind (your thoughts and feelings) and the body (your physical self) are completely connected and interdependent. Your emotions, thoughts, and beliefs affect the way your body feels on a daily basis, including the way it responds to pain. The converse is true as well: the health of your body, your respect for your body, and your ability to be comfortable with your body all affect your mood, thoughts, and beliefs. In this way, any one aspect of your mental or physical life can control or enhance another.

Dealing with stress is an excellent example of how the mind-body connection works. If you are in a demanding job or relationship, if you feel anxious and frazzled all the time, or if you always spur yourself on to accomplish more, even when you are tired, the resulting stress will eventually cause disease, or, as I like to think of it, dis-ease, in your body. It is well documented that stress can lead to a host of physical ailments, including heart attack, high blood pressure, weight gain, and obesity. On the other hand, living with chronic or persistent pain or dwelling on and being stressed about your weight can cause clinical depression.

There is no question in my mind about the scientific and practical evidence surrounding the mind-body connection. Candace Pert, PhD, the author of Molecules of Emotion: The Science behind Mind-Body Medicine and many other books, believes as I do that physiology and psychology are inseparable. I deeply respect Dr. Pert’s groundbreaking work, which laid the foundation for the discovery of endorphins, the hormones released by the brain (in the hypothalamus) and the body (through the pituitary glands) that act as a natural opiate or pain killer and produce a sense of well-being. From these discoveries, Dr. Pert was able to show that emotions, in the form of biochemicals such as endorphins, act as internal messengers, carrying information to link all major systems of the body into one unit.

This network of communication means that your thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and even fears about birth will affect how you experience childbirth. When you are deeply relaxed, you increase your production of endorphins, allowing for other chemicals to be released that directly influence how quickly labor comes and how comfortable you are during labor. If you are stressed, however, or you feel fear or become upset, you increase your production of another set of hormones, called catecholamines, which will cancel out and diminish your production of endorphins. Later, I will teach you exercises that increase your endorphins during delivery, and if you do get stressed, how to counteract the catecholamines and produce even more endorphins. You will be able to use these exercises throughout your pregnancy and even afterward, for the rest of your life. If you are not pregnant yet, they can also help create the mental and physical space that will be most conducive to conception. These exercises will strengthen the internal conversation between your mind and your body so that they can work together as a unified team, just as nature designed.

The Emotions of Your Past

The renowned theorist and author Dr. Joe Dispenza, who was featured in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know?, believes that feelings and emotions are the product of sensory experiences. His research shows that when you are having an experience, whether you are enjoying a sunset, having a great dinner, or watching your child hit a home run, all of your five senses send a rush of information back to the brain through the five different sensory pathways. That sensory information causes neurons to string into place, which may release chemicals in your body, and those chemicals are directly related to your emotions and feelings.

Dr. Dispenza believes that if you live with the same feelings every single day, it means you are thinking in the past. Because of this, you’re not having any new experiences and you’re using those old feelings to determine who you think you are today. The redundancy of those same feelings and thoughts activates certain pains, which then allow specific diseases to manifest and break the body down. Eckhart Tolle, the best-selling author of A New Earth, refers to these pains as painbodies.

By taking advantage of the knowledge and the lessons in this book, you will use your mind in a whole new way that is consistent with what you are creating: a new experience. These new thought patterns will replace your painbodies, the old ways of thinking that may have left you feeling like a victim of your fears, thoughts, and confusion. You will be able to rid yourself of the cultural conversations of fear that surround you, and give yourself an opportunity to heal.

What Defines Your Reality?

In her book Molecules of Emotion, Dr. Pert also looks at the concept of objective reality and concludes that everyone has the ability to shape his or her own reality. With the constant barrage of stimuli from the outside world, your brain would be overloaded if you analyzed everything that you saw, heard, felt, tasted, or sensed. Instead, you instinctually pick and choose from the entire range of visual, auditory, and sensory stimuli, using a filtering system that complements your perspective on life. According to Dr. Pert, your filtering system for incoming stimuli is highly colored by your emotions at a biochemical level. Your emotions screen your experience of reality. In other words, you see what you choose to see and physically experience what you choose to experience. I like to refer to this perspective as your context.

Your emotions also help you decide what is worth paying attention to. Because your emotional biochemicals filter so much of what you perceive, feelings and thoughts can have a profound impact on your experience of reality. This concept is integral in understanding exactly how the mind-body connection works during pregnancy and labor. If you choose to focus on the expected pain of delivery, you will create a reality that meets your expectation of pain and consequently feel pain. If, however, you concentrate on experiencing the joy and beauty of the birth, then those emotions will create a different reality, even if the physical circumstances are exactly the same.

It’s important to remember that good health and a successful, comfortable childbirth do not result merely from thinking happy thoughts. What you are trying to achieve is the optimal balance, which is based on an honest assessment of your current mental state. All of your emotions affect your body, whether you are angry, sad, or frightened. It is how you choose to deal with your emotions that will affect your physical state during pregnancy and beyond.

Through the exercises in this book you will learn to recognize what is going on inside your mind and how your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs affect not only your context, but how your body feels and how it behaves. Outwardly, you will see how you present yourself to others; inwardly, you will be able to control aches and pains or other symptoms that are currently unpleasant. Best of all, the mind-body connection might bring about positive and lasting changes. Many of my clients who have experienced BornClear childbirth feel powerful, almost invincible, for weeks afterward.

Experiencing the Mind-Body Connection

The following is one of my favorite visualizations, inspired by the book Psychic Development by Jean Porter. Its goal is to elicit a mind-body response. If possible, have someone read this to you so that you can be completely surprised when you experience it. Or, read through the following exercise aloud, recording your voice so that you can play it back. Before you begin, sit or lie down in a comfortable position and take five deep breaths. Let everything go, including all of your thoughts, sensations, and stresses of the day. Allow your breath to drift down through your chest, into your stomach, and down through your body into your toes. Releasing and relaxing, feel your shoulders, your chest, and your elbows become limp and relaxed.

When you are ready, close your eyes and listen to the following:

In your mind’s eye, take yourself to a kitchen. This is a kitchen that you are very fond of—a place that holds good feelings for you. Look around the room. See all the familiar things in this kitchen. Feel the warmth of the room. Breathe in the wonderful aroma of your favorite food as it cooks. Hear the bubbling sound of food cooking on the top of the stove. Feel the warmth coming from the oven and the smells of baking, healthy meals.

Imagine now that you are standing at the counter in this wonderful kitchen. In front of you are a knife, a cutting board, and