What about them, you ask? Well read on my friend.
I was going to add some of this to the recent review of the Evidence Based Birth website. But it started feeling like too much personal commentary was taking over the review. But, it was still stuff I felt should be said. And Ma’s Corner is where I get to have my real say! So here we go.
Quick backstory: I’ve become fascinated by all things pregnancy and birth related since expecting our first baby. Prior to that, I had a lot of anxiety about getting through labor in particular. Despite coming from a family of 10 kids all born at home. Despite being present for a good number of those births.
(Now I know some of you are going to say, “That experience must have traumatized you…” Don’t go there, people.)
For me, knowledge made the difference. The more I learned more about how our bodies are designed for the miraculous processes of pregnancy and birth, the less anxiety I felt. I got excited rather than scared. A key factor in all this building of knowledge was our decision to hire a doula, based on a recommendation from friends. They’d had an unmedicated hospital delivery, and that was my goal, especially as I started learning all about epidurals etc. Now you can’t exactly plan births, but you can have goals. And thanks to God and our doula and a lot of prep, I was able to have an essentially zero medication delivery, just like I wanted. Even though I ended up having to be induced to kick things off.
Why do I share all this? Not to have a platform to share our birth story. (You’ll notice I didn’t really.) Not to go on and on about my personal experiences. Rather, I share this because something has come to my attention, through my experience so far and through observing other people’s experiences.
I believe there is a key question that’s not getting asked these days, by either women or their medical practitioners:
“How do I prepare myself for this huge workout and intense experience called delivery?”
“How do we help moms prepare for this huge workout and intense experience called delivery?”
[Note: I’m not excluding c-sections from this rant. I know a lot of women have c-sections, and personally I think a c-section birth is such a huge thing that it should require preparation too!]
Women: It’s way too easy to just keep going on with our lives, working, doing our usual stuff, go to our checkups, follow their directions, sit in the birth classes, buy or receive the baby gear, and then… suddenly it’s time to give birth and we’ve had no real preparation for that event.
Now with our second daughter on the way, I’ve been particularly interested in getting some great pregnancy and birth websites up on Ma’s List. The sites that would have benefited me the first time around. And while there are tons of sites out there, with plenty of great info, a lot of them just don’t line up with my mission.
There are the big sites like The Bump and Baby Center, and those are fine for lots of general stuff. Frankly, when we were expecting our first, we loved keeping track of our baby’s growth on The Bump calendar. (This time around I’m afraid we’ve gotten too distracted…) But I feel like these websites are way too “everything under the sun” to give really helpful, focused prep info to moms, especially new moms.
There are some websites that are very “group mom” websites. If they meet all my other criteria I might share them. But they’re kind of unfocused and unpersonal.
And there are plenty of websites that incorporate a lot of lifestyle content. Which is fine, it just isn’t our thing over here on Ma’s List.
When I think about all these websites, I can’t help thinking about the title of the book: What To Expect When You’re Expecting. Now I’m not bashing that book at all. I think it has LOTS of great info and some advice. But I feel like the title is setting you up like this: “Having a baby? Here’s all the info! Now go out there and… feel knowledgeable!”
Instead, let me repeat the question I think we should really be asking: “How do I learn AND prepare for this huge workout called delivery?!”
Ok. I’ve finished my rant.
To conclude: It’s been hard digging for the type of website I had in mind, but I’m happy to report I finally started finding some results. Evidence Based Birth is the first. And there will be more to follow, probably more personalized websites.
I hope you can get some great value out of these finds. 🙂
Best wishes to all the expectant moms out there!
