Around 5,500 babies will be born in Kirklees this year – the vast majority of them in hospital.
Every woman giving birth will have her own unique experience but it won’t necessarily be the experience she expects or wants, particularly as NHS budgets continue to be stretched.
However, the founders of a new Positive Birth Movement group in Huddersfield say that having a baby should be both fulfilling – and enjoyable.
They want to work with women to help them view birth in an optimistic and confident way; to remove the fear and counteract the horror stories.
Jessica Summers-Jackson, a hypnotherapist, and trained midwife Tracy Ripley, who now works as a doula, say it’s all a question of empowering women with the right information. They’ll be hosting free monthly meetings at the Jane Khalaf Foundation (Med One) in Westgate, Huddersfield, tackling a range of issues relating to pregnancy and birth.
While the meetings are open to all expectant women and their partners, Jessica feels they will be particularly helpful to tokophobic women (those suffering a morbid fear of childbirth) and those without a support network around them. She says increasing numbers of women face anxieties about childbirth. “Modern life is such that we have got out of touch with our animal natures,” she explained. “We expect to have a level playing field between the sexes, but are bodies are intrinsically mammalian because we give birth. Breastfeeding, for example, can feel uncomfortable because it’s so animal.
“I was an incredibly anxious mum and a control freak. I find that people who come to the positive birth movement are people who in all walks of life expect to be in control. We expect to work and be ambitious, then we’ve got to drop all that and let things happen to us.”
Jessica, who has a three-year-old daughter Elona, was in teaching and education before giving birth. It was her personal experience of using hypnobirthing techniques that led her to change career. She was also influenced by a book on childbirth by Milli Hill, founder of the worldwide Positive Birth Movement, and struck by the way it made her feel that a positive birth experience was possible, whatever the circumstances. The book gives detailed information on all aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, including the psychological.
“Birth isn’t a medical event,” said Jessica, “and an empowered and comfortable mother makes the likelihood of a good birth with less intervention more likely. Some women suffer severe anxieties about birth. Tokophobia is a phobia that can stem from childhood issues.” This is something of which she has personal experience, having been offered a negative view of childbirth while growing up. She explained: “When I was younger my mum said to me ‘don’t have children, it’s horrible’, which is probably why I put it off until I was 38.”
Jessica, who lives in the Calder Valley, founded a Positive Birth Movement group in Hebden Bridge back in October 2017. It’s been so successful that she’s now venturing to Huddersfield with her Cowlersley-based colleague Tracy. The new Huddersfield group will meet on the last Thursday of the month from 6.30pm.
Tracy worked as a hospital and community midwife for the Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Trust and in Barnsley before becoming a health visitor. She gave up work to nurse her father and decided not to return to the NHS. She is now a self-employed doula (a birth companion) and recently started a consortium of therapists and private birth workers in Huddersfield.
The public sector, she says, is now struggling to deliver a complete service to expectant mothers. She explained: “The political landscape in the NHS is such that services are being greatly eroded, particularly in ante-natal education. Their classes are over-subscribed and post-natal visits by midwives have been reduced. I’m not belittling the service – they do what they can with what they’ve got.”
While Tracy acknowledges that there’s never been a safer time for a woman to give birth, she is also concerned about a rise in tokophobia and says: “Because of the problems in the NHS and services being cut, I don’t think the support is there. It’s the time element. Workloads are big and appointments are short and women are not getting heard. First time mums are easily influenced and vulnerable to the negative stories they hear and see in the media and on television programmes. Positive birth stories create positivity.”
The Positive Birth Movement is not fixated on natural childbirth or against interventions but aims to support women through whatever informed choices they make. As Jessica points out: “If a woman is severely tokophobic then a Caesarian section might be the best option for her. But I’ve worked with women who were terrified of giving birth but not permitted Caesarians and so made things up in order to get one.
“In the end there are human rights involved in childbirth and no-one can do anything to your body without your express permission and without giving you an informed choice, but we know that doesn’t happen because hospitals are constrained. What women need is access to a calm, safe and controlled place and be able to look on birth as a enjoyable experience.”
And, as Tracy adds: “A woman’s birth experience will remain with her for the rest of her life and it’s quite a pivotal experience. Whether you have a natural birth or a section, as long as you feel you have been cared for in a supportive way and take that with you it will make a massive difference.
“In a lot of cultures women are nurtured more and have a network of other women around them. In this country there are women with no extended families to support them. The Positive Birth Movement is a support network.”
Anyone interested in joining the Huddersfield group should attend the next meeting on Thursday, April 26, from 6.30pm, or get details from positivebirthmovement.org
Tracy also runs a weekly post-natal support group at Ruddi’s Retreat in Linthwaite on Thursday mornings from 9.45am until 11.45am, at which mums and dads can drop in for advice on feeding and weaning.
