From Problems to Solutions

Every parent comes to us with a history of all that they have already learned about birth. This includes learning from the culture they grew up in, the family they were raised in, the stories they heard as adults and children, the media they’ve been exposed to, and so on. Even when parents think they don’t know anything about birth, they hold within them a collection of ideas, and often rules or guidelines, about what birth is, what it should or shouldn’t be, what it means to be a “good” or “bad” parent, and what “being strong” or “coping well” looks like. This is what we call unconscious preparation: the knowledge that people have picked up without even intending to. As birth workers, we may have our own ideas about what we think parents need to learn and what we want to “cover” in prenatal sessions, but before we do any of this, we need to first explore what they are bringing.  

The First Birth Story process taps into parents' earliest learnings about birth, the rules they may have attached to that understanding, and how it may be affecting their current birth preparation.