Beyond Lamaze: Are We Missing the Key to Unlock Women's Potential?

Abstract

In this article, the author shares her birth stories and uses what she has learned to rethink childbirth education and her role as a childbirth educator. There is a bridge from knowledge to action. The thinking part of the brain is like the tip of an iceberg. While the subconscious is what drives many actions, childbirth education classes often talk to the conscious, rational part of our brain. What is the fundamental trick we are missing in childbirth education?

Keywords: childbirth education; laboring woman as a skillful agent; neocortical inhibition; physiological birth; politics of childbirth.