Sheila Kitzinger
 |
| Sheila, a noted authority on pregnancy and childbirth, was awarded the MBE for her services to education for childbirth |
Sheila Kitzinger studied social anthropology at Ruskin and St Hugh's Colleges, Oxford, then did research and teaching at the University of Edinburgh. During nine months' field research, working in collaboration with the Medical Research Council at the University of the West Indies, she made a study of sex, pregnancy and childbirth amongst Jamaican women. She has also done research on the problems of West Indian women and their children in Britain, with an award from the Joost de Blank Research Fund.
Her studies on the contemporary culture of childbirth include research on induction of labour, episiotomy and women's experiences of hospital care, and she has been developing her own psychosexual approach to birth since 1958. She lectures widely in North and South America, Australia, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy and Israel. She is on the Advisory Board of the National Childbirth Trust and is a consultant to the International Childbirth Trust and is a consultant to the International Childbirth Education Association.
Sheila Kitzinger is the author of a number of books on the subject of pregnancy and childbirth. To date her best known works are The Experience of Childbirth, The Experience of Breastfeeding, Pregnancy & Childbirth and Woman's Experience of Sex. She has also written numerous articles in journals and magazines in Britain, the USA, South Africa and Australia. She has written Breastfeeding and Pregnancy Day By Day for Dorling Kindersley.
Your original version of Pregnancy and Childbirth was published in 1980. This edition, subtitled Choices and Challenges has masses of new material.
Is this because birth has been increasingly medicalised since then?
It has become more difficult for any woman to get a normal birth, without
drugs to kick start or rev up the uterus, and without either a ventouse
extraction or forceps delivery, or a Caesarean section. It's important for
pregnant women to know how labour can be messed up by interfering
unnecessarily, and that they realise they have the right to make their own
decisions about their bodies.
There is a lot of talk about choices. We are told that we can choose. But it often doesn't work out like that, and we leave it to the professionals because we think they must know what they're doing. In fact, much of the obstetric intervention that takes place is not based on good research evidence. I explore that evidence so that a woman can make up her own mind.
Do you have new ideas about ways to handle pain in labour?
Yes, new - and very old! And not only to reduce pain, but help the baby's
head descend and turn into the best position for birth. In South and
Central America women traditionally use a hammock. It is flexible and
strong..They may hold one suspended above their heads or be cradled and
rocked as they sit in it. My idea is to use a hammock hanging from a
ceiling beam to stand, knees bent, leaning over it so that it takes your
whole weight, and you rock and belly dance, moving freely, while your birth
companion massages your back. It can be raised or lowered to the best
position for you. You can have it so that you squat or kneel, too. Lovely
coloured striped hammocks are imported from South America, and photographs
in the book show how to use them.
Statistics show that home birth is safe for the majority of women yet under 3% actually manage to get a home birth. Why does the medical profession discourage home births to this extent?
In Britain GPs are the gatekeepers to home birth and many don't want to get
involved, partly because they are paid very little for attending births and
it disrupts their working and family lives, partly because they are not
up-to-date with the research and are anxious about them.
Hospital obstetricians are trained in pathology and usually only see births
that are going wrong. Most are appalled by the idea of home birth. They
perceive it as birth which is out of their control, and therefore dangerous.
In fact, you don't need a doctor. You need midwives. They are the experts in
normal birth and in picking up the clues if a labour veers to the abnormal.
Unfortunately there is an acute midwife shortage and in many areas NHS
management finds it is more efficient to get every woman into hospital so
that a midwife can pop in and out on three or four women in labour.
over the past 30 years, though the age for mothers considered 'high risk'
used to be over 40. Now many 30 years olds are being told they are high
risk, resulting in an increased number of Caesareans. What are the main
reasons behind this?
More and more women are getting labelled 'high risk' whatever their age. It
is all part of the pathologising of birth. Once a woman has had surgery on
her uterus she becomes high risk in the next pregnancy because the uterus is
damaged - and she is likely to have a repeat Caesarean.
Though some may believe that a Caesarean guarantees well-toned pelvic floor
muscles research shows that after childbirth, a healthy pelvic floor is
the result of mobility and exercise. How can a woman keep these muscles
vigorous following a vaginal birth?
them lively and expressive - as expressive as the muscles around the mouth.
We don't go around with our mouths hanging open. And we shouldn't go around
with our pelvic muscles sagging. It's a good idea to learn to 'talk' with
your pelvic floor. (I always do pelvic floor exercises when I'm on the
phone!)
are registered and/or unregistered.