The weekend before last the Chirldbirth Without Fear seminar took place in the Crimean village of Partenit in the framework of the Freedom of Choice project. This is part of a joint program of the Dutch foreign ministry and Kharkiv Family from A to Z Childbirth Preparation Center. Nine of Ukraine’s regions are participating in the project. Its goal is forming a positive attitude towards natural family childbirth in medical staff as well as members of the public.
The seminar participants came to the conclusion that developing an alternative system of medical care will allow Ukrainian women to choose their own way of giving birth to their children. However, there are still many problems and imperfections in the process of obstetrics. Dutch experts present at the seminar noted that in Ukraine everything concerning women’s health, pregnancy, and childbirth remains their own problem. The result of such an approach is a high number of abortions and low birth rate.
In the Netherlands around 40% women give birth to their children at home in presence of their family and a midwife. Up to 70-80% of such births succeed without medical interference. The point is that in the Netherlands a midwife is somewhat different to what it is in our country. There they are specialists with a higher medical education who take care of the patient long before childbirth and gradually prepare her for this event, mainly at home. As a rule, in Dutch families two or three children are delivered by the same midwife. Usually not only husbands are present at the birth (in 99,5% cases) but often other children. Thus, the new born child is a welcome family member, and his coming to this world makes all the participants of this event happy. Foreign experts believe that the main thing for a woman is psychological comfort during the childbirth. “Habitual family atmosphere, lack of stress are major preconditions for a successful childbirth,” says Anita Van der Ley, professor at the Amsterdam Midwives’ School.
Our doctors also try to change the situation and state’s attitude towards its new citizens. “We have virtually forgotten that childbirth is a natural and intimate moment in a woman’s life and that of her family, not a surgery,” says Valentyna Chychkun, director of the Kharkiv Family from A to Z Childbirth Preparation Center. According to the initiators of the Freedom of Choice program, at a meeting at the Maternity and Childhood Care Department at Ukraine’s Ministry of Health Care they discussed legislative regulation of the alternative medical service for childbirth preparation and obstetrics. At present, trainings for obstetrics instructors are held in Kharkiv, Simferopol, and Lviv with the assistance of experts from six of Ukraine’s regions. An adapted edition of the Birth and Rebirth book is soon to be published in Ukraine. According to the statistics, in the last ten years Ukraine has seen a decreasing birth rate and increasing various diseases among women at childbearing age, which results in reducing a healthy part of the population and increasing mortality rate. The Netherlands, on the contrary, is a country with the lowest mortality rate in Europe among women and children. Such figures were achieved, in part, due to not viewing pregnancy as a disease and childbirth as a medical problem.
With a decent physical and psychological training a woman can find joy and pleasure in the process of having a child, Mark Voronov, consultant at Kharkiv Family from A to Z Childbirth Preparation Center, told the seminar. In his opinion, the principal cause for all troubles connected with birth is fear. When a person is scared, all his/her inner organs contract. However, in Mr. Voronov’s words, with normal attitude to this process there should be no fear, since organism produces a large amount of endorphine, making woman feel happiness and pleasure.
Psychologists claim that in the first few years a child forms a certain bank of positive emotions which he would spend during his entire life. The family’s treatment of the child defines his/her future in many ways. 30-years of statistical research have proved that as early as 5-6 weeks of its prenatal development a baby can feel joy, pain, or fear, and senses his mother’s psychological condition. If in the early period of pregnancy the mother intended to have an abortion, this can have fatal consequences for the baby’s future: 10% of such people have a suicidal tendency, 20% become drug addicts, and 50% are autistic.
