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Antenatal education - why childbirth educators?

Abstract:

In the last Journal, Andrea Gilkison posed the question 'Antenatal education - whose purposes does it serve?' While lamenting the erosion of another traditional area of midwifery practice, Gilkison illustrates how midwives have abrogated that responsibility by perpetuating institutional control over women, through the antenatal education that is offered in the hospital setting. This admission by Gilkison is precisely the reason that a Parents Centres New Zealand's childbirth educators' course has emerged. Kitzinger (1977:3) explains that antenatal teaching is a new profession, demanding new and varied skills and while a midwife's knowledge of body mechanics and her experience of conducting labours are important, they are not sufficient to make a good antenatal teacher. The midwife aspiring to be a teacher needs further study and practice, and needs a much greater knowledge of the psychological and social factors that are interwined with the physiological factors in the experience of childbearing.

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antenatal education, childbirth educators, medical model, women's choice