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Welcome back to another episode of Cuppa with a pro where I interview professionals that work within the pregnancy, birthing or parenting space to chat about their expertise. 

In today’s episode, I am chatting with the very funny Catherine Bell who has written the book “The birth map” and is on a mission to get things moving as she putting the concept of her book through the academic lens and doing her PhD  

In this episode we chat all about 

✔️the story behind how a birth plan evolved into a birth map through Catherine’s research and realisation that woman going through the system are on a conveyor belt 

✔️the different types of birth plans that exist: collaborative birth plan, self-directed birth plan where woman prints off her own plan, self-directed birth plan where woman communicates this plan with her care provider

✔️describing the birth map like a GPS recalculating your itinerary when things arise and how it is the same in labour, as events unfold, your labour might take a different direction but your itinerary is recalculated because you prepared yourself for this 

✔️changing the language we use in the system, ie. When you hear “consent” think decision, I have to make a decision so that you know that you do not have to say yes, you can say no ! 

✔️using the acronym BRAIN to help you make decisions - Benefits, Risks, Alternative, Intuition, Nothing 

✔️there is no wrong decision even if you make a decision that your care provider doesn’t feel comfortable with 

✔️how Catherine developed “the game of birth”, an online game based on the Mother babies 2018 report of outcomes in Australia to illustrate how each decision will influence the outcome of a birth 

✔️some interventions in birth come with a package (ie an epidural comes with a cannula being inserted to get a drip of syntocinon to augment the labour, a catheter to release urine and continuous monitoring (CTG) of the baby) 

✔️understanding how the different pathways work and what might be a “turning point” into labour that led you down a different pathway  

✔️reframing the different types of caesarian into: emergency before labour caesarian, non-emergency before labour caesarian, in-labour emergency caesarian and in-labour non-emergency caesarian 

✔️using the birthing pool test (developed by Michel Odent, French OB) to help you make a decision as to whether you are at a turning point and may need to look into an assisted delivery or c-section 

✔️navigating postpartum and planning it out, especially as both parents are going through a transformative phase of their life, know as matrescence and patrescence 

Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode! 

Alicia :)