Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Class Presentation

I gave a presentation for my husband's freshman writing class about the unassisted childbirth movement. Zari came with me, of course, so I suppose you could say it was her first day of college!

The class is doing a project that involves reflexivity: getting to know a group that has different values and assumptions and examining your own preconceived notions and trying to see things through the group's viewpoint. The whole class is working on a presentation about unassisted birth. As part of it, several of his students came to the screening of The Business of Being Born to have a better idea about childbirth in contemporary America. They stayed for the whole discussion too!

All of this college must have worn Zari out. I nursed her during the Q&A after my presentation because she was really cranky. She conked out and didn't wake up for almost 3 1/2 hours!

9 comments:

  1. WOW! Now that's a power nap!

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  2. HOW COOL IS THAT!?!? You should tape the presentation!!! that would be something to see!!

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  3. She's like: yawn! isn't this obvious? I was BORN knowing all this and I've heard it explained a million times since ;-)
    I wish I had spoken to Eric's students after the screening. I am curious to know what they thought. Did you get any feedback on that?

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  4. Yeah Judit, it's all old hat to her!

    They said they'd never seen births before at all, so it was quite an eye-opener for them. And a very good one, since all of the births are active, upright, and physiologically appropriate. I think we saw:
    - waterbirth with woman kneeling (the African American woman, can't remember her name)
    - waterbirth with woman lying/floating on her back (Ricki Lake)
    - 2 land births with women in a deep squat (Cara, the "bad patient" & the model what's-her-name)
    - 1 land birth, woman standing up and leaning over a table (Jen's hospital birth)

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  5. Oh, I forgot to add that I showed the class a slideshow of Jen.b.in.az's birth after my presentation and before the Q&A. They thought it was cool.

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  6. I am glad that you did your presentation--hope it went well! I was also wondering what the students thought about the whole film and the lively discussions afterwards--but was very impressed and happy that they stayed for the whole thing.

    The births in the film were real real real and I LOVE that these were the forst births thay had seen. Who knows what effect seeing this kind of imagery --beautiful, raw, loud, positive, intense, simple, healthy will have on their future husbands/wives/sons/daughters. Too, too cool. Bless little Zari's heart on her first day of college :)

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  7. I love that you did that! If we can make the young people of America think about birth, that will really help change things in the birthing world! Good for you.

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  8. Hey there, Sheridan!
    Rixa, meet Sheridan, hypnomom and hypnodoula extraordinaire :)
    I know her from my online hypnobabies group.
    I was telling the other ladies at the Birth&Babies Bed&Breakfast all about how wonderfully childbirth hypnosis worked for me.

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  9. Yeah, Judit! Now I want to learn more about that hypnobabies stuff. :)

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