Paraclete associates offer more than 160 different ministry services. Discipleship, Encouragement, Mentoring, Bible teaching, and Coaching got the most press last year. However, Paraclete associates such as Linda Whitener and Stacey Christensen minister to a more private group. They come alongside expectant mothers with pregnancy and birthing support.
They work in big cities and remote villages, serve expatriates and nationals, and minister in hospitals and dung-walled huts. Nations such as Turkey, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, India, Liberia, other African nations, and even the US have received the blessing of their care.
Some women choose to deliver their babies outside of the hospital setting. Others have no choice. Perhaps they can’t afford the cost of hospital care, or a hospital may be hours or days travel away over rough roads or difficult terrain. Whatever the reason, the babies are coming, ready or not.
Support takes several forms.
Doulas serve as the expectant mother’s champion throughout pregnancy and delivery. She counsels, comforts, monitors, and, if necessary, intervenes in the process. Her priority is the mother’s emotional and physical well-being to ensure an as trauma-free experience as possible. She often fills the roles of mother, aunt, or friend—especially if the expectant mother has no support from anyone.
Midwives, or ‘maid-wives’ as they are called in some cultures, serve primarily during the delivery process. In many settings, such as 3rd-world villages, they are the on-site medical experts who stand in for doctors and nurses, although they may also work in hospitals or homes. Proper training is crucial to their success in protecting the mother and bringing a healthy baby into the world.
Childbirth educators not only have doula and midwife skills; some also hold professional medical degrees. Their training often starts with expectant parents. It may include displacing superstitions with physiological realities, such as what happens at conception or an overview of the normal trimester progression as the fetus grows into a child.
The training will also include what a normal pregnancy means for the mother. How will it affect her mentally and emotionally? What impact will it have on her body? How should her family ensure she maintains healthy habits of diet, exercise, and rest?
Most courses involve educating birth support practitioners on the importance of training mothers and fathers how to cope with the stress and pain of labor. Stacey Christensen shares one technique:
“I try to give them tools. For example, they need to learn that this pain [labor] is actually a good pain. It’s a helpful experience in their body that’s bringing the baby out. One thing I do is ask the mom to hold an ice cube in her hand for 60 seconds. Then I say, ‘I want you to talk to your spouse and try not to pay attention to the ice cube in your hand.’ After she does that, I would ask her to dry her hand and put the ice cube in the other hand. Then I’d say, ‘Now, I want you to think about the ice cube in your hand and just breathe and relax. Let yourself feel it. But don’t panic, just relax.’ Then I would ask, ‘Which one was more helpful for you?’ Some found the distraction of talking with their spouse helped them cope better. Others said, no, they just needed to not talk and relax their body.’”
Linda Whitener, who is certified by the American Academy of Pediatrics, describes another facet of childbirth education. The Golden Minute She says:
“The Golden Minute is the first minute after the woman delivers. A lot of things can go wrong in that moment. An American Academy course called ‘Helping Babies Breath’ addresses how to resuscitate babies that aren’t breathing when they’re born and how to keep the mother from bleeding after she has delivered the baby. With warming and putting them on the chest, there are a lot of things that happen in different cultures. In Liberia, for example, I did training with the midwives in Monrovia. They were moms and grandmas who represented two different cultures. One was trained by the government, and the other had been trained just by watching in the local villages. Whenever a baby is born in the bush, if it’s not breathing, it just dies, right? But most of the time, when a baby is born like that, there’s no problem with the baby, except that some mucus could be in the nose or there could be the shock of coming out. But they’re not beyond resuscitation. The ‘Helping Babies Breathe’ course trains participants how to teach others. I teach the midwives how to keep those babies alive and resuscitate them once they’re born. We just received a success story from our last trip to Liberia. One of my students saved the life of a child shortly after we left.”