Post by sarahck on Sept 21, 2017 10:16:00 GMT -5
Session 3 is relaxation and breastfeeding – 2 of my favorite topics.
In the Facilitators’ Guide there are a couple of cool activities:
The relaxation opener – I love having people act out their favorite hobby like charades, but find that having the rest of the group act it out with them while repeating your name 3 times makes the group seem like a freaky cult kind of thing. I prefer just the first part.
The body scan progressive relaxation activity – I have found there are people that lead this really well and those of us who are not so good at it. Some people are naturals – they speak with a perfect tone of voice, have great timing/rhythm, and describe the process well. Hopefully you have one of them on your facilitator team, that’s gold. In our experience here, it takes a really good leader who is committed to doing it fully and doing it well, because most of our patients are uncomfortable with the idea of closing their eyes and doing a guided relaxation. You have to really commit to it to work through all the giggles, snickers, and peeking that we get. If you stick with it, they’ll come with you. Doing it halfway, though, makes it all fall apart and seem silly.
I’m not sure why our patients have been so uncomfortable with guided relaxation. One of our midwives really thought about this because she did some intensive mindfulness training a few years ago. She said to me, “You know, lots of our patients can’t even take a deep breath when we’re checking their lungs. It’s the damndest thing.” So many of us are so wound up with dealing with the stress and pace of life that it’s foreign to us to take a moment and slow down for a cleansing breath. But, most of them like it when they try.
My favorite thing to do for relaxation is to throw something around the room (the squishy ball, my stuffed lorax, a rubber chicken, what have you) so that everyone gets it but nobody just passes it to their next door neighbor (I think throwing it is part of the fun of it). When they get it, they have to talk about one thing that is stressing them out right now. Then, once everyone’s had it, we do it all over again and this time they tell us their favorite thing to do to take care of themselves when they feel stressed. (Sometimes I have to specify a healthy thing they do...) Then we talk about why relaxation and stress management is so important. I give my favorite line, “If you don’t take good care of yourself, you won’t be able to take good care of a baby.”
And then breastfeeding! A lot of us use the “Benefits of Breastfeeding Box” or the Benefits of Breastfeeding Cards that come in CHI’s Leader Kit. But I have started to think about some of the more negative sides of pushing breastfeeding too hard, like women who are distraught when they can’t breastfeed, or alienating women who don’t want to breastfeed. I don’t want women who aren’t planning to breastfeed to be intimidated out of the conversation because we think they’re making the “wrong” choice. And I don’t want them leaving the session thinking we believe they’re dooming their baby to being stupid and sick. As one of our facilitators said, “Some of the men who went to the moon were bottle fed!”
But I did like the suggestion that is in the Facilitators’ Guide of using the popcorn method to have everyone in the group complete “I heard that breastfeeding ___.” That is very nonjudgmental and I think it might open an honest conversation about the experiences and concerns about it. I love the popcorn method any time you can use it, really. But I think this is a nice set up.
In the Facilitators’ Guide there are a couple of cool activities:
The relaxation opener – I love having people act out their favorite hobby like charades, but find that having the rest of the group act it out with them while repeating your name 3 times makes the group seem like a freaky cult kind of thing. I prefer just the first part.
The body scan progressive relaxation activity – I have found there are people that lead this really well and those of us who are not so good at it. Some people are naturals – they speak with a perfect tone of voice, have great timing/rhythm, and describe the process well. Hopefully you have one of them on your facilitator team, that’s gold. In our experience here, it takes a really good leader who is committed to doing it fully and doing it well, because most of our patients are uncomfortable with the idea of closing their eyes and doing a guided relaxation. You have to really commit to it to work through all the giggles, snickers, and peeking that we get. If you stick with it, they’ll come with you. Doing it halfway, though, makes it all fall apart and seem silly.
I’m not sure why our patients have been so uncomfortable with guided relaxation. One of our midwives really thought about this because she did some intensive mindfulness training a few years ago. She said to me, “You know, lots of our patients can’t even take a deep breath when we’re checking their lungs. It’s the damndest thing.” So many of us are so wound up with dealing with the stress and pace of life that it’s foreign to us to take a moment and slow down for a cleansing breath. But, most of them like it when they try.
My favorite thing to do for relaxation is to throw something around the room (the squishy ball, my stuffed lorax, a rubber chicken, what have you) so that everyone gets it but nobody just passes it to their next door neighbor (I think throwing it is part of the fun of it). When they get it, they have to talk about one thing that is stressing them out right now. Then, once everyone’s had it, we do it all over again and this time they tell us their favorite thing to do to take care of themselves when they feel stressed. (Sometimes I have to specify a healthy thing they do...) Then we talk about why relaxation and stress management is so important. I give my favorite line, “If you don’t take good care of yourself, you won’t be able to take good care of a baby.”
And then breastfeeding! A lot of us use the “Benefits of Breastfeeding Box” or the Benefits of Breastfeeding Cards that come in CHI’s Leader Kit. But I have started to think about some of the more negative sides of pushing breastfeeding too hard, like women who are distraught when they can’t breastfeed, or alienating women who don’t want to breastfeed. I don’t want women who aren’t planning to breastfeed to be intimidated out of the conversation because we think they’re making the “wrong” choice. And I don’t want them leaving the session thinking we believe they’re dooming their baby to being stupid and sick. As one of our facilitators said, “Some of the men who went to the moon were bottle fed!”
But I did like the suggestion that is in the Facilitators’ Guide of using the popcorn method to have everyone in the group complete “I heard that breastfeeding ___.” That is very nonjudgmental and I think it might open an honest conversation about the experiences and concerns about it. I love the popcorn method any time you can use it, really. But I think this is a nice set up.
