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BIRTH PRIORITIES
Group Size Time
Unit: Section
Purpose
Preparation
ACTIVITY: BIRTH PRIORITIES
Couples or small groups of 3-6 people
10 – 15 minutes
Unit 1: Interventions and Variations
To help parents evaluate what factors are most critical to their experience and engage them in a discussion about ways to have their needs met in labor.
Print each of the following three pages on different colored card stock. You may choose to laminate them for durability. You may use the blank cards to add your own ideas, or have parents fill in their goals.
Divide the class into small groups. Instruct groups to work together to: 1. Choose their top 10 cards from the Family-Centered stack.
2. It becomes necessary to add two Medical Intervention cards.
Preview
Choose two and discuss how these changes make them feel. Did adding those two Medical Intervention cards affect anything in the Family-Centered group?
3. Unfortunately, they need to remove two Family-Centered cards. Have each group choose which two to remove and discuss how these changes make them feel.
Procedure 4. Next, the instructor chooses one Medical Intervention card to add and one Family-Centered card to remove from each group. Do not offer any explanation of the situation or reasoning behind your choice for them and do not allow parents to ask you questions. Discuss how it makes them feel to not have a choice or an opportunity to ask questions about these changes.
5. Give each group a First Goal card. Ask if they feel differently about the interventions that were added if they know that the goal card was possible because of them. Discuss how explanations, understanding and their involvement in the decision-making is empowering.
Alternative Methods
Using only one set of Family-Centered cards, assign a number to each couple( for example, if you have 5 couples in class, assign each couple a number from 1 to 5). Have each couple select one Family-Centered card( in order, one at a time). The last couple has fewer options to choose from. Discuss how this makes them feel. Then have couples select again( in order, one at a time) until all of the cards have been selected. Follow steps 2-6 above.
Permission to copy Birth Priorities cards is granted for personal use with the purchase of Plumtree Baby Childbirth Curriculum.
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