Why I Created Down the Canal – The Game of Birth

There are so many books to read and so many websites to visit; it can be overwhelming for expectant parents. How do they really know which sources are promoting the best available evidence? Down the Canal is a pregnancy game,  created for easy access to the information, and to inspire further inquiry into the birth process.

​The goal is for people to play the game and learn they have more questions. It challenges the player to explore their own beliefs about birth. It is an inquiry into the self, as much as it is an inquiry into birth.

Since 1991 I have been an advocate for physiologic birth; birth with little or no intervention when mother is healthy and has no underlying medical issues. The question that continually arises is “Why aren’t more women taking a stand for themselves in birth?” Discussions with colleagues have often led to “How can we educate women and families about all their birthing options before they choose their doctor or midwife?”

We have a maternity care crisis in the United States, which you can read more about in the article I wrote in the Journal of Mother Studies.

The choice of care provider is one of the first choices a woman will make, usually within the first three months of pregnancy. Many women choose this provider based on recommendations from well-meaning friends and family members, without asking questions about how they view and treat birth.

If you are pregnant, I am sure you have been doing some investigating about what is happening to your body, the growth of your baby in utero, what the best food are to eat, and how you can have the best pregnancy, and birth.

There is a such thing as information overload, especially in today's world where we all have instant access to answers to our questions. While this isn't always a bad thing, it may not be a good thing either.

I talk to other doulas, and I lend support in some pregnancy groups online. There is an overall theme of disconnect.  Everyone is searching for answers outside of themselves. Pregnancy is time of transformation. There are fears and worries, concerns, and lots of advice to sort through.

There are many ways to learn about pregnancy, labor, birth, babies and breastfeeding. There are books, videos and classes. It can be overwhelming, especially when you are getting conflicting information from all kinds of sources.

Google is a verb now. Very normal for those that grew up in this technological era.  Whenever you want to know something you can google it. The only problem with this is that anybody can put any information they want to online. 

How do you really know that the information is the most accurate available?  In there lies the challenge in determining fact from fiction, to somewhere in between.

Because I am a research geek, and love the facts, and people that I work with love the facts, I always investigate until I find the source of the information.  For example, you read one my blog posts about birth, and I have links to other websites to back what I have to say.  You click on those, and maybe that is the end of the story.