Hi Rachel

I think, humor is a symptom of finding shared values. Many Swiss persons
like to refer to British humor as "black humor"( that is what my students
told me). Probably it is.... Sometimes I can not understand the very fine
humor that they think is humor here. Some however like mine very much. Most
Dutch however like this. I always think that it has to do with the amount of
population. People as such are really a great resource of humor... and also
of diversity, which is enriching.. ! I really think, it has got to do with
our own values of life. But suppose, there was nobody who was different- we
just had a dreadful life !!!

I once went to Holland after we had a discussion about talking about other
people. In the place I worked it was awful. My mother ( we have a different
sense of humor however !!)however did not stop talking about everybody she
met in the village. Then I found out , it is an esssential part of life, in
which we compared our own values. So, I take it back "home" to Switzerland.
Other people are the most parts of our life and thus our values and the best
things of our life are made ! Remember "Les causeuses" ( hope I write it
right) from Camille Claudel, that is how women work and how midwives should
work...Sharing is soooooo essential to midwifery.

Black humor in midwifery seems to relate to making one feel better (
Festinger- downward comparison), but who cares, if your feeling is better
!!!!!! Upward comparison might just make you feel..... like sleeping over
this time.

Lots of humor...

Ans

-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: A forum for discussion on midwifery and reproductive health
research. [mailto:[log in to unmask]]Namens Rachel Myr
Verzonden: Donnerstag, 8. Februar 2007 12:12
Aan: [log in to unmask]
Onderwerp: Humor in labor


Yana didn't feel like laughing in labor, and certainly not every woman does.
I doubt that any woman feels like being laughed at by her helpers, ever.
When I think back on the labors at which I have laughed the most, the common
feature has been a comfortable relationship of security and trust between
the midwife and the woman in labor, usually established during pregnancy.
Many of these labors have also contained occasions at which all present have
cried, for example when the baby is born triumphantly by the mother's own
efforts after a previous traumatic and interventive birth.  Again, such
emotion is more likely to surface when everyone present feels safe.  How
nice, and uncoincidental, that this safe atmosphere also promotes unfettered
progress in labor.

I also know that I have enormous difficulty feeling comfortable with people
whose sense of humor is not apparent to me, because laughter is something I
treasure, and I laugh as often as I possibly can.  Paradoxically, I
frequently find that I am sitting absolutely cold and without the slightest
inclination to smile, when most everyone else is laughing at a professional
talk by someone trying to joke about labor, midwifery or obstetrics.  In the
worst cases I am moved to tears of sadness when everyone else I can see is
laughing uproariously, and it simply reinforces my perception of myself as
deviant, which has ceased to bother me so much after several decades of such
experience.

I'm not a bit afraid to use humor in labor nor in post partum.  I strive to
use it as a mirror to help us ALL see our foibles in a way that makes them
less threatening, so we can have the possibility of changing them for the
better.  There are plenty of things on a societal level which are
overwhelming if you only approach them with grave seriousness, but which can
be illuminated productively if you can find some way to point up the
ridiculousness of them,, for example to new parents - such as the
expectation that someone who has spent their entire existence up to that
moment surrounded by a womb where they were rocked, soothed, fed and exposed
to noise - that this person will immediately take to being placed alone in
an open cot and soothe themselves to sleep for eight hours straight without
a murmur of protest.

Just my thoughts as I procrastinate on something else I really ought to be
doing on my day off...
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway