“I think the biggest thing I learned was the contrast between the other birth stories and the OBGYN site. Doctors use different thinking than the mothers do. Some critical thought goes into decisions that the mothers made. However, they are more likely to use intuition and trial and error, while the doctor’s need to use other types of thinking in order to do their jobs “right.” I can see how the two can be at odds a bit in a hospital setting, and it’s good to know where both parties are “coming from,” so to speak”-Paula, a New Beginnings student

This was a comment from one of my students as she was reading through different case scenarios I presented.  I found it interesting, because people do come from different viewpoints and ways of thinking.  It is important to understand this in order to work with different kinds of people.  Communicating about intuition with someone who does not believe or acknowledge intuition would be difficult.  When we work with care providers and women, we need to understand how they think and process information to better communicate with them and help them during birth.

The four ways of problem solving that I discuss in my course are trial and error, intuition, critical thinking, and scientific reasoning.  For practice, go to my first unit and find the case study.  Use this to figure out what sort of problem solving is being done.  You can also look at your own choices in birth and think about how you make decisions.