Being cocooned, embraced

It's certainly not clear cut. By taking yourself to hospital `just in case', you're immediately increasing your risk of requiring intervention. Essentially, you are increasing your risk of requiring forceps or ventouse, needing a caesarean, having a tear and requiring stitches or having an episiotomy, to name just a few! All because you want to be in `the right place' in case something goes wrong. But a lot of what might go wrong could potentially be avoided - and certainly the risk significantly reduced - by not being in hospital in the first place, and in fact being somewhere better suited to giving birth. Next, the customer is always right. And finally, when you make a mistake, strive to learn from it and fix it. Find the gift in that mistake. We adults have somehow become afraid to make mistakes for fear of consequences that we presume might be dire. The truth is that we learn from our mistakes, and they give us the chance to do things over again in a better or different way. The terrible things we imagine will happen if we make a mistake often don't happen, and some very good things have resulted and been discovered from things that appeared to go very wrong. Post-it notes are a great example of a mistake gone right. A man named Spencer Silver was working in a 3M laboratory to come up with a new, strong adhesive. Instead, the stuff he created turned out to be weak, and it could be removed easily from surfaces. Four years later, another 3M scientist named Arthur Fry was in church, singing in choir, and was having trouble keeping markers in his hymnal. Throughout the next few articles, we summarize elements of EQ defined by Daniel Goleman and his colleagues and the implications of manifesting high EQ in performing effectively as a conflict manger. Further, we highlight several important relevant techniques that apply to the respective EQ competencies, most of which have a direct impact on transforming conflict into opportunities for positive outcomes. Phases and Process of Conflict Resolution In every instance of the interactions that occur through the two Phases of Conflict Resolution, the conflict manager needs to model emotionally intelligent behaviors because, in doing so, the parties to the conflict can start to observe and emulate healthier behavioral traits. For example, they will become more comfortable identifying the feelings in the room, which provides a basis for mutual understanding;

They will seek first to understand, rather than to be understood. They will value the process of building interpersonal rapport with the other party to the dispute, rather than a process characterized by maintaining distance, blaming, instigating fights, or behaviors prone to keeping the parties in a more divisive and disputatious state. Mandate that Parties Participate in EQ Training In fact, we suggest that an activity upon which a conflict manager should insist early in the Differentiation Phase is to mandate that the disputing parties participate in a training session on Building Your EQ. Through this training, the parties gain a better understanding of the EI skills and their value in working through conflict effectively. We can guess that people whose diets are naturally plentiful in vitamin C may also be following generally healthy lifestyles, which cannot be replaced by vitamin supplementation alone. A naturally occurring antioxidant that has been receiving increasing attention is coenzyme Q10 or CoQ10. It is also known as ubiquione, reflecting its ubiquitous presence in living systems. Studies have shown that it enhances the function of heart muscles and may be helpful for people with coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, and congestive heart failure. Although we do not yet know enough about this substance to recommend it for universal use, we do believe it is worth discussing with your health care adviser if you are facing heart disease. Homocysteine and Health One of the most important recent discoveries in nutritional science is the recognition that an elevated blood level of the amino acid homocysteine is associated with a number of different illnesses. Homocysteine is a biochemical produced during the metabolism of protein, particularly when the protein is derived from animal sources. Higher blood levels of homocysteine (greater than 12 micro-moles per liter) have been identified as an independent risk factor for heart disease. Research suggests that high concentrations of this amino acid alter the lining of blood vessels. So, before you rule out home, I'd like to make a couple of points - food for thought, if you will. Firstly, when you are having a home birth, you will have one dedicated midwife with you throughout your labour and a second one who will join you closer to the point of your giving birth. You therefore have wonderful one-to-one care with a midwife who you are more likely to know because you will have had your antenatal appointments with this home-birth/community team. Having a midwife with you whilst you are in labour, focused solely on you and your baby, is far better than being in a busy hospital where you might find yourself sharing a midwife with another woman. At home you will have the full attention of a midwife who will give you support and closely monitor you, so that if there was any reason for concern you could transfer into a hospital and be attended to at the earliest opportunity.

Secondly, midwives are not risk-takers, especially not midwives supporting women at home, knowing they do not have easy access to a back-up medical team. Midwives, quite literally, have your and your baby's life in their hands and that's a big responsibility. If your midwife thinks that you or your baby might need some support, they will recommend you make the transfer into hospital. They will not wait until an emergency has unfolded before recommending going in. Hence the transfer rate - they don't take risks. He thought of Silver's weak adhesive, which he recalled didn't damage documents when removed. Within a few more years, Post-it notes were for sale nationwide and became one of the most successful office products available. Popsicles, too, were a mistake invention. In 1905, an eleven-year-old boy named Frank Epperson accidentally left his drink out in the cold winter air overnight. The next morning, he found his drink frozen stiff, with the stirrer still inside. Using it as a stick, the boy found his mistake to be a delicious, easy-to-eat treat, and so did his friends. Years later, he brought out the newly named Popsicle, which became a worldwide sensation. Conversely, following directions is worthwhile because rules are rules and facts are facts. School starts and our days begin to be structured around the clock. We study details and dates, and our creativity is often put on hold until art class. After the training, the conflict manager can use the terms and nomenclature of EI as a touch point for process comments that force the stake-holders to review their behaviors and how healthy they are in the context of seeking a workable resolution to differences. For example, the conflict manager might indicate to the parties, Let's practice emotional self-awareness: how are people feeling right now after we have discussed this proposed resolution to your differences? Or in response to some bickering or verbal insults thrown back and forth by the parties, the manager might say, I remind people that self-management is highly desirable in working through this conflict; A common element of training to build EQ is developing and documenting one's credo or I believe statements. An added value to mandating training on EQ is that conflict managers can attend carefully to the credos that disputing parties develop during the self-awareness exercises contained in the training.

The I believe statements that disputing parties share during the training offer a beneficial opportunity for conflict managers to gain broad and important insights into the parties' core beliefs and value systems, and to use these insights in differentiating the conflict effectively and finding solutions with which all parties can live. Establish EI-based Behavioral Norms and Hold Parties Accountable for Conforming to Them Indeed, making the parties accountable for their own healthy, emotionally intelligent behavior throughout the conflict resolution process is a very positive norm to impose early in the conflict resolution process in order to explore and uncover an agreement acceptable to those engaged in the conflict. By maintaining this level of accountability and reinforcing healthy norms for acceptable and unacceptable behaviors throughout the Differentiation and Integration Phases, the conflict manager enhances the opportunity for the parties to emerge from the conflict with a shared belief in the value of applying EI skills to difficult situations. This is one of the important opportunities that the conflict manager has a chance to enact--reinforcing the value of self-awareness, self-management, relationship awareness, and relationship management--through the process of mediating team differences. This leads to the deposit of cholesterol into arteries, eventually resulting in blockage of the vessel and damage to the heart muscle. A number of unhealthy lifestyle choices have been associated with elevated homocysteine levels, including smoking, excessive alcohol use, and high caffeine intake. Recent studies have linked homocysteine to many other diseases, so that we now know that elevated blood levels of this toxic amino acid may increase the risk for stroke, Alzheimer's disease, and a variety of cancers. The good news is that it is usually easy to lower your blood level of homocysteine by ensuring that you have an adequate intake of a few key B vitamins. The most important one seems to be folic acid, which along with vitamins B6 (pyridoxine) and B12, metabolize homocysteine to a nontoxic biochemical. Recent research has found that if people who require angioplasty to open up blocked heart vessels take folic acid, B6, and B12, they show substantial reductions in their homocysteine levels, and their blood vessels do not become clogged as quickly. We believe there is enough evidence to support the recommendation that everyone should ingest ample amounts of these vital nutrients every day. How much is enough? The standard recommended allowance is 400 micrograms of folic acid, 2 milligrams of vitamin B6, and 2 to 6 micrograms of vitamin B12. These levels can be achieved with a healthy, balanced diet. Thirdly, calculate the time it would take to transfer into your nearest maternity hospital by ambulance (with blue lights) and compare that to the average time it takes to transfer from a hospital ward to theatre in an emergency situation. If there is not much difference, then that should reassure you considerably. It is worth knowing that, even if you are in hospital, there is no guarantee that a theatre will be empty and a team ready and waiting for you. Often they will have to bring people in who are on call, or clear the theatre and prep for you, which takes time. If you are transferring in from home the paramedics will have called ahead and all of this will be happening whilst you are travelling in, so that by the time you arrive you can go straight in and be seen by the appropriate person.

Mind-blowing game-changer fact For second-time (or subsequent), low-risk women home is the safest place to give birth statistically, with the best outcomes for mums and babies and the fewest interventions. BIRTH STORY Home water birth after trauma - Eshere, a second-time mum After a traumatic long labour with an episiotomy and ventouse with our first daughter I can happily say hypnobirthing changed our lives! Play is only for recess. These can be difficult days; But this is not all bad. The beginning of school marks the end of one life and the start of a new one. We leave the security of our homes for a few hours a day for an exciting world with new people and places. Our desire to learn is at an all-time high. In early childhood, we primarily use the right hemisphere of our brain as we engage with life. Creativity, nonverbal communication, and intuition are the strengths of the right side of the brain. As we develop, our cognitive abilities grow, too, and the structure, direction, and instruction of school help the left hemisphere of our brain take on a bigger role--enabling us to think logically and analytically. Ultimately, school is where many people learn about who they are, but schooling can overemphasize left-brain learning so much that the right brain feels shut out or shut down. Listen to Everything, but Respond Selectively We mentioned this suggestion earlier in describing techniques that demonstrate emotionally intelligent self-control. Conflict managers need to show respect and exemplify trustworthiness through the battles that occur during a dispute. But they need not be polite in the simplest sense of the term. There may be times when a statement or question without real substance or with secondary agenda is posed to conflict managers by a disputant, and the best response may be ignoring it rudely or allowing a meaningful silence to manifest an implicit wish not to grace that statement with a reply.