If you are a doula or childbirth educator, you are probably familiar with using acronyms to help parents navigate pregnancy and birth choices, particularly those choices that fall into the category of interventions.
When I first started teaching in the late 1990’s, I found the acronym BRAND (below) in a Midwifery Today Journal.
B - Benefits of suggested procedure/test/action;
R - Risks of procedure/test/action;
A - Alternatives available;
N - Nothing… what will happen if no procedure/test/action is implemented;
D - Decide
I taught my Variations, Complications and Interventions class using this acronym for a couple of years. Then, in one of my classes, one of the dads (whose job was something like: “technology feedback and neuro-linguistic specialist” – seriously, I couldn’t make that up) pointed out to me that the...
