What should a pregnant woman eat? This is a great question, and the answer to it is not “whatever she wants.” To have a healthy and happy pregnancy, and a healthy, happy baby, a pregnant woman should carefully choose what she puts into her body. My doctors, who spent all of about ten minutes with me at each visit, never told me these things.

http://natural-childbirth.net/what-should-a-pregnant-woman-eat/

One big reason so many women stop breast-feeding is that more than half of mothers of infants under six months old go to work. The 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act guarantees only twelve weeks of (unpaid) maternity leave and, in marked contrast to established practice in other industrial nations, neither the government nor the typical employer offers much more. To follow a doctor’s orders, a woman who returns to work twelve weeks after childbirth has to find a way to feed her baby her own milk for another nine months. The nation suffers, in short, from a Human Milk Gap.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/01/19/090119fa_fact_lepore?currentPage=1

The Tulane Breastfeeding Program, a campus-wide initiative of Tulane faculty, staff and students, has identified six rooms for new mothers who want a private space to pump breast milk.

According to Brewer, who now serves as the statewide coordinator, “Breastfeeding is normal and women should feel welcome to breastfeed anywhere on campus. When direct breastfeeding is not possible, the second best option is a mother’s pumped milk. Providing space for mothers to pump their milk allows mother, infant, workplace and society the opportunity to receive the myriad of benefits of human milk. We hope these efforts will encourage and enable more women to breastfeed and provide breast milk to their infants. We also hope to encourage other workplaces in the state to provide more support to mothers.”

http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/010609_breastfeeding_program.cfm

I recently heard someone say that they didn’t hire a doula because they’d been told that doulas and a doctors don’t mesh in the delivery room.

Oh dear…

http://www.3doulas.com/3doulas/2008/11/doulas-doctors-disaster-in-the-delivery-room.html

This year it was more evident than most what the cost of being a doula entails. The hardest part of being a doula is the on call time. You begin to officially be on call from the beginning of a client’s 38th week through her 42nd week. The being on call means your life revolves around being ready for the phone call that the mom to be needs you. It means that the theatre tickets, the concert, the party, all of those things are not prioritized over the mom in need.

http://laboroflovedoula.blogspot.com/2008/12/cost-of-being-doula.html

Licensed midwife Aleksandra Evanguelidi (www.SacredEntrance.com) shares what inspired her to become a midwife, what a midwife does, and why she loves being one. 1 of 7 interviews.

The Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association (CAPPA) has been sponsoring Operation Special Delivery (OSD) since January 2005. It was founded by a birth doula in response to the tragic events of September 11, 2001 in the United States. Today the project has over 600 volunteer doulas around the globe.

http://childbirth-labour-delivery.suite101.com/article.cfm/volunteer_doulas_for_us_military_families

It’s not a secret that I had a homebirth with my daughter last August! But why do people feel the need to make nasty comments about it, like it’s a bad thing? What’s with the negativity people?

http://www.mommyinpink.com/2009/01/homebirthempowerment.html

Soap star Ingo Rademacher and his fiancée Ehiku caused quite a stir with CBB readers when they announced that they had named their now 5-month-old son Peanut Kai.

After learning of the pregnancy, the couple proceeded to find a midwife, as they knew that they wanted to have a homebirth. The couple notes that they “did checkups with the midwife [throughout the pregnancy], and we got a doula for the birth, as well.”

http://celebrity-babies.com/2008/12/31/ingo-rademacher-talks-names-labor-vaccines-and-breast-milk/

Congratulations on taking your first step to a successful 21st Century doula career education with Doula Consultancy Services UK CIC. We are proud that we the innovators of University level Doula Training.

Doula Consultancy Services provides Antenatal, Birth and Postnatal Middlesex University accredited academic training. This type of doula training is unique and it does not exist anywhere else in the UK or the world!

http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200812/1230586072.html

Doula UK is a network of doulas run voluntarily by doulas. The network started in February 2001 and is a non-profitmaking organisation.

Our aims are to promote the role of doulas, to improve communication between doulas, and to advance our understanding of birth and the postnatal period. Our network has a Philosophy, sets standards and has a Code of Practice which all members adhere to.

http://www.doula.org.uk

The Pregnant New Yorker provides alternative, fun health events in Manhattan and Brooklyn. We bring the best guest speakers together to teach the pregnant community something they may not have known about before. We are not here to judge but only to inform. The events provide an opportunity to learn something new about different services and products and a chance to meet other pregnant women. We also have started events for new moms and starting next year will provide events to those trying to get pregnant.

http://www.thepregnantnewyorker.com

On Friday, Gov. Deval Patrick signed into law An Act to Promote Breastfeeding, a bill that protects a mother’s right to nurse her baby in public, and one that could impose a $500 fine to anyone who harasses a nursing mother.

“This is a great victory for public health,” said Dr. Melissa Bartick, an internist and chairwoman of the Massachusetts Breastfeeding Coalition. “Mothers can now follow medical recommendations without feeling that they have to be confined to toilet stalls.”

http://www.patriotledger.com/news/x497786644/State-becomes-third-to-last-to-adopt-breastfeeding-law

Some healthcare trivia: In the United States, what is the No. 1 reason people are admitted to the hospital? Not diabetes, not heart attack, not stroke. The answer is something that isn’t even a disease: childbirth.

Not only is childbirth the most common reason for a hospital stay — more than 4 million American women give birth each year — it costs the country far more than any other health condition. Six of the 15 most frequent hospital procedures billed to private insurers and Medicaid are maternity-related. The nation’s maternity bill totaled $86 billion in 2006, nearly half of which was picked up by taxpayers.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-block24-2008dec24,0,102434.story

OBSTETRICIANS have stepped up their counter-attack against a push to give midwives a bigger role, claiming dire consequences will result if a federal review recommends allowing midwives to practise with inadequate medical supervision.

With the federal health minister, Nicola Roxon, already on record as indicating some sympathy for the midwives’ pitch, specialist doctors say the Government should first consider what they claim are the ”harmful effects” experienced in New Zealand, which moved to a midwife-led system in 1990.

http://www.homebirth.net.au/2009/01/obs-bleating-as-they-get-scared-for.html

Over the next few days I will be talking about the design of the birth unit that Deborah Davis and I are currently working on for the Second Life Education New Zealand project. We are taking especial care to follow birth unit design principles espoused by people such as Bianca Lepori (2008) because we believe that the environment has an impact on how labour unfolds and the outcomes of birth.

http://sarah-stewart.blogspot.com/2009/01/effect-of-environment-on-labour-and.html

EXPECTANT mums who have their hearts set on giving birth at home are to benefit from the launch of a new support service next month.

Peterhead mothers Amber Sebold and Charlie Paris have united to help north-east women make informed choices about where they want their babies to be born.

They believe that home deliveries can be safer, healthier and less stressful for women with low risk of complications. In some cases, arranging a home birth can be an uphill struggle, with health services and individual midwives advising women to give birth in a fully-equipped hospital, in case any problems arise.

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1009268?UserKey=

If Samara Hines had health insurance, she’d deliver her baby in a hospital, away from the demands of her five other children and with help from nurses for the new little one.

But Hines’ husband is self-employed and the family can’t afford insurance or the estimated $6,000 hospital fees, plus the cost of a nurse-midwife and prenatal care. So in August, the Provo woman will deliver her baby at home, where it will cost $1,900 for everything.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11310032

As cesarean and induction rates in hospital climb to astronomical levels many women are turning to homebirth. When interventions become excessively high, the risk/benefit ratio of being in a hospital swings more dramatically into the “riskier” zone, and even physicians and nurses begin choosing homebirth. Just removing your birth from a hospital setting doesn’t guarantee that it will proceed in a natural, flowing manner. Too many women learn the hard way that a midwife can bring a hospital mentality and interventions right into the home and negatively affect the course of the birth. How can you assess the type of midwifery practice that you are purchasing? Here are some tips to help you assess the care that will be provided by midwives:

http://www.glorialemay.com/blog/?p=74