I recently discovered a wonderful organization called Earth Birth. Earth Birth is an NGO which is ran by midwives to foster an international women’s health movement that encourages and promotes safe and peaceful birth. Directed by midwife, Rachel Zaslow, Earth Birth raises funds to build clinics and restore communities amongst women in various countries such as Brazil, Sudan and Uganda. With a sustainable mindset, the clinics that are built incorporate green building practices such as rainwater collection, composting for agriculture and solar power. It is the organization’s mission to lower maternal and infant mortality rates, lower mother to child HIV transmission, grant access to supplies, access to trauma counseling, empower women to have positive childbirth experiences and more.

Add Earthbook on Facebook today to stay connected and find out ways that you can participate.

http://thegreendoula.com/blog1/2009/03/16/midwives-on-a-mission-earth-birth/

Women choosing to give birth at home suffered a major defeat this month when an Illinois House committee voted down a bill that would have allowed certified professional midwives to deliver babies.

House Bill 226, which died March 4 in the Health Care Availability and Accessibility Committee, would have expanded child birth options for expecting mothers and prevented pregnant women from hiring unqualified midwives or giving birth at home without medical supervision, said Colette Bernhard, legislative chairwoman for the Coalition for Illinois Midwifery.

http://www.chicagotalks.org/2009/03/24/midwives-will-not-receive-illinois-licensure-to-assist-in-home-births-anytime-soon/

Pregnant women who stop smoking before the 15th week have rates of preterm birth and small-for-dates babies comparable to those of non-smoking women, new research indicates.

The findings show that these severe adverse effects of smoking may be reversible if smoking is stopped early in pregnancy, Dr. Lesley M. E. McCowan, from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and colleagues comment in the British Medical Journal.

The results come from an analysis of data for 2500 women who were having their first baby. At 15 weeks’ gestation, the women were classified as non-smokers, stopped smokers, or current smokers.
Overall, 80 percent of the women were non-smokers, 10 percent were stopped smokers, and 10 percent were current smokers, according to the report.

http://www.euronews24.org/health/smokers-who-quit-early-in-pregnancy-aid-baby/

New midwives will be required to birth 40 babies under supervision, instead of the current 30, before being allowed to practise on their own.

The Midwifery Council, which oversees training, has decided to increase the practical component of courses partly because of concerns from the public that graduates need more experience before handling births on their own.

Trainee midwives will also have to check on more than 200 mothers and babies before they can get their registration.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/2297688/Courses-to-intensify-for-trainee-midwives

His big hand holds a tiny one as Robbie Goodrich sings in a deep voice, soothing his infant son Moses. The little guy observes his father’s every move, focusing on his lips that produce those comforting sounds. Watching him, one may wonder how much 2-month-old Moses already knows about the bittersweet beginning of his life.

Charles Moses Martin Goodrich was born at 3:26 a.m. Jan. 11 at Marquette General Hospital. Eleven hours after giving birth, his mother Susan Goodrich, 46, died of amniotic fluid embolism – a rare obstetric emergency that is not age-related, Goodrich said. Moses is the Goodrich’s second child – Julia was born in 2007 – and Susan’s fourth. Still in shock over his wife’s death, Goodrich realized he had to figure out a way to feed his newborn son.

http://www.miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/524498.html?nav=5006

A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health looks at hospital practices, women’s intent to breastfeed, and how the former may influence the latter.

I don’t currently have access to the full-text, but here’s what I can gather from the abstract and the press release:  The study authors looked at data from the Listening to Mothers II survey, which asked women to recall their breastfeeding intentions, infant feeding practices at one week, and hospital practices. The researchers found that 70% of these women reported an intention to exclusively breastfeed, but only 50% achieved that goal at one week.

http://www.ourbodiesourblog.org/blog/2009/03/new-study-addresses-hospital-practices-and-breastfeeding-rates

Extra midwives are to be recruited for Northampton General Hospital, using £1.75 million of NHS funding to ensure every woman can choose a home birth.
The funding was revealed by NHS managers in their far-reaching health plan for the next 12 months, which will cost at least £7.5 million.

A total of £1.75 million will be spent on the maternity departments at Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital.

Most of the money will be ploughed into hiring midwives to ease stretched services and will allow women to choose where they give birth, which is a key Government priority.

http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/175m-for-midwives-to-raise.5110025.jp

The state Senate has passed a House-approved bill requiring that midwives be licensed.

A bill that would have made licensing voluntary died in the Legislature last year after objections from doctors and hospitals.

The Senate voted 32-3 Wednesday for the measure, which requires midwives to be licensed by the North American Registry of Midwives, a national organization that governs the profession. It would also require them to get extra training in suturing and pharmacology.

The bill now awaits approval from Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter. Senate sponsor Shawn Keough, R-Sandpoint, said the governor has indicated his support and willingness to quickly appoint a governing board.

The bill also defines scope of practice, which would forbid people without proper training from handling drugs like oxytocin during deliveries.

The roughly 40 midwives currently operating across the state would have one year to qualify for a license. The bill also contains a clause to waive the license if a midwife has been practicing in the state for five years and has been the primary midwife for at least 75 births within the last 10 years.

http://www.theolympian.com/northwest/story/798401.html

Steffany Hedenkamp has experienced more in 35 years than many people have in a lifetime.

She’s lived on her own since she was 16, earned a full-ride scholarship to Carnegie Mellon University and had two home births. She started her own communications company, worked on Kay Barnes’ mayoral campaign, met Matt Damon and Army Gen. David Petraeus, and once got a thank-you letter from a little-known senator named Barack Obama.

Recently she designed a national campaign to get midwives licensed in all 50 states.

We had to know more.

http://www.kansascity.com/238/story/1092069.html

Mothers-to-be in Nova Scotia will have access to publicly-funded midwifery services as the province begins the integration of midwives to primary maternity care teams.

The Midwifery Act comes into effect Wednesday, March 18.

“We are moving towards teams of health-care professionals working together to provide care to Nova Scotians in their communities,” said Health Minister Karen Casey. “Midwives are key team players in providing the right care to mothers and their families.”

http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20090316004

EATING while in the throes of childbirth should no longer be a medical taboo, according to a study released today.

The duration of labour, the need for assisted delivery, and caesarean rates were all unaffected by munching between contractions, found the study, published by the British Medical Journal.

Doctors the world over have long discouraged women in labour from eating, for fear that it could lead to breathing food into the lungs in the case of an emergency caesarean while under general anaesthetic.

But such incidents have declined dramatically in recent years, mainly due to the use of local anaesthesia.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25234214-23109,00.html

For the month of March, a fellow midwifery-school class mate and I ventured to Vanuatu, an island nation in the South Pacific between Fiji and Australia, where we are volunteering at the hospital in the town of Port Vila on Efate – at 16.69° S and 168.36° E in the Pacific Ocean. I’ll try to document my experiences here in what will likely be a combination of travel tales and birth stories.

http://farawaybabies.blogspot.com/2009/03/what-we-take-for-granted.html

The information collected here was collected to identify VBAC policies in individual hospitals. We wanted to identify those hospitals that have official bans against VBAC in place. If you have time, it would be worth calling these hospitals yourself and seeing what responses you get. You can find the contact information on the VBAC Hospital Policy Database.

http://alternativebirthservices.blogspot.com/2009/03/ican-state-by-state-vbac-hospital.html

Expecting mothers here is a good news for you. Medical experts say a new and scientific way of giving birth while in water can reduce labour pain and help insmooth delivery.

Labelled as “water birth” the process entails giving birth in a tub of warm water, which helps ease labour pain at least by 80 per cent.While some women choose to labour in the water and get out for delivery, others decide to stay in water for the delivery as well.

http://www.theindiapost.com/2008/07/07/water-birth-can-reduce-labour-pain/

Water birth is safe if done in a proper way with temperature of water maintained and checked at intervals. The temperature should be maintained between 95 F to 101 F, which is close to body temperature. It helps in various ways because it is said to facilitate dilation and also helps in the reduction of blood pressure. Also since it softens the perineal skin, chances of tear is less. What is amazing is that babies come out smiling as the temperature is close to body temperature and the umbilical cord helps to anchor the baby. Only when the baby is brought out, it starts crying.

http://blog.ourbabysworld.com/is-%E2%80%98water-birth%E2%80%99-really-safe/

SUBSIDISING indemnity payments for midwives could cost taxpayers an estimated $12 million to $24 million annually if the federal Government were to treat them as favourably as specialist obstetricians.

Insurance experts warned yesterday that despite public perceptions that mothers who delivered their babies with a midwife faced fewer risks, premiums to insure midwives against bad outcomes were likely to be similar to those faced by obstetricians — who can pay from $60,000 to $100,000 a year for their policies.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25140735-5013871,00.html

What if you’d like a midwife, but aren’t sure where to start looking?

Here are a few tips that I’ve gleaned from friends and family who have found their dream midwives with a bit of research.

http://greenbabyguide.com/2009/03/09/choosing-a-midwife-part-4/

Earlier this week I was meeting with the homebirth midwife, Marcy Tardio, who caught my baby in 2007 and we were talking about birth, politics, and life. I mentioned that I attended homebirths this month with three different midwives and how great was to see everyone’s different style at each of these births. In New York City, we are amazingly lucky to have so many terrific homebirth midwives to choose from (unlike other areas where you might have one midwife serving a 300 mile or more radius).

Marcy agreed, and told me when people ask her about her birth philosophy, she sort of laughs and thinks, “I am a homebirth midwife, that is my philosophy.” Later my husband and I reflected on how true this is – that catching babies at home is such an amazing calling and the women who do this work all share a very similar, and unique in this culture, understanding of what it means to help women give birth. After that, so much of it is personality and finding the midwife that resonates with your own style and needs.

http://www.achildgrowsinbrooklyn.com/2009/03/06/a-brooklyn-midwife/

A midwife who spent nine months working in northern Uganda is now looking forward to her next humanitarian mission.
Working in a refugee camp with limited drugs and facilities was a huge challenge for Sam Perkins, but one the 27-year-old relished.

After graduating as a midwife in 2003, Miss Perkins worked with asylum seekers in England before working with women in New Zealand and Aborigines in the Australian desert.

But it was her trip to Africa in June last year which proved to be the biggest eye-opener as Miss Perkins was the only one with real maternity training in a camp of about 5,000 people.

http://www.northantset.co.uk/news/Midwife-Sam39s-mercy-missions.5068869.jp