MIAMI – I was in the bathroom just after midnight, wishing I’d skipped that extra piece of my husband’s birthday cake. At nine months and a day, my pregnant body didn’t have room for extra anything.

A bit too slowly it dawned on me. This wasn’t about cake. My heart began to beat as if it too, like the tiny person inside me, were ready to break free. Then I shivered. What had I gotten myself into?

I’d decided to go natural, relying on the fast-growing practice of hypnobirthing. Despite the name, there’s no swinging pendulum, no “your eyes are getting heavy” mantras — just deep breathing, imagery, meditation and massage.

http://www2.mcdowellnews.com/content/2009/apr/24/how-reporter-became-fan-natural-childbirth/

The longer women breastfeed, the lower their risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease, a new study reports.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh said in a news release that postmenopausal women who breastfed for at least one month had lower rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, all known to cause heart disease.

Women who had breastfed their babies for more than a year were 10 percent less likely to have had a heart attack, stroke, or developed heart disease than women who had never breastfed, even though the average woman in the study hadn’t nourished a child for more than 30 years.

http://www.kcra.com/health/19269593/detail.html

This month two very different positions have emerged about the economics of breastfeeding. Someone reading either of these stories on their own could be led to believe a conclusion about the financial aspects of breastfeeding that is not entirely complete. I want to tell you a bit about what they both said and then try to create a more objective view of the economic pros and cons of breastfeeding.

http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/04/24/the-economics-of-breastfeeding-a-cost-benefit-analysis/

Dr. Fatimie welcomed them and thanked investment of Spain government in health sector in Afghanistan.

Dr. Fatimie mentioned that contribution of health progresses in badghis is commendable. Badghis province has one provincial hospital, one district hospital, 3 comprehensive clinics, 21 basic health clinics, 8 health sub-center, 331 health posts and one mobile health team. So far 33 midwives have keen graduate from the provincial midwifery course with the support of the World Bank and Spanish provincial rehabilitation team.

Since 2005, Spanish government has invested $6.5M and in the coming two years (2009 to 2010) $3.5 M will be invested in health care of badghis province. Out of this $2 M is for Hospital Reform and $1.5 M is for training of more midwives.

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/SODA-7RAMZR?OpenDocument&RSS20&RSS20=FS

http://blog.une.edu.au/oorala/2009/04/20/nsw-aboriginal-nursing-and-midwifery-cadetship-program/

NSW Health are offering cadetships for Aboriginal students studying
full-time in Nursing or Midwifery. The program offers:

* Study allowance of $600 per fortnight during your studies
* Employment for 12 weeks full-time in your local hospital
* Support from a Mentor, Clinical Preceptor and Program Coordinator
* Ongoing employment once you have graduated

Closing date: Friday, 8 May 2009

For further information contact:

Lana Shaw, Project Officer
Nursing and Midwifery Office
NSW Health
Ph: 02 9391 9607 or 1800 330 933
Email: aboriginalnursing@doh.health.nsw.gov.au

It’s now a woman’s civic right to breast feed her baby in public. Before the new law, women couldn’t be arrested for indecency while breastfeeding, now they’re protected from being asked to leave.

We looked into the issue.

Baby Elizabeth Ann is due July 20th. The new law means her mother, Alicia Rains will be able to feed her naturally whenever and where ever she needs to. Rains is glad for that, “If your baby’s hungry, they don’t know about laws or anything like that. They need food.” “Very young babies are meant to eat every couple of hours” starts RN and International Board Certified Lactation Consultant Karin Carlson, “and sometimes it’s just not convenient for you to find a private place where you can go do this.”

The governor signed the law citing the health benefits. Carlson lists a few, “lower rates of infection with ear problems, even they’re linking it to lower rates of diabetes, lower rates of obesity.” Some studies even show a mothers milk reduces the rate of some childhood cancers.

http://www.kimatv.com/news/43663002.html

Target: American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM)
Sponsored by: North American Registry of Midwives (NARM)

A recently revised Position Statement from the ACNM seeks to limit recognition of midwifery providers to those who have received their training through government accredited programs. NARM oversees the credentialing of midwives who have received their training through time honored and evidenced based systems that emphasizes clinical competency over all other criteria. This letter seeks to unite US Midwifery under the common goal of increasing access for women to the provider and setting of their choice.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/support-evidenced-based-midwifery-education

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/04/23/worried-about-abortion-coercion-ban-pressuring-pregnant-women-have-any-medical-procedure

Last year Idaho passed a law making it a crime to coerce a woman into having an abortion. This year, legislators in twelve states, including Missouri, have passed or are considering bills that they claim would enhance informed consent measures for pregnant women seeking abortions and ensure that women are not coerced into having unwanted abortions. Although it is hard to disagree with legislation that purports to ensure free and informed medical decision-making, I have to wonder why legislators who profess to care so much about pregnant women are only willing to protect some pregnant women – the ones who plan to end their pregnancies – but not the ones who intend to go to term.

While approximately 800,000 women end their pregnancies each year, a far greater number of women, 4.3 million, go to term. By focusing exclusively on abortion, this kind of law also dangerously implies that pregnant women who are going to term are fully and adequately informed and that their medical decisions are never pressured or coerced.

Instances of poor communications, failure to fully inform, and coercion in hospital delivery rooms, however, are increasingly being documented in popular books, films and collections of first-hand accounts. Allegations of abuse have prompted one organization to provide a guide for filing complaints. Rigorous peer-reviewed research, moreover, has found that pregnant women are routinely subjected to interventions during labor and childbirth that have been proven ineffective, or are appropriate only in limited circumstances.  Pregnant and laboring women are often deprived of information about and access to a range of good practices that have been shown to work.

Every Doula works differently and offers different types of services. You might find it challenging to find a doula that suits your needs if you have very set ideas. Your best bet is to start looking early. Most doulas offer a free consultation either over the phone, email or in person. It is a good idea to interview more than one doula. This will give you an idea of what is out there in terms of philosophy, personality and experience. I recommend that you start looking at around 5-7 months gestation. This will give you plenty of time to find a doula in your area and give you time to do prenatal workshops with her if she offers them. It also gives you plenty of time to build a rapport and establish a trusting relationship.

http://birthyourway.blogspot.com/2006/03/when-should-i-hire-doula.html

Not sure what the mattress ads in your TV market are like, but around here, they typically feature a wacky mattress store giant ready to slash prices on name brands! (Pillow tops! Kings!) Or a barely compatible couple setting wildly variant firmness levels on his/her side of the bed.

But in today’s installment of How Euros Aren’t Like Americans, we bring you the mattress ad. Here’s a French one featuring two guys snuggling with the line “And you, how do you sleep?”

Or this: an ad from Spain featuring a homebirth.

Unless you work for hippies (or in Spain), this video is NSFW.

http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2009/04/17/mattress-ad-features-homebirth.aspx

“Off-label” use of misoprostol (Cytotec) for labor induction has been steadily increasing for 10 years, even though this use is approved neither by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, other national drug regulatory agencies, the pharmaceutical industry, the Cochrane Library nor a number of national obstetric organizations, including the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Some obstetricians, particularly in the U.S., continue to promote induction with misoprostol, even though the available evidence suggests possible serious risks including uterine rupture, maternal mortality and perinatal mortality.

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/cytotecwagner71.asp

Today’s report from the NCHS includes a fact of the month that states:

“The number of deaths due to C. difficile, a bacterial inflammation of the intestines often acquired in hospitals or other health care institutions with long-term patients, has increased from 793 in 1999 to 6,225 in 2006. “(Source: National Vital Statistics System, “Deaths: Final Data for 2006?) http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/

http://birthaftercesarean.com/blog/?p=18

It’s nearly the close of Cesarean Awareness Month and I’m wondering…how many of the women out there who had cesareans really are AWARE there is even an awareness month? Or reasons to raise awareness?

When Breast Cancer survivors were tired of complete mastectomies without regard to individual case, they changed the policies of “just lop it off.” Yet, 1/3 of our population is being “just lopped” to remove a baby and so many women are not responding to this. It becomes a private matter of shame that they have a “shelf” or begin to think of themselves as fat rather than really investigating the surgical procedure itself to see whether or not the repair is being done correctly. They are reminded that it’s normal to not want to sleep with their husbands til six weeks, after all, they just had a baby! But no one talks to them about the realities of learning to move again after major abdominal surgery (with a baby to carry around, to boot!).

http://birthaftercesarean.com/blog/?p=15

CHEYENNE — State lawmakers rejected an attempt to allow certified professional midwives to practice in Wyoming earlier this year.

But work is ongoing to find a solution that permits women to safely give birth at home.

http://www.wyomingnews.com/articles/2009/04/12/news/20local_04-12-09.txt

This leaflet provides information for students on pre-registration nursing and midwifery courses in Scotland.

It describes the Nursing and Midwifery Student Bursary ( NMSB) Scheme in Scotland, who is eligible for it, what it is (including current rates) and how you can apply for it. This booklet is for guidance only. It cannot cover all individual circumstances. The scheme is administered by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland ( SAAS).

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/04/01091610/0

Department of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition, Boston University School of Medicine, and Division of General Pediatrics, Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, USA.

BACKGROUND: At the turn of the 20th century, women commonly died in childbirth due to rachitic pelvis. Although rickets virtually disappeared with the discovery of the hormone vitamin D, recent reports suggest vitamin D deficiency is widespread in industrialized nations. Poor muscular performance is an established symptom of vitamin D deficiency. The current U.S. cesarean birth rate is at an all-time high of 30.2%. We analyzed the relationship between maternal serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] status, and prevalence of primary cesarean section. METHODS: Between 2005 and 2007, we measured maternal and infant serum 25(OH)D at birth and abstracted demographic and medical data from the maternal medical record at an urban teaching hospital (Boston, MA) with 2500 births per year. We enrolled 253 women, of whom 43 (17%) had a primary cesarean. RESULTS: There was an inverse association with having a cesarean section and serum 25(OH)D levels. We found that 28% of women with serum 25(OH)D less than 37.5 nmol/liter had a cesarean section, compared with only 14% of women with 25(OH)D 37.5nmol/liter or greater (P = 0.012). In multivariable logistic regression analysis controlling for race, age, education level, insurance status, and alcohol use, women with 25(OH)D less than 37.5 nmol/liter were almost 4 times as likely to have a cesarean than women with 25(OH)D 37.5 nmol/liter or greater (adjusted odds ratio 3.84; 95% confidence interval 1.71 to 8.62). CONCLUSION: Vitamin D deficiency was associated with increased odds of primary cesarean section.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19106272?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

In my midwifery practice, I recently reviewed the records of a client who was transferring her care to us midway through her pregnancy. Along with the routine labs that I always encounter, I saw that her previous doctor had checked her vitamin D levels. That same day, as I waited on hold while calling Quest Diagnostics (who processes our clients’ bloodwork and other labs), I listened to an upbeat promotion of a new blood test for vitamin D deficiency. I wondered whether I had missed something in the literature about the importance of checking vitamin D in pregnant women, or whether this was another case of a new popular test with unproven usefulness but intrinsic appeal to clinicians.

Maybe a little of both? Today, I came across a study in the March issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The researchers report the findings of a small study of the association between maternal blood levels of vitamin D and the risk of having cesarean surgery. They measured the vitamin D blood levels of 253 women within the first 3 days postpartum, conducted interviews about habits such as prenatal vitamin use and alcohol consumption, and gathered personal, medical, and labor and birth information from medical records. After controlling for many variables that could affect cesarean risk, the researchers reported two significant findings:

http://www.givingbirthwithconfidence.org/?p=246

Contractions started Saturday afternoon, the 8th of July 2006 for me. It was kind of funny because Guy and Laurie left, and not very long after that, I had a contraction.. of course at first I didn’t think it was anything different than the “braxton hicks” contractions, so I just kept going on, not thinking of anything. Well then the World Cup game came on, and I had a few more contractions, and it was really making me wonder.. could this baby be coming?!! Contractions were coming at about 1 every hour, but I still figured that I was just in early labor.. and that this kid was gonna arrive within the next few days of that…

http://www.indiebirth.com/2009/03/06/aprils-homebirth-story/#more-324

If you’re newly pregnant, chances are you have never heard the truth about why homebirth is a safer choice for low-risk pregnancies. And if you’re not newly pregnant, it is never to late to consider your options and give birth to your baby at home.

“The first intervention in natural childbirth is the one that a healthy woman does herself when she walks out the front door of her own home in labour.”

— Michael Rosenthal, OB/GYN (from Midwifery Today E-news 7:24)

http://www.indiebirth.com/2008/08/25/10-homebirth-facts-no-ones-telling-you/#more-107