http://fourtrimesters.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/a-doulas-reflections-on-the-tales-of-many-births-four-trimesters-birth-sanctuary-november-2009-newsletter-12/

http://acnm-midwives.blogspot.com/2009/11/moms-reveal-telling-facts-about.html

http://www.breastfeedinginformation.org/kick-off

According to health ministers in Australia, new mothers should be encouraged to exclusively breastfeed their babies till they are six months old, while Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon met her state and territory counterparts in Adelaide today to put together a strategy for encouraging more women to breastfeed their babies.

In Aruba, especially when a women is under the care of an obstetrician, she is automatically put in the Lithotomy position. A Certain ob/gyn absolutely refuses to let you go in another position, such as on hands and knees because he doesn’t want to have a rear-side view. With midwives however, there are infinite possibilities, and most if not all, aim to comply with your wishes, and even suggest alternative positions that help the labor along. Here are Birthing positions 101. Included are the advantages and disadvantages for the mother, fetus and birth attendant.

Science tells us that when babies cry alone and unattended, they experience panic and anxiety. Their bodies and brains are flooded with adrenaline and cortisol stress hormones. Science has also found that when developing brain tissue is exposed to these hormones for prolonged periods these nerves won’t form connections to other nerves and will degenerate. Is it therefore possible that infants who endure many nights or weeks of crying-it-out alone are actually suffering harmful neurologic effects that may have permanent implications on the development of sections of their brain? Here is how science answers this alarming question.

Ensuring greater access to certified professional midwives (CPMs) is one way to address some of the distressing challenges facing pregnant and birthing women in this country. The Big Push, specifically, is asking for the Senate bill to include an amendment that would ensure CPMs are covered under Medicaid; this would encourage a uniform certification process for midwives in this country as well as make homebirth and CPM facilitated birth accessible to all women – not just those who can afford to pay for these services out-of-pocket.

Ask that your Senator take the lead in sponsoring an amendment to provide Medicaid payment for the services of Certified Professional Midwives, who are the only type of midwife in the U.S. with specialized training in out-of-hospital maternity care.

We offer you a hearty welcome to our Philadelphia conference. This is one of the richest programs we have ever offered, with classes for everyone, whether you are a seasoned or aspiring practitioner or an activist. We are especially excited to bring you two full pre-conference days on Traditional Midwifery Skills—a Midwifery Today first. We are also featuring the Motherbaby International Film Festival as a part of this conference, brought to you by filmmaker and distributor Diana Paul. Saturday evening’s cabaret is always a bonding experience and a blast, and is meant to showcase your talents—birth-related or not. We’ll have times of fun, mentoring, sharing and learning at this conference.

There has been stong interest on the issue of the future of private midwifery since the Health Minsiter’s announcement that clarified the meaning of “collaborative practice”. Collaborative practice will mean that every private midwife must have a collaborative agreement with a private obstetrician who can effectively sign off on the midwife’s work. If s/he does not agree with the plan of care for the woman, the obstetrician may sever the collaborative arrangement. Furthermore, with RANZCOG and the AMA being opposed to home birth, home birth will not be an option in the private system, as it is currently. The exemption that was granted to home birth will have no meaning since collaborative arrangements will be a requirement for registration for private midwifery practice.

Last time the New York Times reported on home birth it was in the “Home & Garden” section. Here’s another story, about the rise in birth video viewership on YouTube, in “Fashion & Style.” (Sigh. When will physiological birth get a page in the “Health” section??) Most of the thousands of birth videos are shot at home — as of today there are 10,900 results to the search terms “home birth” — because taping is rarely permitted in hospitals. It’s mindblowing to think that 30, 40 years ago, women didn’t have access to books or even photographs showing the normal birth process. Now you can spend a whole afternoon birth-surfing.

Premature single births have been increasing in the United States, mostly among infants delivered by Caesarean section, researchers are reporting. And they say some of the increase may be due to Caesareans that are not medically necessary.

The trend is worrisome because premature babies are at risk for breathing and feeding disorders, delayed brain development, other health problems and death.

High rates of premature birth are the main reason the United States has higher infant mortality than do many other rich countries, government researchers reported Tuesday in their first detailed analysis of a longstanding problem.

In Sweden, for instance, 6.3 percent of births were premature, compared with 12.4 percent in the United States in 2005, the latest year for which international rankings are available. Infant mortality also differed markedly: for every 1,000 births in the United States, 6.9 infants died before they turned 1, compared with 2.4 in Sweden. Twenty-nine other countries also had lower rates.

Earlier this year a birth activist contacted me for information about feminism and birth. Her “fire” was to write an article was lit by recent (at the time) articles praising elective cesareans. Her article was going to be about feminism and its history in birthwork as well as what she is seeing a current “backlash” against the work of doulas, chidlbirth educators, and midwives (so, elective cesarean being framed as a “feminist” choice in some articles). She asked me for additional articles about similar issues and questions.

The American Dietetic Association has released an updated position paper on breastfeeding that details health benefits for both infants and mothers and encourages promotion of breastfeeding whenever possible.

ADA’s position paper, published in the November issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, represents the Association’s official stance on breastfeeding:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that exclusive breastfeeding provides optimal nutrition and health protection for the first 6 months of life and breastfeeding with complementary foods from 6 months until at least 12 months of age is the ideal feeding pattern for infants. Breastfeeding is an important public health strategy for improving infant and child morbidity and mortality and improving maternal morbidity and helping to control health care costs.

In March of this year, Nova Scotia became the first Atlantic province to legislate and regulate the profession of midwifery. While this move was celebrated by many as a step forward for women and families, activists with close ties to the midwifery movement feel their work is far from complete.

“All birthing women need a choice of where they birth and who their caregiver is—I think good midwife and family-led legislation could provide that,” remarks Halifax doula Lindsay Miller. “Yet here we are so tangled up in bureaucracy and old school policy that the potential benefits of legislation are not being seen by the people it is meant to serve.”

For many women in Nova Scotia, access to care based on the Canadian midwifery model—a model based on tenets of continuity of care and choice of birth place—has actually become more difficult since the introduction of legislation, rather than less.

RECENT reports have focused on the rising trend of home births and, unfortunately, many stories have zeroed in on a few tragic situations.

Although we recognize there is a contentious, ongoing debate about the safety of home birth, and we offer our concern and condolences to any parents suffering tragic loss, we are disappointed in the media’s continued implication that all midwifery care is somehow perilous.

It is puzzling that these stories often do not cite well-documented evidence about outcomes of the practice of midwifery in the United States, nor invite representatives of the American College of Nurse-Midwives or the National Association of Certified Professional Midwives to comment.

The official blog of the Controversies in Childbirth Conference being held in Tampa, Florida February 19-21, 2010. This blog covers current birth issues of interest to birth care providers, such as: obstetricians, midwives, doulas, nurses, administrators, educators and regulators. We also examine current issues that are important to birth care professionals, such as health-care reform and tort reform.

A reader just alerted me to the fact that Medical News Today has retracted the article they published last week falsely stating that the World Health Organization changed its recommendations for optimal cesarean rates. No doubt, this is due in large part to Henci Goer’s work debunking the article and the press release it was based upon.

Women do not lose their constitutional or common law rights by becoming pregnant.

Today, people who understand their rights as patients are more likely to successfully negotiate the health care system, use health insurance and managed care plans, and work with physicians and other health care professionals. Most important, a just health care system requires respect for the rights of patients.

The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.

But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting revelations about the potency of breast milk.

Hoping to schedule your baby’s birth while your mother’s in town, or before the doctor goes on vacation? Labor is becoming less of a late-night surprise, but some hospitals are starting to tighten the rules for elective deliveries — because some babies are being delivered too early.

More hospitals are expected to crack down as regulators begin new quality measurements next spring that aim to reduce too-early elective inductions and first-time cesareans.

I’ve heard it a hundred times and I should be used to it. But I’m not. It happened again last week.

My friend was having her third baby. She’s already pushed out two babies without problems – an 8 pound and a 9 pound baby.

She’s into natural birth, even considered a home birth… but then got nervous thinking about it and went on with the obstetrician. He is a nice man. I like him a lot. If I had to pick a doctor, he’d be in the top dozen that I know. But he works in the hospital and thinks the way he was trained.

There has been much discussion about using schools for an “all out” vaccination campaign this fall, for both the regular flu shot and the new H1N1 vaccine.1 According to authorities, students would ideally be vaccinated before school starts, but the swine flu vaccine won’t be available until mid-October, making schools a logical place to begin mass vaccination.

Why is childbirth, which should be such a unique and individual experience for the woman, treated in such a highly standardized way in the United States? No matter how long or short, how easy or hard their labors, the vast majority of American women are hooked up to an electronic fetal monitor and an IV (intravenously administered fluids and/or medication), are encouraged to use pain-relieving drugs, receive an episiotomy (a surgical incision in the vagina to widen the birth outlet in order to prevent tearing) at the moment of birth, and are separated from their babies shortly after birth. Most of them also receive doses of the synthetic hormone pitocin to speed their labors, and give birth flat on their backs. Nearly one quarter of them are delivered by Cesarean section.

http://pregnancy.about.com/od/induction/a/risksinduction.htm

Right now, cesareans are 1/3 of all births per year. Choosing not to do VBACs is a choice to further limit your practice and since they are growing exponentially, it’s also making sure that long-term, you will be run out of practice. Birth centers are already scrambling for turf, this can’t help.

The reason, it turns out, is that mother’s milk actively helps newborns avoid disease in a variety of ways. Such assistance is particularly beneficial during the first few months of life, when an infant often cannot mount an effective immune response against foreign organisms. And although it is not the norm in most industrial cultures, UNICEF and the World Health Organization both advise breast-feeding to “two years and beyond.” Indeed, a child’s immune response does not reach its full strength until age five or so.

http://www.promom.org/bf_info/sci_am.htm

Professor Fenwick said that while the media liked to propose vanity or convenience as reasons for the deliberate choice of caesarean section, the research findings supported the notion that most women were in favour of natural birth until convinced otherwise.

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20091109-19733.html

An OB-GYN recently reported (via e-mail) that litigation feels devastating to a physician who takes pride in their expertise and caring. Litigation is often a factor in depressive symptoms and suicide in physicians and one Texas physician is reported to have left a suicide note the day he settled a lawsuit which read, “I hope that my death will shed light on the problem of dishonest expert testimony.”

http://www.theunnecesarean.com/blog/2009/9/11/acog-releases-survey-results-ob-gyns-ultimately-hurt-patient.html

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of infant deaths per 1,000 births in the United States is 6.8 – but in Washington, it’s 12.2.

Lubic and her team of midwives run a birthing clinic in one of the city’s poorest areas. After 800 babies in eight years, they have never lost a child in childbirth, and has cut the rate of premature births – the biggest risk factor for infant mortality – in half.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/09/08/eveningnews/main4428250.shtml

http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/07/03/blood-milk-and-profits/

Health workers set out to change that. They started by asking people in the community about traditional ways of giving birth, and about what the clinic was doing wrong. They got an earful. Workers at the clinic did not speak the local language, Quechua. They treated patients brusquely, and barred husbands and other relatives from the delivery room. They forced women to wear hospital gowns instead of their own clothes, and made them give birth lying on a table instead of squatting. They threw away the placenta instead of giving it to the family to bury in a warm place.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/08glob.html?_r=1

True, the Birth Center where I’d had my daughter, Dominique, six years earlier was homey enough, and it was definitely alternative enough for my mother. I’d been very happy with the experience-except for the fact that we had arrived only 10 minutes before the baby was born.

http://www.mothering.com/pregnancy-birth/not-kind-house-home-birth

Joy Szabo, 32, said she is upset with Page Hospital’s general ruling in June prohibiting vaginal births after cesareans (VBAC). The mother of three children, she has given birth to all of her children at Page Hospital, the only hospital in the immediate area. A placenta eruption caused her to have an emergency cesarean delivering her second child, but the hospital allowed her third child to be delivered naturally two years ago.

http://www.lakepowellchronicle.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=1849&page=77

The billing problem has to do with a “well woman exam,” basically it is an annual physical for women.

The woman you are about to meet says it was supposed to be covered 100% by her insurance carrier, so why does she keep getting billed by the doctor’s office?

http://charleneburgett.wordpress.com/tag/well-woman-exam/

Despite warnings from doctors, some women, like Mara Vaughan of Bristow, Va., prefer delivering their baby in the comfort of their own home.

http://news.aol.com/health/article/home-births-get-a-bump-over-doctors/669091?icid=sphere_newsaol_inpage

Breast milk delivered in the morning gives infants a pick-me-up because it contains natural stimulants.

But the night-time version will help babies sleep thanks to calming chemical compounds, a report claims.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1217765/For-baby-breast-milk-cappuccino-Morning-feed-gives-infants-natural-pick-up.html

It’s no wonder that there are more Old Wive’s Tales regarding pregnancy than anything else. Along with “carry low it’s a boy” and “castor oil can induce contractions,” most of her friends’ new found nutrition knowledge is, well, just myth.

http://www.abc15.com/content/living/yourhealth/story/Pregnant-5-health-nutrition-myths-busted/Wz8Sqx1qCUued8bTH6h3hw.cspx

The Canadian study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, compared home births attended by midwives, hospital deliveries by midwives and deliveries by physicians in hospitals, all in British Columbia. Among the three groups, the newborn death rate (less than 1 percent) was about the same. (There was one death in the home birth group; three in the hospital midwife group; and three in the doctor group.)

The study also suggests that women who planned a home birth were less likely to experience a postpartum hemorrhage. Plus, their babies were less likely to suffer a birth trauma or require resuscitation at birth or oxygen therapy.

http://www.fitpregnancy.com/blog/news/Study-Planned-Home-Births-OK-56670127.html

Last week, the main character’s wife, Betty Draper, gave birth to her third child. While her husband, Don, sits in the waiting room drinking scotch with another nervous expectant dad, Betty is subjected to 1960’s “standard of care” obstetrics. Left alone in a labor room, she is shaved, given an enema, and then receives the crown jewel of her modern childbirth experience: medications to induce twilight sleep, which also induce a mad stupor and land Betty in restraints because of her erratic, combative behavior. As a midwife and a mother, the most difficult part for me to watch was when Betty awoke from her stupor, swaddled baby in arms, with no memory of the experience. You can watch all of the birth-related clips from the show at Jezebel.

http://blog.ctnews.com/elwood/2009/09/29/going-back-in-time-twilight-sleep/#comment-52

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/05/22/risking-future-studying-repeat-csections-vbacs

This is the conclusion of a study that evaluates programs based on how well the patients treated by the programs’ graduates fared.

The researchers analyzed the records of 4.9 million deliveries in Florida and New York State from 1992 to 2007, looking for complications like infections and bleeding after vaginal and Caesarean section deliveries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/health/29baby.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

In fact, planned home births of this kind may have a lower rate of complications, according to the study published in the Sept. 15 issue of CMAJ.

Even though the study was conducted in Canada, where attitudes toward midwifery are more accepting than in some other countries, the findings may help to calm an ongoing controversy in the United States and elsewhere.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is opposed to home births, as are certain organizations in Australia and New Zealand. More organizations in Great Britain are supportive and Canadian provinces are currently transitioning to midwifery, said study lead author Patricia Janssen, director of the Master of Public Health Program at the University of British Columbia.

http://www.kold.com/global/story.asp?s=11020363

http://drmomma.blogspot.com/2009/09/vbac-hbac-vbamc-resources.html