Posts tagged ‘Birth’

Dec 28

Promote NORMAL Birth and Breastfeeding & more New Year’s Resolution Ideas for all my Co-Workers… Any Ideas?

I am continually working (baby steps- a little bit at a time) on improving what we do to care for the moms and babies in my little neck of the woods. Sometimes it feels exciting, positive and helpful….. but other times frustrating or futile.

Since I have been recently consumed with my newest career as a NICU nurse, I have seen some of my earlier successes of positive changes (on the mother baby unit and L&D)…. slowly. turn. back. to previous bad practices ….. I come over to the units and I see so many of the older traditional care models in place again which we had worked hard to place in a vault! You get new doctors, new nurses, new anesthesiologists etc… and they don’t give a crap about any guidelines or protocols for a natural process! However if the CDC changes their Hepatitis B, HIV or GBS protocols… they are all over it…. In. A. Heartbeat.

Why is it so hard for these professionals to relinquish control over all aspects of the birth process? Why can’t they look at any of that research? Why aren’t any of the recommendations for encouraging VBAC, discouraging scheduled CS’s without a TOL or keeping mother and baby together while delaying routine procedures taken as seriously?? Why?

I think I know why…I do. But that isn’t really what I wanted to talk about today.

I want to provide some encouraging – positive – inspirational ideas for my fellow nurses, practitioner or heathcare provider to do what is best for each mother and baby in their car. Even if you all pick just one… it can make a difference. So don’t feel overwhelmed. Just try to add at least one of these to YOUR daily practice. These suggestions are meant for situations without complications requiring urgent intervention of some kind.

Readers: Please ADD more in comments if you have them!

Promote and Preserve NORMAL Physiologic Birth…… Try NOT to interfere. Please really find out what that means if you don’t know. Seriously. (sorry but please… my friends… it’s not about hurrying it up or getting it over with and closing out the chart!)
Spend time each month reviewing Evidence-Based practice recommendations and changes with regards to Birth and Breastfeeding. You’ll learn something!
SKIN TO SKIN…if you do nothing else… make THIS your project for EVERY mother/baby in your care. If you do this for them– nature can have a chance. Get them S2S at birth and several times each day to help with breastfeeding! (this one is my favorite!)
Yes… Skin to Skin can be done in the O.R. Teach your fellow co-workers when just DO it!! Come on TRY IT!
Keep a mother’s wishes at the forefront of your plan of care. Her birth plan is very important to her! Advocate for her and empower her. This is her birth, not yours.
Advocate and Empower your patient to make truly informed decisions about her care. If she doesn’t have the right information to make a real INFORMED decision, please help her get the information or provide it for her!
Embrace the idea and recommend Doulas to your patients. Keep a list of local doulas available and provide them at prenatal visits or out-pt testing.
Question the doctor/midwife when an induction and or Cesarean is scheduled. Just ask why and discuss… Bring up points you’ve learned in your reading and find out the practitioners reasons for inducing. There is a way to discuss without challenging. Sometimes –> everyone learns from such a discussion. Perhaps the practitioner will realize his reasons for some cases may not be appropriate.. who knows?
Breastfeeding and Formula feeding are not equal choices and remember it is inappropriate to indicate to a mother directly or indirectly that they are equal. She deserves correct information before making an informed choice. Utilize teachable moments to discuss the superiority of Human breast milk as the food for human infants. Show her where she can get more information before making a decision. Honor her decisions once she has made them.
Keep the baby with the mother until the FIRST Breastfeed has taken place. Please delay all your routine procedures and help the mother (if needed) to start breastfeeding! This is recommended by ALL the experts.
Keep the baby with the mother AT ALL TIMES. Almost everything we do can be done at the mother’s bedside. Think about it.
Keep the baby with the mother AT ALL TIMES means at night too. Separating mother and baby so “Mom can rest” had been shown to be a barrier to successful breastfeeding. Encourage frequent feedings based on feeding cues.
Teach and empower the mother. Include how to recognize feeding cues, signs of an effective feeding with appropriate latch, and how to recognize an overall good feeding pattern.
Support the mother, support the mother, support the mother.

For some more ideas.. I have numerous previous posts about breastfeeding education, support and sited references such as the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services Ten Steps for example and other important issues.

Sep 28

CIMS urges ACOG –> Remove Barriers to VBAC

Received this email alert and thought I’d pass on thru my blog… and encourage all to take action!

It takes 5 seconds to add your name to the list!

e-CIMS Action Alert Sept. 28, 2010

CIMS Urges ACOG to Remove Additional Barriers to VBAC
Join us in asking ACOG to take steps that will increase VBAC, reduce cesareans, and ultimately avoid unnecessary harms to mothers and infants.

In a Sept. 9, 2010, letter to Dr. Richard Waldman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), CIMS and 18 co-signing organizations urged ACOG to revise its current recommendation that VBACs (vaginal birth after cesarean) should take place in hospitals where emergency cesareans are “immediately available.”

CIMS will collect the names of additional organizations and individuals in support of this request through October 31, 2010, and will send the updated list of co-signers to Dr. Waldman. Add your name or your organization’s name now!

This request follows the March 2010 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Consensus Statement on VBAC, which found that VBAC is a reasonable choice for the majority of affected women. The NIH also reported that the “immediately available” recommendation was not based on strong support from high-quality evidence and had influenced about one-third of hospitals and one-half of physicians to stop providing care for women who wanted to plan a VBAC.

CIMS and the co-signing organizations also urged ACOG to revise its patient education publications and online consumer resources to include comprehensive information on the benefits and risks of cesarean section and VBAC. Without transparency about the short- and long-term benefits and risks of routine repeat cesarean and VBAC, women cannot make a truly informed choice about how they want to give birth.

Additional Information:

CIMS Press Release “CIMS Responds to Promising but Conflicting Revised VBAC Guidelines”

American College of Nurse-Midwives Responds to ACOG’s 2010 VBAC Recommendations (PDF)

Take Action: Add your name or your organization’s name now!

Jan 7

9 Comments

For Expectant Families… your “Due Date”…

Hi everyone! Happy New Year!

I have been very very busy over these past months and I’ve spent very little time on the computer….. many of you have had the same situation. Thanks to all of you who keep checking my blog anyway!

I’m here now to talk about one of my big concerns.

Your due date…

Every single year around the holidays, we have a surge of elective, social induction requests. Here are some comments we occasionally may hear each year around this time on an L&D unit:

“Please, please induce me so I can have the baby and be home for Christmas…please!”

“I’m only 2 1/2 weeks from my due date anyway so I’m ready…”

“I can’t have this baby on Christmas day..I just can’t…you HAVE to help me!!”

“I’m so tired of being pregnant and I have so much to do…can’t you do SOMETHING and make me have this baby today??” (37weeks)

“I really really need another tax deduction this year… ” (heard quite often!)

“Please do something so this baby is born by the end of December…I’ll even have a C/S if you want.”

“Can you induce me while my family is all here?? Please??”

Young pregnant women~ Please don’t do something crazy for a special delivery date.

Please!

Please educate yourself about the risks of induction and the risks of late preterm births.

PATIENCE

“A little patience now adds up to long-term health benefits for your new baby.”

I have received this following information from the Mother-Friendly childbirth community.

I felt it was well worth sharing……..

This is an excerpt from a newsletter from the CIMS ~ Coalition for Improving Maternity Services.

Please read, check out their website link above and the other resources listed below the letter.

Thanks so much!

“For Expectant Families

What you need to know about your due date and late preterm birth

A little patience now adds up to long-term health benefits for your new baby.

You’re not alone if you’re secretly (or openly!) hoping that your baby will get here sooner rather than later. But when it comes to your due date, it’s important to understand what it represents, what it does not represent, and the potentially serious consequences of agreeing to an induction or c-section before your baby is ready to be born.

Mayri Sagady Leslie, CNM, MSN, clinical faculty at Yale University School of Nursing, recently penned an insightful post for Lamaze International’s Science and Sensibility blog. In “Beyond Due Dates: How Late is Too Late,” we’re reminded that, despite widespread belief that EDD stands for ‘due date’, it actually stands for ‘estimated date of delivery’! Mayri writes, “No matter what you call that date on the calendar, it is nothing more than a formula derived from statistical averages which says that sometime within a range of 4-5 weeks your baby will probably be born. Smack dab in the middle of that range is one of days on which the labor may start. Yet when it comes to dates in our life, few take on more significance than this one.”

Appreciating this fact is something of considerable consequence when it comes to the immediate and long-term health of your baby. There is mounting evidence that only the baby should have the right to choose her/his birthday. Two recent reports add to this evidence.

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics recently reported a 20% increase in the nation’s late preterm (34 to 36 weeks ) birth rate from 1990 to 2006. The report also cites alarming increases in the number of late preterm births among births for which labor was induced as well as among births that were delivered by c-section. The report cautions, “…it is becoming increasingly recognized that infants born late preterm are less healthy than infants born later in pregnancy. Late preterm babies are more likely than term babies to suffer complications at birth such as respiratory distress; to require intensive and prolonged hospitalization; to incur higher medical costs; to die within the first year of life; and to suffer brain injury that can result in long-term neurodevelopment problems.”

For the March of Dimes, prematurity is an extremely important public health issue. The March of Dimes launched a multimillion dollar, multiyear campaign in 2003 to prevent premature birth and raise awareness of its serious consequences. Last month, the March of Dimes released its annual Premature Birth Report Card. Sadly, for the second consecutive year, the U.S. earned only a ‘D’ grade, “demonstrating that more than half a million of our nation’s newborns didn’t get the healthy start they deserved.”

We know you’re anxious to meet your baby. It’s perfectly understandable too if you’re just plain tired of being pregnant. We just want to remind you that a little patience now adds up to long-term health benefits for your new baby.

Learn more:

“Beyond Due Dates: How Late is Too Late” by Mayri Sagady Leslie on Lamaze International’s Science & Sensibility blog.

“Born a Bit Too Early: Recent Trends in Late Preterm Births” a NCHS Data Brief from the CDC.

“U.S. Gets A “D” For Preterm Birth Rate” press release from the March of Dimes.”

Nov 17

2 Comments

America Scores a “D” on the Premature Birth Report Card

Hello Everyone

I haven’t disappeared… I’ve just been too busy outside for computer time!

This is a copy of a letter I received today trying to

spread the word

about Prematurity in this country……

Today is the release of the second annual Premature Birth Report Card, and I wanted you to hear the news from me: America receives a “D.” As a country, we are failing to give our babies the healthy start they deserve.

Your state has received its own report card. I’m afraid you’ll agree we have a long way to go. In fact, before the end of this year, more than half a million babies will be born too soon, some very sick.

It’s Prematurity Awareness Day® — the day when we’re all focused on the terrible toll of premature birth on babies and families. The report card reminds us how urgent the problem is. But with the support of people like you, we can continue to fund lifesaving research and programs.

If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll visit our Web site and join the fight for preemies.

Warmly,

Dr. Jennifer L. Howse

President

Oct 28

1 Comment

Our Cesarean Section Rates still Below the National Average

002 I had checked out a post by Jill from Unnecesarean reviewing ICAN’s Press release on the rising Cesarean Rate and how mom’s really don’t realize or recognize how they can reduce their risk for a surgical delivery. It is very good informative post. It’s just totally shameful and pathetic that one third of our nation’s babies are brought in to this world with a surgical delivery! I’ve been present for thousands of births. I remember when the doctors were under pressure to keep their C/S rates down under 20%!! They had to go under peer review when they hit individual rates over 16%. Those days are over.

I have seen many different changes in the field of obstetrics, I am embarrassed that our national rates are now this high! I don’t feel that this is an advancement in maternal fetal obstetrical care. It feels like such a cop out most of the time when you are there in the trenches experiencing the “call” for a C/S time after time for “failure to progress”; “failure to descend”; “arrest of dilitation” etc…etc..

I came across the perinatal statistics and thought I’d share.

Here are our Actual Cesarean Section Rates so far this year January thru September

for nearly 750 births:

Total C-Section Rate = 25.8% (monthly range 16.9% to 34.4%)
Primary C-Section Rate = 16.4% (monthly range 12.5% to 23.6%)
Primary Rate in labor = 13.4% (monthly range 8.9% to 20.0%)

Our average is about a quarter of the births falling below the national average of a third… for now. Can we keep this up?? I hope so. I really hope so. I hope we can even lower it! With a NICU coming in and sicker patients to go along with that… I am hopeful to just keep it where it is. I will do my best to help educate women, co-workers and the doctors I work with.

Aug 31

2 Comments

A Wonderful Day in the BirthingHood

What a great fun day in the world of birthing.
The first words I heard at work today were words that I just love to hear when used in this sequence….

“Section’s Canceled”

Hooray!

Her Cesarean had been scheduled because her baby had been in a transverse lie position…. for weeks. However–> this smart little genius baby had positioned his little self into a beautiful head down position before arriving at the hospital this morning! Mom was also contracting regularly and was 3 cm dilated. This was her second baby, first exam of the day, so she hung out for a while until it was clear she was continuing to make cervical changes and labor was underway.

A few others decided it was their time to make an appearance today. One baby boy was a couple weeks early and another a few days over 41 weeks.

Ever hear that things sometimes happen in 3’s ??

As luck would have it, 3 young men decided to be born within 15 minutes of each other! All 3 were spontaneous vaginal deliveries. All 3 boys were breastfeeding within that first hour and 1/2 … not bad!

All the moms were so happy with their birth experiences. All the babies were healthy. The staff worked really well together. Our midwife was awesome! The doctors were fun, funny, thoughtful and kind and made really good patient centered decisions.

It was just an all around wonderful day in the birthinghood!

005

Aug 11

12 Comments

Not your Usual Birth Plan

002

A birth plan is usually a written plan from the mother to her caregivers describing her wishes, what type of options she’d like to take advantage of, things she would like to happen thru out her labor and birth, what things are important to her as she experiences birth. There are various resources out there to help a new mom explore options and formulate a plan.. especially for a hospital birth. It is important that the mom review this with ALL her care providers AND especially the L&D nurses…. the advocates who help you actually realize the goals with in your plan. I have a fellow L&D nurse blogger who has done extensive research on the topic and wrote a 2 part series on Writing Your Birth Plan- Tips from an L&D Nurse over at nursingbirth. I would highly recommend you check it out especially if you plan on a hospital birth.

Many times these birth plans accompany a mom’s prenatal chart weeks in advance of her birth. Over the years there has been a gradual acceptance of the plans in my facility where historically, there had been much resistance for the mother’s input what so ever. Much like the attitudes towards homebirth…. The doctors or nurses would casually peruse the plan then toss it aside and have a good laugh…. saying…. ” oh- she’ll end up a section for sure!” Unfortunately, they were often right about that– many of those early birthplans never seemed to go as mom wanted, giving the staff fodder for snide comments and remarks. Sad but true. 😦

Recently, we recieved a birth plan that was not at all like any other. Maybe some of you have seen plans like this… maybe some of you actually wished for births like this…. Hey~ who am I to judge? …. I am only here to help, it isn’t my birth.

Her Birth Plan requested:

Pain medication as soon as possible….. I prefer to have an epidural as soon as possible
Please do not try to make me have breathing patterns through contractions… I’m afraid I’ll be too nervous
If a Cesearean is needed, please put me to sleep
I want only my mother with me in the labor and delivery of my baby
When the baby is born, I do NOT want to touch him until you clean him off
You can do his eye ointment and Vitamin shot, bath and all procedures before I hold him
I want to hold him wrapped in a blanket, not skin to skin
I want the baby to be in the nursery as much as possible at night so I can rest
I want to feed my baby formula from a bottle. I don’t want to breast-feed
I want to stay in the hospital for the whole allotted time so I can rest

My first thoughts were… Sweetheart, you could have ALL THIS without even asking!” ……..

Sadly, despite all efforts to improve, … things still happen exactly like this for many births. We just don’t usually see it written out as a formal request or plan! At least this is how this mother wanted things to happen.

This little mommy came in and delivered vaginally. Her plan was very easily carried out. 😉 I am very happy to report that she and her son were healthy and she displayed very postive interaction with him. Very loving and caring. She was very very happy with her birth and with being a mother!

That is all that really matters in the end. Options– and what you as an individual would like to have for your birth. How much education she had before chosing these options… I’ll never know.

Now I am asking the rest of cyberspace world.. have you ever seen birth plans like this???

Jul 19

16 Comments

HomeBirth Transfer~ Doc says NO to C/S~

I wrote a few stories a few weeks ago because I was proud of my hospital that week– sorry I didn’t finish the stories until now……

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~She lived about 8 -10 miles outside of town. “Ellie” was having her first baby at age 32. First baby, first pregnancy, no risk factors…. an easy uncomplicated pregnancy. She had done some research, not extensively, judging from some of my conversations with her and her husband…but she knew what she wanted. She had made a beautiful plan with a CPM for a water tub home birth. This particular midwife has been doing home-births in my area for a long time.. (She was the one cowering in the L&D hallway in this story…). The story of how things progressed up to transfer to the hospital was told to us by both the mother, father and midwife.

~Her labor started with regular contractions at 39 weeks. They progressed from early labor which lasted around 6 hours to a more active labor with contractions about every 2- 3 minutes. Her cervix had dilated to 6-7 cm. This pattern of contractions continued for hours. Ellie was in and out of the tub, walking, dozing, in and out of the shower, squatting, doing many different position changes throughout the next 6 to 8 hours. When she was re-examined by her midwife, she had made no cervical change in all that time. This can happen sometimes, things can stall out and pick back up again. Ellie reported that the contractions may not have been as strong at that, so she wanted to wait it out, maybe nap. The baby’s heart rate checks were all good.

~Everyone rested about 2 hours … Ellie’s water broke (clear fluid) about 1 am and her contractions got more intense. The CPM checked her cervix about 3 am and felt no change. She still was 6 -7 cm dilated and the head was at about -2 station. The midwife then brought up the idea of possibly transferring to the hospital. Ellie said NO! Is my baby alright? “Yes….” said her midwife.. “Then No..I’m staying here, — I can do this.”

~Back to the tub… In and out of the shower, total body massages.. contraction pattern the same with increased intensity…next cervix check at 730 am… still 6-7 cm. Now Ellie was tired. Really tired. Exhausted! The baby was great on all checks. Her midwife again brought up the transfer to hospital idea, talked to her about the possibilities of pitocin, epidural etc… Ellie was now wanting anything, agreeing with anything–to get this over with.

~She arrived at the hospital around 8- 830 am very upset. Her husband and midwife were with her and her CPM had all her prenatal care info. Some of the first words out of Ellie’s mouth were that she wanted an epidural and a Cesarean! The nurses on duty this morning were awesome! They calmed her down, had her hooked up to the fetal monitor and observed her contraction pattern and the fetal heart rate pattern response. The baby looked excellent! The midwife and hubby coached her through the contractions while the nurses gathered their admission data. The doctor checked her and she was still about 6-7, swelling of the cervix noted, about -1 station. Ellie asked him if he would please do a C/S and he said no… (yeah!). He said that he felt the best option at this time was to do the epidural she was asking for and observe her contraction pattern… possibly add Pitocin. He talked to her so nicely and non-judgmentally. Many of the other docs would have taken her right into the OR with very little discussion of options. She had been 6-7 cm dilated for some approximate 16 hours.

~After the epidural, Ellie and her husband and midwife all slept. The doc did NOT start pitocin right away, he said that she may need to rest and the contraction pattern couldstart to become of better quality once she rested and was better relaxed. WOW! Where did this guy come from? I’m so amazed and happy and quite frankly, shocked. This was a newer OB here.. I wanted to ask him where he’d been all my life! I went in to talk to Ellie and introduced myself. I told her I was so sorry thingsweren’t progressing the way she had hoped and sorry she didn’t get to stay home. She thanked me and said at this point, she was ready for it to be over! I told her she was really quite fortunate to have this particular doctor on duty today. Except for one bad apple from the night shift just leaving when Ellie arrived, everyone was wonderfully supportive and accommodating. Ellie’s contractions indeed did start up in a better intensity pattern on their own….. however their continued to be a lack of progress. Once again, she asked the doctor to get it over with now and please do a C/S.

~The doctor said NO again! He explained that her uterus was probably tired and the quality/intensity of contractions just may not be what was needed for the job to get done. He explained that the fetal heart rate tracing was beautiful and her membranes had been ruptured less than 12 hours. No baby risks… He felt it possible the baby merely needed to get in better position and the contraction quality needed to improve.. and then he would re-evaluate. Ellie agreed with renewed optimism. The pitocin drip was started. She didn’t need much before the contraction pattern got much stronger, longer and better quality. He came to re-evaluate her only after these better contractions had been consistent for 2 hours. The vaginal exam revealed the cervix was the same ..still the same and possibly more swollen. He said he felt the head was not as well applied to the cervix as it had been.. but still at -1 station. He examined her with and without a contraction. Same in his opinion. Ellie lost all her fight. Her support people rallied to help her, but she was now insistent.

~This time the doctor said she certainly had reason to feel this way, had given this a great try. He told her he still felt she could try longer… that we could alter positions with the pitocin, keep her comfortable with the epidural and keep going… the baby was handling all this just fine. He did say that there was a possibility the baby had his head in a tilted position making it difficult to descend the birth canal. He then let it up to her and told her if she wanted the C/S, he would do it at this point.

~YES I want a C/S! Ellie exclaimed. We did the C/S about 3 pm… some 7 hours after transfer and approximatelyclose to 24 hours of being 6-7cm dilated. Her gorgeous 7 lb baby boy was delivered operatively with apgar scores of 9 and 9. Pink and vigorous! Beautiful. I was able to get him skin to skin in the OR.. that was one of the first times all the players didn’t object and I went with it! (It won’t be the last….and next I’m trying for breastfeeding on the OR table!) Upon delivery, the OB noted the baby had been acynclitic . This is when the head is tilted to the side, ear towards the shoulder. It is probably responsible for her long stall in labor. The OB still felt she could have delivered vaginally given time and good management. I am just so happy he was there. I am proud of this mom, her partner and midwife and of our whole team! This mom was able to make good educated choices about her care despite dealing with the stress of a transfer.. and was able to feel so very very proud of how hard she tried.

In the end it was her…… who gave in to the C/S … not her doctor.

Of that we can be proud

🙂

May 28

21 Comments

**OB Docs and Nurses Scoff at Homebirth**

My community hospital’s views have never been in favor of any type of home-birth… whether it’s with a skilled professional practitioner or a skilled lay midwife. There could have been some free unassisted births going on but we were not aware…. As I grew-up in this profession, I learned first from my experienced counterparts…then I began to educate myself and learned a lot from mothers and babies. The doctors and nurses I worked with were all stagnant in their knowledge in my early years. They were satisfied with how things were. I was young, I had an open-minded philosophy and an eager quest for knowledge.

In the later 70’s, just when we began to have mothers speak out and request a more natural childbirth, I had a few friends who enlisted the aid of some lay midwife in the region and arranged for homebirths. They all had a really nice birth experience without a single complication. Perhaps that was why I was open to the idea even though I was not personally involved. Besides some of the truly prepared couples who came in and had incredibly beautiful births….. that had been my first exposure as an alternative option to the knock’em out–pull’em out births I had been working with on the job. I knew my friends were very low-risk and had done their homework.

However, the hospital’s exposure to a homebirth in those days was only if the homebirth went awry for some reason or another and they came in our doors seeking help… here’s what the docs and nurses would say to one another :

“Can you believe she planned to deliver at home???”
“How could she take take a chance like that with her baby?”
“The reason people started coming to hospitals to give birth was because mothers and babies were dieing at home….she must be crazy or totally insane!!”

We’ve had planned homebirths come in for various reasons, as I am sure other facilities did…. (keep in mind that in my area, the usual birth attendant was a lay midwife). The situations bringing the mother to the hospital were often scary and upsetting for her. The most common were:

Fetal heart rate decels with or without meconium stained fluid
Lack of progress with pushing mostly after many hours..
Higher than normal bloody show or bleeding–possibly abrupting
Breech, brow or face presentation
Retained placenta

Often the OB’s didn’t handle themselves well.. certainly not professionally. We had this one OB who would call for the OR to be opened before he even examined the patient or evaluated the situation…..regardless of why they came in. And he often actually yelled at the mother, in the middle of her scary situation.

“Your baby will die if we don’t do an emergency C/S right now, why did you let this happen!”

Most often the backlash was directed at the midwife who cowered in the hallway- uninvited by the staff, left alone detached from her patient. She never left the unit though until she was afforded the opportunity to visit and speak to her patient.

The two significant situations I remember which would fall in to statistical data for morbidity were:

An abruption which resulted in a crash C/S upon admission and a neonatal resuscitation with good response….(final apgars 3@one min then 7@ five min) positive overall outcome, no long term sequelae.
A birth where the father (a chiropractor) was the birth attendant for his wife, a multip, encountered a shoulder dystocia and the baby ended up with a displaced fractured left humerus. That baby was in a crib with traction to realign the bone. The child went on to be an honor student at a local university after homeschool.

I feel that instead of the midwife or mother receiving hostility (or even the mother being wisked away to the OR without a trial of something if the baby was deemed stable..)~ the staff should have behaved in a compassionate professional manner, acting on any urgent situation with consideration that this mother is now experiencing not only labor but fear and grief over the loss of her beautiful planned birth.

Despite all the negativity from the staff, we never had a seriously bad outcome from attempted homebirths arriving on our doorstep. We still have attitude problems, probably always will~ just as we do with breastfeeding. I wish they could look at it from my perspective. Those who choose homebirth today have better information to hopefully make an educated informed decision about their birth options and choose wisely. I really like Ricki Lake’s “The Business of being Born” among other’s. I hope those choosing homebirth are truly investigating all these options, deciding what is best for them and not making any decisions out of “anger at the system” or any sort of revolutionary zeal.

There is so much out there for medical professionals to be aware of other than what goes on in their tiny little realm, their little part of the world. My co-workers and doctors need to be better informed.

Any one bad outcome (which most certainly happens in the hospital) does not mean that every homebirth is a bad idea.

May 27

9 Comments

Wednesday’s Watch~ Children and Birth

Do American Children know this much about birth?

dematronas …. de matronas…

This YouTube video is a very well done example of the beauty of birth and the beautiful innocence of children.

These children are interviewed about birth and midwifes and babies.
They are very very smart indeed!
I found this courtesy of my new twitter friend @ketchup74.

From Spain or Argentina? with English subtitles.