midwives

Woman catches baby during cesarean section

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This article from the Australian newspaper The Age, tells the story of one mom who had an “assisted cesarean section,” where the mother is conscious and even is the first to touch her child–by helping pull the baby out of the womb.

Called “assisted caesarean”, the procedure allows the mother to be the first to hold her child, with her hands guided into the womb by medical staff. In what is believed to be only the third assisted caesarean in Australia in recent years, Perth mother Naomi Chapman, 38, helped deliver her third baby, Thomas, on April 2.

It’s definitely an interesting concept, which aligns with the desire of midwives to include women in the birth process. With the help of midwives, mothers and fathers have been catching their own babies for years now. But is this just an attempt to make an entirely medicalized process seem more mother-friendly? Luckily both the mother and doctor in this situation don’t want this procedure to encourage c-sections:

But women should not consider assisted caesareans ahead of vaginal birth. “I still think a vaginal birth is the best way to birth your baby,” Ms Chapman says. “I don’t want women to choose to have a caesarean because of this,” [Dr. Gunnell] says. “We need to be very clear that this is not a good alternative to a vaginal birth; the caesarean section rate is very high.”

Midwifery/doula news round-up

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Some great math to explain why homebirth midwives are more economically viable.

A synopsis of some of the changes in childbirth and parenting over the last few decades.

Limited birth options in San Francisco, where one woman’s insurance forces her to have a c-section.

Citypaper article about the potential crisis for maternity care in Philadelphia.

Video about doulas in Texas.

Cost of birth control skyrockets on college campuses due to a change in Medicaid law.

An exerpt on Huffington Post from Jessica Valenti’s (Feministing.com) new book, Full Frontal Feminism, where she talks about definitions of motherhood, including how women are being limited by increasing numbers of c-sections.

UK takes step toward recognizing home births

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While the US College of Obstetrics and Gynecology continues to deny that home births are a safe and viable option, our friends in the UK are finally seeing the light.

The National Childbirth Trust said the research which concluded home births were not safe and dated back to the 1970s and was flawed. In fact, it said there was a pool of evidence to suggest that home births were at least as safe as giving birth in hospital. Patient satisfaction levels were higher for home births, and simply booking a home birth led to a halving of the Caesarean section rate, it claimed. On hearing of the Government’s plans to change policy, a NCT spokeswoman said: “It has taken 30 years for the Government to realise that the policy of pushing every woman giving birth into hospital was misguided.”

It’s nice to hear somebody’s government saying it! How long until the US catches on? Unfortunately for UK midwives, the government also wants to require them all to have malpractice insurance–a costly and sometimes impossible feat for home birth midwives.

More midwifery/doula news

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Illinois Senate approves licensing of home-birth midwives.

Another article about the closing of two DC area birthing centers.

Pennsylvania Governor Rendell proposes expanding the rights of non-physician medical providers, including nurse-midwives, to do things like write perscriptions, in an attempt to bring down healthcare costs.

A Toronto group provides doulas for new parents with infant sleep problems.

Just a nice article about midwives.

Gay and lesbian families suffer from laws that don’t protect their parenting rights in North Carolina.

Midwifery/Doula News Round-up

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Here is a quick summary of recent news about midwives and doulas in the US:

Story about an infant fatality at a homebirth in Massachusetts and the politics surrounding the home vs. hospital debate.

Births with midwives increasing!

Colorado midwifery group going strong with 9000th birth.

Advocates are trying to pass a bill to legalize homebirth in Alabama.

Two midwifery centers in the Washington, DC metropolitan area closing because of financial problems due to the high cost of insurance. Sad.

Spotlight on cool doulas in Albuquerque, NM. This one has a ridiculous intro:

When Adam and Eve were evicted from the Garden of Eden, God told Eve that she and all women to come would bear their children in pain. It’s too bad Eve didn’t have a doula to help her in labor.

Comments welcome!

Another connection between anti-abortion and anti-midwifery movements

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So I haven’t actually read this book yet, but Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon did a great summation of it for their new book club. I just wanted to share that Leslie Reagan, the author of When Abortion Was a Crime, makes the historical connection between the crackdown on abortion rights and the medical movement to eradicate midwifery in the late 19th century. Shocker!

A more detailed timeline of the history of midwifery in the US.

I promise to explicate if I get around to reading this book, which judging from Amanda’s review seems interesting and does a good job of trying to pull abortion from its “issue silo” (making the connections to other social justice issues). I’m currently reading Female Masculinity by Judith Halberstam, which is really good…

“Drugs, Knives and Midwives”

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Check out this great article by Elizabeth Larson, just published in Utne. It does a good job of giving an overview of the politics of birth in the US today and identifying many of the problems that exist with our current overly medicalized system. She talks about Marsden Wagner’s new book Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First (University of California Press, 2006), which I haven’t read, although I did hear him speak at NAPW’s summit. It also happens to share a title with the documentary that brought me into the birth activist world–I highly recommend it. I dare say it changed my life.

The good thing she does in her article is point out the problems that exist with the polarization of the two birth camps–the highly medicalized OB-GYNs and the anti-medicine midwives. I agree that we need to work on creating birthing options that support women and give them the ability to make informed and supported decisions about their births, regardless of what those decisions might be.

In the News: Midwife ban leaves family scrambling

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Check out this interesting article about midwifery in Missouri. It explains that MO is one of ELEVEN states where midwifery is illegal–and considered equivalent to practicing medicine without a license (a felony). Columbia physician Elizabeth Allemann, states “People have told me it would probably be easier to do a drug deal in Missouri than to find a midwife.” Now THAT makes a lot of sense.

What’s most interesting about this is the logic used by Senator Chuck Graham, an opponent of the legalization of midwives, who has in the past filibustered a law that would allow midwives to practice who had been certified by the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM). So rather than allow the Congress in his state to even vote on a bill possibly legalizing the practice, he has taken it upon himself to decide that “There are so many things that can go wrong with the birthing process.” Why do politicians like to pretend they are scientists and doctors when it comes to women’s reproductive health?

(I mis-posted this last week, erroneously stating the Senator Louden, who is actually sponsoring the bill, was the Senator in opposition. That is actually Senator Chuck Graham. I apologize for the mistake.)

my first birth story

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It’s a tradition among the midwifery/birth/doula community to share birth stories, usually not long after you have participated in a birth. Everyone has their own process for sharing these stories, and the doula group I used to be a part of would have monthly meetings where doulas were invited to share. This process can be really cathartic for people, allowing them to process the experience and their feelings about it. Moms are also encouraged to share their birth stories with friends, family and their practitioners.

So I hadn’t planned on sharing a birth story just yet, but due to the cosmic nature of the universe and serendipity, I received an email this morning (only one day after starting this blog) from the father from my first ever official birth as a doula. He sent me a picture of their now 2 year old son, and told me they are expecting a sixth. I received this email with mixed feelings, because after a difficult 24 hours of labor, which ended with the midwife bringing in the obstretrical team to deliver the baby using forceps, the midwife disclosed to me that she did not think Barbara wanted to be having the baby. She felt that her mixed feelings about the pregnancy were demonstrated in her failure to progress in the labor, and that many of these feelings stemmed from her relationship with her husband.

So now they are pregnant again? I wish I could know more about how she is feeling about it. I also wish I could post the picture of their son here, because he is adorable (I even have a picture with me and the parents right after the birth) but that would be inappropriate and would be violating their confidentiality.

Read on for more of the birth story.

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