Ringing in the New

The year is almost over. This year has been full of new studies promoting the safety of homebirth. It has been full of ACOG and the AMA fighting against midwives. The cesarean rate continues to climb and women all over are being denied any choice in how their babies will be born.

As they say, it is always darkest before the dawn. If women are going to be able to have any say at all in how they give birth, they must continue to speak up. Ask questions. Don't accept condescending answers. You're the one hiring the doctor, not the other way around. They work for YOU.

I was reading on the My OB Said What? site and today they posted a response where the OB told the laboring mother "You wouldn't tell a pilot how to fly a plane, would you?" I'd like to turn that right around on them. What gives them the authority to tell a woman she must lay on her back with her legs in the air and push uphill? Women's bodies are designed to give birth. If we listen to what our bodies tell us, most of us will end up in positions that work WITH gravity, not AGAINST it. Women should be piloting their births... the doctor can't tell when a woman's body is urging her to rock her hips back and forth or when she needs to stand and lean on something.

Let's make 2010 the year of the Birthing Mother. Let's help women get the autonomy they need for healthy births and healthy babies!

2 Year Old Helps with Sibling's Birth

In a news story that is making the rounds on Facebook, little 2 year old Jeremiah Favazza helped his mother while she birthed his new brother at home. No one else was in attendance. His mother, Bobbye, was expecting to have her 4th cesarean section for this baby. Both mom and baby are healthy and fine.

I don't find this amazing in and of itself. What I find amazing is that everyone thinks this is a miracle. Small children handle birth very well. At several of my births, I've had a 2yo sitting right alongside me... calm, cool and collected. Sometimes they moaned with me. Sometimes they held my hand. They were always fascinated.

This woman experienced a healthy birth after three cesareans! Now she knows she is not relegated to surgical birth. Her uterus won't rupture. Her labor will progress. Her cervix will dilate and she will be able to push a baby out on her own. This is a wonderful thing.

Women need to know that they are strong enough to give birth. They need to know that the chances of their uterus rupturing during a natural labor are miniscule. They need to know that birth works.

Congratulations to Mrs. Favazza and kudos to little Jeremiah for helping his little brother come earthside. This is an experience that we all should have as children. Giving birth is a natural bodily function. Women are strong enough to birth. These are things we should all grow up knowing.

Organic Birth Summer 2009 Issue

Homebirth at Risk in Australia

This video is just a few of the homebirthing families in Australia who don't want homebirth midwives outlawed. Show your support for homebirth.

~We Love Homebirth~

Spreading the Word

I've been thinking a lot about homebirth. With all the new movies out featuring homebirth like "Business of Being Born," "Orgasmic Birth," and "Pregnant in America," it is becoming front page news.

Instead of just a human interest story about a baby born "too quickly to get to the hospital... luckily they were both checked out by the doctor and are both fine," homebirth is being discussed, dismissed, considered and legally fought for.

This is good.

What else can we do to spread the word? More women need to learn that we are strong. We don't need to be saved from birth. We can birth our own babies.

We certainly don't need to add to the amount of cesarean sections. They can be life-saving, it's true... but does anyone really think that 1/3 of American women CAN'T have a baby without it being cut out of her? Really?

There is so much education to do. I don't really care where a woman chooses to birth. If she wants to be at home, fine. If she wants to be at the hospital, fine. But she should stand a good chance to have a natural birth in the hospital... not just a 2/3 chance.

What about educating the public about eating? Could it be that eating real food instead of the processed stuff we buy in boxes and in drive thrus can be contributing to women being overweight and diabetic? These are two major reasons for cesareans and why we are told "You must birth in the hospital!"

There is so much to do. Please share your ideas by posting comments. I want us to make a difference. I want my children's generation to feel confident in their body's ability to grow and birth their babies.

We need to start spreading the word.

Maternal Mortality

I read an article about the maternal mortality rate in Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world. 1 in 8 women die in childbirth there. This truly is a horrendous problem, one that is frequently overlooked when dealing with other health crises and providing other services in such areas. The poor family the article talked about suffered a terrible loss in the death of a young mother. But there is more happening there than just having a doctor on call to staff the hospital. This poor mother did not know that fasting for the last three weeks of her life in observance to Ramadan would affect her health. Pregnancy is not a time to fast. This poor mother and many like her also need education and nutrition. Many of the problems they face could be resolved right there.

One of the shocking facts in this story (yes, absolutely shocking!) was that the rate of maternal mortality in the U. S. 1 in 4800. Doesn't sound too, bad, does it? Compare it to another statistic in the article... the maternal mortality rate in Ireland: 1 in 48,000. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have my next baby in Ireland. This little island has the best maternal mortality rate in the entire WORLD. And those of us here in the United States face mortality rates 10 times worse.

The AMA keeps telling us we have the best medical care in the world, and that the hospital is the safest place to have a baby. Apparently, neither is true! While the AMA is supporting legislation to OUTLAW homebirth in the United States, telling us that birthing at home is risky, they're actually losing more women in the hospital.

About 1 or 2% of birthing women choose to have their babies at home. Even if 1 or 2% of those mortalities took place at home, that would be 48 to 96 out of 4800. The other 4752 to 4702 mortalities are in the hospital. I know women are subjected to interventions that end up causing problems during labor in the hospital... I've been subjected to them myself. What about giving women hands on care instead of using monitors? What about educating them about nutrition? Helping them to labor naturally instead of breaking their waters, stimulating their labors with pitocin, or cutting them open when they don't need a cesarean? Just last year a news story broke about two teachers at the same school who both ended up with cesareans... and both died.

Midwifery care has been shown to have better outcomes and less intervention. I support more midwives. Obstetricians are trained to handle emergencies... they should do just that, and stop messing with normal labor until they cause emergencies.

For those poor women in countries like Sierra Leone... many of them can be saved with the same answers that will save more women here in the States. Let OBs take care of the real emergencies and midwives take care of normal pregnancies and births. With better mother education that most midwives provide, there should be an improvement all the way around.

Standing Up for Our Rights

I'm a bit late in responding to the whole AMA and ACOG uproar... but I'm going to put in my two cents anyway. They insist the safest place to birth is in the hospital, yet 1/3 of all women birthing there end up with a cesarean, which increases the risk for complications and death. Another 1/3 end up with an episiotomy, a surgical procedure that has been proven to be unnecessary.

I have heard horror stories of how women are treated in the hospital while giving birth. They suffer at the hands of people who just don't care about them, their babies or the process of birth. How can that possibly be the safest place to be????

The AMA and ACOG are willing to create model legislation to make it illegal to birth anywhere else. Excuse me? They want to make it illegal to birth anywhere but in the aforementioned torture chamber?

Now I know that not every nurse and obstetrician contributes to scenes like I have learned about. Some are truly caring, wonderful people who try to do what is best for mothers and babies. But it sure seems that they are few and far between.

I certainly could not walk willingly into a hospital to give birth knowing that I'd have to fight for every little bit of freedom I may need to birth optimally. My first was a cesarean. One that probably could have been avoided if my CNM and the staff nurses had been willing to work with an inexperienced mother-to-be instead of pushing pain medications. But then, I may not be on the path I am today.

Women... stand up for your right to birth without intervention! While it isn't outlined specifically, it should fall under pursuit of happiness if nothing else.

Midwives... band together. Sue the AMA like the chiropractors did in the late 1970s for preventing them from practicing their trade.

We can do this. The AMA and ACOG are worried about midwifery and home births because more women are finding out they don't need to be treated like idiots and sliced open unnecessarily.

Outlawing Homebirth

Oh my goodness. I can't believe what ACOG (American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists) and the AMA (American Medical Association) are up to. ACOG sent out a position paper against homebirth and CPMs, saying the safest place for all women to give birth is either the hospital or an accredited birth center. The AMA is backing them up and is planning on creating model legislation so groups can push for this to become law. This is outrageous! They want to take away my choice to make an educated decision to birth at home. This choice should be available to all birthing women.

Actually, I can believe they're doing this. It really isn't much different when they went around badmouthing midwives at the turn of the 20th century so women would choose to go to the bright, shiny hospitals rather than stay at home with the "illiterate, unwashed midwives." Uh huh. Give me a midwife any day to those people in the white coats who just cannot leave anything well enough alone!

Take the typical hospital birth. You check in. They make you change your clothes so they can give you a vaginal exam. They put a heplock in your arm so they can add pitocin whenever they want. They strap you to the electronic fetal monitor, which has not been shown in studies to be any more effective at detecting a baby in true distress than if the nurse checks the baby's heartbeat for a few minutes every coupld of hours. They break your bag of waters. Turn up the pitocin. OH..... you DIDN'T get tested yet for GBS? Then they'll add some antibiotics you most likely don't need too. There goes the nurse turning up that pitocin again. Oh, the contractions are getting unbearable? Let's give you something for the pain. You'll have to stay in bed now.... you can't walk around or be upright with an epidural.... that's better, now, isn't it? Hmmmm. You're not making enough progress according to the clock, so we're going to take you to the operating room for a cesarean. You're obviously not progressing and this baby will die if it isn't born RIGHT NOW.

Yeah, right. Seems to me most labors are meddled with until there is no other choice. All the natural hormones mom and baby experience in undisturbed labor are all messed up and the body doesn't know where to turn. It's a wonder we've survived as a species. Cats and dogs couldn't birth under those conditions!

Ladies, we need to stand up for our right to choose the place we birth and who we want to attend it! Write to your state congressmen now, before the medical interest groups present that "model legislation." Write to your national congressmen to let them know that the AMA is trying to prevent midwives from practicing their trade. The AMA was sued successfully by chiropractors in the 1970s for that reason... and the chiropractors won! Let's protect our right to birth and parent our children (more on that soon... the AAP has issued a new stand on vaccinations....) how we think is best.

Choosy Moms Choose Cesareans Article

Time magazine just ran an article entitled "Womb Service: Choosy Moms Choose Cesarean." The article outlines the story of a psychiatrist who chose an elective cesarean because she was afraid of laboring and then requiring a cesarean anyway. It goes on to discuss how vaginal birth can result in incontinence and pelvic damage, while cesareans can result in respiratory problems for the baby. It ends with the hope that "perhaps more women will feel less defensive about making the same choice."

Excuse me? Cesareans are major abdominal surgery. I know. I've had one. And I certainly wouldn't have chosen to have it. I did labor and end up in surgery. At least at the time I felt I had done all I could to have my baby the way nature intended. Cesareans have more risk than just possible respiratory problems for the baby. Both mother and baby have a bigger chance of dying from a cesarean than from a vaginal birth. I guess that isn't important.

And vaginal birth doesn't equal incontinence and pelvic damage. Studies have shown that women of comparable age who did not birth vaginally (or even have children at all) had the same chance of developing incontinence as those who had birthed vaginally.

If I decide I want to get my appendix removed, I should just be able to schedule the surgery whether I need it or not, if cesareans should be just another choice. It shouldn't matter that my appendix is perfectly healthy, right?

I have a fundamental problem with the argument that many obstetricians put forth that an elective cesarean is just another birth choice. At the same time, they are putting down home birth and unassisted birth as not being safe. I still have less of a chance of dying if I have my baby home alone than if I opted to go under the knife. How is this "just another choice?"

Okay, I'm even willing to compromise here. If cesareans are allowed to be just another choice, then they should concede that homebirth is also just another choice and leave it at that. If the OBs are allowed to promote the "safety" of surgical birth and point out the "dangers" of homebirth, I should be able to do the opposite. Studies have shown that homebirth is as safe or safer than birthing in the hospital. At least you won't be given pitocin and drugs that will cause the baby to go into fetal distress at home.

What about if we actually teach women that labor is nothing to be afraid of? There's a unique idea. Labor is a natural function of a woman's body when it is time for a baby to be born. There, I said it. Having a baby is something we are designed to do. In fact, it seems to be a rather well-kept secret that women are actually good at having babies, too.

It sounds to me like instead of choosy moms choosing cesareans, it is uninformed moms, coerced moms and frightened moms who choose cesarean. Most women are not told all the risks of having a surgical birth. A cesarean can cause problems for future pregnancies if the placenta in a subsequent pregnancy implants over the scar. A cesarean can result in infection for mom and/or baby. Hemorrhage is common. The baby can accidentally get cut. The incision can open up during recovery. The baby can have respiratory problems. Post-surgical pain can last for several weeks, and recovery time is longer than with a vaginal birth. The list goes on and on.

All I can say is this choosy mom will choose to birth at home.

Our First Homebirth

Tonight marks the 9th anniversary of my first labor when I birthed at home. My 3rd daughter was born just before 5am on April 7, 1999 in the middle of the living room of the apartment we were living in after our housefire.

It was the most incredible experience. After gentle contractions all day long, I finally fell asleep around 9:30 pm, only to wake up at 2:30 am with strong contractions. My water broke soon after, and I kept a towel bunched between my knees as I called our midwife and a doula friend of ours. My husband awoke because of the noise I was making. He put together some quick homemade soup to cook while I labored and put on the music I had chosen. When the midwife got there, he helped her set up the tarp on the floor while I rocked back and forth on my birth ball. I thought of all the women in the entire world who labored with me that night. I drew strength from the fact that they were all feeling the same sensations as they labored to bring their babies into the world.

Soon I was pushing, and before I knew it, my husband was catching the newest member of our family. He felt her take her first breath, feeling the little airsacs in her lungs filling for the first time. My oldest daughter awoke just in time to see her little sister be born. Later, after the placenta was born and my second daughter woke up, we all sat around our newest baby and my oldest daughter cut the cord.

Our midwife made us a soft nest in the large beanbag couch we had, and tucked us all in before she left. Everyone fell asleep but me. I was so ecstatic over this birth. It had been intense, but I had birthed this child without the hospital, without medication, without beeping monitors. It was utterly amazing to be tucked in quietly with my entire family in the living room, holding my little one on my chest.

Birth works. Especially when we don't muck about with it. I had my proof in my arms.

Birth

Birth. I think about it a lot. Not only processing my own memories and what I felt went well and what didn't, but about birth in general.

For my first birth, I did everything I was supposed to do. I read books. I went to a childbirth class that was not hospital-based. I had a CNM. I had a cesarean with an epidural. Not by choice... I had every intention of not having drugs of any kind. But my inexperience, my willingness to think that my CNM knew best and my own beached whale mentality put me in that OR as surely as if I had scheduled it.

By the time I had my last birth in 2007, I was doing my own blood pressure checks, I didn't bother with weight checks and only did urine tests close to my due date. My midwife dropped by and we listened to the baby and we talked to the baby. It was fun. I finally figured out how to hear with a fetoscope... I'd been trying since my 5th baby. When I went into labor, my midwife came over and camped out with the kids. She gave me quiet suggestions occasionally, and my baby was born into my arms with hardly anyone's input at all. The biggest effort was to get up off the floor and move to the sofa.

My own journey to trust birth has encompassed a long road from that initial cesarean. I thought I trusted birth then, but really, I didn't know what it meant. I don't expect to convince every woman to birth like me. I think every woman should follow the path that makes her the most comfortable... but at the same time, I have a hard time hearing about pregnant women continuing to check into the hospital only to leave via the OR. What kind of start is that for them as mothers and for their babies' introduction to life outside the uterus?

Mothers today have more choices than they used to in most states. Where they don't have as many choices, many moms are taking things into their own hands. I think a huge movement away from the managed care system is beginning. Unassisted birth is happening frequently enough that it is becoming big news. More women are hiring midwives and staying home. So much so, that ACOG had to rush to issue a statement against the safety of homebirth after "The Business of Being Born" was released. I've seen the movie. It was difficult for me to watch, because although I knew the statistics, it was difficult to see them in print and said out loud. I think this film will get a lot of women thinking about their options.

There has been a lot of criticism about having the director's birth included, since it was a cesarean. I thought it was good to include it... not because it "balanced" the film, as I've heard, but because it showed her laboring at home, realizing that she needed more assistance, and had plenty of time to get to the hospital for the extra help.

That's my take anyway. Birth is a large part of my life. I hope that never changes. Birth is the beginning. The start of a new person. Full of potential.