New Birth Center in Haiti

This was in my inbox this morning. If anyone is interested in staffing a new birth center in Haiti that will treat the women there with the care and respect they deserve, please contact the people listed below.


Hi, All -
The person organizing this is my preceptor, Jesica Dolin. Jennifer Guillardo runs the birth center I work at, Andaluz Waterbirth Center. I am hoping to put in a couple of weeks over the summer in Haiti, as well. Please pass this email along to midwives/nurses/docs and midwifery/med/nursing students you know.

Best,

Jocelyn

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO MIDWIVES, NURSES, DOCS WHO BELIEVE IN NATURAL BIRTH, etc.
I am a licensed midwife at Andaluz Waterbirth Center in Portland, OR. (www.waterbirth. net) The founder of our birth center, Jennifer Gallardo, is currently in Haiti, volunteering as a midwife in the LD&D at the hospital. She says:
"Just saw a 15 year old be brutalized by 5 'midwives' and one doctor. They held her down, covered her mouth, slapped her, held her legs opened while she struggled, cut a huge episiotomy, and pulled baby out. All the while yelling at her." She has only been there a couple days and already has many stories like that one. Prior to starting the birth center in Oregon in 1999, she ran a birth center in Guatemala for 5 years, and also attended hospital births in Guatemala. She says she has never seen women treated so horribly in labor. And of course, this is a place where infant and maternal mortality is very high as well.

She has found a big house to rent that has five rooms we could use for birth rooms, two bathrooms, and space for staff housing. It has running water, and is in a relatively safe area. (I am planning on going to work at it with my infant son.) She is moving forward with opening a birth center there, and we need staff!

We need:
1. Midwives to come volunteer (doctors and labor and delivery nurses also welcome)

2. Students who want to pay tuition for apprenticeship there (as is often the case with birth centers in area of need - the funds must come from somewhere, and the clients cannot pay enough to cover operating costs)

3. Folks to spread the word about this

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN STAFFING THIS BIRTH CENTER IN HAITI, PLEASE EMAIL jesicadolin@ yahoo.com

In dedication to bettering the lives of women, babies, and all those who draw breath on this planet,Jesica

Pit to Distress

Oh my. I have been reading on Facebook recently about a hospital procedure known as "Pit to Distress." What this means is that pitocin is administered to a laboring woman in a maximum dose in order to distress the baby so they can move to cesarean. While we all had our nightmare scenarios, this one appears to be real. Several nurses have blogged about it, as well as Jill at Unnecesarean.

I have spent a lot of time ruminating about this over the past week or two, and I am still flabbergasted that obstetricians get away with this kind of behavior... even occasionally. If a midwife did something so reckless, they would be hauled into court and they would never practice again. Why should obstetricians be free to cause distress to an unborn baby in order to perform surgery? What harm are they potentially causing to the baby? What about the mother, who's uterus may become hyperstimulated or even rupture? What if, due to this practice, she loses her uterus and her potential to have more children? Who holds these obstetricians responsible?

Now, I obviously realize that there are some excellent OBs out there who would never consider doing such a thing. But the fact that even one can get away with doing this repeatedly puts mothers and babies at risk. How do they not lose their license? How can they still attract patients? How can they still have privileges at the hospital? Who do we lobby to change this? ACOG posts their guidelines, but obviously the docs do what they want (look at VBAC...).

Our maternity system needs a major overhaul... thank goodness there are some nurses out there who do what they can to keep as many women from experiencing Pit to Distress as much as possible. When a woman checks into the hospital... she trusts that she is in good hands. Obviously, this is not always the case.

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~

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.