Learning from each other…

From the wonderful women at Independent Childbirth comes the following quote:
“Women gain the best birth knowledge from other women who have chosen natural childbirth with supportive birth care. Women are intuitive and need not accept the negative images of labor that the media portrays.”

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More about normal birth

I recently read on the Passion for Birth blog that the Maternity Care Working Party in the UK has a new consensus statement called Making Normal Birth a Reality. It is difficult to arrive at a consense definition of normal birth (which I define as “physiological birth”). They describe it as a women whose labor ”starts spontaneously, progresses [...]

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What About Routine Suctioning?

Another instance in which hospital policy may not match the evidence is with regard to suctioning the baby’s nose and mouth immediately after birth. Some doctors may suction all babies routinely. Others have a policy to only suction if meconium (baby’s first bowel movement) is present. 
However, the newest protocols from the American Academy of Pediatrics say not to [...]

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Comfort in Labor Handout

Childbirth Connection also has an excellent handout titled Comfort in Labor. It is by Penny Simkin and it has TONS of great line drawings and covers a lot of labor support material in 14 pages. For partners looking for ideas of how to support women in labor, this is almost like a really quick doula training!
What is a doula?
A doula is [...]

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Cesarean Birth in a Culture of Fear Handout

The cesarean rate in the US continues to rise and in 2006, 31% of all mothers had cesareans. The World Health Organization suggests a 10-15% cesarean rate is the upper limit to “necessary” cesareans and most experts agree that the US cesarean rate has gotten out of hand. Considering that a pregnant woman has a 1 in [...]

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Can I Eat During Labor?

A woman in labor is working harder and longer than she may ever have done before. Eating is important to maintain her energy, strength, stamina, and good health. Many women choose light, easily digested foods–whatever appeals to them most at the time. However, many hospitals and care providers have a policy in which laboring women [...]

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Evidence Based Care

Simply put, evidence based care is care that is based on the best available evidence (research, studies, accurate, up-to-date published materials) and upon the individual woman’s unique situation. Any interventions are applied judiciously and with consideration of true medical indication and also the needs of the woman. Evidence based care is different than “routines” or [...]

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Olympics & Birth

Several months ago I previewed the new Business of Being Born film and one of the doctors interviewed said that made me really outraged. He said something to the effect of: “in three months you’re just going to be pushing a baby in a stroller, so what difference does it make how you gave birth?” [...]

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Care Practices that Support Normal Birth

The Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth has a powerful series of research based care practice papers describing the six care practices that support normal birth. The papers were updated recently and are available on their website in both HTML and printer-friendly PDF formats. These care practices are of vital importance to the [...]

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Finding Your Question

Another concept I like from Birthing from Within is that of, “finding your question.” Really, it is your question in response to the question, “what is it I need to know to give birth?” This question was personally meaningful to me during each of my pregnancies. During my first pregnancy, my question was simply, “Can [...]

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