What is Midwifery?

(snatched from naturalchildbirth.org)

"…most of the women who go to OBs do not know - or at least believe popular misconceptions - about what midwives do. Every woman would want midwifery care for herself and baby if they knew what it truly was…. All the women I know who used midwives were women who wanted individualized care and somebody to be there to support them through their whole birth experience. Somebody who knew them and who they trusted; rather than a practice where you rotate through providers and get whoever is on call. Some had natural births, some with epidurals, etc. but the most important aspect was that relationship and better care."

Twins!

Wizard and Nugget Donovan make their grand entrance this week!!!

July 1st, what a great birthdate.

Perfect timing. (I hear fireworks are planned this weekend).

My camera is charged up and ready to be filled with chubby baby cheeks and smiling parents.

Eeeeek!!! Too exciting.

Birth Stories from Ina May

"There is extraordinary psychological benefit in belonging to a group of women who have positive stories to tell about their birth experiences. This phenomenon is exactly what developed within our village. So many horror stories circulate about birth-especially in the United States-that it can be difficult for women to believe that labor and birth can be a beneficial experience. If you have been pregnant for a while, it's probable that you've already heard some scary birth stories from friends or relatives. This is especially true if you live in the United States, where telling pregnant women gory stories has been a national pastime for at least a century. Now that birth has become a favorite subject of television dramas and situation comedies, this trend has been even more pronounced. No one has explained the situation more succinctly than Stephen King in his novella "The Breathing Method." Commenting on the fear many women have of birth, his fictional character observes, "Believe me: if you are told that some experience is going to hurt, it will hurt. Most pain is in the mind, and when a woman absorbs the idea that the act of giving birth is excruciatingly painful-when she gets this information from her mother, her sisters, her married friends, and her physician-that woman has been mentally prepared to feel great agony." King, you may not know, is the father of several children born at home.
The best way I know to counter the effects of frightening stories is to hear or read empowering ones. I mean stories that change you because you read or heard them, because the teller of the story taught you something you didn't know before or helped you look at things from a different angle than you ever had before."

All Hail Ina May

I have heard about this amazing woman and The Farm that she and her husband founded in Tennesee, but I didn't realize how eloquent she was in describing her simple, yet revolutionary point of view of childbirth.

She-Freakin-Rocks.
www.inamay.com


I finally picked up her "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" and by the first page, I was hooked. She speaks a simple truth and her statistics back her up completely.

The Farm was founded in 1971. From 1971 to 2000, of 2,028 births....

Births Completed - 95.1%
Non-Emergency Transports - 3.6%
Emergency Transports - 1.3%

Vaginal Birth - 98.6%
Cesarean Sections - 1.4%
(US National Average = 24.4%)

Cases with no Preeclampsia - 99.61%
Cases of Preeclampsia - 0.39%

Cases with no hemorrhage - 98.2%
Cases of Postpartum hemorrhage - 1.8%

What the HECK are these women DOING RIGHT??

Why the HECK aren't more people (ahem..DOCTORS) listening to her?

SIMPLE SIMPLE SIMPLE.

"Standards of prenatal care at the Farm are modeled to the recommendations of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Deliveries are conducted without analgesia, however, and great emphasis is placed on meeting the emotional needs of the family. Several family members and friends are commonly in attendance and are encouraged to take an active role in the birth.

In addition, the laboring woman is encouraged to stay off her back and remain physically mobile through labor and delivery. In the absence of signs of fetal distress, women are permitted to labor beyond 24 hours, occasionally for 2 to 3 days. They are also encouraged to eat and drink during labor in the belief that this allays maternal exhaustion and the need for operative delivery."

Stay off her back? Eat and Drink? SHOCKING!

And now, for my first Ina May quote (there will be many more to follow)...

"It's not easy to say wheterh the woman in my village have less fear of birth because we know that our capabilities go beyond medical understanding or that our capabilities are greater without anxiety."

I just want to hug this woman and bring her fourteen ice cream sundaes.

(sigh). :)