Wikis tagged with natural-birth-and-homebirth

  Aqua Baby: Birthing at Home Following the wonderful advice of a friend, I went to visit a midwife for my pregnancy. Her office walls were covered with a multitude of photos of babies she'd helped to deliver. I knew I had made the right choice.               Feature Articles Candles Not Required I am not the product of hippie parents and I don't consider myself righteous. Yet my child was born at home. Intentionally. Preparing the House for Homebirth Here are some suggestions to help you gather together what you will need if you plan to birth at home.  Homebirth at the...

Michael Stark, Jackie Chang, Jan Tritten, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Sarah Buckley, Peggy O'Mara, Sara Wickham, Lesley Page   A panel of some of the world's leading experts on birth shared the stage at the close of last month's Mid-Pacific Conference on Birth and Primal Health. Their assignment? Offer a vision of birth in 4012.   Here sitting at one table were such folks as Peggy O'Mara, Sarah Buckley, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Michel Odent and other heavy-hitters in the birth world -- including the president of the Royal College of Midwives, Lesley Page, and Michael Stark, president of the New...

By Megan Leary   Out of all of my hippie ways, I surprisingly get the fewest inquiries as to why I decided to birth from home.  My theory is that people have already decided that homebirth is a bad thing and do not want to broach the topic in order to avoid awkwardness.  However, if you are one of these people I want you, most of all, to ask me about my decision.  If you have a hard time understanding why a mother might choose to homebirth, it is likely you are drawing conclusions about birthing at home from assumptions that are simply not true.    The most common untrue assumption is...

It’s hard to think of a baby being violent or destructive, but the seeds of violence may be planted before a child is born, according to research at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. A study carried out there and reported last fall in the journal Aggression and Violent Behavior suggests that attention to health factors during prenatal development could prevent violence in later life. Citing recent research demonstrating a biological basis of crime, article author and Penn nursing assistant professor Jianghong Liu explains, “‘Biological’ does not mean only genetic...

  The first book I ever read about pregnancy, birth, and babies was Ina May Gaskin's Spiritual Midwifery.  I wasn't interested in becoming a midwife, and this was several years before I even thought of becoming a mother, but it looked interesting so I picked it up.  It rocked my world.  I had never thought of birth in such earthy terms; I had never considered mother-directed birth, and I definitely hadn't thought that birth could be pleasant or even pain-free!  I feel so fortunate to have discovered this book, discovered this whole world of thinking differently about birth before I...

Breaking news from Michel Odent's conference on Birth & Primal Health Research*: data is clear that we humans are losing the capacity to give birth! How can that be? It is pure evolution in action: when we do not use certain functions of our physiology, the "message" to our always-changing bodymind system -- a message that becomes passed down to future generations through changes in DNA expression -- is, "That function is no longer needed."   Oxytocin: Liquid Peace  Oxytocin has been in the news lately, the hormone of love...the moral molecule..."liquid peace" I like to call it....

  By Kelley Powell   Today I’m proud to feature guest blogger Bert Powell, a.k.a. my dad. Normally my dad writes about motorcycle travel, but today he’s venturing off the highway and onto the rugged scenic route that is homebirth. In the span of only a generation, men’s role in childbirth has done a complete about face. As my dad tells below, he went from watching me be born on a closed circuit monitor in the hospital to being actively involved in the home births of 5 of his grandchildren (his other 3 grandchildren were born in the hospital). Here is his unique perspective:   One...

The CDC reported today that homebirths are on the rise in the US.  Michele Deck, President of Lamaze International, responds to this study “Trends in Home Births in the United States: 1990-2009.” Read her response and then tell us why you chose a homebirth.  The nearly 30 percent rise in home births may reflect the growing awareness among women of the gap between evidence-based care and the typical care women receive.  This trend suggests that women are increasingly interested in taking their maternity choices into their own hands. The choice for home birth is backed by evidence...

In late October, sixty-eight national and international experts gathered to discuss home birth at the Home Birth Consensus Summit, held in Warrenton, Virginia, an hour outside of Washington, D.C. Yesterday, the group released nine “statements of common ground around home birth and other controversies in maternity care.” The statements are available in full at http://homebirthsummit.org/. In addition to various health care professionals and home birth consumers, stakeholders at the summit included lawyers, policy makers, researchers and ethicists. Chair of the summit’s steering...

For newly arrived refugee women, giving birth in a new country can be terrifying. The IRC’s pregnancy support program helps make the experience easier – and joyful. Baltimore, MD – After surviving a treacherous journey out of Myanmar to Malaysia, Hlawn Kim and her husband, Van Run Sang, were thrilled to arrive in the United States as part of the International Rescue Committee’s resettlement program. But just as they were getting used to their new life in Baltimore, Kim became pregnant with their first child. For newly arrived refugee women, the prospect of having a baby in an...

The Guardian reported today that, according to an Oxford University study, homebirth may be a safe and cheaper option for women in England. The study examined 64,000 births in England between 2008 and 2010 and determined that encouraging low risk moms to deliver at home or in a midwifery center could save the NHS money without sacrificing care. Royal College of Midwives deputy general secretary, Louise Silverton, said: This and other research points out the substantial benefits of midwife-led care: it is better for mothers and babies, it is better for midwives and it is better for...

Either you like pushing, or you don’t. Not too many women who feel so-so on this topic. Personally, I hated it. Three kids, and each one I would have coped with contractions for another calendar day before I would have willingly pushed. So when I have a mother who is a fierce non-pusher, I get it. I recently attended a lovely birth for an almost-mother-of-three, who I watched paddle around her birth tub like a dog caught in a swimming pool, looking for a way out. She spun circles, flipped from front to back, moaned and groaned, cried, and howled. I’d seen all the signs of...

  As I approach my twenty fourth week of pregnancy I find my thoughts drifting toward birthing day. We’re planning our second home birth with a midwife we love, but our first birth experience, as just-right as it was, doesn’t prevent the butterflies from visiting from time to time. It’s nothing that can’t be settled by a few deep breaths, but still, birthing day is Big (capital B!) no matter where it takes place. I’ve known since I was twenty years old that I wanted to home birth. That was the year that I came across a copy of Ina May Gaskin’s Spiritual Midwifery. The stories, the...

This is a guest blog by Marinah Farrell, Certified Professional Midwife and Licensed Midwife, and one of the women featured in Midwives Address Health Disparities—the latest video from the new online series I am a Midwife all about midwives and what they do.  From the Midwives Alliance of North America. Marinah Farrell (far left) and other community activists Currently, in this country, the statistics are abysmal when it comes to maternal health care for communities of color and, correlated, educating maternal health care experts from those same communities. According to...

A TV news reporter called me today. She wants me to make an on-camera comment about a recent mix-up in a Virginia, MN hospital.  Despite the many safety procedures hospitals are required to have in place, a newborn baby was placed in the wrong mama’s arms for a few brief minutes, and perhaps nursed on a breast that did not belong to him. The families involved are understandably shook up. I’m sure the poor nurse is horrified, and probably in trouble. Hospital administrators instantly and publically abandoned one identification procedure in exchange for another. And the local media is...

“Being pregnant and giving birth are like crossing a narrow bridge. People can accompany you to the bridge. They can greet you on the other side, but you must walk that bridge alone.” ~African Proverb~ * * * * The word midwife literally means, “With woman” and that is what I am. I spend my days sitting with women at one of the most pivotal moments in their lives. Married or single, 17 or 35 years old, Balinese or Australian, Christian or Muslim, HIV positive or negative, rich or poor—I sit and hold women who await their first, second, third child. Some of them...

The Right Livelihood Awards, which gives four awards every year to put the spotlight on solutions to global wrongs, recognizes Ina May Gaskin (USA) “for her whole-life’s work teaching and advocating safe, woman-centred childbirth methods that best promote the physical and mental health of mother and child.” From Right Livelihood’s site: Ina May Gaskin has been called “the most famous midwife in the world.” A pioneer in a millennium-old profession on the brink of extinction in her country, she combines scientific evidence and analysis with her own broad experience in exercising...

Thank you to Shawna for sharing her birth story and slideshow with us–and to her photographer Chanda Willams who took the images found below. You can see more of Chanda’s work on her website at Beauty of Birth.    On September 21st, 2009 I became a mother for the first time after a ‘glowing’ 39 weeks of pregnancy. My son came into the world in a birth pool, in a hospital, after 3 short pushes and 16 hours of labor. It wasn’t easy, but I would not have described it as painful. Intense pressure, that for a short time felt almost unbearable – but not painful. I was knocked off my...

Excerpt from the TIME article “Midwife Mania? More U.S. Babies than Ever Are Delivered by Midwives,” June 25, 2012 In other developed nations, midwives are routinely tasked with bringing new life into the world. Not so in the U.S., where delivery is largely presided over by obstetricians. But a new study finds that midwives are getting busier, delivering 8.1% of the country’s babies in 2009 — a record high. Slice the data differently and the proportion rises even further. Consider vaginal births only — midwives don’t do cesarean sections — and the figure rises to 12.1%, or about...

Lisa Barrett and Gloria Lemay I’m excited looking forward to Sarah Buckley’s keynote talk this morning here in Nashville, about oxytocin, or as she calls it, “Liquid Love.” It’s been fun getting here a little early (arrived Tuesday evening to teach my all-day pre-conference workshop yesterday based on my book Parenting for Peace)… and meeting lots of new and fabulous folks from the worldwide field of midwifery. Have already heard a few chilling tales worthy of Orwell of the harassment that can be visited upon birth attendants who actually trust birth, over dinner in the restaurant...