Go Ricki, go Ricki…
June 21, 2008 at 7:45 am | In Birth | Leave a CommentTags: advocacy, Homebirth
The AMA has attacked Ricki Lake for popularising Homebirth in her Doco: The Business of Being Born and she has replied along with Filmmaker Abbey Epstein and Jennifer Block, author of Pushed in an article called: Docs to Women: Pay no attention to Ricki Lake’s Homebirth and you really should read the whole thing, but I will start you off with a few excerpts:
Ladies, the physicians of America have issued their decree: they don’t want you having your babies at home with midwives.
We can’t imagine why not. Study upon study have shown that planning a home birth with a trained midwife is a great choice if you want to avoid unnecessary medical intervention…
…When healthy women are supported this way, 95% give birth vaginally, with hardly any intervention…
…The trouble is, they have no evidence to back up their safety claims. In fact, the largest and most rigorous study of home birth internationally to date found that among 5,000 healthy, “low-risk” women, babies were born just as safely at home under a midwife’s care as in the hospital. And not only that, the study, like many before it, found that the women actually fared better at home, with far fewer interventions like labor induction, cesarean section, and episiotomy…
But please do read the whole article.
Doula Research
June 17, 2008 at 7:05 am | In Birth | Leave a CommentTags: doulas
Doula support reduces cesarean and epidural rates
Source: Birth 2008; 35: 92-7Examining the perinatal effects of doula support for nulliparous middle-income
women accompanied by a male partner during labor and delivery.MedWire News: The continued presence of a doula during labor significantly
reduces cesarean delivery rates and the need for epidural analgesia in middle-
and upper-class US women accompanied by their male partner or another family
member, researchers report.They suggest that maybe fathers should not be expected to fulfill the role of
primary labor companion.Susan McGrath and John Kennell from Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland,
Ohio, USA, investigated the potential benefit during labor of an experienced
doula to provide both emotional and instrumental support. A total of 420 women
were randomly assigned to either have a doula present throughout labor in
addition to their male partner or no such additional support.Women who had the support of a doula had a significantly lower cesarean
delivery rate than the control group, at 13.4 percent versus 25.0 percent. They were
also less likely to need epidural analgesia, at 64.7 percent versus 76.0 percent,
respectively.Among women with induced labor, just 12.5 percent of women with a doula had a
cesarean delivery, compared with 58.8 percent of those without a doula.All women and their male partners who received the support of a doula rated
their experience as positive.“Continuous labor support by a doula is a risk-free obstetric technique
that could benefit all laboring women and should be made available in all maternity units” the researchers conclude.
A Million Mothers
June 14, 2008 at 10:33 am | In Uncategorized | Leave a CommentBumisehat Bali is in desperate need of some more space, they have mothers labouring in the office! And they are calling for a million mothers to donate $1 so that they can grow the birth centre so that they don’t have to turn mothers away.
Please take just a few minutes to go to the website and donate $1 (although if you are going to use Paypal they can only take $10 minimum, but what is $10 to you who gets to birth in your own home or a hospital rather than an office!)
Birthy Blessings,
Heatherx
Prevent Unnecessary Ceasareans
June 11, 2008 at 2:04 am | In Birth | Leave a CommentTags: caesarean
C-sections are life-saving, major abdominal surgery and it’s great for those women and babies that need them that they have become so much safer. But this safety is relative (vaginal births are safer with better outcomes for mother and baby) and our c-sections rates are more than 30% which is way above the 5-15% deemed safe by the World Health Organisation.
There is lots you can do to prevent an unnecessary c-section, the main one being – GET INFORMED about birth and hospital interventions. It is too late when you are actually in labour to be thinking about the implications of CTGs, inductions or epidurals. For links see my previous post and I highly recommend Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth
Yay for Doulas!
June 8, 2008 at 6:04 am | In Birth | Leave a CommentA couple of great doula articles out in the world this week, one about a Doula in Newfoundland and another teaching the Bradley Method in Michigan. But more and more Doulas in the news is what we like to see.
Also, Alexandra Pope was on Radio National this week talking about the safety of the pill and asking women to think twice about their contraception choices. She has a new book written with Jane Bennett which you can read about in my previous post on the Pill.
La Teta
June 4, 2008 at 8:02 am | In breastfeeding | Leave a CommentTags: breastfeeding
So beautiful…
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