Call for Birth Stories
Share Your Birth Story and Support Birth Education
Do you have a birth story to share? As part of our ongoing effort to promote normal birth, Lamaze International is compiling a collection of birth stories to post on our Web site. We are seeking stories from women in their own words. We are particularly interested in stories that illustrate the Six Care Practices that Support Normal Birth:
1. Labor begins on its own
2. Freedom of movement throughout labor
3. Continuous labor support
4. No routine interventions
5. Non-supine (e.g., upright or side-lying) positions for birth
6. No separation of mother and baby after birth with unlimited opportunity for breastfeeding
Birth stories are excellent tools to provide expectant women and their families with real-life information, preparation and support for their birth experience. Through written accounts of birth, we hope to illustrate that birth is an incredible, yet normal, everyday process filled with triumph and joy.
A Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator will provide commentary to be posted along with each birth story. Again, our intention is to show how women have used different care practices to keep their births normal. We believe the best way to do this is through stories written in your own words with thoughtful and concise commentary that highlights the choices you made to achieve a satisfying and healthy birth experience.
Submit your own birth story or, if you’re an educator, encourage your students to write about their birth experiences. Submit all stories to editor@lamaze.org. You must include a statement with your story that you give Lamaze International permission to publish your story online. We reserve the right to edit your story for grammar, punctuation, spelling and length if necessary. If your story is selected, you will have the opportunity to approve any edits as well as any commentary that will appear with your story.
Help Fight Prematurity
The March of Dimes is petitioning Google to give them an infamous Google Doodle for Prematurity day on 11/14/06. Sign their petition to get it listed:
Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant Advocacy
House Bill H.R. 5688 threatens NP medical services … bill
There is a bill before the house right now that we need to stand against. Please help in getting word out to other NPs and PAs to write their representative to vote against this. It is very easy to do and will take you less than 10 minutes!
The bill purports, in a quick summary, that NPs and PAs are not qualified to prescribe medications or perform “complex” medical procedures or surgery (though no further examples given) and that there are ample instances of NPs and PAs holding themselves out to by medical doctors to the public.
The bill itself is a very quick read: To see the bill:
http://www.magnetmail.net/images/ clients/AOA_ /attach/BillText .pdf It will take you very little time to look up your House Rep and cut andpaste a letter to him or her.
Go to: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ It will ask for your name and address to verify your representative. Once you have filled out this form, it will take you to a page with a text box where you can write a letter or “paste” text from another document.
Here is my letter for an example, modified from others who wrote before me:
Dear Representative (your rep’s name here)
I am a constituent of yours, employed as a Master’s prepared, board certified Physician Assistant. I have been working in the healthcare field for 10 years, over four of those as a Physician Assistant. I am writing to ask that you NOT support H.R. 5688, the Healthcare Trust and Transparency Act,” which is currently before the House. While the bill, in point five, does recognize non-medical doctor providers are of “vital importance
to the Nation’s healthcare,” it also purports to protect the public from health care providers who are not physicians and makes a number of insinuations not supported by evidence; namely that there is “ample evidence of providers who are not medical doctors. holding themselves out as such,” and that
“consumers believe that complex medical issues, surgeries, procedures and prescribing medications should be performed by medical doctors.”
Research has shown that Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs) provide excellent care and are considerably more cost-effective than our physician colleagues. The landmark study, “Primary care outcomes in patients treated by nurse practitioners or physicians: a randomized trial,” by Mundinger, et al, published in January 2000 in the Journal of the American Medical Association is a sterling example of this. I know
of many patients that far prefer to see PAs or NPs because of their caring and holistic approach to their healthcare needs, taking time to educate them in preventative medicine as well as treating their immediate needs. Patients understand that I am not a physician, yet understand my important
role as a member of their healthcare team. Nurse Practitioners (NPs) and Physician Assistants (PAs) provide a good portion of the primary care and an expanding role in specialty care in this nation. In addition, in rural areas, in Wisconsin and in other states, PAs and NPs offer critical access
to healthcare, a role that would otherwise go unfilled, leading to better service to your constituents and my patients.
In short, this bill is misleading to patients and an unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars to fix a problem that does not exist. Health care providers are regulated by state boards of nursing and medicine, and all 50 states have legislation on the books already making it illegal to hold
one’s self out to the public as a physician. Please do NOT support H.R. 5688. We do not need it, and our patients would most definitely suffer.
Very respectfully,
Karen Fields, M.S.P.A.S.,PA- C
Kfields@PAworld.net
www.kefields- pa.com
H.R.5688
Title: To prohibit misleading and deceptive advertising or representation in the provision of health care services.
Sponsor: Rep Sullivan, John [OK-1] (introduced 6/27/2006)
Cosponsors
(11)
Latest Major Action: 7/17/2006 Referred to House subcommittee. Status:
Referred to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.
Lamaze Myths
Women once learned about birth from their mothers, sisters and friends. Birth took place at home with family rituals and traditions to help women feel confident in their ability during labor. Today, a process, which is by definition natural, has become rigidly structured and controlled. There is much misinformation about birth. So much so, expectant parents can’t determine what is true and what is a myth.
Listed below are the top 5 myths about Lamaze:
* Myth #1: Lamaze is all about breathing.
* Myth #2: Lamaze promises painless childbirth.
* Myth #3: Lamaze childbirth means you can’t have an epidural.
* Myth #4: Lamaze doesn’t work.
* Myth #5: Lamaze is not for everyone.
For more information on Lamaze and the myths, see: lamaze.org
