Monthly Archives: November 2006

If you’re like me you love to read or watch a good birth story. There are so many places that offer birth stories, though not always positive ones. I came across a really great story today at the Lamaze Blog:

Right on her due date Keiko started having contractions. As planned, she stayed home until they were strong and close together. When I joined Keiko and her husband at the hospital, I found her standing, wrapped rather elegantly in a hospital blanket that she had somehow fashioned into a garment. She looked beautiful. “I think it is working!” she said smiling. Whenever a contraction came, she quietly and gracefully moved in rhythm with her breathing. Unless you were watching closely, you wouldn’t even know that she was having one. When it was over she would smile again. “I really love the rest periods” she said.

When the contractions became very intense, she had to work hard. She spent the entire labor out of bed. She said she couldn’t imagine not being able to move. All the way through, she kept her positive attitude. “It’s very hard” she said several times.

To find out what happens to Keiko, be sure to check out the rest of the story. While you’re there you should look around too!

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I am not sure how many have heard about BIRTH the tour and the resulting one hour public radio documentary. The tour is done and now it’s time to contact our local Public Radio stations and encourage them to carry the documentary during women’s history month – March 07. Here’s the link for more information:
http://www.thinairmedia.org/birthtour.html

with a passion for birth,
Teri

PS I am getting hooked on posting! It’s not hard, join in! Continue reading →

I’m a bit late commenting on this post from the New Yorker. In the middle of a tale of one woman’s birth, the narrator gives us a view how far we’ve come in birth.

He talks about the APGAR score and how they are working on a surgical score – after all, it’s not just good enough to take the mother’s well being or death as the only way to tell if she’s okay with the experience. There has to be an emotional factor as well as a “wounded” category, the I’m alive but not whole or well. (Like the Optimality Score I heard Amy Romano, CNM, discuss at a CIMS meeting last year.)

It was sad to watch this mother in the story get railroaded, at least from an emotional standpoint. She seems to fit my category above so well. Though the real tragedy is that she is led to believe that she can’t be happy she’s got a health, beautiful baby and still upset about the process…

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