Lamaze Offers Birth Network Grants

Application Deadline: 5:00 p.m. (EST), Friday, October 17, 2008

The Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth was launched to support
initiatives that provide credible, relevant and useful information about normal birth to birth professionals and the public. A key initiative of the Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth is to support the development of grassroots, community-based Birth Networks. Since 2003,
the Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth has given numerous mini-grants to birth networks throughout the United States.

The Goals of the Birth Network Mini-Grant Initiative
The Birth Network Mini-Grant Initiative is designed to support the development or expansion of community-based networks that bring the public and birth professionals together to:

• promote the Six Care Practices that Support Normal Birth and the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI)
• improve the quality of maternity care locally
• provide information and resources to expectant women and their families so that they can make informed choices about maternity care.

The Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth offers up to ten $500 to $1,000 grants annually to support established or emerging community-based Birth Networks in North America

http://www.lamaze.org/Default.aspx?tabid=529

“The Doctors”: Carrying on the Homebirth Turf War?

I’ve recently been following a series of emails from women who have been solicited for stories of homebirth by producers of a new spin-off of the “Dr. Phil” show, called, “The Doctors.” Apparently, the questionnaire included the following questions:

• Did you have a child at your home?
• Did you want to have a soothing experience where you were in control and could bond with your child?
• Did it not go the way you planned?
• Do you regret having a home birth?
• Do you regret using a midwife instead of going to a hospital?
• Did you have your second child the traditional way in a hospital?
• If you or someone you know regrets having a home birth please tell us your story below.

One of the associate producers, Judith Sanchez, is working on the project. She solicited Ricky Lake and Abby Epstein to appear on the show and they have declined. If you would like to write to her and give her your opinion, you can email her at judith.sanchez@cbs.com or call her at (323)956-8289. I have drafted the following email to send to her. Maybe it will give you some ideas.

Judith,

I wanted to write you a quick email about an upcoming episode of “The Doctors” that I understand will be focused on home birth. I have received forwarded messages that indicated that the questions for home birthers who might appear on your show are decidedly negative and it appears that your show is less interested in the best research and more interested in fishing for negative stories that would produce a sensationalist, anti-midwifery show. I hope that this is not the case, but I want to direct you to some interesting and relevant facts.

1. Although it spends more on maternity care than any other industrialized nation, the United States still ranks 37th in infant mortality. According to “The CIA World Factbook,” Singapore led the world with an infant mortality rate of 2.30 per 1,000 live births, followed by Sweden with a rate of 2.76 and Japan at 2.80. The United States’ rate of 6.37 ranked just 37th, behind South Korea and Cuba and just ahead of Croatia.

2. In all the other countries that have better infant mortality rates than we do, including most European nations, midwives attend approximately 75% of births. In the Netherlands, which is near the top, over a third of births still take place at home. In the United States, midwives attend only 10% of births. Only 1% of births take place at home.

3. 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.

4. The American Public Health Association and the American College of Nurse Midwives support women choosing home birth. In addition, the British counterpart for ACOG, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have stated that “there is no reason why home birth should not be offered to women at low risk of complications… it may confer considerable benefits for them and their families. There is ample evidence showing that labouring at home increases a woman’s likelihood of a birth that is both satisfying and safe…”

While you are fishing for stories about disastrous home births, may I point out that there are just as many or more stories of negligence, injury, and death for hospital births. I sincerely hope that you will not try to undo the many years of work that birth advocates have dedicated to the fight for evidence-based care, mother-friendly care, and the preservation of a woman’s right to choose how, where, and with whom she will birth. I myself gave birth at home. I understood that there were certain risks involved with doing so, but having read the research and having seen so many hospital births as a doula and the sub-standard, even unethical care that women received in the hospital setting I determined that the risks associated with birthing at home were more acceptable to me than the risks associated with giving birth in a hospital.

Thank you for your consideration. If your show can truly become a reliable and “must-go-to” source for the latest breakthroughs and cutting-edge practices and procedures, you must develop a sense of trust with your viewer. Part of developing that trust is to make sure that the information you give is not sensationalistic or biased, but based on the best evidence.

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Day, LCCE, CD(DONA)

Eco-friendly, Natural Birthing

With the global environmental crisis going on, I can’t help but be surprised that there’s not more being said about fundamental shifts needed in our thinking. What difference would it make if more women opted for intervention-free, natural births?

As a Bradley Method(r) Instructor, I’m inclined to see birth from a natural perspective. Dr. Bradley’s ideas about birth came from the farm; he observed other mammals giving birth, and in his obstetric practice observed that the same characteristics benefit a laboring human mother. A quiet, safe, dark place. Abdominal breathing. Freedom of movement. Relaxed.

Take all these natural characteristics, apply them to the hospital room, and you’ve reduced the amount of energy used. The lights are dimmed or off, less plastic contraptions are used and discarded, and waste in general is minimal. If you consider a home birth, you take away the fuel used in transportation (except for the midwives), the waste is contained to whatever you use in your kit, there are no machines to use electricity, and precious human energy is saved to focus on what matters – the birth of a healthy child by a healthy mother.

Even more important, though, is the contact between mother and child. Most natural is the bonding between mother and child, whether animal or human. I love Michele Odent’s theories about bonding he mentions in The Business of Being Born. “Can a society survive without love?” he asks in his French accent. (He further explicates his theories in this video series.)

Read the story and look at the slideshows about the elephant born at the Oregon Zoo. The elephant is sweet, yes, but do you feel that the mother is looking for something? Is she seeking a private place for herself and her new baby? Is she looking for support from others of her kind? (Note that in the story she seems “comforted” when getting to see others from her herd.) Is the baby trying to connect to the mother after an extended separation? Where does one get bottles like that in the African wilderness? Do we really learn anything from births like this, or are we just trying to impose our typical modern maternity care upon others? Does that mean one in three elephants have cesarean sections?

There are many birth videos to watch online (many collected at Free Birth Videos ). We are blessed to have so many. We are blessed to have the technology when it’s needed. For the most part, though, we do our society and our planet a favor when we birth as nature intended, and that’s a fundamental shift our maternity care system can use.

Northwestern Women’s Law Center Writes Article About Birthing Women’s Legal Rights

Sarah L. Ainsworth is senior legal and legislative counsel at Northwest Women’s Law Center. She is the author of a recent article in a Washington paper. The article is entitled “High rate of C-section births is health concern for women”.

Some notable quotes from the article:

Both the law and respect for women’s humanity require that every pregnant woman be fully informed of the risks of all forms of labor and delivery in a language she can understand; that she be supported in her decisions about how to bring her children into the world, whether it be in a hospital, a birthing center or at home; and that she not be penalized for those decisions either medically or legally.

A pregnant woman must either submit to a subsequent C-section, whether she thinks it is a wise medical decision or not, or deliver her baby outside the hospital. For those women who do not want a home birth, or who cannot have one because of lack of health insurance coverage or lack of available midwives within a safe distance of home, this is coercion, not consent.

Policies and practices that force pregnant women to submit to unnecessary surgery cannot be justified. We would never countenance that practice for any other patient. Pointing to potential risk to the baby does not justify ignoring the mother’s decisions about her medical care.

Such reasoning inappropriately views a pregnant woman’s decision about her and her baby’s needs as suspect, and it ignores her legal rights as a patient. All pregnant women, whether they view birth as a natural event only rarely needing medical intervention, or whether they willingly accept medical assistance with the birth process, have the legal right to informed consent and to direct the experience of bringing their children into the world.

Cesarean’s are just one of many procedures that many birthing women are not allowed to give informed consent to. This is the first article or statement I have ever seen by someone in the legal field that says that this is legally wrong to do to women. I personally have contacted several lawyers and not one would talk to me, or allow me to pay them for an hour of their time while I presented my case to them. I am thrilled to see some acknowledgment by a legal organization that ignoring a pregnant woman’s rights is illegal and cannot be justified.

Birth On Labor Day

September is finally here, and Labor Day is going to be so much more than a break from school. All around the world, women are taking part in “Birth On Labor Day.” An arts-based movement to bring attention and awareness to the crisis in maternity care and to inspire communities to make the changes that will create childbirth choices that work for mothers. The event revolves around performances all around the world of Karen Brody’s play, “Birth”. “Birth” tells the story of eight women’s birth experiences and paints a picture of how low-risk mothers are giving birth today.

Find a local performance by checking out the BOLD website at www.boldaction.org. Or think about hosting a performance in your city next year. In 2009, BOLD has announced that women can be bold any time of the year, so start planning now to host the play or the BOLD Red Tent in 2009 and put the spotlight on maternity care in your community.

Psychological Impact on Birth

Women who want low-intervention, medication-free births in hospitals have to go in ready for a fight. I know I was mentally prepared for one. This week I’ve been thinking about it a lot - what does this do to a woman’s labor? We know that there is definitely a mind/body connection and emotional issues can interfere with labor. What do you think? Do you have any experience with this?