Lick it!

I totally never realized that you could get postage stamps with an American Academy of Nurse Midwifery (ACNM) theme! Check it out!

Breast Crawl

Wow, simply wow. ?When I first heard of this concept, I really thought it was amazing, but didn’t see it happening in a hospital near me. ?Thankfully that tide is starting to turn, slowly, but it’s a start. ?Take a look at this amazing video!

(If for some reason, you can’t see the imbedded video, check here: http://breastcrawl.org/video.htm )

It’s amazing that something as simple can help breastfeeding mothers and babies so much. ?Not only will it help with breastfeeding, but it will also help with lowering infant mortality, particularly in third world countries.

ACOG Admits Defensive Medicine & Harming Patients

You know the news is bad when the headline reads:

ACOG Releases 2009 Medical Liability Survey

Results Paint Dismal Reality for Ob-Gyns and Their Patients

While this is a group that usually likes to stick their heads in the sand when it comes to the women that they care for, I was surprised at the honesty about the OB-GYNs that they serve. ?I know ACOG has been concerned about the number of doctors who are leaving obstetrics, but this actually breaks it down and shows you the drop in doctors offering VBACs, how many are being sued, etc. ?The most startling tale? ?They admit that it harms the patients…

And why are they not doing VBACs, seeing high risk patients and providing better care? ?I think they say it best:

“Of the survey respondents who reported making changes to their obstetric practice as a result of the risk or fear of professional liability claims or litigation, 30% decreased the number of high-risk obstetric patients that they accepted. In addition, 29% reported performing more cesarean deliveries, and 25.9% stopped offering/performing vaginal births after cesarean (VBACs). An additional 13.9% decreased the number of total deliveries.”

Litigation. ?Perhaps the power cry from the women shouldn’t be “Keep your scalpels off my body!” but rather, “I’ll promise not to sue if you practice evidenced based medicine.”

My OB said what?!?

A fun little blog is just getting started but is sure to be a fun read!? It’s called: My OB said what? I love the: “Your cervix is a bit dehydrated…”? Got one to share?

Postpartum Depression, Bottle Feeding and Infant and Mother Separation at Birth

There is a new study out by the University of Albany done by evolutionary psychologists that puts forward the idea that a woman who feeds her baby a bottle instead of breastfeeds may be at risk for postpartum depression due to the fact that her body will interpret this as an infant loss. The article states:

“for most of our evolutionary history the absence or early cessation of breastfeeding would have been occasioned by the miscarriage, loss, or death of an infant, and, at the level of basic biology, a mother’s decision to bottle feed rather than nurse unknowingly simulates that loss.”

This was a small scale study, only 50 mothers were surveyed. However, they still found interesting information:

“those who bottle fed their babies scored significantly higher on a postnatal depression scale than those engaged in breastfeeding.? The increased risk of depression among mothers who relied on bottle feeding held true even after controlling for such factors as age, education, income, and the mother?s relationship with her current partner.”

They also found that mothers who bottle feed tend to hold their infants more, which they have seen in primates whose babies have died and they cling to those babies for prolonged periods afterward. What I found most interesting though was this:

The UAlbany research team noted that the common hospital practice of isolating newborn infants together in a nursery for the first couple of days after birth, and the resulting intermittent separation of the mother from her baby during the initial post childbirth period, could also serve to simulate child loss and contribute to or set the stage for subsequent postpartum depression.

“Bottle feeding and hospital procedures that simulate child loss may increase the risk of postpartum depression,” Gallup said. “These practices fall within a growing number of medical issues that could benefit from a perspective of human evolutionary history.”

It is very interesting and significant that the common hospital practices here are linked to an increased risk of postpartum depression. The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression scale was used in this study to asses whether women were suffering from postpartum depression. However, they could also have been suffering from postnatal traumatic stress, since the Edinburgh scale only picks up depression symptoms and not trauma symptoms, and separation from infants is a key trauma risk. Either way, connecting postpartum mood disorders with the routine practices of separation of infants and mothers in a hospital seems to be a step in the right direction toward reforming maternity care.

Lamaze Birth Network Grants

The Lamaze Institute for Normal Birth offers small grants to birth networks every year for projects that they are doing. ?The awards are between $500-1000. ?While the word grant might scare you off, these are very straight forward to do, though require some thought and planning. ?Don’t let the October 16th deadline come up before you start writing!

Some birth networks have funded projects like maternity information fairs. ?Others have used the money to train leaders, work on a local transparency project or support education locally. ?The whole point is that a birth network has the pulse of what’s going on in their neighborhood and can best decide what projects they need.?What would you do with that money? ?Feel free to talk it out in the comments, we have some mentors reading and willing to help you!