birth activist

I've had several conversations over the last few days about the notion of responsibility for birth. The conclusion I've come to is that until women are willing to take responsibility for their actions regarding birth choices - they won't get the empowerment.

So let's say you have a particularly awesome birth. You had nearly every one of the desires met from your birth plan and you were in charge of the decisions. (Notice this does not say how or with whom you gave birth - but it was your choice.) You feel the empowerment because you took the responsibility.

But so many times women abdicate this responsibility by handing over the decision making ability to their care provider or make decisions that lead to a place they don't want to be and rather than accept the responsibility for that decision - they blame someone else. That person can be their practitioner, their husband/partner, their doula, the labor nurse... the list goes on.

For example, a woman says "The doctor saved my baby!" Great! I mean that's why we pay doctors and midwives - to be the life guards of birth. But a question that is often asked is - Why do we hear this statement so much? Are babies really needing to be "saved" that often?

The problem is two fold.

1) Women aren't as often standing up and making choices for themselves as well as making choices and then not accepting the responsibility for the outcome.

2) We have care provider who set up situations where they go from life guard to life saver. (Think of the arsonist who starts a fire only to rush in and save everyone and become the hero...)

The system is broken in many ways. This is but one angle. But it really points out the need for careful selection of your practitioner as well as the mental and emotional energy to delve into the decisions that you need to make as a parent wholeheartedly.

Tori Spelling of Beverly Hills 90210 fame is expecting her second baby. Her first child was born after her water broke and an induction that failed by cesarean section. Tori had been outspoken about taking Lamaze classes and wanting a vaginal birth.

After Liam was born she was initially very happy and said nothing negative about her birth. But as the weeks and months followed she admitted to being disappointed that she wasn't able to have a vaginal birth. She never said she was upset about the cesarean or felt like it was a bad thing, but merely that she was sorry to have not had a vaginal birth - two very different thoughts.

When she got pregnant this time, with a daughter due any day, I really thought that she was someone who had a great chance of having a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC). Now the rumors are flying that she's in surgery, probably as I'm typing this, to give birth to her daughter. If that's true I wonder why. She's been healthy, looked great and been active. She had a non-repeating factor for her cesarean. So my guess is that if she's having a repeat cesarean, it's her doctor. One quote she made about him immediately after Liam's birth stuck in my head:

"I asked Dr. Rothbart if he'd do a good job, and he said, 'Well, Angelina didn't complain.' So I was like if Angelina let him do a C-section in Africa, I am ok. I felt comforted by that."

Yikes. She talked about the pain of recovery and how hard it made life. Tori discussed her difficulties with breastfeeding, which, while she never connected it to the c-section, studies show us it was the most likely culprit. I wonder if she's thought about how hard that will be with two babies? But she was seen getting a pedicure yesterday and her hair done last week. I just pray she's only nesting and not pre-surgical nesting.

Confidence is a real issue in pregnancy. We do so much to destroy the confidence of other women, mostly unknowingly. This doesn't negate the damage done. However there are some glimmers of hope!

Lamaze International has just launched it's new Building Confidence Week by Week free email newsletters. They actually span from week 6 to week 42 of pregnancy, just like my pregnancy calendar does, so you know I'm partial to it! This is one piece of pregnancy mail I bet you'll look forward to every week and it's something that doulas, childbirth educators (of all walks), midwives and doctors can all feel confident about sending their client to read.

Okay you guys know that I moonlight as a geek most days of the week, a birth geek, but a geek nonetheless. So when I found out that CIMS was about to reveal their newest website, I was thrilled. They have such an important message about helping mothers and babies have the safest birth possible - something we all want - that it was thrilling to hear that soon it would be very easily accessible for most people. So without further delay, check it out:

Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS)
http://motherfriendly.org

I think most people would agree that we've got some problems with our maternity care in the United States. The cesarean and other intervention rates are skyrocketing and yet women are reporting that they aren't happy with their care. All the while some babies are suffering from our maternity care system when they shouldn't have to do so...

So thanks to Citizens for Midwifery (CfM) for putting together a really cool handout called Three Models of Care it includes the Midwives Model of Care, The CIMS Ten Steps and the Lamaze Normal Birth Care Practices. Wow, it's just cool. This is a great tool for childbirth educators, doulas, doctors, midwives, everyone who has a chance to interact with pregnant women and their families! Download your free copy today!

The FDA has urged us to be patient and calm about the bisphenol-A (BPA) leaching into plastic baby bottles. After all, it might be safe - who knows? Momsrising.org has a petition to sign written to the largest makers of baby bottles asking them to take action now before any more babies are harmed or potentially harmed...

Car e to join the petition?

While at first glance the title of this post might seem more like a spam ad for some weight loss product or sex site, but it's not. A recent study says that obesity in pregnancy costs more money and causes more cesareans. This is a newer, but familiar tune, one that blames the "difficult births" on the women, though this time just the obese ones.

I do admit that when I first read this report, the first person I thought of was long time activist and pregnancy supporter of overweight women, KMom. Through her Plus Sized Pregnancy site she has done more to help women have healthy pregnancies when dealing with weight issues than anyone can imagine, and certainly more than most practitioners combined.

So you can imagine how pleased I was to see her information at another great blog on this very topic. Please take a minute to stop by and read Our Bodies, Our Blog's coverage of: "Fat Women Can Give Birth Vaginally": Obesity and the Skyrocketing Rate of Cesarean Sections

Ideablob has 8 groups in the running this month for $10,000. Birth on Labor Day (BOLD) is one of those groups. They need your votes!

Did you know that last year alone, BOLD raised more than $75,000 for mother friendly maternity care? Let's help them help moms and babies by voting for them and spreading the word. Voting ends soon, so vote today!

This year there are regional focus groups and meetings on the goals for the Healthy People 2020. You can submit pre-written questions or sign up to attend to have your voices heard about your thoughts on what the goals should be in 2020.
Topics to think about might include:

• Disparities in maternity care
  
• Transparency in maternity care
  
• The rising cesarean rate
  
• The rising Maternal Mortality rate
  
• Breastfeeding rates

I'm in sunny Florida! It's actually a miracle that I made it here, but I'm enjoying the warm weather and its snowing in home. Thursday was our first full day and we had a full day workshop on various topics. I was a part of the Grassroots Activist Committee (GAC) workshop on doing GACSTATS (collecting facility level data from all 50 states) and The Birth Survey (a type of "consumer report" for birth care).
It was very thrilling! We were given instructions on how to make this happen in our states, where to get the information and how the information is gathered and used. Nasima, Elan and I worked on showing how people could market the Birth Survey.