Preparedness

Preparedness refers to the state of being prepared for specific or unpredictable events or situations. Preparedness is an important quality in achieving goals and in avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.

While working on a mural I am painting for my daughter’s room this week, I was thinking about how I am in the “nesting” phase of pregnancy. I am actually preparing a new space for my older daughter and the new baby will move into the current nursery after a period of co-sleeping with my husband and I.

This got me thinking about how women prepare for birth. Do many pregnant women feel they are prepared for labor? Do women enter labor in a calm state of mind and feel confident that they know what to do, their partner knows what to do, and they have full trust in their care providers?

We prepare everything else for a new baby. We buy mass amounts of baby gear after doing hours upon hours of research about the “safest” and the most functional brands. We gather tons of baby clothes and blankets and wash them before hand. We buy an infant seat and put it in our car weeks before our due dates AND we prepare the baby’s nursery.

But do many American women feel prepared for labor? How about the ability to labor naturally, without intervention?

The answer is no. American women are scared of birth. Fear has been set into us at an early age. Pitocin, epidurals, and C-sections are part of our culture. Why would we try to birth naturally when we don’t have to be prepared? We go to the hospital and they take care of things for us. The job is out of our hands once the heavy contractions start. And we aren’t allowed to make decisions when we are “in that state” anyway.

What if we made child birthing classes mandatory? What if we showed all those wonderful natural birthing videos that birthing advocate mommas and caregivers have seen? What if women left feeling empowered to have the strength and courage to labor naturally? There may be less medical interventions and c-sections! There may be less premature babies and babies may be born in a less traumatic way! Breastfeeding may be easier! Why, it may just turn the healthcare industry upside down!!

Fear and helplessness is running our birthing community. Shout it from the rooftops, and educate women that they are strong, birth is empowering, and most importantly, that they have a choice. Tell them it is a good idea to prepare your mind and body for birth, just like you prepare the baby clothing and a place for the baby to sleep.

Preparedness refers to the state of being prepared for specific or unpredictable events or situations. Preparedness is an important quality in achieving goals and in avoiding and mitigating negative outcomes.

My daughter's mural

Getting Closer to your Partner During Pregnancy

We are with the baby at every moment. The baby feeds off or our nourishment, we feel them wiggle, hiccup, and kick. They listen to our voices, they feel comforted by our warmth, nutrition, movements, our heartbeat, and our breath. The momma instinct kicks in quickly. We bond with our pea-sized fetus and fall in love almost instantly.

What about fathers? What about partners that are not carrying the child? They are much more distanced from the entire pregnancy than the birth mom. It is a time for profound early attachment and family bonding to begin. It is also a time of an emotional rollercoaster, for both parties involved. I’d like to explore emotional changes during pregnancy, and questions to sit down to discuss with your partner to create a closer pregnancy experience.

1st Trimester Emotional Changes:

Momma: ambivalence, lack of sex drive, fears of miscarriage, disturbing dreams, begins to assume role of caregiver, begins to identify as mother, feeling trapped

Partner: pride, has difficulty communicating with mom, feels mom is withdrawn, tenderness, sympathetic, new sense of responsibility, feeling trapped.

2nd Trimester Emotional Changes:

Momma: accepting body image changes, baby assumes more important role, may feel changes are out of control, overwhelming responsibility, more dependent on partner, possible increased sex drive, sensitive to comments, criticism, especially from partner.

Partner: anxiety over economics, future thinking, baby becomes more real as movement is felt, dealing with mom’s changing body, sex drive often hampered over fear of hurting mom and baby, may be alarmed as mom’s sex drive increases, often feels over- protective.

3rd Trimester Emotional Changes:

Momma: ambivalence about labor and birth, increase interest in baby, insomnia, vivid dreams, concern over ability to mother this child, needs reassurance and signs of love from partner, fear about baby’s health, concerned with discomforts, feels link in history of humanity, pride, joy, humble.

Partner: worries about labor and birth, worries about health of momma and baby, feels tenderly protective, vivid dreams, memories of own caregivers, worries over ability to parent, heightened sense of responsibility, economic worries, heightened interest in process of labor and birth.

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Because many of these emotional changes may not be considered “positive”, parents tend to steer away from discussing fears, worries, negative dreams etc….

I am now including a list of questions that may help bring couples together in this emotional time. Please find a time and a quiet and peaceful space to discuss these with your partner. The series of questions has been included to start a discussion about feelings during pregnancy. If at any time you need assistance to discuss these questions as a couple, please seek the help of a mental health professional in your area. Below you will find a link to a mental health search engine.

http://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/

1) When I found out we were expecting a baby I felt:

2) Now I feel:

3) When I feel the baby move I feel:

4) I have had the following dreams about the baby or birth:

5) The biggest fear I have about having a child is:

6) The biggest question/ uncertainty I have about being a parent is:

7) The thing I like best about being pregnant/ about my partner being pregnant is:

The thing I like least about being pregnant/ about my partner being pregnant is:

9) I think/ I think my partner’s body is:

10) Early in my pregnancy my sexual feelings were:

11) Later in my pregnancy my sexual feelings were:

12) The thing I feel most women worry about in childbirth is:

13) The thing that concerns me about labor/ childbirth is:

14) The worst thing I could do in labor/ childbirth would be:

15) The biggest question/ uncertainty I have about being a mother/father is:

16) I think of my parents as:

17) The main way I would like to be different from my parents is:

18) The thing I like least about my partner is:

19) The thing I like most about my partner is:

20) The pregnancy has affected our relationship as a couple by:

Much love, Amy

A Weighty Issue

Americans have been warned for years about the perils of being overweight or obese.  Indeed the risks for a host of complications increase steadily as the pounds pile on.  For many people, the risks can be temporarily ignored; after all, it takes years to develop heart disease or Type II diabetes.  But for one segment of the population, the risks are immediate and grave: Pregnant women.

For obese women expecting a child, the nine months of gestation bring with them potentially life-threatening complications (to mother and child).  Chief among the issues related to obesity in pregnancy are pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and cesarean section.  The New York Times published an article the other day outlining the risks and providing the real-life example of one woman and her ordeal with a 29 week preemie.

So what are we to do?  Weight is such a sensitive issue for so many women, even those without excess pounds.  Doctors are often hesitant to bring up the subject of a patient’s weight during an office visit, for fear of offending the patient or “pointing out the obvious.”  And the short time allotted for an office visit, for general practitioners as well as OB-GYNs, means that little time is able to be devoted to counseling in nutrition, exercise, and weight loss or maintenance.  Traditionally, midwifery care focuses more on nutrition and holistic pregnancy care, but midwife care is not available to all women, nor is it the end-all, be-all solution.

We need greater outreach to obese women of childbearing age, both before and during their pregnancies.  In fact, we may need to start sooner than that.  According to the CDC, almost 1/3 of American teenagers are overweight or obese.  Outreach needs to start as early as middle school, and continue throughout high school.  We also need community resources to reach across all income strata, in the form of outpatient clinics/support groups as well as education for Medicaid and WIC recipients.  We need to work to take away the shame and stigma of weight issues, while still providing empowerment for all people to take charge of their weight, and ultimately, their overall health.

We need more people thinking about solutions beyond “wider, sturdier” examining tables (as the NY Times article mentions).  What are your ideas and experiences?

It can wait for tomorrow…

I had one of those days where I had a list of things to do while out on the town, had my 10 month old in tote, and because of forces out of my control, got none of them done. I planned my outing to go something like this: get the oil changed in my car, go to the bank, and pick up dog food. NONE of this happened. I was waiting around way too long at the oil change shop when they said I was next in line (they lied). During this time the baby got cranky and by the time we were out there (without the oil change), it was nap-time so we did not proceed to the bank or the dog food store. What a HUGE waste of my day. When I got home I was really worked up and frustrated and then yelled at my husband who unfortunately works from a home office and is available to yell at whenever the mood strikes me, poor guy. On top of this, the baby would not go down for her nap when we got home so she was still cranky. Great.

When daddy stopped work for the day and was able to lend a hand in childcare, I was able to breathe and reflect a bit. My anger subsided and this feeling of  ”it’s okay, it can wait for tomorrow” took over me.

This got me thinking about all those mommas that are being persuaded into labor induction and this made me sad. In my first pregnancy my OB asked me if I’d like to schedule a cesarean when I was about 17 weeks along. There was no medical reason for this, it was for convenience! This is when a light bulb went off for me and I got the momma sixth sense that something was very, very wrong here. I immediately proceeded to change providers and practically ran to a natural birthing center where ended up having a non-complicated, peaceful, water birth.

What about the mommas who do not know that there are birthing choices? Do women think that it is normal to schedule a date to induce labor? To schedule cesareans?

It seems that many young, healthy women that I’ve had conversations with recently do not believe it is possible to have a natural birth. They were told for one reason or another that they aren’t “allowed” to. That they “have to” schedule inductions to not pose any “risk” to the labor process. These women pack their bags, do their hair and makeup before they leave for their scheduled date at the hospital, get induced and often receive an epidural when they get there, and with one or two pushes the baby is out.

Is this what birth has become? Do we have our babies like we shop online? For convenience? If there is no MAJOR medical reason why you need to have your labor induced, please stop to to think of the risk you are really putting your baby in by inducing.

Why would labor be induced?

There are several possible reasons. Those nearer the top of this list are cases where the benefits may outweigh the risks. Those nearer the bottom of this list,  the risks are more likely to outweigh the benefits.

1. If the baby or mother has a SEVERE health condition which makes it riskier to continue the pregnancy than to induce;  severe pre-eclampsia, diabetes with complications (it is estimated that this rationale for induction only applies to 3% of pregnancies)
2. Water breaking. If mom is more than 35 weeks pregnant, and it’s been more than 24-48 hours since membranes ruptured, most caregivers recommend induction to reduce risk of infection.
3. A baby that’s “overdue” – pregnancy lasting over 42 weeks.
4. If baby or mother has a MILDER health condition.
5. A pregnancy lasting over 41 weeks.
6. The baby is “too large.” (Although this is a common reason for physicians to recommend induction, research seems to indicate that there are not significant benefits to inducing labor)
7. Convenience or preference. Of the mother, or the caregiver. The risks outweigh the benefits.

Summary of induction risks.

All of the forms of induction can lead to stronger, more painful, and more frequent contractions, which may lead the mother to use pain medications she might otherwise not require. These powerful contractions may also limit oxygen supply to the baby, so increase the risk of fetal distress. Also, due to the uncertainty of due dates, and the variation in the amount of time any given baby requires to reach maturity, early induction carries a risk of causing premature birth. There is a significant increase in the chance of cesarean.

Questions to ask your provider if induction is recommended:

1. Why? What are the reasons why it would be better to deliver the baby sooner?

2.  How? Could we start with one of the non-medical options and see if that works?

2.  When? Is this something that needs to happen today? What would happen if we waited a few more days? Another week? Is it possible that it can wait for tomorrow….

Think about it, challenge providers, do your research. Only you know what’s best for yourself and your baby. 

Much love,

Amy

Avoiding the Stranded Beetle

It never really occurred to me how I should give birth as far as positions went.  I suppose before I had my first baby I just assumed it must work in a bed, laying down, because that’s what everyone did and babies came out, right?  I’m going to date myself here and say that this was about 19 years ago, when the cesarean rate at my hospital was an “alarming” 22% (That same hospital is now at 42%.)  I really wanted to give birth vaginally and without drugs.  I knew want I wanted and I read a lot of books, which were also extremely limited in number.

Some great books that really stuck with me that were as true today as they were then included:

• Good Birth Safe Birth – This is the one that really won me over talking about the safety of unmedicated birth and how simple it all looked.  I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of this book if you haven’t yet read it.
• Spiritual Midwifery – I’ll admit it freaked me out a bit to read this one, but the Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth is a really nice one to offer parents in its place.

Here’s the deal, I truly don’t remember them telling me not to get in bed.  Now before you think it’s a lack of information, I think it’s not.  I think these authors trusted me and trusted my body to know that my instincts would tell me to get up to give birth in a way that I had not even thought about.

It wasn’t until my childbirth class that someone actually said: “Don’t do the stranded beetle!”  All of a sudden it clicked.  All of these women were stranded beetles, laying on their backs with their legs in the air, flailing – trying to give birth against gravity!  As if birth wasn’t challenging enough!

When I talked to my doctor about being more upright for birth I was told that it was not a problem!  I could sit up (meaning that I was allowed to lift my head off the pillow) but that I couldn’t “hang from the chandelier.”  I think many women believe that they gave birth sitting up, when in fact, a slightly propped hospital bed is not the same thing as giving birth in an upright position.

The truth is that if we want women to be able to connect to their bodies natural urges to push, we also need to give them realistic options for avoiding the stranded beetle.  This means that we have to change the imagery that they are thinking of when it comes to birth.  And while it’s hard to counteract years of Baby Story and media in general, we can do that by incorporating upright positioning in childbirth class and even in prenatal exercise classes.  We can show birth videos that have women assuming upright positions (List your favorite in the comments!).  And when at a birth we can encourage a woman to follow her instincts and offer her alternatives other than the bed.  Birth ball anyone?

• Get up, stand up!  Blog Carnival
• Get Upright and Follow Urges to Push

Distortion of Natural Birth

I was so happy to follow up on Ashley’s Midwife Vs. Medwife post because I really feel as though this will be a little piggy back on the subject. Last night I tuned into ABC’s hit series Private Practice, and during the episode I seriously started to wonder why I continue to watch the show that makes my blood boil.

But what really ate at me was they way they portrayed a mother who was working towards a natural birth. Which made me think about the way that the public views the natural birth community, as well as women who simply want a natural birth for themselves.

They treated this woman in the episode like the butt of all the jokes in the episode until the emotionally charged climax of her birth viewed by perfect strangers that would have been a major HIPAA Violation.  The episode shows this woman with a multi-page birth plan, grinding on the door frame of the birth suite trying to squat to help her labor, joking about how she had been in labor for 3+ days, all of which as a mother who has labored naturally, I found offensive.  The character was essentially the comedy of the episode.

It made me think about the perception the American public is going to get from this message, as well as their views on women who do choose to give birth naturally. Do they think we are all just a bunch of hippies that bite on sticks until we drop a baby out in the middle of a meadow while singing show tunes?  Come on!

The problem is shows like this.
The problem is the myths about who has natural births.
The problem is typical stereotypes.

Where do we start?
How do we start to re-educate and properly educate the public so they don’t think all moms who want to have a natural birth aren’t ding bats like this character was?

I really hope that shows like this, and Grey’s Anatomy, and other medical drama’s take the time to fix the American stereotype of birthing naturally. Women from all walks of life do it!

Just on a side note, the character who was attending this woman’s birth “Dell” a “student midwife” came off as a Student OB/GYN if anything. He had no type of midwife qualities in him what so ever and I think that is another huge slap to the natural birth community. He at best was a “medwife” if that!

Epidurals vs. Unmedicated

I was talking to someone today who was trying to decide if an epidural was right for her in her upcoming labor.  She was well read and still had some concerns on the topic.  But in part of our correspondence she said something that made me realize that she felt it was the epidural or do nothing.  We had a long talk about how women who choose to go without an epidural don’t just sit there writhing in pain until the baby suddenly falls out – they prepare and actively participate.

I explained that if she had any intention of going without an epidural, even a slim chance, that she should find a childbirth class that was designed for women who did NOT want an epidural.  Then she would be prepared, but that if she changed her mind and wanted an epidural she could always have one.  I told her that there were many things that women do to cope with pain in labor including:

• positioning
• movement
• massage
• relaxation
• encouragement
• water
• heat
• cold
• TENS

What would you have told her?

Loyally Devoted to Doctor

I recently read the book The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N Aron, Ph.D. In the chapter called Medics, Medication, and Highly Sensitive People, the author states:

“Keep in mind, too, that it is common to feel an attachment to anyone you have been with during an arousing experience, especially if it was a truly painful or emotionally significant ordeal. In the medical realm you hear these sorts of extra feelings when people describe their surgeon or women talk about the person who delivered their child, which is perfectly normal. The solution is simply to know why it happens and compensate for it appropriately.”

In the chapter about relationships, she talks about studies that were done that showed people are far more likely to fall in love under stressful circumstances. She applied this phenomenon to attachment in all relationships, not just romantic relationships. Later when I read the above statement in the medical chapter, so many things started to make sense to me.

Why do women love their maternity care provider, even when they may have done unnecessary procedures on them and not allowed them to make their own choices? Why do many providers use scare tactics? Why do women hold so adamantly to the belief that their provider “saved their life” or “saved their baby” or “was a great doctor” or “really took good care of me”, even when evidence to the contrary is right in front of them? Why do they fail to make important connections, such as that their c-section may have been one of the many unnecessary ones, or that there may not have been a true evidence based need for their induction? Why is childbirth treated like a major emergency with so much fear and anxiety around it? Why aren’t all women who give birth in this system severely traumatized from it, and instead defend and adore their doctors? The answer is simple: the culture of fear that surrounds childbirth actually endears women to their doctors. It cements the relationship between women, their doctors, and the hospitals their doctors practice at. It ensures that the women will keep coming back, and will recommend their providers to all their friends as they speak about them in glowing heroic terms. It is quite brilliant really, providers and hospitals have found the key to running a very successful business, and it has nothing to do with allowing women to make their own choices. They simply have to give the illusion prenatally that the woman can make her own choices for her birth, and then make sure that the actual experience of birth is one filled with fear, anxiety, and of course a healthy baby, and then the narcissistic provider will come out looking like roses to the woman who must endure the “horrors of childbirth”.

Of course, I am not really giving the doctors the benefit of the doubt here. They likely don’t know on a conscious level what they are really doing. They have been trained to act this way, by people who were also trained to act this way, and it is reinforced for them every time a woman profusely thanks her doctor for a job well done, and every time a woman tells her birth horror story where the good doctor makes an appearance as the hero who delivers her baby to her despite all the dangers that presented at the last minute. Both the woman and the doctor seem ignorant of the psychological effects that framing every average birth as a medical emergency creates.

In the statement above, the author states: “it is common to feel an attachment to anyone you have been with during an arousing experience, especially if it was a truly painful or emotionally significant ordeal.” This describes childbirth perfectly. The word “arousing” here is referring to sensory levels. That can mean physically, emotionally, sexually, or any other assault to the senses, good or bad, that can be had. We know childbirth can be described as “arousing” in many ways. It is also inherently “painful” and “emotionally significant”. Even when women use drugs, there is still some level of pain before she took them, and depending on what type of drugs she took, she may still experience pain while she is taking them. So really, all births fit this criteria. Births in a hospital, or at home, or in a birth center all have these same basic elements. It seems women are wired to form an attachment to the people who were with her and helped her through the event. This could be her partner, her doula, her midwife, her doctor, her nurse, or her friend or relative. I think this type of attachment likely had an evolutionary purpose at one time. It would be ideal to attach to an older, wiser woman who assisted with the delivery of babies who would have been there to care for the mom postpartum, and to slowly help her to bond and form an attachment to the baby. This wise woman would then help the mother learn to breastfeed and care for her new infant, while slowly pulling back her own attentions from the situation. This is what we have in homebirth midwives today. How would our ancestors have fared if a man had shown up in the tribe to deliver a baby, and then disappeared immediately afterward? The woman would be left adoring him, yet not having help from him to form an attachment to her infant. Never learning how to breastfeed or other infant care skills. What would have become of humanity? What is becoming of humanity?

Midwives and doulas seem to understand this phenomenon. Doulas usually visit a woman once or twice postpartum and are available if she needs to talk or has questions about the baby, breastfeeding, or the birth. Midwives start seeing a woman more and more as the birth approaches, and then once the baby is born, they start to taper off again, seeing her less and less until she is no longer needed at all. This is a much more natural and appropriate response to caring for a woman during such a pivotal transition in her life. What happens when women see doctors or CNM’s in hospitals though? They are likely seeing a practice, not a specific provider. They will likely not give birth with the same doctor or CNM they saw prenatally. They may never see the same doctor or CNM again after they give birth, or perhaps just once at the six week checkup. How does this affect women emotionally, or in her relationship with her baby, when instead of having a slow winding away from her provider, there is just an abrupt ending to the relationship? Does this interfere with breastfeeding, or affect feelings of trauma related to the birth, or feelings of depression related to her new role as mother? It is ingrained in our psyche to attach to these people who help us through such a major event in our life. How will the people we choose handle this responsibility? Are we choosing someone who will corrupt our experience and force an unnatural attachment to them by creating more anxiety around the experience? Are we choosing someone who will be there for us days, weeks, and months later to answer our questions about the baby or to offer us emotional support? Will the person we choose even be available for the birth, and will we ever see them again afterward?

Now I realize why other women feel the way they do about their provider. I did not attach to my provider, I was instead extremely traumatized by her actions. I still wonder why some women are traumatized, and others fall in love with their providers, given the same set of circumstances. I wonder if it is actually more natural, and thus common, to attach to a provider even when (or perhaps especially when) that provider creates an atmosphere of fear. It makes sense then why so few of us are speaking up about the system and the way women are treated. It makes sense that women are extremely loyal to their providers, even when many aspects of their births were disappointing or upsetting to them. It makes sense that many women are reluctant to accept that there is anything wrong with maternity care. It makes sense why the maternity care system is so hard to change and is met with so much resistance from every side.

What can birth activists do to help women form healthy attachments during this transitional time in her life? It may be tempting to try to convince all women to have a homebirth with a midwife since we know that they are probably the best option for healthy attachments and a healthy weaning away as well, however, if a woman has already formed a strong attachment to a certain provider, it may be more realistic to recommend having a doula. A doula will be there prenatally, for the birth, and postpartum, and therefore can provide much of the physical and emotional support that new moms need and deserve. Some moms may hire a doula, yet keep her same provider that she has formed an attachment to, and others may find that a doula is a stepping stone to having a homebirth the next time. One day I hope that maternity care shifts to being centered around the mother again, and not around the provider and his schedule or routine.

Why Our Women are Afraid of Birth

Deliver Me

It is Tuesday, at 10pm while I settle in after getting my little ones to bed. I flip through the channels and settle on discovery healthy which is a personal favorite of mine, but it really has only recently become a favorite because of shows like I didn’t know I was pregnant. It fascinates me that women could make it though a full term pregnancy and not know they were pregnant, but that is just me, and the experiences that I had with my children is what makes me wonder how the heck women could not know they were pregnant.  But that is completely besides my point today.
So as I watch this show, I am noticing a trend. High risk, high risk, high risk, previous cesarean section, scheduled cesarean section, high risk, healthy first time mother, scheduled cesarean, high risk. Well I mean, that is how it is in Los Angeles right?  You would think so!  But apparently because only these crazy, scary, uncommon births make something called ratings, that is all they are going to feature on TV. Because in reality, no one wants to watch a natural birth or a home birth because no one is running around with a scalpel screaming about the emergency that childbirth is. Nor is the mother screaming for her epidural because she just cant deal with the pain of the 3 hours of labor so far.
But what we should be thinking about most importantly is the message this is sending. What is this teaching first time mothers or even young women that may not be planning on having children soon but will some day?  It is teaching them how scary, dangerous, and medical birth is supposed to be. But is that really how birth is? Of course not. Anyone who has taken the time to read the studies, and just not follow what mainstream society thinks is the right way to handle pregnancy will know that birth is not scary or dangerous or a huge emergency. While it can be in some cases, in most cases it can and will be beautiful when just left alone.

When a woman becomes pregnant today, if they do not already have an Obstetrician they have been seeing for well women care since 16, or whatever age their parent decided it was the right them for them, what is the first thing that they do? They ask around their circle of female friends for the best Doctor out there because isn’t that what we all want? We want the one who is the BMW of pre natal care. Little do women know that they are really going to end up with the 1990 Dodge Dynasty when they take this route because hands off is better.
But because our society has told us this is the way things should be, they run off like lemmings right off the cliff of medical interventions landing in the valley of cesarean sections.

Maybe if the television channels like Discovery health followed a dozen home births or even aired The Business of Being Born they could get a popular, and controversial other side to what they are constantly airing. Maybe it will boost their ratings even more, maybe not?  But what it will do is give the other side of the whole issue. Let’s get Marsden Wagner to do a half hour special on Birth in The United States and see how many women run off to the midwives.  Instead they air these disgustingly inaccurate “Freebirthing” shows. They find the one idiot who is going to make women who choose unassisted birth look like a bunch of uneducated yokels.  Which is exactly what they did with their special on Unassisted birth.

I guess in the end, like anything else the television airs, it is biased and we shouldn’t expect much different.

Quote of the Day: Make Yourself Look Important and Busy

“A doctor must do something. He cannot remain a spectator merely, where there are many witnesses, and where interest in what is going on is too deep to allow of his inaction.”

Walter Channing, 1848
Harvard Medical School professor of obstetrics

Read more about Channing’s career and what the Harvard Medical School’s alumni blog calls the Channings “legacy of compassion” and “commitment to social justice.”