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Category Archives: Obstetrics
Creepy Obstetric and Childbirth Technology Patents
Childbirth technology often seeks to predict the unpredictable and control that which does not always need to be controlled or managed. Unfortunately, the primary motivation for inventing new birth technologies and applications isn?t always to make birth safer?it?s often intended to make birth faster and less expensive for hospitals…
Click over for pictures and descriptions of how people have tried to invent ways to improve birth and parenting.
Of Birth Plans and OBs
Last week, ACOG repeated its statement on home birth. While there are so many misconceptions in their statement, on reallys tood out as important to women no matter where they plan to give birth: “ACOG encourages all pregnant women to get prenatal care and to make a birth plan.”
Wow, I wonder what their members think about this statement. Have you seen birth plans well accepted by OBs where you are? I’d love to hear your experiences…
Here is The Big Push for Midwive’s Response to ACOG:
The Big Push For Midwives responds to ACOG
PushNews from The Big Push for Midwives Campaign
CONTACT: Steff Hedenkamp, (816) 506-4630, RedQuill [ at ] kc.rr.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Thursday, February 7, 2008
ACOG: Out of Touch with Needs of Childbearing Families
Trade Union claims out-of-hospital birth is “trendy;” tries to play the “bad mother” card
(February 7, 2008) — The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), a trade union representing the financial and professional interests of obstetricians, has issued the latest in a series of statements condemning families who choose home birth and calling on policy makers to deny them access to Certified Professional Midwives. CPMs are trained as experts in out-of-hospital delivery and as specialists in risk assessment and preventative care.
“It will certainly come as news to the Amish and other groups in this country who have long chosen home birth that they’re simply being ‘trendy’ or ‘fashionable,’” said Katie Prown, PhD, Campaign Manager of The Big Push for Midwives 2008. “The fact is, families deliver their babies at home for a variety of very valid reasons, either because they’re exercising their religious freedom, following their cultural traditions or because of financial need. These families deserve access to safe, quality and affordable maternity care, just like everyone else.”
Besides referring to home birth as a fashionable “trend” and a “cause célèbre” that families choose out of ignorance, ACOG’s latest statement adds insult to injury by claiming that women delivering outside of the hospital are bad mothers who value the childbirth “experience” over the safety of their babies.
“ACOG has it backwards,” said Steff Hedenkamp, Communications Coordinator of The Big Push and the mother of two children born at home. “I delivered my babies with a trained, skilled professional midwifebecause I wanted the safest out-of-hospital care possible. If every state were to follow ACOG’s recommendations and outlaw CPMs, families who choose home birth will be left with no care providers at all. I think we can all agree that this is an irresponsible policy that puts mothers and babies at risk.”
The Big Push for Midwives calls on ACOG to abandon these outdated policies and work with CPMs to reduce the cesarean rate and to take meaningful steps towards reducing racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes in all regions of the United States. CPMs play a critical role in both cesarean prevention and in the reduction of low-birth weight and pre-term births, the two most preventable causes of neonatal mortality.
Moreover, their training as specialists in out-of-hospital maternity care qualifies CPMs as essential first responders during disasters in which hospitals become inaccessible or unsafe for laboring mothers. In addition, CPMs work to ensure that all babies born outside of the hospital undergo state-mandated newborn screenings and are provided with legal and secure birth certificates.
Currently, Certified Nurse-Midwives, who work predominantly in hospital settings, are licensed and regulated in all 50 states, while Certified Professional Midwives, who work in out-of-hospital settings, are licensed and regulated in 24 states, with legislation pending in an additional 20 states.
The Big Push for Midwives is a nationally coordinated campaign to advocate for regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states, the
District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and to push back against the attempts of the American Medical Association Scope of Practice Partnership to deny American families access to legal midwifery care.
Media inquiries should be directed to Steff Hedenkamp (816) 506-4630, RedQuill [ at] kc.rr.com.
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Posted in Homebirth, Hospital Birth, Midwifery, Obstetrics
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Don’t Storks Deliver Babies?
This article caught my attention today: Stork Tries a New Strategy
While the option of a “laborist” is not at all a new thing, it’s amazing to me that so many hospitals are now promoting this idea in the literature and media. Is it a sell job to the American people to get them back into the idea of not having one-to-one care? Is it a good idea?
I’ve thought of some angles that make me more than curious. We all know how annoying it is to have someone ask us the same 15 questions, then ask again every time there is shift change with the nurses. Now we will have to be on guard for the 12-hour shift change with our doctors, too? And while I realize this is no change for those of us with multi-doctor practices, has this been shown to be a good thing? Our laborist won’t even know those little nuances that matter in a way that we’ve explained them. Will the laborist read in a notated chart “don’t stand directly behind patient” and take it to heart so well that it becomes a part of their practice or will they read that and need to know more and ask questions about a trauma that happened 15 years ago, dragging it out into a labor situation that is already fraught with emotion? They won’t have the benefits of those moments in the office where you shared something that specifically could really help in a birthing situation. Some crucial feeling you shared or how your mother would love to have seen the baby…
For surgeons, I can see how this would be beneficial. Rather than attending labors, they could be on call for the actual surgeries that arise. The surgeon could be prepped for the surgery, given the woman’s expectations or specific information and keep surgery as that kind of specializied skill. The article clearly begins with the most obvious examples of why you want a laborist.
A non-sleepy, not on-call, specially skilled surgeon.
But is that the role of a laborist? Should that be the role of a care provider for a pregnancy? It seems to me that it is still the same crossing of skills vs roles that we find in homebirth vs hospital birth. Obstetricians and laborists are being trained to be surgeons with little left of the labor sitting professional role of the midwife. If most pregnancies would end in a normal vaginal birth, then isn’t there a benefit derived from the one on one care? If we don’t get to keep the same nurse, the same doctor, the same laborist, then where is the comfort that all mammals seek during labor? Where does the feeling of a momentous occasion come from? You and your partner become the only two people in a birth who have invested time and emotion into it. There is something missing here and that is the innate knowledge of how births occur and what women need.
This article focuses on the positives to the care providers and once again ignores the needs of the mothers and babies. Yes, we need reliable, awake surgeons for those 6-15% of births that need surgery, but who is going to handle the other 85% of women who need a familiar face, a hand held, an understanding tone that knows us, knows our needs, knows our spouses, is aware that when my mil comes to gently shepherd her out into the waiting room. The harsh lights of reality in a modern hospital is so opposite of the average homebirth that those of us who cross the lines regularly are often floored as we blink back into the protocols of a hospital. And then to add in this other component of “stranger at the birth”? It’s no wonder so many women hire doulas to be at their birth! It’s the only way they can make sure there is someone there who knows what they need that they actually know personally!
Ok, I’m about to climb onto a different soapbox and off onto a different tangent, but while I’m still here in “Laborist” land I would like to just put forth the opinion that women don’t need less contact with their care providers. They need more contact. Every act that a woman does to prove to her care providers that she is NOT just another birth, not just another number on an insurance sheet and not just another lawsuit is one more where OB’s are forced to recognize that women have needs and that birth is so much more than just the physical act and the pathology.
Surgical specialty? Sure.
Laborist? No thanks, I’ll take a midwife. 
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Posted in Labor and Birth, Obstetrics
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Born in the U.S.A. – The Documentary Film
Born in the U.S.A. is a documentary that was broadcast on PBS as part of the network’s Independent Lens series, and a new chaptered version of the DVD is now available to buy online.
This 60-minute film offers an overview of the birth culture in America from the perspective of an obstetrician, a certified nurse midwife, and a licensed homebirth midwife. Specifically the film focuses on low-risk birth, and compares the type of care a healthy mother might receive in the hospital, a birth center, and at home. The documentary’s website notes, “By examining the culture of birth practices in America, BORN IN THE U.S.A. raises questions about technology, safety and quality of care, and it challenges parents to be proactive about getting the kind of care they want and need. ”
Find out more about Born in the U.S.A., and watch a video clip
BONUS! After seeing the film, if you’re inspired to make a difference in your local area, the web site offers downloadable community and legislative action guides.
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Posted in Baby, Media, Midwifery, Obstetrics
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A Little Bit of Humor
Posted in Jennifer, Obstetrics
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