birth

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Fearing childbirth may prolong labor

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/27/fearing-childbirth-may-prolong-labor/

Dr. Stuart Fischbein chuckled when he read the title of the press release: “Women with a fear of childbirth endure a longer labor.”

The release was promoting a study published this week in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.  Researchers at Akershus University Hospital in Norway found women who feared giving birth were in labor for 1 hour and 32 minutes longer, on average, than those who had no fear.

“I’m glad there’s now evidence to say that,” Fischbein said, “but it’s obvious.”

For those of us who aren’t OB/GYNs, it may seem more like a cruel joke. Women who are afraid of the pain and the possible medical complications associated with giving birth have to suffer through it longer?

(click link at top to read article on cnn.com)

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Giving Birth and the C-Section Stigma

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/giving-birth-and-the-c-section-stigma_us_57dac1a8e4b053b1ccf294b0?

(click link above to read the entire post on huffingtonpost.com)

 

Giving birth has nothing to do with pushing. It has nothing to do with contractions. It has nothing to do with pain.

Giving birth has everything to do with giving.

In this final sacrosanct act of pregnancy, all is set aside as the mother does whatever it takes to give her baby life. In every birth it requires different sacrifices. But the beauty of it, every time, is that the mother was willing to do it.

Pushing does not make a mother.

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30 Birth Photos That Show Pure, Beautiful Love

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/30-birth-photos-that-show-pure-beautiful-love_us_58068a7fe4b0b994d4c24b9a

(click link above to see some amazing photos of ALL types of labors and births…)

Oh, my heart…

No matter how a baby’s birth unfolds ― whether it’s a first-time mom having a C-section, or a third-time mother fighting through a labor that lasts two full days ― childbirth is hard and it is messy.

But in between all the, well, laboring are moments of love. Love between partners, love between families and doctors, doulas and midwives, an)d that very special love when parents and babies lock eyes for the very first time.

Here, talented birth photographers share photos they’ve captured that celebrate those moments of pure joy and connection in childbirth.

 

Photo by Capturing Joy Birth Services:

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The Most Scientific Birth Is Often the Least Technological Birth

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/03/the-most-scientific-birth-is-often-the-least-technological-birth/254420/

If you look at scientific literature, you find over and over again that many interventions increase risk to mother and child instead of decreasing it. 

When I ask my medical students to describe their image of a woman who elects to birth with a midwife rather than with an obstetrician, they generally describe a woman who wears long cotton skirts, braids her hair, eats only organic vegan food, does yoga, and maybe drives a VW microbus. What they don’t envision is the omnivorous, pants-wearing science geek standing before them.

Indeed, they become downright confused when I go on to explain that there was really only one reason why my mate — an academic internist — and I decided to ditch our obstetrician and move to a midwife: Our midwife could be trusted to be scientific, whereas our obstetrician could not.

(click link at the top to read the rest of the article on TheAtlantic.com)

 

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Childbirth: What to Reject When You’re Expecting

http://www.consumerreports.org/doctors-hospitals/childbirth-what-to-reject-when-youre-expecting/

10 procedures to think twice about during your pregnancy

Despite a healthcare system that outspends those in the rest of the world, infants and mothers fare worse in the U.S. than in many other industrialized nations. Infants in this country are more than twice as likely to die before their first birthday as those in Japan and Finland. And America now ranks behind 59 other countries in preventing mothers from dying during childbirth and is one of only eight countries in the world, along with Afghanistan and El Salvador, whose maternal mortality rate is rising.

Why? Partly because mothers in the U.S. tend to be less healthy than in the past, “which contributes to a higher-risk pregnancy,” says Diane Ashton, M.D., deputy medical director of the March of Dimes.

But another key reason may be that medical expediency appears to be taking a priority over the best outcomes. The U.S. healthcare system has developed into a labor-and-delivery machine, often operating according to its own timetable rather than the less predictable schedule of mothers and babies. Keeping things chugging along are technological interventions that can be lifesaving in some situations but also interfere with healthy, natural processes and increase risk when used inappropriately.

(click link at the top to read on Consumerreports.org)

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New Dad’s Advice: Just Hire a Damn Doula!

http://goodmenproject.com/families/new-dads-advice-just-hire-a-damn-doula-jrmk/

So, your partner is expecting a baby. That’s amazing. You’re surely getting unsolicited advice from all angles. Well, here’s another piece for the pile: Hire a damn doula. When my pregnant wife first proposed hiring a doula, I issued my standard response when asked about paying someone to perform a service: Nope, I can do that shit on my own.

Oh, how ignorant I was. The more I researched what doulas do, and the more my attorney wife presented me with rock-solid arguments in their favor, the more I came around. Looking back now, I have no idea how I would’ve made it without our doula.

The dominant American cultural approach to pregnancy, labor, and post-partum care is off-kilter in plenty of ways. We’re the only industrialized nation without mandated maternity leave; and paternity leave is seen as a joke, something for lazy-ass sissies. Also, we don’t take doulas as seriously as we should. If you, as a birth partner, have heard of doulas at all, you may think they’re granola-crunching life-coaches. I’ve noticed some O.B.s seem to have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to doulas, as if not being able to perform a C-section means you have an unimportant place in the birthing process.

But doulas are awesome. They are highly trained, they are highly experienced, and, perhaps most importantly, they have your back.

CLICK to read the rest: http://goodmenproject.com/families/new-dads-advice-just-hire-a-damn-doula-jrmk/#sthash.HJPG6UtI.dpuf

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Midwives Rock: Confessions of an OB/GYN Physician

https://burningtheshortwhitecoat.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/midwives-rock-confessions-of-an-obgyn-physician/

I am an OB/GYN physician and…

I love midwives. In fact, I think MIDWIVES ROCK. Midwives deliver over 50% of the babies in our birth unit. When it comes to normal birth, they are the experts. Let me explain.

(click link above to read the blog post)