I'll post pictures afterwards, but tomorrow I am having what will become an annual tradition. A barbecue for like minded people in the Lehigh Valley/Pocono Mountain region to gather and celebrate midwives and holistic birthing options. This year nothing special planned, just food and fun and fellowship. If we end up watching a birth movie, I would not be surprised, but it's not "on the agenda".
There have been an additional three babies born safely at home since my last entry, and one mama transferred to the hospital during delivery and the baby born there.
Sadly,the baby of the mama who had to be transferred had a congenital kidney defect that also affected lung development and did not tarry long on this earth. My heart is heavy and full of sorrow for these fine parents who lost their angel. I was blessed to have met them, and to have served them as their midwife for the last few months of her pregancy. I loved hearing this mama's laugh, watching our daughters play together, and making plans for her birth and for her daughter's upcoming birthday party. It never makes sense when a baby passes, and I pray now daily for my clients that they will know peace and joy again.
For more information on congenital birth defects, please contact the March of Dimes for information on testing, options for treatments, and how you can support research efforts. http://www.marchofdimes.com/
If you have lost a child to miscarriage, stillbirth, or in the newborn period, here are some helpful links:
http://www.ivf.com/misc.html
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/griefLoss.html
http://www.handonline.org/parents/index.html
Friday, May 8, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Spring is here! I hope. :-)
I am so glad to see the snow finally melting and the fact that my driveway is all freed up for parking again. My children are back outside more, riding their bikes and trapesing through the woods, making new adventures and discoveries.
With spring, comes new babies. Since December, I think I've been at six births. Each one unique and special. Five girls born on my watch, and only one boy! And so far, my predictions on gender have been correct each time.
I love my work. To me, it is hardly "work". It's so much fun, so invigorating, so uplifting. These women who come to me with their bellies swollen full of baby and new life, they exude a confidence and a life force that is awe inspiring. These are my homebirth mamas, the ones who have come to me to guide them through this journey, and the ones whom I grow to love and respect far more than I think they ever realize.
So often my doula moms do not exude this same confidence, and that is a shame. I can only attribute this to their choices of care providers and lack of educating themselves on just how amazing the woman's body is.
I just finished Jennifer Block's book "Pushed". It is excellent! Best Childbirth book I've read since "Immaculate Deception". I'm always reading. I currently have about seven books going right now, 2 childbirth related, one self help related, and the others are either fiction (like a Monk novel) or devotional in nature.
I recently had a new assistant join my practice. I am loving her. She's studying to be a certified midwife in New York and has a lot of experience and a really genteel spirit about her. We were at a birth with one of my Amish ladies about a week ago and encountered an emergency situation. She was cool as a cucumber though, and did exactly what I asked her to do, and did it well. I really feel God brought me an angel in her. The emergency, by the way, turned out fine, and mama and baby are doing excellent.
With spring, comes new babies. Since December, I think I've been at six births. Each one unique and special. Five girls born on my watch, and only one boy! And so far, my predictions on gender have been correct each time.
I love my work. To me, it is hardly "work". It's so much fun, so invigorating, so uplifting. These women who come to me with their bellies swollen full of baby and new life, they exude a confidence and a life force that is awe inspiring. These are my homebirth mamas, the ones who have come to me to guide them through this journey, and the ones whom I grow to love and respect far more than I think they ever realize.
So often my doula moms do not exude this same confidence, and that is a shame. I can only attribute this to their choices of care providers and lack of educating themselves on just how amazing the woman's body is.
I just finished Jennifer Block's book "Pushed". It is excellent! Best Childbirth book I've read since "Immaculate Deception". I'm always reading. I currently have about seven books going right now, 2 childbirth related, one self help related, and the others are either fiction (like a Monk novel) or devotional in nature.
I recently had a new assistant join my practice. I am loving her. She's studying to be a certified midwife in New York and has a lot of experience and a really genteel spirit about her. We were at a birth with one of my Amish ladies about a week ago and encountered an emergency situation. She was cool as a cucumber though, and did exactly what I asked her to do, and did it well. I really feel God brought me an angel in her. The emergency, by the way, turned out fine, and mama and baby are doing excellent.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
HEY FACEBOOK, BREASTFEEDING IS NOT OBSCENE
So today members of Facebook who support a mother's right to breastfeed in public are encouraged to put this as their status message and change their profile pics to that of a nursing mother. Facebook has taken pictures of breastfeeding women off of people's profiles and albums for being obscene. Ridiculous. So, if you too support women breastfeeding please consider joining us today in this small protest.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Midwives deliver better care...
Yep, it's been a long time since I've updated, and I've had a couple wonderful homebirths since then. And of course, the holidays have come again and now we await the new year. And I await the birth of two more babies in January.
This year, hopefully, will be the year of the homebirth midwife in PA. I again will be serving the Northeast Region as the Representative to MAP, which is the midwives alliance of Pennsylvania. We are trying to get legislation passed to make homebirth midwifery recognized as being legal by direct entry midwives. Right now the law is confusing and depending on what judge looks at it, DEM's are either abiding by the law or breaking it. The confusion needs to stop and we midwives need to not have to practice under fear of prosecution for helping women to have their babies at home, which is a federally protected right.
Jennifer Block had a nice op ed in a paper in L.A. California. I'll post it below, she makes excellent points.
Midwives deliver
America needs better birth care, and midwives can deliver it.
By Jennifer Block
December 24, 2008
Some healthcare trivia: In the United States, what is the No. 1 reason people are admitted to the hospital? Not diabetes, not heart attack, not stroke. The answer is something that isn't even a disease: childbirth.
Not only is childbirth the most common reason for a hospital stay -- more than 4 million American women give birth each year -- it costs the country far more than any other health condition. Six of the 15 most frequent hospital procedures billed to private insurers and Medicaid are maternity-related. The nation's maternity bill totaled $86 billion in 2006, nearly half of which was picked up by taxpayers.
But cost hasn't translated into quality. We spend more than double per capita on childbirth than other industrialized countries, yet our rates of pre-term birth, newborn death and maternal death rank us dismally in comparison. Last month, the March of Dimes gave the country a "D" on its prematurity report card; California got a "C," but 18 other states and the District of Columbia, where 15.9% of babies are born too early, failed entirely.
The U.S. ranks 41st among industrialized nations in maternal mortality. And there are unconscionable racial disparities: African American mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white mothers.
In short, we are overspending and under-serving women and families. If the United States is serious about health reform, we need to begin, well, at the beginning.
The problem is not access to care; it is the care itself. As a new joint report by the Milbank Memorial Fund, the Reforming States Group and Childbirth Connection makes clear, American maternity wards are not following evidence-based best practices. They are inducing and speeding up far too many labors and reaching too quickly for the scalpel: Nearly one-third of births are now by caesarean section, more than twice what the World Health Organization has documented is a safe rate. In fact, the report found that the most common billable maternity procedures -- continuous electronic fetal monitoring, for instance -- have no clear benefit when used routinely.
The most cost-effective, health-promoting maternity care for normal, healthy women is midwife led and out of hospital. Hospitals charge from $7,000 to $16,000, depending on the type and complexity of the birth. The average birth-center fee is only $1,600 because high-tech medical intervention is rarely applied and stays are shorter. This model of care is not just cheaper; decades of medical research show that it's better. Mother and baby are more likely to have a normal, vaginal birth; less likely to experience trauma, such as a bad vaginal tear or a surgical delivery; and more likely to breast feed. In other words, less is actually more.
The Obama administration could save the country billions by overhauling the American way of birth.
Consider Washington, where a state review of licensed midwives (just 100 in practice) found that they saved the state an estimated $2.7 million over two years. One reason for the savings is that midwives prevent costly caesarean surgeries: 11.9% of midwifery patients in Wash- ington ended up with C-sections, compared with 24% of low-risk women in traditional obstetric care.
Currently, just 1% of women nationwide get midwife-led care outside a hospital setting. Imagine the savings if that number jumped to 10% or even 30%. Imagine if hospitals started promoting best practices: giving women one-on-one, continuous support, promoting movement and water immersion for pain relief, and reducing the use of labor stimulants and labor induction. The C-section rate would plummet, as would related infections, hemorrhages, neonatal intensive care admissions and deaths. And the country could save some serious cash. The joint Milbank report conservatively estimates savings of $2.5 billion a year if the caesarean rate were brought down to 15%.
To be frank, the U.S. maternity care system needs to be turned upside down. Midwives should be caring for the majority of pregnant women, and physicians should continue to handle high-risk cases, complications and emergencies. This is the division of labor, so to speak, that you find in the countries that spend less but get more.
In those countries, a persistent public health concern is a midwife shortage. In the U.S., we don't have similar regard for midwives or their model of care. Hospitals frequently shut down nurse-midwifery practices because they don't bring in enough revenue. And although certified nurse midwives are eligible providers under federal Medicaid law and mandated for reimbursement, certified professional midwives -- who are trained in out-of-hospital birth care -- are not. In several state legislatures, they are fighting simply to be licensed, legal healthcare providers. (Californians are lucky -- certified professional midwives are licensed, and Medi-Cal covers out-of-hospital birth.)
Barack Obama could be, among so many other firsts, the first birth-friendly president. How about a Midwife Corps to recruit and train the thousands of new midwives we'll need? How about federal funding to create hundreds of new birth centers? How about an ad campaign to educate women about optimal birth?
America needs better birth care, and midwives can deliver it.
Jennifer Block is the author of "Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care."
This year, hopefully, will be the year of the homebirth midwife in PA. I again will be serving the Northeast Region as the Representative to MAP, which is the midwives alliance of Pennsylvania. We are trying to get legislation passed to make homebirth midwifery recognized as being legal by direct entry midwives. Right now the law is confusing and depending on what judge looks at it, DEM's are either abiding by the law or breaking it. The confusion needs to stop and we midwives need to not have to practice under fear of prosecution for helping women to have their babies at home, which is a federally protected right.
Jennifer Block had a nice op ed in a paper in L.A. California. I'll post it below, she makes excellent points.
Midwives deliver
America needs better birth care, and midwives can deliver it.
By Jennifer Block
December 24, 2008
Some healthcare trivia: In the United States, what is the No. 1 reason people are admitted to the hospital? Not diabetes, not heart attack, not stroke. The answer is something that isn't even a disease: childbirth.
Not only is childbirth the most common reason for a hospital stay -- more than 4 million American women give birth each year -- it costs the country far more than any other health condition. Six of the 15 most frequent hospital procedures billed to private insurers and Medicaid are maternity-related. The nation's maternity bill totaled $86 billion in 2006, nearly half of which was picked up by taxpayers.
But cost hasn't translated into quality. We spend more than double per capita on childbirth than other industrialized countries, yet our rates of pre-term birth, newborn death and maternal death rank us dismally in comparison. Last month, the March of Dimes gave the country a "D" on its prematurity report card; California got a "C," but 18 other states and the District of Columbia, where 15.9% of babies are born too early, failed entirely.
The U.S. ranks 41st among industrialized nations in maternal mortality. And there are unconscionable racial disparities: African American mothers are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white mothers.
In short, we are overspending and under-serving women and families. If the United States is serious about health reform, we need to begin, well, at the beginning.
The problem is not access to care; it is the care itself. As a new joint report by the Milbank Memorial Fund, the Reforming States Group and Childbirth Connection makes clear, American maternity wards are not following evidence-based best practices. They are inducing and speeding up far too many labors and reaching too quickly for the scalpel: Nearly one-third of births are now by caesarean section, more than twice what the World Health Organization has documented is a safe rate. In fact, the report found that the most common billable maternity procedures -- continuous electronic fetal monitoring, for instance -- have no clear benefit when used routinely.
The most cost-effective, health-promoting maternity care for normal, healthy women is midwife led and out of hospital. Hospitals charge from $7,000 to $16,000, depending on the type and complexity of the birth. The average birth-center fee is only $1,600 because high-tech medical intervention is rarely applied and stays are shorter. This model of care is not just cheaper; decades of medical research show that it's better. Mother and baby are more likely to have a normal, vaginal birth; less likely to experience trauma, such as a bad vaginal tear or a surgical delivery; and more likely to breast feed. In other words, less is actually more.
The Obama administration could save the country billions by overhauling the American way of birth.
Consider Washington, where a state review of licensed midwives (just 100 in practice) found that they saved the state an estimated $2.7 million over two years. One reason for the savings is that midwives prevent costly caesarean surgeries: 11.9% of midwifery patients in Wash- ington ended up with C-sections, compared with 24% of low-risk women in traditional obstetric care.
Currently, just 1% of women nationwide get midwife-led care outside a hospital setting. Imagine the savings if that number jumped to 10% or even 30%. Imagine if hospitals started promoting best practices: giving women one-on-one, continuous support, promoting movement and water immersion for pain relief, and reducing the use of labor stimulants and labor induction. The C-section rate would plummet, as would related infections, hemorrhages, neonatal intensive care admissions and deaths. And the country could save some serious cash. The joint Milbank report conservatively estimates savings of $2.5 billion a year if the caesarean rate were brought down to 15%.
To be frank, the U.S. maternity care system needs to be turned upside down. Midwives should be caring for the majority of pregnant women, and physicians should continue to handle high-risk cases, complications and emergencies. This is the division of labor, so to speak, that you find in the countries that spend less but get more.
In those countries, a persistent public health concern is a midwife shortage. In the U.S., we don't have similar regard for midwives or their model of care. Hospitals frequently shut down nurse-midwifery practices because they don't bring in enough revenue. And although certified nurse midwives are eligible providers under federal Medicaid law and mandated for reimbursement, certified professional midwives -- who are trained in out-of-hospital birth care -- are not. In several state legislatures, they are fighting simply to be licensed, legal healthcare providers. (Californians are lucky -- certified professional midwives are licensed, and Medi-Cal covers out-of-hospital birth.)
Barack Obama could be, among so many other firsts, the first birth-friendly president. How about a Midwife Corps to recruit and train the thousands of new midwives we'll need? How about federal funding to create hundreds of new birth centers? How about an ad campaign to educate women about optimal birth?
America needs better birth care, and midwives can deliver it.
Jennifer Block is the author of "Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care."
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Brewer Diet
http://home.mindspring.com/~djsnjones/index.html is the link to the newest website with all of the Brewer diet information. The Brewer diet is a diet to help prevent many complications of pregnancy, most notably Pre-Eclampsia. Check it out! I found it easy to navigate and very informative.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Home again, so soon?
Yes, I'm home again, home again. I left the Philippines earlier than I thought I would, but it was still an excellent experience. No, I did not get all of my "numbers" as I had hoped, but that is ok. There is no shame in being a Direct Entry Midwife and not a CPM. I still have the goal of being a CPM in mind, but it will simply take me a bit longer.
While in the Philippines, I witnessed/attended the births of 16 babies. I got some more hands on experience in difficult situations like shoulder dystocias and hemorrhages, which helped to affirm to me that my skills are excellent. I also got some more clinical experience with prenatals, postpartum moms, and newborn well baby checks and newborn exams. Overall, a good experience.
The downside to my trip was my illness. The second week that I was there, I got what everyone told me was Dengue fever. Sounded horribly scary but it was basically an awful fever, flu like symptoms, diarrhea, and awful body aches. I was sick with a fever of up to 104.6 for four days before insisting on going to the hospital. By that time, I was vomitting, and having diarrhea every 15-20 minutes. I was so weak and drinking hurt. Turned out that I had amoebas, and a bad case of them. The doctor said from the tap water, which I had initially been assured was perfectly safe to drink. I stayed the night in the hospital and was put on flagyl, an anti amoeba/parasite med for the next 6 days. The flagyl killed the amoebas, but made all my food taste like metal. It was not a happy recovery.
Anyhow, I am home now, fully recovered from amoebas, but promptly came down with a doozy of a head cold when I returned. That is now subsiding and I am slowly getting my house unpacked.
While in the Philippines, I witnessed/attended the births of 16 babies. I got some more hands on experience in difficult situations like shoulder dystocias and hemorrhages, which helped to affirm to me that my skills are excellent. I also got some more clinical experience with prenatals, postpartum moms, and newborn well baby checks and newborn exams. Overall, a good experience.
The downside to my trip was my illness. The second week that I was there, I got what everyone told me was Dengue fever. Sounded horribly scary but it was basically an awful fever, flu like symptoms, diarrhea, and awful body aches. I was sick with a fever of up to 104.6 for four days before insisting on going to the hospital. By that time, I was vomitting, and having diarrhea every 15-20 minutes. I was so weak and drinking hurt. Turned out that I had amoebas, and a bad case of them. The doctor said from the tap water, which I had initially been assured was perfectly safe to drink. I stayed the night in the hospital and was put on flagyl, an anti amoeba/parasite med for the next 6 days. The flagyl killed the amoebas, but made all my food taste like metal. It was not a happy recovery.
Anyhow, I am home now, fully recovered from amoebas, but promptly came down with a doozy of a head cold when I returned. That is now subsiding and I am slowly getting my house unpacked.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Moved in, now unpacking, and repacking!
What a week! We've just moved out of our way too small house into a house that is the perfect size for our family and my small practice. It has all the space we need and more!!! I am so grateful. This move was truly providential.
Now that we're out of our old house though, the unpacking begins. I confess I am overwhelmed and exhausted. My sweet hubby has told me to take the day off and I am heeding his advice, even though the boxes and clutter from said boxes is driving me insane!
None the less, there are a few rooms I want to have done before I leave Thursday. You see, Thursday I leave for the Philippines. I don't know that I'll be able to keep my blog up while I'm there, but I will surely try to do so. So, I will be unpacking my boxes, and then packing up my suitcase for a long trip away from home. I'm going to miss my family terribly.
Now that we're out of our old house though, the unpacking begins. I confess I am overwhelmed and exhausted. My sweet hubby has told me to take the day off and I am heeding his advice, even though the boxes and clutter from said boxes is driving me insane!
None the less, there are a few rooms I want to have done before I leave Thursday. You see, Thursday I leave for the Philippines. I don't know that I'll be able to keep my blog up while I'm there, but I will surely try to do so. So, I will be unpacking my boxes, and then packing up my suitcase for a long trip away from home. I'm going to miss my family terribly.
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