March 8th, 2010

Hospitals not “equipped” for VBAC

Since the NIH VBAC Conference is starting today, I wanted to touch on this subject. We often head hospitals with active VBAC (Vaginal Birth after Cesarean) bans in place use the excuse that they are not “equipped” for an emergency that could come from a VBAC in the case of something like a uterine rupture, etc. I have pondered about this thought over and over, and realized that if these hospitals are truly not equipped for an emergency that would or could come from a VBAC, then maybe they should not be operating a Labor & Delivery unit…. period.

Emergency situations can happen in any kind of childbirth, previous cesarean or not, and there have even been cases of uterine rupture without any type of a previous cesarean section. So because of this I feel as though this excuse on many levels is simply that, and excuse.

Why not just come out and say we are

• lazy
• scared of getting sued
• misogynistic
• anti reproductive choices

We don’t want women to use their own vagina to birth their babies, we want the big bucks from the repeat cesareans!

Here’s to hoping NIH’s VBAC conference will help turning around all the National VBAC Ban’s and help the VBAC rate rise again!

March 7th, 2010

The Week’s Wrap Up

So much has gone on this week in my life, and in the world that I thought it would be best to really cover it all, and post why these events are important.

ABC News covered two high profile news stories regarding birth, and promotion of Natural Birth as well as Out of the Hospital birth.

• CDC Says Home Births on the Rise in the US – New CDC report shows home birth rates, as well as other out of hospital birthing options in recent years. And magically it cannot be blamed on Ricki Lake like groups like ACOG have been claiming in recent years.  You can go back and read My Post on it that even attracted the #1 internet troll in the childbirth community!
• World News Tonight with Diane Sawyer also covered the topic of the rising Maternal Mortality rates in the United States.  Tackling the issues that new mothers should know, including AVOIDING UNNECESSARY MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS which are very typical, and routine in the hospital. You can view the video of this story right here.
• New York Times takes on VBAC – A great article showcasing a Native American hospital and how so many National Hospitals could be learning a lesson from their rate of VBAC and maternal health.  To read the article, click here.

Now to talk about things going on around the world of Blogging… I try to keep up with as many of my favorite blogs as I can, but with two kids, and the increased amount of things I have going on in my life it is hard to make my way every where I want to be.
If I forgot you, or your awesome blog, I am sorry!

• The Feminist Breeder was on my TV!!!! – Gina, AKA the Feminist Breeder, one of my favorite bloggers, as well as internet buddy was featured in a discovery health channel special on “Radial Parenting” which, I don’t think she is very radical at all as she parents pretty similar to us, but some ignorant assholes on the internet seemed to think they are fruit loops.
  Anyways, Gina blogged about it, and keep an eye out for the special!
• PhD in Parenting wrote a post about Mentoring the next Generation, which I loved. It may have been a “Wordless Wednesday” post, but it speaks volumes, and honestly, it doesn’t require any worlds.
• Michele from Birthcut.com, and a good friend of mine blogged about choices regarding VBAC and her own feelings. It is powerful, and moving, or at least it was to me! It really shows so many sides of the thoughts women go through when deciding their path for a birth after cesarean.
• Dou-la-la one of my all time fav bloggers talked about her new found love for Kourtney Kardashian. Which I am right on board with.  I am a total reality show junkie, and I really think the message that Kourtney has been sending to the general public, and mothers all over is awesome.

National Institute of Health is holding its VBAC Conference this week. No ya don’t say right?  I have only talked about it how many times in recent weeks right?  LOL  Well there are a lot of good posts, and posts about the conference coming up. I will be starting my live coverage tonight starting with The Feminist Breeder’s Radio Special. You can watch all of my live updates on NIH’s VBAC Conference here.

• Henci Goer talks about the conference and what may or may not come out of it.
• The Feminist Breeder discusses how VBAC access is a human rights issue.
• Kristen from Birthing Beautiful Ideas discusses NIH VBAC in detail and discusses who to watch for.
• The Unnecesarean talks about why VBAC should be the Norm.

And last but not least, the highlights from my own life this week.

• I got a new computer!  And I am in love with it.
• We have had awesome weather, and I have been able to take my children outside to play!  (Pictures to come)
• Our new couch is scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday.
• Connecticut Worst to First received an awesome donation that will enable us to do a lot of the work that needs to get done for 2010.
• My baby only wants to sit up and play, and eat table food… it seems like he has grown up overnight.
• Because of the above, the playpen has come back out in our house!
• I am dying my hair tonight…

So overall, it was a pretty good week.
I am thinking about doing this type of a post weekly, so it you like it, comment and let me know!

March 6th, 2010

Barbara Harper on the Momotics Radio Show

Earlier this week, I was able to sit down with the World famous Birth Pioneer, and Author Barbara Harper. I must admit to being star struck and nervous as she is someone who I have looked up to since getting involved in the Birth Community.
I think Gentle Birth Choices is one of the first books I bought when I started my journey to become a doula.

I sat down during the day to write a couple questions and hope that I could keep the conversation going for a half hour, in reality, two questions took the whole show.

I must say though, I will definitely be having her back on the show.
And next time we will need an hour slot!

To listen to the Barbara Harper Radio show, you can click right here.

Upcoming Radio Shows include :

March 10th, 2010 – 10pm EST – Joy Szabo The VBAC Heard Round the World
March 17th, 2010 – 10pm EST – Nick Fogelson The Academic OB/GYN Delayed Cord Clamping
March 24th, 2010 – 10pm EST – Bettina Forbes from Best for Babes
April 7th, 2010 – 10pm EST – Isa Herrera Author of Ending Female Pain
April 14th, 2010 – 10pm EST – Dr. Fischbein of California

March 5th, 2010

NIH VBAC Conference Live Coverage & The Bachelor Finale

Ok, before I get started on my huge rant about the Bachelor which took me almost a week to compose myself enough after watching to put it into words, I want to touch on the National Institute of Health VBAC conference coming up on Monday. For a moment, earlier this week, there was a glimmer of hope that I would be able to make the 5 hour drive, and join all of you wonderful women. I sat down with my husband and talked about it over dinner, and we just realized that even with all my last minute planning, it simply would not work with our family. Between the childcare issue, to money, and simply having myself be away from the home, kids, and furniture delivery scheduled for Tuesday it just would not work. Being the great man he is, he helped me to be ok with the final decision, and think of alternative ways to participate.

So, my alternative way to participate will be live coverage on my blog. Look out over the weekend for a new tab on the tool bar on the top of the site reading Live NIH, and I will be updating several times a day. Ideally I would like to update after every speaker, but with the children, live stream and the typical Motherly things that come up in a day, that is a completely unrealistic expectation.  But I will cover as much as I can. I hope to also be heavily involved in the twitter coverage. To follow just use the hashtag #NIHVBAC.

Now onto the train wreck we can call the Bachelor Season Finale.  The first thing I want to say is, I am so glad I am not going to hear On the Wings of Love anytime soon or probably ever again (because we know this couple won’t be getting married). No I am not being pessimistic, I am being realistic.  The finally had almost as much drama as the entire season did.

It came down to sweet puppies and kittens Tenley, and the bad girl, Vienna, which I think in the back of my mind isn’t really a girl. And of course in the end, Jake went with his penis rather than what he claimed all season he wanted which was a wife. His family met Tenley first, and immediately everyone loved her, and embraced her. Vienna on the other hand not so much. Jake kind of  “warned” them before hand that she was the girl no one liked, so of course they had a bias.   Before the end of the Vienna meeting with the family, of course they all loved her. Either that or the producers magically made it look that way.  Honestly, her demeanor, and attitude, especially around his family would have earned her a one way trip OUT of my family.

Of course all season we knew that Jake would pick her though, because their sexual connection was more than anyone else clearly had with him from what we saw. I am sure that she is one of the contestants that put out routinely too. I just feel like this show, and the actions of these women show such desperation for a man or to WIN. Because with Vienna, I don’t think it was about finding love, I think it was all about being the last one standing. I am sure like many of the other Bachelor couples, they will split shortly.

While these shows certainly are entertaining for reality TV nerds like myself, as a feminist it bothers me on so many levels.  Women should not be this desperate, and what kind of message are we sending to our daughters with these shows?  I really think every season that goes by, it gets worse and worse.

Where do they find these women?  Mental health facilities?

Anyways, that is really all I have to say about it all.
I am not surprised, I have called the picks the last couple seasons, and it was clear who Jake was going to pick for the past 6 weeks at the least.

March 4th, 2010

New Home Birth Study Shows Increase for Out of Hospital Births…

Yesterday the Center for Disease Control (who collects National Medical statistics) release a report that detailed information on out of hospital births from 1990 to 2006.  I want to stress that the information ended in 2006, there is a good reason, but I will get back to that later in my post. What the information shows is a small, but noticeable increase in home birth, and births that take place in Free Standing Birth Centers. But surprisingly, this study also shows that the majority of women making these choices have already had at least one birth, in the hospital.

The number of midwife attended home births increase from 43% to 63% during this period of time. Which we already know that home birth, when attended by a trained medical professional is as safe as a birth in the hospital, if not safer because the lack of unnecessary intervention that takes place routinely in the hospital setting.

Unlike most people, I sat down last night, and actually read the study, news articles on it from ABC, and other various sources, and really analyzed it to write this post.

A couple interesting pieces of information that I pulled out of this study…..

• Out of 4,265,555 births for 2006, 24,970 births took place at home, and 10,781 took place in free standing birth centers.
• The majority of women choosing home birth were of white, non Hispanic descent, in the 25-29 age range.
• 33 of the births at home were to girls 15 years of age or younger.
• 6,582 of the births were second children.
• The state with the highest Home Birth rate was Oregon with 4,750 births.

Just to touch on a couple of these numbers, and pieces of information, what alarms me the most is the people choosing home birth. Mostly white, married, mid-aged women. When studies are showing more and more that the most at risk patients for unnecessary procedures, and some of the highest cesarean section rates are low income, unmarried, women of African American decent. Which is why I believe that in Health Care Reform we should be including more options for home birth insurance coverage, as well as alternative birthing coverage options for mothers who are low income on some form on medicaid.
It also shows that many of the women who are choosing home birth are very educated consumers. We need more child birth education options available to women, especially in the low income bracket. Programs that offer free classes paid by public health funds, WIC programs, etc.

33 of the home births, were to very young women, 15 years old or younger. There could be a lot of different explanations for this. But the one that stands out to me most is young women who hide their pregnancy until the baby finally comes and surprise!  It doesn’t seem that in today’s culture too many young women are signing up for any birth experience that doesn’t include someone with MD after their name and an epidural.

6,582 were their second baby. What this shows not only me, but one of the authors of the Study, Eugene Declercq, is that women are opting for their second birth out of the hospital because of what could have been a negative first birth experience, or just did not care for the hospital style maternity care system. Eugene was quoted in the ABC News story as saying “The fact that it’s primarily women who had kids before and had birth in hospitals before, certainly suggests it’s a reaction to their prior birth,”
Which I completely agree with.
The numbers for other subsequent births include, third births at 4,500, fourth birth at 2,851, fifth birth at 1,808, sixth birth at 1,137, seventh birth at 827, and eight or more at 1,438.

Now that groups like ACOG and AMA are seeing these numbers, and this change, they are worrying because these births are taking money out of their own pockets. They have not been shy in recent years about their home birth policy, and how they feel about it even with a number of studies showing the safety.  With these new numbers, and developments, they have gone public saying that films such as The Business of Being Born and celebrity home births are having a great influence on the choices women are making for their births, but before opening their mouth, they should do their research.

Remember that little 2006 number I pointed out earlier in my post?  Well The Business of Being Born, the first mainstream film that showed home birth, as well as promotes it as a safe option was released in 2007.  Oooops!
So how are they going to explain this change, and how it happened before this mainstream film?  Maybe the fact that women were fed up with the maternity care system in hospitals long before Ricki Lake decided to work on a project on it?   It is nothing new that women do not like the one size fits all care the hospital maternity care system provides.
But that is a whole other post in itself.

A couple other things I wanted to talk about is where home birth is most popular, and rising.
The states with the highest home birth numbers are :

• Vermont
• Pennsylvania
• Wisconsin
• Utah
• Nevada
• Montana
• Idaho
• Washington
• Alaska
• Oregon

States with notable increases in home births :

• New Hampshire
• Maryland
• Virginia
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Kentucky
• Alabama
• Kansas
• Wisconsin
• Minnesota
• California

I found the number of home births in my own state of Connecticut to be sad, but again, a whole other post in itself.
If you would like to read the full study yourself, the link for it is

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_11.pdf