Posts Tagged ‘National Institute of Health’

March 14th, 2010

This Week’s Round Up

There are a ton of things that have gone on this week, starting with the National Institute of Health’s Vaginal Birth after Cesarean conference in Bethesda Maryland.  Lots of activists, professionals, and reporters descended on Maryland in hopes of a huge change in the maternity care system in our country, and it looks as though it worked!
A couple, or should I say, a ton of articles from this week…

United States urged to confront shocking maternal mortality rates
Too Many Women Dying in US While Having Babies
Doctors Debate C-Section Options
Deadly Delivery by Amnesty International
Women Struggle to Avoid C-Sections
Panel Urges more Choice in Birth after Cesareans
Too Many Preventable Deaths Among New Moms
Group Urges New Rules for Vaginal Birth after Cesarean
Panel Urges new Look at Cesarean Guidelines
NIH Panel : End Bans on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean
Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Underused
Panel : Vaginal Birth after Cesarean not too common
Panel : Women Need a Chance to avoid repeat C-section
Are C-Sections too common?

On to my favorite blogs for the week, from babywearing to ICAN :

Slings & Safety by Doula-la-la
The illusion of Choice
Once a Cesarean, Rarely a Choice
WSJ talking crap about Breastfeeding
New Moms at Risk, and a Wake Up Call to Nurses

I am extending my giveaway another two weeks because of the lack of people who signed up for it. So if you are interested in winning a beautiful nursing reminder, sign up!

Wednesday night wrapping up The NIH Conference, I had Joy Szabo on my radio show also.
Check that out too!

There wasn’t much blog talk this week that didn’t center around the NIH VBAC Conference, but if you have something you wrote, or even loved someone else’s post, please link it up here!

March 12th, 2010

Wrapping up NIH VBAC Coverage

So much came from this conference this week, so I wanted to share a ton of links that may be helpful for those who were not able to participate.

If you were not able to watch the coverage, you can use these links for viewing of what took place.
Day One of the National Institute of Health’s VBAC Conference
Day Two of the National Institute of Health’s VBAC Conference
Day Three of the National Institute of Health’s VBAC Conference

All three links are video feeds.

The Original Draft Statement
Current Statement after Revising
The final statement should be out within a week or so, until then I will leave the slot for this blank.

The Conference Abstract

In the aftermath of this conference, there are an incredible amount of articles not only addressing the rising cesarean rates, increasing maternal mortality rates, and lack of VBAC access, but human rights issues that the panel at NIH did not address in their statement.
So, because I have been a media junkie the past couple days, I started tracking all the links.

United States urged to confront shocking maternal mortality rates
Too Many Women Dying in US While Having Babies
Doctors Debate C-Section Options
Deadly Delivery by Amnesty International
Women Struggle to Avoid C-Sections
Panel Urges more Choice in Birth after Cesareans
Too Many Preventable Deaths Among New Moms
Group Urges New Rules for Vaginal Birth after Cesarean
Panel Urges new Look at Cesarean Guidelines
NIH Panel : End Bans on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean
Vaginal Birth After Cesarean Underused
Panel : Vaginal Birth after Cesarean not too common
Panel : Women Need a Chance to avoid repeat C-section
Are C-Sections too common?

As more stories come out, I will continue to include the links!

March 11th, 2010

Joy Szabo, NIH, & What Wasn’t Addressed

Last night I was lucky enough to have a 45 minute slot with Joy Szabo on my radio show. I was certain people would call in with questions to ask her about her experience, but it seemed as though the National Institute of Health VBAC Conference has really been overshadowing the whole week, especially in the birth and activism community who happen to be the main readers of my blog!
So half way through the show, when I realized that no one was calling in with questions for Joy, after talking about her story, feelings, and experience, we turned the table over to the final draft letter from the NIH panel.

That is when the show started to pick up, because people are MAD!  No matter how many times the same topic was brought up, it was left out not only in the draft letter, but in essentially their revised draft. While we do not know if it will make it into the final statement, most of us are not optimistic.
The topic?  Women being able to make their own choices, and say NO to their provider, repeat surgery, and NOT have to go through any type of legal recourse or court ordered intervention like we are we are slowly starting to see in our country.

It was brought up yesterday morning during the time in where the audience was able to make comments, suggestions, and ask questions, but again brought up during the Press Conference by Susan Jenkin’s from The Big Push for Midwives.  During the press conference panel members continued to dodge the question, and comments once again.

Now most of us went into this whole week not expecting much from the conference because many of us have been down this road, and knew that change is often not something that comes about, but after the first couple speakers, slides which included pictures of the ICAN logo and the banner from The Unnecesaean, many of us were smiling ear to ear hoping, and praying this would really be the step we needed. By day 3 it turned clear that it would not be what many of us would have liked to happen.

The one positive I find that came from this was the final suggestion for ACOG to revisit and revise their statement including immediate terminology, to something that is much more realistic in our medical community today.

We got a little carried away in the show last night, and went over our time limit, but I wanted to again thank those who did come on the show, speak, and bring a great discussion. Joy Szabo for bringing the issue of VBAC Bans into the mainstream media, Traci Perg for being so passionate, outspoken, and bringing up amazing points about modern day feminists, as well as pro choice supporters, Lauren Cooper, current Chapter Director for ICAN and her reflections on the conference. Lauren is a good friend of mine, as well as a great mentor, and she will be coming back on in April for one of the radio shows focusing on Cesarean Awareness Month, and last but certainly not least, Sarah from Salisbury Connecticut, a local doula, friend and advocate in my community.

Tell everyone what you think about the panel’s statement and leave a comment!

PS!  Please, please please!  If you have had a cesarean section, take our Post Cesarean Feelings Survey, it will ONLY be available till Monday March 15th, and we are trying to hit between 1000 and 1500 mothers!  Pass it along on Facebook, to your friend, family, or clients!
Post Cesarean Feelings

March 10th, 2010

Tackling the Draft Statement

I saw down and listened, read, and watched the question and answer session for the draft statement by the panelist who read it, as well as the audience who was able to add their input. One surprise I found was the President of ACOG who had been at the conference all along finally got up to make a comment, of course only after ACOG was called out in this statement’s conclusion.

I am glad that on several occasions through the document they discuss the NON medical factors that are influencing VBAC today.
I would also like to point out that I enjoy their final statement in the end which includes asking ACOG to reconsider their recommendation of VBAC and the “immediate” wording.

I really wanted to pick this all apart much more, but I am going to wait for the final draft for that.

I encourage everyone to read the draft, and submit comments in the next short couple hours to have your voice heard and suggestions looked at!

March 10th, 2010

The Draft Statement is Available!

The National Institute of Health’s VBAC Draft statement is now available to the public.
You can read it at
http://consensus-nih.org/omar-public/PublicComments/VBAC/PublicComments.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1

Please read, and leave comments, they will only be taking comments for a short period of time today!

March 9th, 2010

NIH VBAC Day 2 Coverage

While the day was much shorter, I found it had a much more personal level of it as speaker Rita Rubin took on the stories of women around the country who have been victims of VBAC bans, lack of evidence based medicine surrounding VBAC, and women being forced to take matters into their own hands with out of hospital and sometimes unassisted births.
It certainly gave the speakers a much more personal feel and put names and faces to women struggling with this.

But I will get to that later in my post.

The day started with information on epidural anesthesia, as well as the lack of available anesthesiologists nationally to fill the need of the “immediate emergency care/delivery” guideline. I learned a lot about the national crisis surrounding available anesthesiologists.

1. Epidurals do not cause, or mask symptoms of a uterine rupture, if anything they allow for other options other than general anesthesia in the case of a rupture of need for emergent delivery.
2. When the speaker asked ACOG what they mean by immediate in their recommendation, their answer was “Immediate means immediate” kinda like banging your head against the wall?
3. Rural hospitals, and hospitals in rural areas have lower number of anesthesiologists, meaning lower access to an anesthesiologist in an emergent situation.
4. Currently in The United States, there are less than 30,000 current practicing anesthesiologists.
5. 55% of those anesthesiologists are over the age of 55 meaning they will be retiring in the next roughly 10 years.
6. There is an increase in Woman anesthesiologists, but women are more likely to work part time, or less likely to take on over night shifts, or shifts in Obstetric anesthesiology because of the schedule.
7. 4% of hospitals with in house anesthesiologists have 500 or more deliveries a year.

All in all, having in house anesthesia specifically, and only for Obstetrics, or VBAC is completely unrealistic. Not only that, but one thing that caught my attention of this speaker was the comment that “We need to remove lawyers and insurance companies from this choice” meaning the choice of VBAC vs. elective repeat cesarean delivery.
There was a suggestion at one point that VBAC only be “allowed” at hospitals that have at least 1500 births per year, but unfortunately like the 24 hour anesthesiologist coverage just for VBAC it is simply unrealistic. There are areas of our country that women have a 3 hour drive, or even longer to a hospital of that kind of caliber.
In the end, ACOG blames the OB’s, the OB’s blame the hospitals, the hospitals blame the women… and it is a giant blame game.
We need to stop playing the blame game, and we need to make this an available option for all women, while using the real evidence on its safety!

Moving on to some more things I learned…

1. Placental Abruption & Cord Prolapse are more common than Uterine Rupture.
2. Trial of Labor has much lower rate of perinatal death in women with previous cesareans as opposed to elective repeat cesarean deliveries.
3. In a study, 20% of OB/GYN’s say they reduced their exposure to lawsuits by no longer offering VBAC.
4. The risk of fetal death in a first time mother, is the same as, a mother VBAC’ing.

The last thing there shows a statistical analysis that shows us no difference between a mother VBAC’ing her second child, and a first time mother giving birth to her first child. The fetal death rates are the same. This shows one thing to me, and many others who were also live tweeting during this, women are not being truly informed about all of the risks and benefits of VBAC.  Women are not being given accurate, and real information.

There were several comments about women and their providers needing to be the ones making the decision regarding the mothers choice to VBAC or have an elective repeat cesarean, and some may not agree with me, but in my opinion it shouldn’t have to do with her provider at all. It should be the patients decision, period.

Another part of the survey that made me giggle was one of the reasons cited for women opting for elective cesareans instead of VBAC was to avoid the pain of labor which I have been through twice, also ending both times in a cesarean delivery. Avoid pain? Who are you trying to fool because cesareans certainly are not avoiding pain by any means!

More bits and pieces I learned :

1. 49% of ACOG Fellows in one survey said they do more cesarean sections for fear of litigation.
2. There is more and more clear evidence that women want VBAC but are being denied these services by providers, as well as hospitals.

Then came the discussion of woman’s stories, and what has taken place all over the country to women searching for VBAC as an option. Several ICAN women were quoted, as well as featured which I loved!
Gina also known as The Feminist Breeder was featured, and her struggle to have a VBAC.
Joy Szabo of Arizona who had to drive 350 miles, leave her husband and 3 children behind because of her hospitals choice to ban VBAC after she had already had a VBAC at this facility!  (Joy will be on my radio show tomorrow night at 10pmEST)
The number of women, and their stories were touching, and made the whole experience and conference real it made the panel members, and audience members realize these are real women we are talking about and essentially deciding the future of their childbearing.

In many cases, the question and answer sessions were my favorite part. Although there were a few audience members who continued to get up with their long winded comments sometimes going no where, or no relevance to VBAC at all. Which bothered me because there was a clear line of providers and activists who had short, to the point, and important comments and questions.

Couple comments from the question and answer session which stood out to me :

1. “No one should be brought to the OR against their will or without their consent”
2. “I feel like I am committing a crime when I take a knife to a woman I know has a high VBAC success rate” – VBAC supportive OB working in a hospital with a VBAC Ban

(I promise, I am starting to get to the end)

One of my issues was the discussion on ethics when it comes to VBAC and elective repeat cesarean deliveries. There is such a gray line that is being crossed continually in this country. Women who have Child Protective Services called on them for being a “difficult patient” and that is something we should not be seeing at all. Being a difficult patient, and being an informed consumer should not be something women fear having their children taken because of.
We should not be seeing women rolled into the OR with Sheriffs or court orders.
We should not be seeing women charged with Murder over a stillbirth when a cesarean is declined.
These are real stories!

One last thing that really got me also!
A panel member said something about protecting the rights of patients AND providers… well ya know what.. the rights of the providers are the ones being protected, by these bans, the defensive medicine, women are the MOST venerable ones involved, and that should not be it!

I could sit on my soapbox for hours, so I will stop there.
I hope that the NIH takes this chance to really form a informed and evidence based guidelines and recommendation for this.

We will see tomorrow when they release it at noon!

March 9th, 2010

NIH VBAC Day 1

While I wanted to be the first Blogger to have my live coverage up from the National Institute of Health VBAC Conference today, between a toddler and 9 month old, dinner, cleaning, and working on moving furniture out of the house for our delivery tomorrow, I can’t say I will be the first. Oh well, housework happens right?  I neglected it enough today.

While I originally planned to have live and continuous coverage all day, again, life happens, and I did not realize how hard it would be to “live blog” with the time limits, as well as fast moving speakers. While the panel and speakers were on a strict time limit, things move quite quickly.

I was able to “tweet” live and I am going to use all the things I tweeted today to basically write my run down, as well as share some of the many things I learned today. I think after this conference I should have VBAC after my name just for all I know about it. I THOUGHT I knew a lot before this.

1. My day started off tweeting with Amy Romano from Science and Sensibility about the amazing amount of talk regarding evidence based medicine, practice and guidelines for this consensus.
   
2. Another awesome point at the start of the consensus, was the fact that one of the presenters started to discuss the blogging community, She used a screen for her presentation which I believe The Feminist Breeder caught a picture of, and surprised all of us. Yup, you see it right, on the top of the screen is the logo of the popular birth and cesarean section website, The Unnecesarean! I almost peed myself! Along with that is the ICAN logo, and other various PRO VBAC websites.
3. Discussion of placental problems after previous cesarean sections, and the increased risk of more serious and more dangerous placental complications with each cesarean birth.  We have seen in the past 20 years a large increase in things like placenta previa, placenta acretta, and other life threatening placental issues.
4. The risk of hysterectomy also increases, which is rarely discussed. The risk of having a hysterectomy with the 4th cesarean section is 2.5%
5. A quote from one of the speakers included “repeat cesarean section does not eliminate the risk of fetal injury” Which is a huge common misconception of women who are opting for elective repeat cesarean deliveries, also refereed to as ERCD’s.
6. Privately insured patients have higher repeat cesarean rates, and women who have medicaid coverage have higher VBAC rates.
7. 45% of providers stopped providing VBAC services completely due to the ACOG recommendations on VBAC.
   

   Kinda blurry, but my toddler and I watching the conference online

8. White women, are more likely to have a VBAC although African American women have lower risk of uterine rupture or adverse reactions to VBAC.
9. Rural hospitals have lower trial of labor after cesarean section rates, as well as lower VBAC rates, and higher VBAC ban rates. Which is something we all pretty much knew before hand.
10. Induced VBAC success rates are 63%, lower than the over all VBAC success rate of 73%.
11. There was a lot of talk about VBAC outcome prediction tools, which I am not sure how I really feel about them, on top of this, my child decided to start acting up around this point which took me away from the computer for a little bit.
12. Another quote “trying to give women the information they need to make an informed decision” which is what the VBACtivist community has really been saying all along.
13. Countries that use the Midwifery Model of Care have high VBAC success rates. Someone from the audience chimes in “Does that mean we need to move?” LOL!  No, that means we need to get our OB’s to practice like midwives. Ya think we will be able to wrestle the knives out of their hands?
14. Then the first audience question came. And I fell in love with my second, much older husband. Only second to Marsden Wagner. Dr. Suart Fischbein got up, and spoke about liability, VBAC bans, and posed several amazing questions. My heart melted!  I am so glad to have him coming on my radio show in a couple weeks!
15. A friend of mine, Stacey Gregg of New Jersey also spoke, asking questions about racisim in VBAC and medical care, and the panel was very quick to dismiss her, but the worst part was, she had very valid concerns, comments, and questions.
16. Then came my favorite part of the whole day… One of the panel members made a statement about home birth data, and how there really isn’t any, or at least any accurate data and the WHOLE ROOM ERUPTED!  “YES THERE IS!!!!”  Maybe they missed that CDC release last week?
17. When comparing ERCD to VBAC, per 100,000 births, there are 9 less maternal deaths with VBAC than elective repeat cesarean delivery. Hence showing that VBAC is safer, despite all the discussion of risks.  Those are 9 mothers, sisters, daughters that can and should be saved!
18. Now, on to something I was not aware of today… cesarean ectopic pregnancies. Meaning, ectopic pregnancies IN or ATTACHED to the cesarean scar which are deadly!   Something again not spoken of in the risks of cesarean delivery. This happens in 1 out of 200 pregnancies after a cesarean. I wish I had a picture of it as it was fascinating.
19. Another thing I never knew was the increased risk of stillbirth after cesarean sections, and each elective cesarean after!
20. Factors that affect uterine rupture… hmm… right on the slide it said INDUCTION and OXYTOCIN!
21. There was a great discussion on using ultrasounds to look at the thickness of uterine scars and access the risk for a uterine rupture in the weeks before labor.
22. Another great Birth Advocate Shannon Mitchell was able to get up and ask a question.
23. Got to see The Feminist Breeder ask an awesome question about post cesarean emotional impacts.  The panel agreed that there certainly should be more research on the topic itself.
24. Jen from VBAC Facts was able to get up and question VBAC bans and the hospitals that say they are not “equipped” for VBAC. Basically covering and having the panel agree with her about hospitals not being properly equipped is an excuse.
25. You should have seen the look on the faces of the panel when a mother got up and introduced the baby on her hip as a breech HBAC birth meaning, vaginal breech birth at home, after a cesarean.  GASP!
26. Then moved onto the Trial of Labor and the impact on the infants, and again my children started raising hell, so I only got bits and pieces, but I will share what I did get.
27. 2007 marked the 11th year of constant increases in the cesarean rate in The United States.
28. There looks to be a direct connection between the rise in cesarean section rates, and women in the US putting off having children till their later childbearing years. (Interesting graph I will have when they publish the full report)
29. The risk of uterine rupture is 0.8% and the risk for fetal death out of that small percent is only 6%!
30. 1 out of every 3 elective repeat cesarean deliveries takes place BEFORE 39 weeks gestation, when the recommendation is NO elective deliveries before 39 weeks. Showing that providers are picking and choosing which guidelines they want to practice.
31. NICU admission rates in the above babies are higher.
32. Increased risk of Type 1 diabetes in children born via cesarean section.
33. One speaker called ACOG’s current VBAC guidelines “overkill”
34. The same speaker also said home births are not something women should be doing for VBAC’s. Which causes a problem, at least for me. What this speaker/provider does not understand is under the current VBAClash in the country, the ONLY option for many mothers interested in VBAC is out of hospital births, or even UNASSISTED births.
35. Desirre Andrews, the current ICAN President was able to stand up and address the amount of hospitals nationally with VBAC Bans, De facto bans and why women are being forced into alternative birthing options because of these guidelines. She shined like a star!

Now, I would like to add a short disclaimer that all of the above information is NOT information of mine. This belongs to the National Institute of Health’s VBAC Consensus presenters today. These are all studies THEY brought to the table, these are all numbers they they cited, and if you would like further information on ANY of this, you can pre order the full presentation and consensus report on the NIH Website.

These are FACTS that have come from medical professionals, scientific medical studies, and major universities.

March 8th, 2010

Afternoon update

I thought that I would be able to update live with everything going on, unfortunately I underestimated my children for the morning session. In reality with the vast amount of information being given, it is near impossible to really keep up.
I was able to tweet live on twitter, as well as watch the live twitter feed for the #NIHVBAC hashtag which is the current tag suggested for the conference itself. I am going to share some information I got off of there as well as some highlights from this morning.

The first thing I want to get out there is a CNM brought up in the question session was home birth, especially for VBAC mothers also known as Home Birth after Cesarean, or HBAC. The moderator promptly made a comment about how there are no accurate statistics for home birth. The room ERUPTED in YES THERE IS!!! And many people continued to speak out about it.

Other great highlights were Dr. Stuart Fischbein being the first person up to the question stand to talk about hospitals who have VBAC bans, hospital policy, and the lack of TRUE informed consent taking place nationally.  He is my hero, and I am so excited to have him coming up on my radio show in April.   Can I add him to the list of men I would like to marry?

Lots of other stuff included the difference in maternal death between VBAC and ERCD’s which out of 100,000 deliveries with previous cesarean sections, 9 out of 100,000 women will die from routine elective cesareans.  Nor are we talking about the serious risks to future pregnancies including life threatening conditions, placental problems, future infertility, etc.

They also tackled the issues surrounding informed consent and how many women are not being given accurate information regarding VBAC Vs. ERCD and the risks involved. Whether for monetary or liability reasons.

There is so much, but once the conference is over tonight, and my husband is home from class, I will be blogging in full.

P.S. The Unnecesarean logo ended up on one of the presenter’s slides!  I was so excited to see that, as well as the ICAN logo right next to it!

March 8th, 2010

Part 1

To start off, at the end of the next couple of days, when the consensus is over, you can obtain the report at http://www.ahrq.gov/ which is the agency that got the contract.

I am starting to watch, and blog and I am trying to get as much onto my blog as I can while following this myself.
I guess it is going to be harder than I though.

First thing I would like to point out is all the women on the panel, as well as all the different backgrounds of the panelists. Nurse midwives, OB’s, etc… A lot of my posts will e bullet points of statements from the conference.

Some appreciations to get familiar with for the next coupe days :
TOL = Trial of Labor
APC = After Prior Cesarean
VBAC = Vaginal Birth after Cesarean
ERCD = Elective Repeat Cesarean Delivery

• VBAC Access is certainly restricted
• Panel is going to look into why the VBAC numbers are decreasing as well as to if these reasons are VALID reasons.
• Lots of emphasis on EVIDENCE based medicine, practice, and research.

March 8th, 2010

VBACtivist

Kicking off the National Institute of Health, VBAC Conference in Bethesda, Maryland, The Feminist Breeder, Michele Demont from Birthcut.com, and Desirre Andrews the current President of ICAN had an awesome radio show in which women could call in and talk about VBAC experiences and why VBAC is important, as well as an essential medical choice for women today.

To listen to the show, you can click here : VBACtivists

I was able to call in and share my experience, as well as my opinions on the reason why VBAC is so essential to our maternity care system.

Tune in tomorrow morning for more coverage on the National Institute of Health VBAC Conference.

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 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.

February 22nd, 2010

National Institute of Health VBAC Conference

Most of you that already read my blog are not only probably already registered and attending this, but have stellar agenda’s that you will bring to the table, as would I if I was able to find childcare for this mid-week conference.  I came to the conclusion last night, after discussion several different options with my husband that it simply is something I am going to have to pass on, as much as it pains me. This all on top of finding a super awesome roommate yesterday.  Sorry Kristin, I would have LOVED to hang out!

But it is so important that VBACtivists make their way to this.  I think it is way more important than most are realizing.  This will hopefully help to change the tides and attitudes towards VBAC in our birthing community today. With the amount of illegal VBAC bans taking place nation wide, and the lack of access to women, this is truly becoming a crisis in maternity care.

It is no secret to educated women that VBAC is statistically safer than repeat cesarean sections and carry lower risks than a second major surgery, but with one third of all babies being born through major surgery, we are seeing a trend changing to the majority repeating that surgery for all subsequent births.  Right now 90% of all women have elective repeat c-sections, the vast majority for no medical reason.

So what exactly is NIH & this VBAC Conference?
March 8th-10th, in Bethesda, Maryland
the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and the Office of Medical Applications of Research of the National Institutes of Health will convene a Consensus Development Conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean.

They will touch on some very key issues such as :

• What are the rates and patterns of utilization of trial of labor after prior cesarean, vaginal birth after cesarean, and repeat cesarean delivery in the United States?
• Among women who attempt a trial of labor after prior cesarean, what is the vaginal delivery rate and the factors that influence it?
• What are the critical gaps in the evidence for decision-making, and what are the priority investigations needed to address these gaps?

• What are the short- and long-term benefits and harms to the mother of attempting trial of labor after prior cesarean versus elective repeat cesarean delivery, and what factors influence benefits and harms?
• What are the short- and long-term benefits and harms to the baby of maternal attempt at trial of labor after prior cesarean versus elective repeat cesarean delivery, and what factors influence benefits and harms?
• What are the nonmedical factors that influence the patterns and utilization of trial of labor after prior cesarean?

What happens at an NIH consensus conference?

• At the conference, invited experts will present information pertinent to these questions, and a systematic literature review prepared under contract with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) will be summarized.
• Conference attendees will have ample time to ask questions and provide statements during open discussion periods.
• After weighing the scientific evidence, an unbiased, independent panel will prepare and present a consensus statement addressing the key conference questions.

If you are unable to make it, they will also be offering an internet version, where you can watch live during the conference itself.
I will be doing this will chaotic kids in tow.

For information on registering, you can visit the conference website.
It is FREE!

I hope a lot of the awesome VBACtivists will be attending, I know so far that these awesome women will be there, so maybe just go for a chance to win such awesome advocates?

The Feminist Breeder
Jen from VBACFacts
Desirre Andrews, ICAN President
Kristin from Birthing Beautiful Ideas

I will be looking forward to all your reporting and tweeting!