Guest Post: How to Avoid a Medical Induction Seminar

Are you interested in natural effective techniques to avoid a medical induction?

Are you tired of seeing birthing mothers face a cascade of intervention that could be avoided?

Are you frustrated with seeing fear take over what could be an empowering birth?

Are you saddened by the amount of medicalisation in the birth process?

 

We are hosting a one-time complimentary teleseminar on Thursday September 13 at 830am (Sydney Australia time). That’s Perth 630am, Alice Springs/Darwin/Cairns 8am, Auckland NZ 1030am, In other parts of the world this means: Wednesday September 12, LA & Vancouver 330pm, NY & Montreal 630pm & London 1130pm.

Listen LIVE from your land line or Skype on the day if you can as there will be specials, or else receive a recording later and listen to it when you’re free – it’s that easy!

SAVE YOUR SPOT NOW BY CLICKING HERE => http://acubirth.com.au/opt-in-sept-2012

On this call, Naomi and Rebecca from Acubirth and the Red Tent Health Centre will reveal:

          • The biggest mistake that can hinder the start of birth

          • The best acupressure point to encourage bub to engage and ripen that cervix

          • What the ancient secrets are and how they can empower your women

          • How Chinese medicine can deliver more choice and effective outcomes for birth

          • The importance of touch and how crucial it is in the lead up to birth

          • How to calm nerves and deal naturally with anxiety

          • Inspiring pregnancy and birthing stories where situations have been incredibly turned around using acupressure

You definitely want to save your spot for this one-time event. It’s so easy to attend from anywhere, in the comfort of your own home or wherever you are on the move. If you can, be near a computer connected to the internet, as we’ll be referring to juicy info on line.

Naomi and Rebecca both run Acubirth for Midwives as well as the Red Tent Health Centre in Sydney, Australia. Acubirth is a specialised education website for midwives to find out how natural eastern remedies can improve birthing outcomes for their clients, as well as how it can support their own health and wellbeing. All courses are accredited by the Australian College of Midwives.

On this exciting call you will not only get an insight into how supportive Chinese medicine can be for your women but you will come away with tools you can use right away. On the day we’ll be telling you how you can learn even more about acupressure for midwifery, in a way that’s accredited by the Australian College of Midwives (and we’re in the process of getting specialty credit from the American College of Nurse Midwives also).

SAVE YOUR SPOT NOW BY CLICKING HERE => http://acubirth.com.au/opt-in-sept-2012

We look forward to meeting with you on the 13th.

Warmly

Naomi Abeshouse and Rebecca Mar Young

Your Eastern Birthing Mentors

Acubirth and Red Tent Health Centre

ACUBIRTH FOR MIDWIVES
~ Empowering mothers with eastern remedies ~
www.AcuBirth.com.au

Join our Acubirth for Midwives facebook group: Acubirth-for-Midwives
Follow Acubirth on Twitter @AcuBirthSydney: https://twitter.com/#!/AcuBirthSydney

I am a Midwife Campaign

MANA has a great educational campaign going on right now called I am a Midwife. The campaign involves a series of short videos released once a week about a variety of topics. More than just a general education campaign, each video includes a variety of different women--midwives, mothers, public health activists, maternity care activists, authors---speaking out on important topics in maternity care. Each woman also identifies, "I am a Midwife." This week's video is about health disparities in maternity care, which is a very important and too-often ignored topic. It raises the concern that African American women and their babies are more likely to die than their Caucasian counterparts even when other variables are equalized (i.e. same socioeconomic status, same education, etc.) and moves into wider discussions about racism and the treatment of minority group members. It then focuses on the value and role of midwifery care in addressing these concerns.


As MANA states in relationship to this campaign: "For midwives, sharing is daring. We dare to challenge the status quo. We dare to speak up for women's innate wisdom in pregnancy and birth. We dare to assert that there is a better way for our babies to be born. And we dare to insist that birth belongs to families."

Absolutely! The I am a Midwife public education campaign is extremely powerful. I have to confess that when it originally launched, I didn't personally make time to watch the videos right away, somehow assuming that they were "generic" videos with a "rah, midwives!" type of message. Don't make the same mistake I did. These are quality videos with important messages, powerful voices, and essential education and information. You will definitely learn something from watching them!

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Molly
CfM Blogger

Preconception Educators

“People can feel especially fragile about giving birth because they hate to think they ‘did it wrong.’ We may defend one way of doing it because it is too threatening to think that there might have been a better alternative to the way we gave birth…go gently, and avoid the impulse to polarize or convert. Encourage each person to speak of her own experience in ‘I’ statements…” --Sacred Circles

I shared this quote in another blog post some time ago. It reminds me that perhaps the best avenue for birth advocacy is to back up and start talking to young women in high school or college, and not in trying to “preach” to other adult women who in all likelihood have very complicated reasons for making the choices they are making (and not being “enlightened” as to the “empowering way!” is usually not one of those reasons). If birth advocates are actually going to make meaningful changes (instead of enemies, or at least making women feel “unheard,” unacknowledged, dismissed, or misunderstood) they/we probably need to reach women before they are in that “fragile” or defensive state with regard to their own experiences.

Then, I received a notice about the federal Preconception Peer Educators Program (A Healthy Baby Begins with You), which trains college students as peer educators. A training is being held in Chicago in September to coincide with Infant Mortality Awareness Month and the program is seeking: 500 students/advisors from 20 states and the breakdown is as follows:

• 20 states
• 5 universities per state
• 4 students and 1 advisor per university

They are also encouraging each school to send at least one male student, which I think is good.

The emphasis of the training and program seems to be on reducing infant mortality, which of course is an important goal, but also one that is inextricably linked to optimal care of the mother (i.e. the kind of care offered by the Midwives Model of Care). So, I would hope to see more content within the program about maternity care, midwifery care, and birth rights in general, but I think it sounds like a very interesting, important, and useful program!

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Molly
CfM Blogger

Multimedia Review: Baby’s First Gift

Multimedia Review: Baby’s First Gift
Casscom Media, 2009
2 CD & DVD Set
http://www.babysfirstgift.com/

Reviewed by Molly Remer, MSW, ICCE
http://talkbirth.wordpress.com

For parents who are drawn to the idea of “prenatal education,” the set Baby’s First Gift is a good resource. Containing two CDs and one DVD packaged together, the program is designed to help parents in “forming a positive, loving, teaching relationship with your child before birth.” The information provided is developed specifically for the purposes for prenatal stimulation and communication. There is a Christian overtone to the packaging, but it is very slight and unlikely to make other faith traditions feel uncomfortable.

The first CD in the Baby’s First Gift program consists of instrumental music that would be good for use in birth classes, for relaxation, and for baby-parent bonding. The second CD explains the concept of prenatal education and includes explanations of several different games/exercises to do with baby prenatally—kick game, xylophone game (with three musical notes), and simple words. It also suggests creating your own special song or melody to share with your baby in-utero (great idea for dads). This CD also includes a section about preparing for birth and has a guided relaxation exercise. The DVD presentation is of a pregnant couple demonstrating the prenatal education exercises explained on the CD. Like the first CD, the second half of the DVD is "Prenatal Music for Life," this time set to accompanying waterfall images.

Be aware that both the CD and DVD refer frequently to the book The Prenatal Classroom which is not included as part of the program. The informational CD and DVD are narrated by men with pleasant, soothing, calm voices. The pregnant couple demonstrating exercises on the DVD are also pleasant and contemporary.

My initial reaction to a program like this was a bit of skepticism and that feeling remains after reviewing the program. As I watched the DVD, the games felt stilted and somewhat artificial—my own prenatal experiences are that bonding with, connecting to, and communicating with the baby are spontaneous, intuitive, and arise frequently without need for planned out exercises or games. However, I feel like the program may be an especially good tool to introduce to families at high-risk of child abuse. For the average couple, I think this kind of prenatal connection tends to occurs naturally without training or lessons.

From a mother’s perspective, as the one who carries the baby and is in constant contact and awareness of the baby, the idea of formal “prenatal communication” seems redundant. For fathers-to-be who are perhaps feeling distant or disconnected from the baby and the experience of pregnancy or for high-risk families, Baby’s First Gift could be a helpful tool.


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Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of the program for review purposes.

Keepsake Ultrasound Ban

The governor of Connecticut recently signed a ban on "keepsake ultrasounds" (the kind that are performed "for fun" at a store in the mall, for example). The bill "bars anyone from performing ultrasounds on pregnant women unless a doctor orders them for medical or diagnostic purposes."

See: Conn. governor signs keepsake ultrasound ban

I have very mixed feelings about this ban. While I agree that unnecessary ultrasounds should not be performed, legal "bans" make me uneasy--for example, what if a governor decides "banning homebirth" is a good idea or "banning midwifery." When things like this happen, I start to worry about a slippery slope of governmental interference with parental health care decision-making.

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Molly
CfM Blogger

Birth-Day Giveaway!

I've set this post to publish at 2:45 a.m. on May 29th to commemorate that three years ago exactly I had just given birth to my second baby boy on the floor of my living room! He was received by the caring hands of my midwife, who was present for exactly 5 minutes of the birth. I didn't actually feel like I needed a midwife in labor or during birth, but I was profoundly grateful for her presence postpartum and also for her time and care during prenatal visits. She always spent at least an hour with me during prenatal visits and I had so much fun spending that time with someone who was interested in me, my pregnancy, and my baby. She treated me with such love and respect and much like a colleague, instead of a "patient." Then, postpartum, she helped me stand and carry my new baby to the bed. She perked me back up with smelling salts when I started to faint (I have a little "issue" with seeing blood). She lovingly sponge-bathed my arms and legs (this birth was triumphant and transformative, though also particularly bloody!). When I started to "slip" emotionally in the early days postpartum (baby blues), she offered me words of encouragement, kindness, and inspiration as well as her presence. She also thoughtfully helped me make an important decision about whether to visit my family physician regarding my physical recovery following the birth. These things were such gifts and were irreplaceable!

In honor of my son's third birthday and the anniversary of my swift and special homebirth with him, I'd like to offer a book giveaway (the first on this blog!). When I was pregnant, I was already very informed about pregnancy and birth (I became a certified childbirth educator in 2005) and I felt a need to seek out books that "went beyond" the average pregnancy and birth books. One such book is Rediscovering Birth by Sheila Kitzinger. To enter to win a hardback copy of this book just leave a comment on this post by midnight on June 9th letting me know something special that you valued about your midwife (or other birth caregiver). You can gain an additional entry to win by posting a link to this giveaway on your own blog (and posting to let me know about it).

Happy Birthday Zander!

(his complete birth story is posted here)

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Molly
CfM Blogger