Membership Content

The winter moon was rising. No babies tonight, so I volunteered to go home. I called security to walk me to my car. Just beyond the parking lot, food stamps were being traded for something to make the pain of living recede. Gunshots often echoed outside the walls of the labor wing. I was an OB nurse, in the midst of a system that often created birth violence, working with bold midwives to protect birth.

 Read more…. My Path to Midwifery

“But it didn’t hurt,” Beth told me straightforwardly as she cradled her sweet baby nuzzling in for a snack before nap at six weeks. I like to review births with mothers at various points during their postpartum, lying-in time. The 6-week or 40-day visit inevitably offers new perspectives. Beth had a herstory of excessive blood loss during childbirth.

 Read more…. Silent Hemorrhage

We do a great job of caring for our pregnant clients. Traditional pregnancy assessments rely on the typical exam routine: assess the vital signs, uterine and fetal position, and development of both the baby and the pregnant woman. This narrow focus in a routine visit is missing the three key assessments that will help pregnant clients and baby achieve a smoother birth and faster recovery. During these visits, the client’s body needs more attention as it approaches labor—especially the “birth door.”

 Read more…. Why Is the Birth Door Not Being Assessed?

The age of Covid 19 has reinforced interest in The Future of Homo, the latest book by Michel Odent, published by World Scientific.

 Read more…. The Future of Homo In the Age of Question Marks

When I was a little girl, I used to watch my mother. She was a calligrapher. My father made a light table for her where she laid down her pages and, bent attentively over the light, she wrote. The light table illuminated a lined page behind an unlined parchment page so that my mother could write a straight script across the parchment without marking lines on the parchment itself. She would write fancy scripts and make lovely flowers, gilded with silver or gold from her tiny paint pots, and create something beautiful: a wedding invitation, a birth announcement, a wall hanging, a bookmark. Her pens had special, pointed nibs that she dipped in black inkwells, from which flowed many precious words, often from scripture and sometimes from poetry. From my mother, I learned that mothers are artists.

 Read more…. Mothers as Artists

It happened on a cold winter night … inside a high-end modern car, beside a poor neighborhood of Mataderos, in Buenos Aires City. The car windows were steamy.… Some groans and screams were heard from inside the car.… Police cars and drug dealers were nearby….

 Read more…. Giving Birth High

My birth journey started during my childbearing years. My first child, a daughter, was a full-term stillbirth. Nothing could have prepared me for that experience. It was also my first up-close-and-personal experience with death. To say it changed me in many fundamental ways would be an understatement. I waited the suggested one year and got pregnant immediately.

 Read more…. Honoring Birth and Babies

To equip means to prepare someone sufficiently in all aspects, for a particular situation or task. Everyone who aspires to become a midwife desires to be properly equipped for this task.

 Read more…. Building Strong Foundations for Midwifery Education: The World Needs Midwives, Now More Than Ever!

The anxious gaze of non birthing partners is a familiar sight. How can I help her not be in pain? I’m worried I’ll faint. What do I do if I think my partner is depressed? What happens if there are complications? I want to be there for my baby in a way my dad wasn’t for me. I don’t get paid leave—how much time off work do you think I need to take? These were common concerns I heard in my childbirth classes, particularly during the hour I met with non birthing partners alone.

 Read more…. Family Stress and Perinatal Mental Health in Non Birthing Partners