Membership Content

This whole movement toward unassisted birth should shake us midwives up! I hate to say this because I am a midwife, but we have done as much as docs and hospitals to scare women about birth and to frighten them out of trusting their bodies.

 Read more…. What The Unassisted Birth Movement Teaches Midwives

Kathleen Johnson is a registered nurse, childbirth, lactation and infant massage educator. She has attended home, birth center and hospital births and currently works part-time in a hospital birth center and part-time in her private holistic nursing/healing touch practice. Kathleen is completing her master’s thesis on “The Experience of Spirituality in Pregnancy” and welcomes stories from mothers and their attendants about their own spiritual experiences during pregnancy and birth. Visit her Web site at www.spiritbirth.org.

 Read more…. Promoting A Positive Hospital Experience

Birth is inherently a female activity. The choice, the ability, the power to give birth is innately female. Historically women were the sole possessors of birthing knowledge and technique, and in certain cultures and time periods men feared them as a result of this.

 Read more…. The Role Of Fear In The U.S. Birthing Process

When I first became interested in midwifery, I was pregnant with my fourth child. I came from a hospital background not only in my birthing style, but also in my chosen field of work.

 Read more…. Though I Walk Through The Valley …

During the twentieth century, it had been commonplace to raise the main questions regarding childbirth in a negative way. How to give birth without pain? How to give birth without fear? How to be born without violence? As long as the questions are raised in this way, they will usually lead to sophisticated and sterile solutions.

 Read more…. The Questions Are More Important Than The Answers

The head had come out, mostly. The chin pressed deep into the mother; it didn’t emerge in the way expected. The baby grimaced but stayed tight. His chin didn’t arch and swing to the side so that he could face his mother’s thigh. My mentor said softly but firmly, “check for the cord.” Slipping my finger out of sight, I felt an odd crease around the baby’s neck but couldn’t get under it; so, no cord, I thought. I placed the same finger on his shoulder and pressed gently to corkscrew the baby. I worried that pressure could cause him discomfort. My finger pressed tentatively. No movement resulted at all.

 Read more…. Shoulder Dystocia: The Basics

A friend reminded me in a recent e-mail of the world of risk we are now part of in the West. It was one of those circulating e-mails, and it took a look at the differences in the world we grew up in compared to the one our children are a part of now. According to the risk measures we apply to the life of our children it is clear many of us should not have survived! Children now have become more protected and cocooned than we ever were.

 Read more…. Fear, Society, And Birth

“Tokophobia” is an intense anxiety or fear of death that leads to some women dreading and avoiding childbirth despite desperately wanting a baby. So, can we call this yet another piece of iatrogenic morbidity? How many women had this a hundred years ago? What has the Western childbirth model done to women?

 Read more…. Tokophobia

Lotus birth is the practice of leaving the umbilical cord uncut, so that the baby remains attached to his or her placenta until the cord naturally separates at the umbilicus—exactly as a cut cord does—at 3 to 10 days after birth. This prolonged contact can be seen as a time of transition, allowing the baby to slowly and gently let go of his or her attachment to the mother’s body.

 Read more…. Lotus Birth: A Ritual For Our Times

In the past 27 years of practice, I have evolved from the new-nurse-technowizard in the birth environment to a well-seasoned holistic practitioner.    During the past decade as the creator and coordinator of a hospital-based doula program and a perinatal education specialist, I have become aware of the impact that the birthing environment has on the laboring mother, her social support and the birth experience itself.

 Read more…. Balancing Chi And Integrating Feng Shui

Drumming has a rich and long history rooted in ancient cultures. Drums were used for communication and primeval expression in virtually every area of the globe. Drummers were healers. Drummers were women. Women and their clans drummed for many occasions including both spiritual and physical rites of passage. The drum was an empty shell to be filled with expression, the birthplace of healing sounds, a womb.

 Read more…. Creating A Sound Environment: Drumming For The Childbearing Year

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Midwifery Today, Issue 66, Summer 2003.Join Midwifery Today Online Membership Selena and Mac are country people.* I attended their births early in my career and learned a lot from them, especially when they had Sophia, their third baby and first daughter. Mac didn’t believe in hospitals or doctors. He and I had lengthy debates and I had pointed out to him that he went right to the emergency room when his leg was broken. However, he saw that as somehow different from childbirth. I made sure he knew what my protocols were and what kinds of situations I believed were safer in the hospital. Sophia turned to a breech position when she was 32 weeks along and Selena started doing the tilt board and some acupressure points to encourage her to return to head first. My phone rang a little after six one morning. It was Selena and her voice was a tearful wail. “I’m in labor!” she said. “I’ve been having cramps all night and I’ve been telling myself I ate something bad, ’cause I’ve had a little diarrhea too. But it’s not that! I can feel the pressure! Can you come and see if I’m in labor?” “I’ll be right there!” I replied. I pulled her chart from my files. Just as I thought, she was not yet quite 36 weeks. And possibly still breech! Hurriedly, I dressed and drove to their home. Selena was lying on the thick rug in their living room, her legs propped up on a big pillow. A quick exam revealed the irregular presenting part of a complete breech, covered by the taut, smooth surface of the waterbag. No cervix could be felt. “You’re complete,” I said. “And the baby’s still breech. And premature, Selena.” “What… Read more…. Marion’s Message: Making the Best of the Birth Environment

 Read more…. Marion’s Message: Making the Best of the Birth Environment