Midwifery Today Issue 67

Lotus Birth: A Ritual For Our Times

by Sarah J. Buckley August 31, 2003

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.

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Photo by Cornelia Enning

A Question Of Words

by Heather Mains August 31, 2003

A number of authors have called attention to the language we commonly use in discussing birth and how particular words shape our understanding of birth.

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India Ink: Homeopathic Sepia

by Peggy Sawyer August 31, 2003

Classical homeopathy embraces the whole person. We look beyond the individual symptoms a client presents to see the constitution as a whole in order to find the appropriate remedy. The characteristics of a substance help us to understand some of the healing properties of the homeopathic remedy.

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Michel Odent sits at a table with our country contaact from the Netherlands, midwife Mary Zwart, at the Midwifery Today conference in the Netherlands in 2002. Photo by Jan Tritten

Working Relations: Midwives And Obstetricians In The Netherlands

by Vanessa Stubbs August 31, 2003

I began interviewing Dutch midwives and obstetricians in an effort to understand how they successfully negotiate working together, especially in the hospital setting. I wanted to know what the Dutch do differently when, in other countries, the differing philosophies of birth that typically characterize these two professions have often made for tense and even hostile working relations.

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Photo by Brooke Lark

Lessons Learned From A Great Chef

by Karen Schelling August 31, 2003

I have a passion for birth. I also have a passion for cooking. To inform myself about birth I digest what I can from professional journals and soak up midwifery wisdom from those who are really in the bedroom “with birth.” But mostly I listen to and spend time with women. When I want to try something new in the kitchen, however, I experiment. Occasionally, I have the desire to visit with the great chefs of our time. Julia Child is, of course, a favorite. To my surprise, her words struck me as a midwife one evening.

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Photo by M.T ElGassier

Fear of Death During Labour*

by Michel Odent August 31, 2003

Whatever the mother tongue, the reference to death is typical of a certain stage of labour. My own observation of births on both sides of the Channel, both in a home-like hospital (Pithiviers, France) and at home, are confirmed by detailed reports of births throughout the world, in the past and at present. However, the expression of a fear of death has rarely been studied, even by such acute observers as Grantly Dick-Read, the author of Childbirth Without Fear (1955).

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Photo by Caroline Brown

Fearful Fantasies

by Michele Klein August 31, 2003

A few weeks before I gave birth to my first child, I woke up in the night sweating and frightened. I had dreamed that I was lying in a pool of blood and had just given birth to a little lamb. A friend told me of a dream that she had before giving birth; someone was chasing her, she lay on her back and was pricked by a thin stick and a stiletto heel.

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Sharing The Stories

by Shellie Moore August 31, 2003

I listen carefully as women speak about their fear of giving birth and the courage it will require. At times, it seems women think that fear and courage are mutually exclusive; that if they feel afraid they will not be able to act courageously to give birth in the way they might hope. Recently I was at a baby shower for a doula client. Each woman was asked to tell her last birth story in three minutes.

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Courage

by Gloria Lemay August 31, 2003

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, courage is a noun meaning “ability to overcome fear or despair.” Notice fear has to be present in order for courage to exist. The English word “courage” is derived from the French word for the heart, coeur. Finding the heart to continue doing the right thing in the face of great fear inspires others to become nobler human beings. In midwifery, we see women and men facing their fears in birth; we ask them to have faith in the face of no evidence. We demand that they are bigger than the circumstances and, when they conquer, we get a renewed vision of how life can look when our fears don’t stop us. This is the source and inspiration for our own courage.

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A Home Away From Home Birth

by Marlene Waechter August 31, 2003

All my homebirth clients find me by word-of-mouth, but I was amazed when word had spread as far as Romania!

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Read more…. A Home Away From Home Birth

Marion’s Message: The Necessary Cesarean

by Marion Toepke McLean August 31, 2003

“I don’t think a 25 percent cesarean rate is too high.” The words jolted me to attention. The speaker is a woman I respect: my cousin, a family historian, who has farmed with her husband in the Midwest for decades. I forced myself to overcome my prejudices and listen to her seriously. “Not if it saves women from what my niece is going through,” she continued.

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Photo by Marilyn Nolt

Norway: The Breastfeeding Top Of The World

by Tine Greve August 31, 2003

In the Western world, Norway is the country where most babies are breastfed. More than 98 percent of babies born at term (37-43 weeks) are breastfed when leaving the maternity ward. At three months of age, 88 percent of the babies are breastfeeding; at six months, 80 percent still breastfeed; and even at one year, 40 percent of the babies still get breast milk (Spedkost 2003).