Midwifery Today Issue 88

Photo by Brooke Lark

Healthy Transitions: Pregnancy to Motherhood with Homeopathic Medicine

by Piper Martin December 11, 2008

Homeopathy is a system of medicine that can be used safely and effectively by a pregnant woman from the early weeks of gestation through the birth process and the postpartum period. The realization of a pregnancy often motivates women to make significant changes in their lives. Homeopathic remedies can assist women in making this transition. These changes may be mental, emotional or physical and all can be supported and encouraged through the use of homeopathic medicine. Some of the key issues for a woman as her pregnancy evolves are outlined below. Remedy suggestions are non-specific because like any other homeopathic case, the right remedy is different for each individual.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Illustration by Bonnie Urquhart Gruenberg

Nicholas Antonio

by Ruth Stearns Pass December 1, 2008

This is the birth story of my son Nicholas Antonio. He’s my third child, my second VBAC and my first successful full natural birth. I hope my story inspires doulas and midwives to continue their work helping women in all situations to have safe and positive birth experiences that don’t use unnecessary medical interventions. I weathered a “bully”-type experience in a hospital that changed its birthing policy for VBACs the day before I went into labor. I was the first woman to labor under their new policies and stand up to them and tell them “NO.”

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Placenta Medicine: My Story

by Tiffany Rosenbrock December 1, 2008

I remember the day my midwife told me about placenta medicine, I cried. I loved that birth had so many blessings to offer our family, and this was completely new to me. I was so excited when Patricia told me she would gladly encapsulate my placenta for me and that taking it would ease the symptoms of postpartum depression (PPD) after the birth. Patricia Couch is an amazing midwife. With five kids and a demanding position at the birth center, she still finds time to help mamas like me honor our amazing placentas, and this is our story.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Read more…. Placenta Medicine: My Story

Photos provided by the author

A Surprise Posterior Brow Birth

by Ann Naffziger December 1, 2008

Madeleine Grace, my posterior-, brow-, left asynclitic-presenting baby, turns two years old next week. After another year of reflection on that life-changing event, I’m more ready than ever to invite healing to my memories of that 70- hour labor and the difficult postpartum that ensued. It took 13 months of sitz baths, heat lamps, obstetrician/gynecologist visits and two trips to a proctologist to heal my jagged third-degree tear and 70+ stitches, but my perineum and anus finally healed. This year, I look forward to continued emotional healing from posttraumatic stress around the anniversary of Madeleine’s birth.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Postdate Protocols for Homebirth Practice

by Paula M. Hostler December 1, 2008

Modern obstetrical practice is to employ a variety of fetal testing options followed by induction, in some cases as early as 38 weeks. For midwifery care at home, where interventions are kept to a minimum, midwives and their clients strive to find a less invasive and safe approach for postdate pregnancies. This paper explores the possibility that induction and fetal surveillance methods are not the answer; that a more intuitive and multi-tiered approach should be employed for each particular woman and birth.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Father’s Experience of Birth

by Ervin Beachy December 1, 2008

ME?! Gonna be a DADDY?! I kept staring at the pregnancy test strip with that very solid “+”…thus began the journey. We celebrated! Read more…. Father’s Experience of Birth

Mother’s Experience

by Elizabeth Beachy December 1, 2008

Editor’s note: This article first appeared in Midwifery Today, Issue 88, Winter 2008. Join Midwifery Today Online Membership“There’s the heart; everything looks okay. The placenta is over here; up here is the head.” The ultrasound probe zigzagged over my nicely rounded abdomen. It was the first time we realized that our baby was breech. It was only the 23rd week and the doctor assured us the baby was still flip-flopping around in my uterus and it had plenty of time to turn itself around before delivery.Knowing it was breech, however, got the wheels of my brain turning. I had assisted with quite a number of deliveries over a period of seven years and knew I did not want to have a breech baby. I’d witnessed ten breech births and knew it was something I hoped never to have to do. Furthermore, I was sure I knew way too much about the risks of a breech delivery to ever go into labor with confidence.With these misgivings I asked my midwife, Mary Hostetler, who’s also my grandmother, to check the baby’s position. It was breech. Oh, bother. I took it upon myself to do the slant lie. I lay in bed with my bottom on a pile of about four pillows until I felt like I was nearly standing on my head. I had a Doppler close by to check on the baby every once in a while. Then I started poking on my poor belly like I never had before, praying all the while that if I was being foolish God would deliver me from my own foolishness. I worked at getting her little butt up out of my pelvis then tried to push her little head around to flip her. I was in that position for about an hour until… Read more…. Mother’s Experience

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Midwifery: A Filipina Perspective

by Kate Prendergast December 1, 2008

In July and August of 2008 I was an intern at Mercy Maternity Center in Davao, Philippines, where I completed all of my clinical requirements or “numbers” towards my CPM. I learned a great deal from the midwives enrolled in NewLife International School of Midwifery (midwifeschool.org).

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Determining Relational Needs in Challenging Clients

by Maryl Smith December 1, 2008

Midwives work with a vast array of interesting, creative, amazing and thought-provoking women; it’s one gift of our work. We were drawn to the work to serve, support and be with childbearing women. Consequently, when we find ourselves inclined to ignore, admonish or run away from a particular client, we may experience conflicted feelings of guilt and inadequacy. In the worst circumstances we may develop a belief that the client is an adversary instead of a sincere person seeking our assistance.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Non-Interventive Pelvimetry

by Betty Peckman December 1, 2008

In an excellent but out-of-print book, Stepping Stones to Labor Ward Diagnosis, I read how to determine the obstetric type without doing an internal exam. The author was a practicing obstetrician/gynecologist in Australia in the 1950s and into the 1970s. During that time a link was found between bone cancer in pre-adolescent males and routine x-ray for fetal position, size and pelvic compatibility during the ninth month gestation. (Does this sound familiar for ultrasound exam today?) Further studies on x-ray exposure during pregnancy showed other links to fetal anomalies and led to warnings against such exposure.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

Read more…. Non-Interventive Pelvimetry

Remembrance for Nobody

by Michele Klein December 1, 2008

“Due to some pregnancy difficulty, the birth will be induced today. Fingers crossed, prayers and thoughts for the baby’s health (and the mother’s) will be accepted.” This was the text of an e-mail that I received a few weeks ago from a very worried Israeli father.

This post is only available to members. To purchase an online membership, go here.

If you are already an online member login here.

The Absence of Fear

by Jasmine Rae Ojala December 1, 2008

I had a dog named Zoe a long time ago. She was a mix of lab, collie and god-knows-what—a big, half-blind, neurotic dog who always lay right smack in the middle of the narrow hallway leading from the bathroom to my bedroom. Every night, to avoid tripping, I had to take a big step over her.