Births by the day of the week

On page 53 of the 2006 National Vital Statistics Report (released Jan. 7, 2009), there was an interesting little chart: number of births by the day of the week. Not surprisingly, there were the fewest births over the weekend. Monday through Friday there were about 12,000-13,000 births per day; but on Saturday and Sunday there [...]

Illinois CPM Legislation!

Forwarded from an email list I’m on — please email, forward, blog, etc. — however you can get the word out… Greetings home birth supporters. We have an extremely urgent message. PLEASE DROP ALL YOUR PLANS AND HEAD TO THE STATE CAPITOL NEXT TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2009! @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ We cannot overstate how important this [...]

B’s Birth Story

My middle sister has three children; this is the story of the birth of the middle one. Her first birth was two years before, in a hospital with a CNM (she ended up with pitocin, but no epidural — just some injected narc like morphine or something). For some reason, that option was not available [...]

Breastfeeding an Adopted Baby

I’ve heard about that — I think Dr. Sears has it in his The Baby Book — but as far as I know, none of the adoptive parents I know have breastfed their children (although many of them adopted older children). Anyway, it was discussed a few weeks ago on the Permission to Mother blog, [...]

Oral Hygiene, Preeclampsia, Preterm Birth

I’d previously read that gingivitis is associated with higher rates of preeclampsia, but that it was not known if it was a “cause and effect” or just an association. If gingivitis causes preeclampsia, then better oral hygiene might prevent some cases of preeclampsia; but if it’s just an association — that women who are predisposed [...]

One Little Word

Well-Rounded Mama has an excellent and thoughtful post on the importance of one little word — that word being the change in ACOG’s guidelines in 1999 concerning VBACs, which changed from suggesting that doctors be “readily available” to being “immediately available.” Go read the article, pass it along to your friends, blog about it, etc. [...]

Define “Safe”

In chapter 5 of Dr. Rixa‘s Born Free dissertation, she discusses risk and safety in birth. How do you define “safe”? Is “safe” defined solely as a birth in which both mother and baby survive? In that case, birth is universally defined as safe, since most mothers and babies survive birth even in Sierra Leone, [...]

Authoritative vs. Authoritarian

This is another post inspired by Dr. Rixa Freeze’s “Born Free” doctoral dissertation; this time from the section starting on p 169 of the pdf, on “Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge.” Often when the discussion is on unassisted childbirth (UC), the question becomes, “How do you know what to do when?” This type of question can [...]

ICAN VBAC ban/allow list!!

Earlier I blogged about the VBAC article in Time magazine, and now the awesome, wonderful, and amazing volunteers of ICAN have put together a comprehensive list of all the hospitals in America, and whether they allow VBACs or not. The number of hours that it took for all the volunteers to call the hospitals and [...]

Controversies in Childbirth Conference

A reader reminded me about this upcoming conference, which will be held in Dallas/Fort Worth from March 27-29. If you register before March 1, you will get a discount on the cost of the conference. From the conference website’s home page: The Only Conference Bringing Together: Obstetricians, Pediatricians, Family Physicians, Certified Nurse Midwives,  Certified Professional [...]