More on Gisele–the midwife speaks!

From The Boston Herald, that fabulous source of hard-hitting news, comes some more info on Gisele’s homebirth–from her midwife! I was wondering who her midwife was, actually–a local one (as it turned out) or some imported midwife who caters to the stars, if such midwives even exist. It’s great that this is bringing homebirth more into the public eye, as always, but again, really, it should not be news that a woman feels “no fear” during labor and birth. 

–Christina

Quick Link: Interview with Randi Epstein (author, doctor)

The Well blog at NYTimes.com has this interview with Randi Epstein, author of the new Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank. My copy hasn’t arrived yet from the Boston Public Library reserve list, but the interview is interesting–she talks a little about some principles of midwifery (though the interview doesn’t label them as such), about evidence-based childbirth, and about unassisted childbirth. It’s still clearly a medical perspective, when all is said and done, but I think the book will be worth at least a quick read.

–Christina

SIDS

Researchers here in Boston have found that infants with lower levels of serotonin may be at a higher risk for SIDS, especially during the first year of life.

Ruminating on Gisele’s son’s birth

In a fit of utter boredom I spent some time yesterday trolling a celebrity gossip site and came across a post about Gisele Bundchen’s birth where she blissfully declared it “not painful.” The comments that followed were fascinating. They started out remarkably positive, along the lines of “wow, that gives me inspiration, I hope I can have a birth like that.” 700+ comments later the conversation devolved into the usual mud slinging. But a few things really stood out to me about the whole dialogue created by this unusual celebrity birth story.

1. Positive role models can produce positive results: It was lovely to see how just the mere acknowledgment that childbirth can be a pleasurable experience led some woman to shift their own thinking. I know this reflects my own experience with a mom and siblings who always spoke of the virtues of natural birth and clued me in to the reality of intervention heavy births. It allowed me to see births in film and on TV for what they really were: fiction intended to create drama.

2. How pervasive the negative image of birth is: Despite the comments starting out positive, it didn’t take long before Gisele was accused of lying about her birth experience. So many posters could not accept that it was possible for birth to be anything other than painful and horrible. The most common reason I saw: “My (mom, sister, friend) said childbirth was the worst pain ever. They were cut, the baby’s head was huge, they were in labor for three weeks, etc..” See point one.

3. That many view being sliced open via surgical birth as preferable to the possibility of tearing from vaginal birth: This never stops surprising me. I hear it all the time. It’s as though they’ve blocked out the reality that in order to surgically deliver a child an OB needs to cut through your entire abdominal cavity and then sew you back up. How is this better or less painful than even a larger tear? As if that’s even a foregone conclusion… (shakes head).

In related news:
A new California state report concludes that the number of woman dying from childbirth has tripled in the last decade. And guess what? The usual scapegoats (obesity, maternal age and fertility treatments) were ruled out as likely causes. What could not be ruled out? (wait for it) C-sections and inductions. Shocking, right?

-Christine

Nursing a toddler (in public), comments on

So yes, this has been on my mind lately. . . but on Sunday we were out at dim sum with two (childless) friends, and my almost eighteen-month-old son was getting tired and cranky. He had already eaten some dumplings (speared on a fork), sat in the high chair, and tossed toy cars out of the high chair, and now he was clearly done with the meal, done with the company, and ready for a nap. I popped him into a mei tai in a front carry, and sat down again with him. He flailed around and shrieked for perhaps a minute, until he realized the advantage of this position–proximity to the breast. I latched him on, and he was instantly calm and relaxed. 

“Oh, so cute,” one of my friends said, after a couple minutes, peering at the baby. “You’ve got a thumb sucker over there!”

“No,” I said, “not a thumb. That’s my breast.”

“What? Oh, he’s so cute!” My friend leaned in for a better look.

“That’s not his thumb,” I said again. “That’s my breast.”

“What? Oh!” My friend leaned back and blushed, but then managed to recover. “See, he was just hungry still!”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Hunger, thirst, comfort–he’s got it all.”

–Christina

How doctors prove themselves right

So my cousin went to her OB (sigh, don’t ask–I can’t get anyone in my family/friends to use midwives, apparently) for her 39 week checkup, and he told her she was “a stretchy 2″ centimeters dilated and she “would go” in two days. 

Well, three days later, she felt a twinge and immediately thought it must be labor–because, you know, the doctor said! So she went to the hospital where her contractions “suddenly” “slowed down,” and the rest of the story is pretty predictable. The doctor managed to “perk things up,” of course, with Pitocin, and voila, twelve perfect hours after entering the hospital she had her baby.

Yes, it’s a healthy baby, and yes, I’m happy for my cousin–of course! But couldn’t the doctor have left things alone? Not stretched her out on Thursday, not “predicted” the day of the birth, not hastened along labor but rather said “gee, it’s not even 40 weeks yet, go home and relax,” and just let her baby make his own appearance in his own time??

Double sigh.

–Christina

Not too posh…

What do you know, apparently Gisele Bundchen had a homebirth!
Source
-Christine

Quotable midwives

So, I saw a CNM for my well-woman check-up today–it ended up that it wasn’t my regular CNM, as she was out sick, but rather a colleague filling in for her. I declined a Pap test, since it had only been two years since my last, and instead just had a weight/BP check, basic pelvic exam/ovary check, and breast exam, all of which were quick and easy. But, really, the best part–the quote of the day? “Your vagina looks amazing,” the midwife pronounced. Uh, okay. Thanks.

–Christina

Eating and drinking in labor

So yes, BIG news, folks–a few OBs have decided that it may be safe to “allow” women to eat or drink in labor! This has been widely reported in the mainstream media in the past couple days, but the way it gets reported really irks me. Staying hydrated, and eating and drinking according to your own desires, should be the default–that is normal; that is life; that is the process of labor and birth. We do not need more OBs telling us what we can and cannot do!

“The restrictions date back almost seven decades, said Joan Tranmer, an associate professor of nursing at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario,” the Times article reports. Wow, really? Seven decades? Wait–you mean my grandmother, giving birth at home in a railroad flat in Manhattan didn’t have a doctor breathing down her neck and limiting her to ice chips? Uh, yeah–where would she have gotten the ice again? 

Okay, okay–sorry for the sarcasm, but really, it just rubs me the wrong way. And take a look at this great quote, from the end of that article: “‘From an anesthesiologist’s perspective, they missed the boat on this one,’ said Dr. Craig M. Palmer, chairman of the committee on obstetrical anesthesia for the American Society of Anesthesiologists. ‘They looked at the impact on the progression of labor, but to be honest, that’s not an issue for anesthesiologists. Our primary concern is patient safety.’” Sigh. Yes, we care about “patient” safety too (though recall that most midwives don’t refer to pregnant or laboring women as patients, but rather clients), but–especially when the “safety” risk is to just 1% of births that use general anesthesia–just to dismiss the entire  process of labor as “not an issue” is really to show part of problem with the obstetric or medical model of birth.

So, enough with the study–the “news,” you know–and down to the good stuff. What did you eat or drink when in labor?

For me, I had a big lunch in Chinatown when I was in early labor (regular contractions, strong enough to make me catch my breath, but not enough for me to need to move around or even to tell anyone I was pretty sure I was in labor). I remember having two dumplings, three pei pa tofu balls, some white rice, some garlicky seaweed, and some spicy eggplant, and lots and lots of water. Just five hours later, though, sitting down at the dinner table, something about the smell of the food and the strengthening contractions made it impossible for me to eat anything. When my midwife arrived around midnight, I’d pretty much only had water since lunch. She broke out the energy drinks (we used lemon-flavored Recharge, which I thought tasted like flat, mildly salty lemonade), and I drank about a quart and a half of that, plus a lot more water, over the next nine hours until my baby was born. I felt extremely nauseated, though, and I didn’t want to eat anything even though she would periodically offer. I don’t recall feeling thirsty on my own, but one of my support people handed me a cup often, and I always drank some before handing it back. My midwife definitely took the lead in suggesting I eat or drink, which I appreciated.

What about you? What were your experiences?

–Christina

For what ails you

I’ve had some terrible heartburn this pregnancy. The last time around I only got it when I ate entirely too much or when I ate a few particularly spicy foods. This time around, right upon entering the 3rd trimester, I started to have heartburn all time, no matter what or how much I ate. I took tums last time, but didn’t like them, particularly since as the weeks went by I needed to eat more and more of them to feel relief. And since then I’ve heard that other pharmacological remedies might be preferred (for example) during pregnancy.

I happened to mention my heartburn to our midwife two weeks ago. She suggested that it might be because I was drinking too much water with my meals, which would be diluting my stomach acids resulting in both slowing down in digestion and leaving more fluid to rise up and burn my throat. Yuck. She advised I not drink anything about a half hour before a meal and then for about two hours after. I’d never heard of this before, but remembering how much I didn’t particularly like tums, I figured I’d try it.

Well, let me say that it seemed totally crazy to me, but it worked! And it made me reflect on how far that we, as a society, have removed ourselves from “home” remedies in favor of “medical” ones. Don’t get me wrong, if this method hadn’t worked, I eventually would have tried mylanta, or zantac, or rolaids or tums again. But how easy it was to just change my habits a little bit instead — and no yucky, chalky after taste, no first three, then five, then eight, minty- or fruity-fresh tablets to have to ingest, and not even any (however incidental) cost to me.

It’s just such a nice change, this time around, so have someone who thinks first of natural ways to treat some of the discomforts of pregnancy before automatically writing a prescription. Once again it makes me feel so much more like pregnancy is a natural part of life that I make room for by making small changes here and there as we get ready to meet our baby, rather than a condition I have I need to be “cured” of by modern medicine.