Nurse midwives empower patients with delivery options

Sarah Darby, RN, CNM, is a nurse midwife at The Women’s Healthcare Group. She delivers at Overland Park Regional Medical Center as well as the Shawnee Mission Medical Center.

“Nurse midwives are more able to develop and bond with their patients,” said Sally Darby, RN and CNM at The Women’s Healthcare Group in Overland Park. “We’re going to enable them to be part of the decision-making process.”

When push comes to shove, home births don't deserve to be demonised

Tara Moss
December 14, 2011

Monty Python's 1983 film The Meaning of Life begins with a woman in hospital about to give birth. Comedians Graham Chapman and John Cleese are dressed as doctors in scrubs, surrounded by expensive hospital equipment (including the machine that goes ''ping'').

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As You Desire: Orgasmic Childbirth ~ Can it be?

By Nancy Sutton Pierce December 6, 2011

After watching this video there were so many things running through my head. The first of which was, "If I had known that I would have had many more children". The next was, "I'm pissed off because I didn't know that was a possibility when I was living through 24 hours of natural labor and delivery"!

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Why are we scared to give birth naturally?

My belief is that as more medical intervention occurs in childbirth, it leads to a cascade of labour complications and traumatic birth experiences. This has led to a most understandable increase in the amount of fear and aversion felt by women and prevent them even considering giving birth vaginally.

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Mothers and babies can instantly synchronize their hearts just by smiling at each other

Mothers and their babies are often said to share a deep, intimate connection...but even so, this new discovery is weird. Simply by looking and smiling at each other, moms and babies synchronize their heartbeats to within milliseconds of each other.

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Childbirth: Images Spanning Thousands of Years

Posted by Monica Bielanko on December 13th, 2011 at 7:36 pm

A year ago my husband gifted me with Randi Hutter Epstein’s book Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth From the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank.

To view these amazing pictures please click here.

Giving Childbirth Back to Women through the Support of a Doula

During my three years at International Planned Parenthood Federation, Western Hemisphere Region (IPPF/WHR), I have been fortunate—and humbled—to work with incredible colleagues whose dedication to securing sexual and reproductive health and rights for all is unsurpassed.

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What babies learn before they're born

Editor's note: Annie Murphy Paul is the author of "Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives." She's now working on a book about learning, and writes a weekly column at Time.com called "Brilliant: The Science of Smart." TED is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "Ideas worth spreading," which it distributes through talks posted on its website.

(CNN) -- When does learning begin? As I explain in the talk I gave at TED, learning starts much earlier than many of us would have imagined: in the womb.

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Dangers of “Crying It Out”

Damaging children and their relationships for the longterm.
Published on December 11, 2011 by Darcia Narvaez, Ph.D. in Moral Landscapes

Letting babies "cry it out" is an idea that has been around since at least the 1880s when the field of medicine was in a hullaballoo about germs and transmitting infection and so took to the notion that babies should rarely be touched (see Blum, 2002, for a great review of this time period and attitudes towards childrearing).

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Vit.K- Are Babies born Deficient? or Do Modern Life and Current Birthing Practices Create the very Problem that Vit.K supplementation is supposed to S

by Sherry Rothwell

So the question has been asked at Birth Without Fear: Vit.K…yes? no? why?
http://www.facebook.com/#!/birthwithoutfear

Well, I was about to give my two sense, when I remembered that I wrote about this at length in response to a post at Homebirth: A Midwife Mutiny written by Lisa Barrett (which is a fantastic blog by the way and I recommend that you read her whole article and thread on this topic!)
http://www.homebirth.net.au/2008/03/vitamin-k.html

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Mothers Wanting Natural Childbirth Have Options

By DyAnna Gordon
The experience of giving birth profoundly impacts a woman forever. In the past, many women had little choice in their birth experiences. Either they gave birth before the advent of modern anesthesia techniques or gave birth during the time of “twilight sleep birth,” when women were given pain medication that rendered them unconscious or into such a trance that they would not remember what they went through.

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Ricki Lake: Why I'm So Passionate About Childbirth

In her first blog for the iVillage blog series CelebVillage, actress/ filmmaker and mom of two Ricki Lake shares why she's so passionate about her childbirth documentary film, The Business of Being Born, and its follow-up series and why she feels they've "revolutionized" her purpose in the world.

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Midwives in demand as delivery alternative

By Jack Minch, jminch@sentinelandenterprise.com
Posted: 12/11/2011 06:34:50 AM EST

Jennifer Matoney lives in Worcester but traveled to HealthAlliance Hospital in Leominster to give birth to her first baby Aug. 28 because she liked the midwife program.

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Waterbirth Videos – ALL Your Questions Answered: Like: “How Does My Baby Breathe Under Water?”

Here’s a new waterbirth videos series answering all your questions about water birth.

You see, when I even entertained the idea of having a water birth, I was shot down by so many well meaning friends and family that I almost didn’t investigate it further. “Ooh, it’s not safe” one said … or more condescending comments like, “Sweetheart, that’s just for hippies, just do what the doctors tell you to do!”

Boy, am I glad I didn’t listen! … My experience of birthing my baby girl in the water was the MOST WONDERFUL & BLISSFUL time in my ENTIRE LIFE!

I guess the reason I didn’t listen to all the negativity was because when I asked all of my “Advisers” who among them had actually had a waterbirth – NONE of them had.

I began going to childbirth classes (NOT the hospital ones – I personally did Hypnobirthing, but there are lots of others to check out) and when I saw numerous waterbirth videos of women laboring so comfortably in pools, baths and spas I KNEW that was what I wanted.
Over the next few weeks I became a bit obsessive and started searching YouTube for all the waterbirth videos I could find! – Lucky for you, I have found all the best ones and put them on this website :)

However, this particular page is dedicated to waterbirth videos – QUESTIONS: See below for the most commonly asked questions about water birth and if you have any more then leave a comment below. Enjoy!

Waterbirth Video QUESTION 1 – Benefits Of Water Birth For Mother



To watch more videos that will answer more questions about water birth click here.

Five Reasons to Choose a Midwife for Your Pregnancy Care

By Robin Elise Weiss, LCCE, About.com Guide

Using a midwife is growing in popularity as increasing numbers of women choose midwifery care in some form or another for their pregnancy and birth. Here are some of the top reasons given for choosing a midwife:

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How Will I Know I Am In Labour?

Written by Rhonda Young-Pilon, RN BScN, CAPPA trained Labour Doula

There are cardinal signs that labor is in the beginning or early stages, although all signs are unique to each woman. We all have different birth stories, and it can be hard to know when the exact time is beginning.

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Doulas More Effective than Staff or Mother's Family, Friends Read more at Suite101: Doulas More Effective than Staff or Mother's Family, Friends | Su

Research continues to show how effective doula support is for laboring women. Doulas have found to be more effective than family, friends or hospital staff.

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Delay cord clamping to 'prevent newborn health problems'

Maternal and newborn health researchers have recommended delaying the clamping of the umbilical cord after birth.

A study conducted by Swedish researchers and published on BMJ.com found waiting at least three minutes before undertaking the procedure can protect kids against iron deficiency during infancy.

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Things I Would Say to the Hospital Staff If I Saw Them Today…

I can’t help it, I hold grudges. It’s just my personality to seethe over things when I feel like I’ve been dumped on, and it just stews inside my bones, boiling under the surface for months, weeks, years, decades… until I find a way to resolve my anger.

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Birthing Options Grow Scarce after C-Sections

By Hana Askren
WeNews commentator
Tuesday, November 15, 2011

In her doula work Hana Askren finds that women who want a vaginal birth after a Caesarean often cannot find a doctor or hospital to provide this kind of care.

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Happily After Giving Birth – 10 Things They Don't Tell You

You know in the movies when the woman gives birth and they hand her a perfect, clean 3-month old movie baby? The husband puts his arm around her and they gaze lovingly into each others eyes? Ahhhh, the end. Well, here are just a few of things that can happen after the credits roll. Most of them aren't movie friendly so sadly, the don't get discussed unless you have really good friends that let you in on these little secrets. Not all of them happen to everybody but, chances are, one or more will be added to your new role as motherhood so don't be alarmed.

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