Birth Is A Feminist Issue
“From a feminist perspective, it’s all about taking the power back. We are powerful and smart and amazing enough to make these choices for ourselves. We can rely on the help and expertise of doctors, midwives, and doulas to walk with us through our journeys in birth — but it’s essential that we’re put at the forefront of the decision making process. The power of birth is systematically being taken away from us by a culture that believes that our bodies and minds are fundamentally flawed to the point where birth is no longer a natural process, but rather a medical one —and that absolutely makes birth a feminist issue. Our babies and ourselves deserve so much better.”
What To Reject When You're Expecting
I feel like most of these are fairly obvious, but check out 5-8 in particular
We hear about the birth of a child and ask questions like, ‘what did she have? How much did it weigh? Does it have any hair?’ The Athabaskan Indians hear of a birth and ask, ‘who came?’ From the beginning, there is a respect for the newborn as a full person.
(via traditionalwisdom)
(Source: quotatiousquotations)
We just watched this one in class yesterday!
Cara Muhlhahn, Certified Nurse Midwife - “A woman doesn’t really need to be rescued. It’s not the place for a knight in shining armor. It’s the place for her to face her darkest moment and lay claim to her victory.”-speaking of a mother giving birth naturally, feeling empowered,strong & able.I would highly recommend this as a must see for all women, mothers & moms to be
“Giving birth is like taking a poop. If all these people you don’t know are coming in and out and watching you, you’re going to feel uncomfortable.”
Yes! Yes! Yes!!!!!!!
We performed monologues in my Health Media & Communication class today, and one girl interviewed a midwife. This was the first line of her monologue, and probably the best argument I’ve heard for home births thus far.
this!
Wait! Don't Wash That Newborn!
A nice little post about the function/benefits of vernix.
Birth Junkie: “Birth is an opportunity to transcend. To rise above what we are accustomed to, reach deeper inside ourselves than we are familiar with, and to see not only what we are truly made of, but the strength we can access in and through Birth.
intufruition: –Marcie Macari
(Source: intufruition)
Sterile Water Injections
This might be my first post with original content! Watch out birth-yoga junkies!
On March 26th, I attended a lecture on sterile water injections for pain management in labor by Lena Martensson, a researcher and professor in Sweden. Sterile water injections are given intra- or subcutaneously to help manage pain in everything from labor to whiplash. Nobody is quite sure how it works, but one idea is that it paralyses the nerve fibers in the area where the injections are given due to gate-control theory and osmotic effects (basically, sterile water is not isotonic - doesn’t have the same amount of salt - to fluids in the body, so they think this creates some sort of osmotic gradient that results in the paralysis of nerve fibers and therefore a reduction in pain). Another idea is that because the shots themselves are painful, it helps to stimulate the production of endorphins (the “endorphin-pain” loop - the more pain, the more endorphins the body produces to help you cope with the pain. Ever get a runner’s high? That’s your endorphin-pain loop at work).
According to Martensson’s research, pain relief from sterile water injections begins almost immediately (within 30 seconds) and patients report a 60% reduction in pain for up to four hours. Because these injections contain no medications or other pharmacological substances, there are no side effects to mother or baby and they can be repeated as often as needed. One of their studies also showed an approximately 50% reduction the rate of cesarean for women who used the sterile water injections vs. women who did not (side note: Can I please point out that the cesarean rate in Sweden was only 9.9% in the control group and 4.8% in the sterile water injection group? Ah-mazing). The catch? The injections are pretty painful to receive (patients typically receive four injections of 0.5mL sterile water at a time and it supposedly feels like a wasp sting).
The day after this lecture, I had the opportunity to observe a client on my maternal-newborn rotation receive sterile water injections. She was experiencing back labor and the four shots were given to her around her sacrum. They were clearly painful - she had been focused and breathing through her contractions well enough, but she cried during the injections. When I came back to visit her 10 minutes later, she was much more relaxed and said that the pain was much better. I was on my way out at that point, so I don’t know what happened with the rest of her labor. When Martensson asked her own subjects about the sterile water injections, one of them said that everyone always focuses on how much they (the shots) hurt to receive, but really we should be focusing on the wonderful, lasting pain relief that they provide.
Thinking about using sterile water injections for labor? They’re not big in the US, so talk to your care provider and see if they offer them. Also, check out Lena Martensson’s research.
Oh the bliss on her face.. no matter how many times you witness it, it is amazing and wonderful each time!! This is the moment we all live for!
Births Take Longer Today Than 50 Years Ago
I think the points are interesting, but I’d like to know what they’re defining as “labor.” There’s no way the average labor takes only 6h nowadays. Also, I’d like to see some more information about length of labor when labor is induced vs. augmented with pitocin. Based on my own experiences with birth, women who are induced (i.e. have not gone into labor spontaneously; given pitocin to start labor) have substantially longer labors than those who have their labor augmented (i.e. gone into labor spontaneously; given pitocin to progress labor more quickly).
