Wisdom and Births

What your pregnancy and birth care provider believes about birth WILL directly influence your birth experience. Whether it is not feeling supported because your doctor doesn't believe women can give birth without intervention; having your trust in yourself, your body and your baby undermined because the doctor is constantly searching for a sign of something wrong with the pregnancy or labor; or, the unhelpful pressure to just accept the epidural, or schedule the induction, you've waited too long for that baby (and they have a vacation coming up). An Obstetrician is trained as a surgeon. Trained to handle complications and emergencies during pregnancy and birth. ...but the majority of births will occur without complication. So what good does it do to have the majority of women attended and cared for by a surgeon? Especially a surgeon who doesn't believe birth works, without their interventions, most of the time!? It does us absolutely NO GOOD. In fact, it is the opposit...

It seems to make sense that "bed rest" during pregnancy, especially one that is threatening preterm labor or other complications, would be helpful. I mean, wouldn't staying in bed, rather than doing her normal activities, be a good thing for a mother and her baby? The answer is NO. Bed rest actually increases risks for the mother and baby and causes a great emotional and financial toll on many families. Understand that this is only referring to complete activity restriction and strict bed rest, not to say that pregnant women should not rest. You should listen to your body and rest when you need to, always. The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology published 3 articles in its recent June 2013 issue about bed rest and the unethical use of this practice. Let's take a look at the research and put this issue to rest ! THE ROOTS OF BED REST   (1) Historically, bed rest was intended for orthopedic ailments, but quickly spread to all areas of medicine, without question of it...

I was reading through all the comments on the Reddit post "what was marriage like in the first year?" and one of the most maddening (or saddening) recurrent themes was that of newly-wed couples who had had a baby together in their first year of marriage and felt the financial toll of having the baby was SO GREAT - it sometimes ended up causing major rifts in their relationships. Without fail, every post in which the Redditor described how children were the trigger of their financial downfall, they mentioned how expensive FORMULA AND DIAPERS were... *head smack* Babies aren't expensive... the crap we buy for them is! The choices we make about what we feed our baby, what we diaper and clothe them with, etc. Major corporations are making a huge profit off of American families, off of people like you and me, because their advertising works. We pass up the free, cheap, and often healthier options for the products we see advertised - in our face - everyday.   Babies do not ne...

  Happy One Year to Wisdom and Birth! WOW! I can't believe my birth blog is already One Year Old! I had wanted to start a birth blog for many years, but just never got around to learning how to conquer the IT nightmare that technology can be for me. Finally, with a little inspiration from a friend, I conquered the web and created Wisdom and Birth in July of 2012! My blog began simply, with a few posts of things I had created in the past, such as my DONA position paper and a book review, but I was lost with where to start and how to write to my new (and at the time non-existent) audience. Now, I have over 30 published posts and I am reaching out of the comfortable and safe topics (such as natural nipple creams ) and into the controversial ones like Ultrasounds and Pitocin ! When I began blogging as Wisdom and Birth I wasn't sure how much of my "voice" I wanted to put into my blog and how much of it I wanted to leave as "professional". You see, with my Bachel...

One of my favorite activities is hunting through a used bookstore (with a chai!) and searching for my next great find. During a recent visit to one of my favorite local shops, I serendipitously chose a book off the shelf that held a certain anthropological and feminist appeal. Imagine my utter excitement when I discovered that it contained a multitude of birth stories occurring throughout the evolution of man! Great find for $3! This anthropological fiction book, Circles of Stone by Joan Dahr Lambert, is rooted in historical evidence and theory, such as basing a character off the discovery of "Lucy's" body and theories about how she may have died. The book is broken into three parts, three different but interwoven stories, which take place over the course of major evolutionary changes in prehuman and human history. Part I takes place in the Great Rift Valley of Africa approximately 1-1.5 million years ago, Part II occurs between the Rift Valley and the shores of the Red...

I'm a birth junkie, plain and simple. I love learning all about birth and sharing all this knowledge with those around me. Unfortunately though, my interest in birth has allowed me to witness, both individually and on a population scale, the widespread abuses of women in childbirth . Years of experience as a birth doula, home-based educator for new mothers, and my Master's education in the field of maternal and child health has led me to the firm conclusion that birth in the United States isn't as good for mothers and babies as it can AND should be! This knowledge and experience has impassioned me to protect and inform women. I want my friends, family members, ALL WOMEN, to understand the options they have for their childbirth . That they don't have to be abused, pressured, or scared. It is my hope that women learn to trust themselves and their bodies and can say "enough" when they are disrespected in their care. In my experience, many women have an u...

Happy 3rd Annual Empowered Birth Awareness Week!!! September 2-9, 2013 http://www.birthpower.us/eba.html This is my second year blogging as Wisdom and Birth for Empowered Birth Awareness Week (EBAW) and I am SO happy to see the movement growing! Last year, for my first EBAW (which was actually the second annual EBAW, but the first one I was aware of!) I wrote a post about what you can do on Empowered Birth Awareness Week to spread the knowledge and advocate for better maternity care for mothers, babies, and families. You can read that post here . Empowered Birth Awareness Week is one week, at the beginning of September, in which we ALL can do something, no matter how big or small, to improve birth for women all around the world. Why do we need to improve birth for women in the U.S (and around the world)? Because WE CAN DO BETTER.   WE CAN DO BETTER than one out of every three babies being born surgically! WE CAN DO BETTER than two-thirds of women pushing on their backs! WE...