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Posts Tagged ‘Midwifery’
Midwives and Birthing Centers are the Answer to US Healthcare Problems
As I continue to read through the evidenced-based maternity report, I am more and more convinced that moving towards midwifery based care and free-standing birthing centers could be the answer to many of our country’s healthcare woes. Charges for childbirth vary considerably depending on the type and place of birth. “The average hospital charge in 2005 ranged from about $7,000 for an uncomplicated vaginal birth to about $16,000 for a complicated cesarean section, yet out-of-hospital birth centers were about one-quarter of the charges of uncomplicated vaginal birth in hospitals ($1,624 in 2003, when the national average charge for uncomplicated vaginal birth in hospitals was $6,239) three-quarters of the expense concentrated in the hospital stay.”
Reiki- Oh what a feeling!
I had previously posted about my interest in and practice of Reiki. In the first week of January I finally attended my Reiki training and got attuned to Level 1. Very exciting stuff.
I had no idea what was going to happen because ‘attunement’ is such strange thing really. Basically you are subject to a ritual and no one knows why it works, but its purpose is to allow you to channel universal energy without having the energy of the person you are working on come back into you. This is important because using healing energy on others can make you sick if you are not careful. Attunement will also help make the conduit of energy stronger. My instructor, Shari Krauser explained how attunement can also effect your life in other ways. People have been known to manifest long-desired dreams, and become more intuitive and almost psychic.
Who Should Help Deliver your Baby?
This is great!
A quiz. We all know we love quizzes. Well here is the ultimate quiz brought to you by the American College of Nurse Midwives. : ) If you have recently found out you are pregnant, you should definitely take this quiz! Who Should Assist You With Your Birth Quiz
Enjoy!
Determine Fetal Descent without an Internal Exam.
I know this is probably going to sound weird, but when I was a L&D nurse, I really liked doing vaginal exams. There was something so cool about feeling the cervix with a little head (hopefully) pushing up against it…and I was very good at it. Gentle and accurate. But, I do know that no matter how gentle you are, they tend to be uncomfortable for birthing women which is why I was excited to read about this ‘method’ of determining the location of the fetal head without an exam.
The best part was that I had already been practicing it!!!!
Read the rest of this entry »
Could the Downturn in the Economy Positively Affect Birthing Women?
Every cloud has a silver lining right? I wonder if the economic problems that are seeming to plague nearly every industry-including health care- might actually end up having a positive affect on the quality of birth experience for pregnant women and for the profession of midwifery as a whole.
Economically, hiring midwives makes sense. Generally speaking, a midwife who is employed by a hospital or birthing center earns anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 a year, (old stats) where as a family physician earns upwards of $120K and an obstetrician can earn $200K or more. If an established practice or hospital is looking for a birth practitioner to join their group, it would make fiscal sense to consider hiring a nurse-midwife!
Midwifery Workshop in Las Cruces
I’m reprinting this press release for anyone interested in attending this workshop in Las Cruces on Saturday.
Empowerment Through Education
Midwifery teams up with grad students to teach women about options in childbirth.
A New Mexico State University graduate student, in partnership with a local midwifery clinic, will present a workshop to educate the community about options in childbirth Saturday.
Brooke Tou, a master’s of public health student, organized the “Choice in Childbirth: The Midwifery Model of Care” interactive workshop and panel discussion as part of her master’s degree program in the College of Health and Social Services. Tou said the overall goal of the workshop is to empower women to make conscious decisions about giving birth.
Oi! A Midwifery Set-Back in Australia.
On Nov. 9th their was a protest outside the Australian Prime Minister’s office. Apparently the Australian government has announced its intention to make amendments to the Medicare for the Midwives Bill that will force private midwives who attend home births to work in collaboration with a doctor.
This excerpt from the report:
Australian College of Midwives president Jenny Gamble told protesters an amendment to the Medicare for Midwives Bill will give doctors the choice about how women give birth.
My “Midwife Crisis”
Ok. First off I would like to thank my buddy Vicki for coining the phrase “midwife crisis”. She’s a funny gal, who happens to be very supportive of my decision to go back to school at age 40. And it truly was a crisis…….
On Monday, I emailed the wonderful midwifery director to tell her that I would be re-applying to the program for May 2010. (YAY!)
Although I have wanted this for 18 years, when I withdrew my first application last spring, I was somewhat relieved. I hadn’t really re-visited my feelings on the subject too often, until just last Sunday when the overwhelming urge to birth babies came back and hit my like a ton of bricks. Then, after a conversation with my hubby, it was decided that I needed to do this once-and-for-all. Then I got scared- the sick to the stomach kind.
Hospital Birth- Why Women Don’t Do It.
This opinion piece put out by notable Yale professors today slams the media for misrepresenting midwifery.
It is rebuttal directed at the recent ‘story’ aired on the Today show called “The Perils of Home Birth” (which was originally going to be titled “The Perils of Midwifery”.)
Bad Reporting on Prime Time TV!
The Today Show aired this video, badly named “The Perils of Home Birth” on September 11th 2009. Wondering how much they were paid by the ACOG (American College of Obstretricians and Gynecologists)?
Even though the ‘special investigation’ concluded what many studies have shown….that home birth or birth with a midwife is as safe, or safer than hospital birth, the slant of the story was hideously skewed and the main interviewees were a grieving family who lost their daughter to cord compression after a particularly arduous labor. My favorite line of the whole ‘report’: “Homebirth had become almost the equivalent of a spa treatment for women, that it was this sort of hedonistic concept of birthing.”
