I’m going to speak at DONA International Conference

This is a quickie post to let you know I will be speaking at the DONA International Conference in Cancun, Mexico as a keynote speaker in July 2012. Come to Mexico with us! I’m so excited!!!! Here’s the link to the conference site: http://www.dona.org/Conference2012.php

I’m planning a session on “Secrets to Support a Natural Hospital Birth” and “Regifting the Gift of Birth By Developing Empathy for Hospital Staff.”

Who’s coming???

Babies, Birth, Boston, and “Violence”

One of my favorite birth activists is the author Suzanne Arms (“Immaculate Deception”). She has always had a lot of information to offer about birth itself, but her work right now is expanding into how birth affects our larger culture. She hypothesizes that when babies are born in non-gentle and sometimes even violent ways, that this has a lasting impact on the baby, the mother, the father, the hospital staff who are present, and all present at the birth. These people go on to affect, well, EVERYTHING in our larger culture. In other words, the more gentle and more loving our birth practices, the more gentle and loving our whole society is likely to be.

I am inspired this week as I reflect on the violence in Boston to share a number of suggestions from Suzanne Arms’s website (http://birthingthefuture.org). This is an excerpt from a list of 52 suggestions that I’ve edited and added to. (You can see her website for the original list. This is MY take on her list! I have quoted her extensively here but added some of my own words.)

Have fun browsing. I will give you five suggestions today. More to come! I think that if you commit to doing ONE of them, you are helping to make the world a better place for all of us. Some of these are really fun! What if everyone who reads this blog wrote a letter a week for a year to elected politicians about birth? They would see that we care!!!! 

I’m going to start with my favorite suggestion from Suzanne Arms:

1. Assume everyone you know is as interested in birth as you are, and act surprised if they aren’t. Assume they don’t know much but would like to, such as how they were born. After all, we were all born, and the experiences we had from our conception through birth and how our mother’s and others cared for us in the first hours, weeks and months have had a lot to do with shaping our lives. Our health, our attitude, our relationships. All of it.
2. Bring men into the subject of birth. We were all born. Birth is not a woman’s issue alone. And how men think and feel about birth matters. Have men tell you what they know and feel about three very important subjects: circumcision, breastfeeding, and vaccinations. 
3. Buy and donate GOOD birth books and videos (like “Natural Hospital Birth”, Suzanne Arms’s books, Ina Mae Gaskin’s books, “My Best Birth,” etc. ) to your local public library. If you can afford it also donate copies to your local health clinic that cares for pregnant teens and low-income women. Either way, be sure to ask them to carry these books and let them know they give much more accurate information than do “What to Expect…” or“GirlFriends Guide”.
4. Write letters about your concerns regarding birth and some changes you wish to see and send it to your local/national paper, as a letter to the editor, or to local/national TV shows. Also request they do an investigative story on birth in your area or that they interview and follow a local midwife, a birth center, or a woman who’s had a home birth. Notice how natural birth, home birth, breastfeeding and bonding are often portrayed negatively in the media, including popular morning TV shows like Good Morning America and Today. Suggestion: Once a month, write a letter or get on the internet and give your thoughtful comments and recommendations to such shows.
5. Suggest teachers you know (in elementary, junior high, and high school) learn about natural, normal birth and midwives, birth centers, home birth, waterbirth, breastfeeding and bonding (attachment). Suggest to college instructors and professor that they include issues such as the physiology, psychology, politics, economics and ecology of birth in their curriculum. (Note from Cynthia: cross-cultural birth comparisons are very interesting to students. My students at Eastern Michigan University love those lectures!) Reach out to anyone you know who teaches family life education or sex ed in high school, or human biology, women’s studies or child development and other relevant courses in junior college, community colleges, colleges and universities to get GOOD books on birth! We need to educate women early—and men too— about the biology of birth, and breastfeeding and baby care. The decisions women make about how they want to birth and whether or not they will breastfeeding, circumcise their boy baby, question standard vaccination protocol, etc, have their roots in childhood.  


The Power of Just the Word “Doula”: Bringing Natural Birth into the Mainstream

I see my main job not as a doula, but as a public advocate whose mission is to mainstream natural birth. That doesn’t mean that I PREACH about natural birth (unless I am preaching to the choir at a doula or midwifery conference). I’ve found that preaching doesn’t get me very far when I am talking to the uninformed, underinformed, or people who actually disagree with me. But I do try to take advantage of situations in which it makes sense to tell positive birth stories and bring up my profession as a doula. Just saying the word can be a powerful catalyst in a room of people who’ve never heard it.

I watched it happen today, except it was not me who said the word. It was a college student, just explaining to other students in a class why he had missed class the day before.

His wife is a doula. She had been attending a birth for twenty-four hours. He had to stay home and watch their toddler.

I teach anthropology at a working-class state university in Michigan. My students are a DIVERSE group, though they are usually poorer and come from more disadvantaged backgrounds than the students at the fancy state university (University of Michigan).  That tiny spark — a man saying the word “doula” to fellow students — resulted in several conversations right there in front of my eyes. I didn’t start the conversation. I just stood there, basking in the glow of people talking about birth and realizing that there are more options than they knew. Ripples. Seeds planted.

The Downsides or perhaps the Learning Sides of Being a Doula

A must-read for all seasoned and new doulas. What do you think? http://www.jodithedoula.com/2013/02/02/the-downside-of-doula-ing/#comment-564

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 6,600 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 11 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

Childbirth Classes: Necessity or Luxury? Redundant in the Internet Age?

Hello pregnant women!

Fewer of us than ever before are signing up for traditional childbirth education classes. You know, those old-fashioned classes that meet in person. With a teacher. And maybe a textbook. Perhaps “class” reminds you of high school. Or college. And you do not want to be in SCHOOL any longer.

Besides, everything you need to know about birth is on youtube. Right? OK, well, then. Maybe it’s on Parenting.com? Or Childbirth.org? Or the American Pregnancy Association? Or WhatToExpect.com? 

Oh, dear. There’s a lot of websites that offer “childbirth information.” And the information they offer conflicts. A lot. More importantly, the information is not well-tailored to your unique situation.

No, problem, says the modern mama-to-be. I know how to get information tailored for me! I will jump into some chat rooms or join a website and ask my specific, individualized questions. Then the magic of the Internet will quickly provide me with the answers I need.

This is, indeed, how the majority of American women are preparing for childbirth. But childbirth is a very different process than researching what car to buy or whether or not to cut bangs this week (Michelle says, “Yes!”). Preparing for childbirth on-line is sort of like preparing for a triathalon on-line. There are good tips out there, but we all know that the REAL preparation is occuring off-line in what I would call “real life.”

Childbirth is a unique life event and probably nothing you have ever done in your life (except give birth previously!) can serve as a good model for how to prepare. I don’t know of any other event that requires the combination of social (how to interact with hospital staff and birthing professionals well), emotional, relational (negotiating the needs/wants of partners and parents and siblings), intellectual, and physical that birth requires. Many people compare birth to endurance sports events like marathons, but the fact is that few marathoners have to negotiate important medical decisions with doctors while they are running.

So, what you get in childbirth education classes that you CANNOT get on-line is the opportunity to practice in the presence of an experienced guide. When you READ information, it does not stick with you nearly the way it does when you have practiced what that information tells you to do. As Yogi Berra said, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.“

You learn SO much by getting to ask a question and having a personal INTERACTION about your question. You get to practice — try out — different ideas in this safe place that is not yet your labor or your baby’s birth. In this place, you get to practice thinking and feeling and relating different ways. You have a teacher, who has probably been at a number of births and seen some of those ways play out in real life, who can guide you in your thinking and feeling and relating.

Childbirth education classes are not really about information. The “facts” are readily available on-line. It is the practice of trying this idea and then this one or, hey, maybe this one that makes this information useful for you. When you are in labor you do not need theoretical knowledge. You need very, very practical knowledge.

Another Birth Story I found On-Line

Every so often I find birth story blogs where the mama read my book. Since I am a birth junkie, reading natural birth stories on-line at 1:00 AM is a fun way to spend my time. So for you birth junkies, a natural birth story that features a mom who read “Natural Hospital Birth.”

http://www.writingchapterthree.com/2012/02/my-name-is-kim-and-i-live-with-my.html

Why I love being a doula, not a midwife or a doctor!

Reposting my all-time favorite post. Because I love my job! Every so often I get a bug to become a better-paid birth professional. Doulas are just not the top earners in the birth field, sad to say.

And part of me is a real midwifery geek. I know I would love learning to become an obstetrician or a midwife or a labor and delivery nurse. I love learning about blood vessels leading to the placenta, about how to guide a breech baby out, about how to diagnose an ectopic pregnancy. Really. GEEK is the only word for the thrill I get from reading about such topics.

But when I am at a birth (as I was a few days ago) I have this fabulous role. This birth brought it home. Everyone else in the room at this hospital VBAC birth was focused on getting a recalcitrant baby out of a woman’s body as fast as possible: cutting her vagina open, attaching vacuum suction cups to the baby’s head, and adjusting various accoutrements to keep track of the baby’s heart rate (which was low and not coming up in between contractions… thus the drama and concern).

In contrast to the midwife, the L&D nurse, the obstetrician, the resident, and the neonatal team, my job was to remain full of trust in birth. My job was to help the mother stay connected to her calmest, most trusting place inside herself. I was allowed to smile and tell the mother that we could all see dark, curly hair as her baby’s head crowned. Everyone else was 100% focused on getting this baby’s head OUT. Fast. The mother and I were able to concentrate on this baby’s individuality. (Her previous babies had blonde hair.)

When the baby was born, the neonatal team whisked him away because of the heavy meconium. (Yet he was FINE immediately. At one minute he had an Apgar of 8. So much for all the panic!) No one but me noticed that the mother was panicked without being able to see or or hear or touch her baby.Of course, after all that drama when she didn’t hear a cry right away, she was afraid her baby was not OK. I was able to stand in the middle of the room and relay news about how her baby was waving his arms and legs and his skin was a beautiful, healthy pink color. All the birth professionals were busy, with important jobs for which they went to school for many years and for which they get paid fair salaries.

But would I rather learn how to measure a cervix or help a mother find her inner power? I am so, so glad that there are birth professionals out there who answer, “I want to measure the cervix.” Without these professionals, birth would not be as safe as it is today. Yet I am happy when I remember that my greatest joy is not measuring blood pressure or fetal heart tones, it is in aiding a woman have the experience that makes her feel like she is a powerful, amazing mother who can do anything. This is a feeling she gets to keep for the rest of her life.

Helping women smile when they remember giving birth. That is a doula’s job.