"A canary in the coal mine: the growing popularity of unassisted childbirth" by Amy Wright Glenn

http://mobile.philly.com/blogs/?wss=%2Fphilly%2Fblogs%2Fbirth-breath-death%2F&id=255198201

A thoughtful on-line article summarising the freebirth situation in the USA.  

I have been unable to track down the New Scientist article Amy Wright Glenn mentions but I did find this which is where I think the stats come from:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000345.htm

Also this article about a sect I had never heard of which describes more recent (2009) events in what I think is the same religious community:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/sexandgender/1618/my_womb_for_his_purposes__the_perils_of_unassisted_childbirth_in_the_quiverfull_movement

and which shows that dogma, and especially patriarchal dogma, is not good for women.

Freebirthing? - AIMS devotes its latest journal to Freebirth.

The Association for Improvements in Maternity Services (AIMS - see links to right) has devoted its latest journal (Vol 25, No 4) to Freebirth and an excellent volume it is too.  Articles include why women choose freebirth, the concept of undisturbed birth, the "latent" stage of labour, the efficacy or otherwise of antenatal care, social services and freebirth, the legality of freebirth, and four in-depth accounts from women who have given free birth.

What struck me about the birth accounts was the slow, gentle, and undulating nature of undisturbed labour - the pattern of physiological labour written about here shows little in common with the regimes imposed by hospital policies and obstetric doctrine.

If you are considering freebirth or your friend, sister, daughter is doing so, then get hold of this journal and enjoy the read.  It has a huge amount of information in its 28 pages.

To buy a copy, visit the AIMS site via the link on this page, go to the Journal page, find vol 25 no 4 and click on the "buy this journal" option, or find it on the publications order page.

WHICH? launches birth guide

WHICH? the consumer guide has launched an on-line guide to help women find out about birth choices locally that fit their preferences and choices.  It is easy to use and, as it develops, should prove more and more helpful in informing women about what is on offer.  UM played around with it and used the "compare" facility to view the "best fit" facilities.  There was a surprising amount of information available, including guidelines and some birth statistics for all the units presented, and it is certainly a welcome and useful tool for gleaning information about which units locally are likely to suit you.

http://www.which.co.uk/birth-choice

It asks some basic questions about your preferences, where you live, age, parity etc and comes up with a list of choices for consideration.  Top of my list came "Your Home" and there was plenty of information about homebirth as well as the other units around.  All-in-all it presented me with the options I would have wanted and expected it to.

If you have any feedback on the site, you can contact BirthChoice on birthchoice@which.co.uk

Article about Freebirth from USA

Here is quite a nice article telling the stories of a few clearly rational and sensible women:

http://www.mercurynews.com/health/ci_25012330/extreme-home-birthing-alone-and-unassisted

Is Ultrasound Safe for Unborn Babies?

Well this issue continues to haunt us - the AIMS booklet Ultrasound Unsound www.aims.org.uk covers the main questions well and here is another, slightly more detailed discussion of the possible intracellular and intracellular dangers.
http://scienceoveracuppa.com/2013/01/10/the-biology-of-ultrasound/
It remains true that, given the absence of Randomised Controlled Trials with long-term follow-up, it is impossible to quantify the level of risk or the exact nature of that risk.  However it also remains true that circumspection when it comes to the use of ultrasound on unborn babies is probably a wise approach.

An articulate comment on current maternity care.

http://www.bestdaily.co.uk/your-life/news/a543050/nhs-midwife-speaks-out-why-british-women-are-really-being-failed-in-birth.html

This is sad reading but a very well put and, I am sorry to say, an accurate portrayal of many obstetric units.  I do believe that the culture of most birth centres and community midwifery services is less woman-unfriendly but the general point still pertains in that midwives working in those settings actively struggle against the attitudes and practices described.  That struggle is part of their daily lives and also takes its toll.

We have placed human birth so far into a medico-legal paradigm that we have almost lost sight of the fact that it is a natural, social and sexual event at the heart of healthy family life.  To heal this situation requires midwives and women to work together and for homebirth, community midwifery, doula, hypnobirthing, independent midwifery and birth centre services to be cherished and strengthened.  Placing these services at the CENTRE of maternity care and not viewing them as frills is the way forward.  Continuity of care and the relationship between midwife and mother is crucial to the humanisation of maternity care.  How can such dismissive, unsupportive and demeaning attitudes and behaviours described in the article survive the building of proper relationships? 

Birth as we know it - a film about oxytocin

I have just watched a birth film that I love (although I loved the previous version called Birth into Being more).  It is filmed mainly in Russia and what is so lovely about this film is you can almost see oxytocin, it is visible in the faces and expressions of the women filmed, it is almost palpable.  I wish they would show this sort of film more on TV.   

Oxytocin - the hormone that makes life possible, that makes us all tick, that makes the world go round, that mediates love and happiness - it really warrants a whole David Attenborough series, especially as other mammals show its importance too. Oxytocin is excreted by the posterior pituitary gland in situations of calm, joy, relaxation, love, sexual stimulation etc.  But it almost seems to me that is is a physical outpouring of our soul life.  It helps build the soul forces of our children too, in labour, at birth, and during breastfeeding.

For anyone who doubt the impact that good oxytocin secretion has, Birth As We Know It will soon put you right!!

Birth furniture

I have in my bedroom an old oak birth stool.  I think it is  early 20th century Spanish.  It is basically three legs that bolt to a seat.  The seat is narrow, curved and has hand grips, and there is a back-rest.  It is a bit like this one (which is also Spanish) but is carved.  The whole thing can be unbolted, tied together and left to sit in the back of a cupboard until needed.  It is perfectly usable and simple.

There are a variety of birth stools, birth balls and birthing beds on the market.  They must comply, of course, with "health and safety" requirements and are generally rather expensive.  The NCT, for example, sells a fibre glass birth stool for £1,000 (not sure whether that says more about the stool or the NCT).  However, most birth furniture is German and sells for German prices, and the UK seems not to either design or manufacture much decent birth furniture at all.  The NCT birth stool for example is almost the only one readily available in the UK.  But with 5,200,000 babies born annually in the EU, the market should surely be doing more?

Most birth beds are expensive, heavy, complicated and pretty uncomfortable, especially to sleep on.  They are also quite hard to move around on and mobility is crucial in labour.  Birth balls are popular because they are cheap (hence most maternity units have them and many people can afford one) and do a reasonable job especially in aiding pelvic movement.  Most birth stools are pretty uncomfortable after any length of time and they can be hard to get down onto or up from.  Few women want to spend much time on them and it is probably best if they don't, however great they can be for birth.

Enter the Osborne Chair!!  This is a chair designed to aid mobility, be comfortable, be easy to get on and off, and comply with regulatory requirements.  It particularly does what few other birth furniture does - cater for the need of labouring women to hang over things, to lean and kneel and rock and roll their pelvis.  It is still in the development stage but looks good.  Undercover Midwife looks forward to its launch and hopes it leads to the development of much more furniture designed for pregnancy, labour and breastfeeding.
http://www.birthupright.co.uk/
FOR AN UPDATE ON THE OSBORNE CHAIR, SEE MY POST OF OCTOBER 2017

Good article in The Guardian about free-birth.

At last, a balanced presentation and discussion about free-birth in the mainstream media!

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/14/freebirthing-birth-without-medical-support-safe

Lots of information and some useful links.  Worth reading because it gives context to the free-birthing women's decisions and balances the autonomy-responsibility dyad well by not presenting them as conflicting as so many discussions do.  Also covers many of the issues that need to be thought through when planning free-birth.  Well done Joanna Moorehead.

Facing Baby

Over the past 30 years there has been a sorry trend in baby carriers and especially prams whereby our babies are left without visual contact with their carers.  This is the sort of thing I mean:

Young children cannot learn from the endless stimuli that they are exposed to except through the mediation of their mothers, fathers and other carers who interpret, repackage, censor and explain phenomena to them.  It is the three-way interaction between the world, the baby and its carer that allows the child to make sense of it all.  Simply exposing the baby to stimuli without the input and constant filtering of the stimuli by the carer over-stimulates and confuses the baby and, at worse, makes it anxious.

Where has this come from?  Surely pram manufacturers are capable of making prams that enable inter-action with the baby as he or she grows?  Slings that enable baby to face mummy or daddy are certainly available.

The second photo above was used to illustrate a story about Pullitzer prize-winning author Jared Diamond advising parents to boost their babies' confidence by carrying them facing outwards.  Jared is an advocate of baby wearing which is great and points out that babies have been carried rather than pushed from time immemorial and that this is beneficial.  My issue is where does this facing outwards idea then come from?  Traditional societies cited by Diamond do not wear their babies facing outwards.  To illustrate his point about traditional parenting wisdom, the article uses this picture:

A mother in face-to-face contact with her child!

Personally I have nothing against prams, especially as the baby grows heavier, though baby-wearing is wonderful.  What concerns me is the relative isolation of the babies in the first two pictures compared with these:

Research has shown that when parents are facing their babies in this way in prams, they are twice as likely to talk to them as when they are facing away.  You can read this research here: http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/research/nlt_research/5313_whats_life_in_a_baby_buggy_like
and here:
http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/talk_to_your_baby/news/1553_do_baby_buggies_affect_development 
As far as slings go, Elizabeth of Boba products (a baby sling maker) gives 9 good reasons why you shouldn't carry your baby facing outwards and here they are:
http://www.bobafamily.com/blog/2011/10/11/nine-reasons-not-to-carry-your-baby-facing-out/
Buying a pram, or even a good sling, is a costly business.  They are important bits of kit, allowing us to get out and about, protecting baby from the elements, giving the opportunity for fresh air; but they are also about time spent together, introducing baby to the park, the shops, your locality and sharing your experience of those places with him or her.  "Look, duck!", Look at the doggy run", "See the big red lorry", "Here's Grandma" and similar are ways of making sense of the world for the baby, of learning language and the association of word and object.  They can't happen when you can't even see your child.