Women Own Birth
When I am getting ready to have a baby, buying birth supplies feels like its own rite of passage. It seems so practical, so impersonal, maybe even silly. But I look forward to this ritual with anticipation, because it means so much more to me than just filling my cart with new towels, or underpads.
Everything I check off my list sparks my excitement to meet my new baby, and with every item I find I imagine the “sacredness” in which it will first be used.
As many of you know already, or soon will find out when you open the barrage of books on pregnancy, there is a lot to learn about nutrition during this wonderful season of life. There is plenty of information out there about 3 servings of this or that, and which supplements to take to make sure you and your baby are healthy. But, before you get overwhelmed, let’s take a step back and talk about basic nutrition. After all, good nutrition during pregnancy is the most important factor in making sure that you have a successful, positive natural birthing experience.
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In response to a reader that has accused me of “perpetuating the myth that premature birth is somehow the mother’s fault”, I feel I must address all of my readers. This email comes as a response to my last article, You Have the Power to Experience a Full-Term Pregnancy.
I am outraged, frankly, that the editor of Preemie magazine would rather quote a statistic (namely, that “60% of premature births have NO KNOWN cause”) than
How often do you stop and think that YOU are the one in control of your pregnancy?
Of course, “control” doesn’t mean that you decide your own destiny. Sometimes freaky, unexpected things happen in life and in death, and we, as humans don’t have ultimate control with any of that.
But freak situations aside, there is so much in your pregnancy that you have control over.
In the world of pregnant women, needs can be many. But the choices are many too-one of the most important being how to choose your caregiver. To generalize, choosing an OB is a lot less fraught with choices than perhaps picking a midwife is. But the ideal midwife-client relationship should be the choosing of not only the client, but the midwife too. That means that a midwife should make clear her philosophy so she hopefully attracts the “right” clients for her. And the client should really think about what she wants in a midwife and what is important to her in her prenatal care.
If Indie Mamas are free-thinking and independent (and so they are), there are many ways to have a baby. Unassisted, or “free birth” is one way and I have absolutely no problem with that. In fact, my next baby may very well happen that way. But because homebirth is my thing, both personally and professionally, here goes….
Honestly, I think the act of having your baby at home just really isn’t that genius. I mean, come on, women have been having babies for millions of years and the whole hospital routine is relatively new. So, there really isn’t anything out of the ordinary in that context.
Well, I’ve spent the past week researching circumcision in order to be able to present accurate information and “informed consent” to the expecting parents I work with. I’ve done this with many issues so far, and I really do try to present as unbiased a presentation as possible. I myself have 3 children, and I have personally been through the major decisions, like where to birth and whether or not to vaccinate. And although I feel strongly about both of these issues, I can understand that different people come to different conclusions for their own lives, and I have to respect that.
Take responsibility for your pregnancy and for the health of your baby. In response to a reader that has accused me of perpetuating the myth that “premature birth is somehow the mother’s fault”, I feel I must address all of my readers. This email comes as a response to my last article, You Have the Power to Experience a Full-Term Pregnancy.
Are you one of the many pregnant women who worry that her baby will come too soon?
But what would you think if I told you that in the homebirth practice I work in, we hardly ever, ever see a baby born before about 39 weeks?
These 2 questions are related because the midwifery community supports and puts into practice certain beliefs about nutrition that the medical world does not. What I have learned is so simple, and makes absolutely so much sense that I hope you can read this and rest assured that if you follow the “advice”, your body will be able to support your baby until it is “full-term” (and in my world, that is 40 weeks, not 37).
