My apologies for the formatting issues with this post...
1. Ever think about how birth is done in other countries? Here is more from Rixa at Stand and Deliver: Birth Around the World series
Highlights Mother Health International, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving maternal and child health in Haiti.
Story of a VBAC in Tajikistan witnessed by a doula and student.
From Azerbaijan to the U.S., here are two different birth stories.
2. U.S. Surgeon General's Call to Action: Breastfeeding- BIG NEWS!
On Jan. 20, 2011 the Surgeon General Regina M. Benjamin issued a “Call to Action to Support Breastfeeding,” outlining steps that can be taken to remove some of the obstacles faced by women who want to breastfeed their babies.
Dr. Benjamin’s “Call to Action” identifies ways that families, communities, employers and health care professionals can improve breastfeeding rates and increase support for breastfeeding:
- Communities should expand and improve programs that provide mother-to-mother support and peer counseling.
- Health care systems should ensure that maternity care practices provide education and counseling on breastfeeding. Hospitals should become more “baby-friendly,” by taking steps like those recommended by the UNICEF/WHO’s Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.
- Clinicians should ensure that they are trained to properly care for breastfeeding mothers and babies. They should promote breastfeeding to their pregnant patients and make sure that mothers receive the best advice on how to breastfeed.
- Employers should work toward establishing paid maternity leave and high-quality lactation support programs. Employers should expand the use of programs that allow nursing mothers to have their babies close by so they can feed them during the day. They should also provide women with break time and private space to express breast milk.
- Families should give mothers the support and encouragement they need to breastfeed.
Read the Surgeon General’s Press Release Click here
Read/print the Fact Sheet
from Jan 10-15th, which was fantastic (though truthfully I'm still going back to catch up on them all).
Definitely don't miss this one, where Dr Dorn describes obstetrics as having its own rituals, which is exactly what Robbie Davis-Floyd writes about! (Science and Sensibility even re-posted):
OB-GYN Henry Dorn examines the role of technology and public opinion of modern obstetrics.
"The obstetrical community must fit that model, insisting on specific rituals of care, even in the absence of absolute evidence of their efficacy, in order to gain a sense of control and mastery of the birthing process. The fetal heart rate tracing is poured over like tea leaves or cast bones, and the doctor becomes the shaman."
Here is a full list of all rest of the Posts:
Sociologist Louise Marie Roth shares her research, which challenges the claim that the number of obstetric malpractice lawsuits has caused the rise in the cesarean rate in the United States.
Courtroom Mama, a contributor to The Unnecesarean, offers an introduction to medical malpractice for the non-attorney.
An anonymous OB-GYN describes the lawsuit that changed everything.
Lee Tilson, who has litigated medical malpractice cases for decades and was drafted into the patient safety movement by medical errors that adversely affected two family members, shares his views on cesarean sections.
Sociologist Barbara Katz-Rothman looks critically at malpractice insurance, pregnancy, risk and the U.S. health care system.
National Advocates for Pregnant Women ask whether recent debates about so-called “personhood” measures—ones that would legally separate eggs, embryos and fetuses from the pregnant women who carry, nurture, and sustain them—raise the question of whether “defensive medicine” provides a reasonable justification for forcing pregnant women to undergo cesarean surgery or for locking them up if they refuse.
Emjaybee, a contributor to The Unnecesarean, gets real about her experience with defensive medicine in maternity care from the perspective of a patient.
Non-partisan, consumer advocacy organization Texas Watch analyzes the effects of Proposition 12.
President of the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) Desirre Andrews reflects on the organization’s concern for the effects of a defensive practice style.
ANaturalAdvocate, a contributor to The Unnecesarean and almost-lawyer, tells how her son’s iatrogenic prematurity stemming from an induction at 37 weeks for suspected macrosomia affected her and her choices for future births.
Amy Tuteur, MD, proposes that while defensive medicine appears to be about protecting doctors from liability, it’s really about protecting patients from any and all risk.
Two well-known patient advocates, Trisha Torrey and Dave deBronkart, share their thoughts on how to defend oneself from defensive medicine.
Jill Arnold and Henry Dorn, MD, explore how to build trust in the patient-provider relationship in the final post of the Defending Ourselves against Defensive Medicine series.
And that should keep you busy through the weekend ;]
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