Articles About Home Birth, Vaginal Breech Birth, and More!

Here are links to my most recent articles published on the Pampers website. I'm really excited to write about some of these options for a venue where they can be seen by women who might not otherwise consider them.

I Loved Giving Birth at Home! - I got to talk about home birth and how I came to choose it.

My Breech Baby Had a Vaginal Birth - This is one of my favorites, because I finally got the chance to write for Pampers about my surprise breech home birth. It brings back such wonderful memories!

Is Natural Childbirth for Me? - I explain some of the reasons women choose natural birth. We're not trying to be martyrs or prove ourselves better than anyone else. It's a matter of personal accomplishment and doing what we feel is best for ourselves and our babies.

Midwife Birth: An Option for My Healthy Pregnancy - I explain how a midwife is a good fit for a healthy pregnancy, in the hospital or at home.

Considering a Birth Center - I discuss the option of having your baby in a birth center rather than the hospital, and ultimately why I decided home birth instead.

Labor and Birth Can be Beautiful - How I discovered beauty and strength through natural childbirth.

I Wish I Had More Childbirth Pictures - One thing I would change about the births of my children: have someone designated to just take pictures.

Gentle Birth: Preparation Helped Me Achieve My Goal - Approaching pregnancy with the goal of a gentle birth.

Prenatal Information: Preparing for Pregnancy and Birth - Some of the things I did to prepare for birth throughout my pregnancy.

Help Support Mamas and Babies in Haiti

A group of midwives and a doctor from Utah are making a trip to Haiti to help set up a birth center.  They'll be taking supplies and helping to set up a birth center in an old building that's being renovated.  The conditions there are very bad for women having babies.  Without adequate support and care, many mothers and babies are dying.  You can learn more at MamaBabyHaiti.org about this non-profit effort.

You can help their efforts by donating to the cause.  Donations can be money, supplies, or even sky miles. See what you have at your house that could be use in Haiti.  Cotton balls, gauze pads, medical tape, anything you think of as you look over the list below of problems, that you think might help.

If you are in Utah you can support the effort by attending a pancake breakfast on Saturday, September 25th at:

The back of the birth center and its beautiful
ocean view.

Feels Like Home Birth Suites
90 East 200 South
Pleasant Grove, UT 84062.

Price for the breakfast is $5 per person or $20 per family, and all proceeds will go to the Mama Baby Haiti effort.  Donations may be mailed to the same address.

The group needs as much as they can get in money and supplies by Oct 20th, but they are planning on shipping supplies even after the group leaves.


These are the raw notes taken from talking to 8 village leaders, about 75,000 people represented.  Arry, the group's driver/translator, will fill in the blanks with contact info for the people contacted.  This can help give you an idea of the conditions and needs that exist.  I've also included some photos of the conditions, the beautiful landscape, and of a building that's being renovated for use as a birth center.

Pastor Etienne plaine du Nord

The birth center currently being renovated for the group
to set up and hopefully fill with supplies.

pop10k (closest to birth center, SW)
diseases: DM, Fever/infections, Vision issues, HIV, Malaria, Typhoid, Dengue
Some tuberculosis
Most births at home
Very willing to collaborate with us
Closest hospital 45 min away, births in car on way to hospital
2 doctors, 2 clinics $15 consultation.  Most cannot afford.
Not enough food
Not enough water, no clean water
Vaccines kids up to 9, not all have them
Have some traditional healers
Docs only for people with money, would not be mad if we gave free care

Saccanville
5k (think this is actually Cercaville, W of birth center)
Julesaint Abel
Need medicines, food, clean water
diseases: Malnutrition, fever, malaria, htn, dm, childhood diarrhea
Die from htn/dm, high fever, can't afford meds
TB uncommon, HIV unknown
Not vaccinated. Don't use pesticides
Midwife births at home, hospital far away. Small babies
Have healers, no doctors or clinics

Such a beautiful land!

Wants to know how many we could see each time, guards to establish order, make queue for pts

Camp Louise
>10k, W and N of birth center
Pastor David
Offered use of church & school
No clinics or docs
Similar illnesses, especially lack of access to c-sections and very far from hospital/doctors
40-50 orphans from PAP need food, clothes, books, medicine, pharmacy
(can use school)
Close to ocean

balan 
pop 20k, closer to morne rouge

Living conditions.

Contact pastor gaston, very excited
Same illnesses
No doctor
25% of children get secondary school, most primary school
Contact will advertise

fort bourgeois
pop 4500 (mountains NW of Cap Haitien)
Patrick Joseph (not pastor)
Malaria, fever, typhoid, infxn, filiariasis, ha, htn, dm, diarrhea,
bad water (not enough, have to fight for the pump)

Haitian women.

Occasional vaccinations
Eat 1x/day
Can use school or church for clinic
No doctors
Contact will advertise
Need restrooms/sanitation

Cormier
(on water NW of Cap Haitien, same road as Ft. Bourgeois)
Contact Gary
Htn, dm, reflux
Children sick - fever, diarrhea, worms
1 pump for water, carry by bucket
No doctor, difficult to get to Cap Haitien
Need meds for community to use
Have place we can use for clinic

Milot
2-3k (near La Citadelle)
Pastor at-Amour duchange
Htn, dm, eyes, arthritis, scabies, fever, headache, diarrhea, typhoid, malaria
Need clean water and food. Water in buckets. Sanitation/bathrooms needed
No vaccinations
Women don't go to hospital for birth, many babies die
Have hospital but ppl can't afford. Only doctors in the area are in hospital
Can have clinic in church. In past had too many people at one-time clinics, chaotic

Gran prix
20-25k (NE of Milot, on Highway 3)
TB, fever, reflux, HTN, DM
No doctors. Babies vaccinated x3mos
No water or treatment, need a well.  Carry buckets of water from pump.
Births at milot if money, or midwife

Click here for a full photo slideshow including these pictures and many more from Haiti

State of Florida to Ban VBAC in Birth Centers

"On Wednesday, March 24th, the State of Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration will move to permanently ban Vaginal Birth after Cesarean (VBAC) in Florida birth centers."

Please click below to read the full story and to sign a petition asking lawmakers to allow VBAC to remain a legal option in Florida birth centers.

State of Florida to Ban VBAC in Birth Centers

Midwives in the News

Midwives Empower Women Through Natural Childbirth

by Jessica Eyre

In an unassuming business park, one of the occupied office spaces -- among title companies and insurance agents -- is frequented by pregnant women getting checkups and having babies.

But there are no nurses, obstetricians or anasthesiologists there. Well, there might be a few nurses, but in this case, they are the patients.

Birthing Your Way is an unregulated birthing suite, operated by direct entry midwife Sherri and business partner Heather, a certified professional midwife and licensed direct entry midwife.

What is a birthing suite?

Birthing Your Way has a room set up where women can go to have a baby. It looks like a bed & breakfast room -- bed, fireplace, overstuffed chairs, candles, soft lighting. But instead of knick-knacks and mints on the pillows, there are birthing aids, such as birthing stools [where a woman sits on a low stool, shortening the birth canal and opening the pelvis, to give birth] and tubs [filled with water to deliver the baby or to help relax the woman during labor].

Women typically spend about 24 hours there, with labor, delivery and recovery. The mother and baby need to be stable before going home, which includes eating, going to the bathroom, feeding baby, and stable blood pressure, among other things.

The goal for Sherri and Heather is not only a healthy mother and baby, but to empower the mother with the birthing process, which they believe creates a bond between mother and child that they will carry throughout their lives.

"A healthy mother and baby should be the minimum standard, not the gold standard," Heather said.

Why a birthing suite or home birth?

"When you go to the hospital, you're on their playground," Sherri said. State health regulations are set that the hospital must follow -- procedures that are there for the "just in case." For many women, those regulations interfere with the experience they want.

"Medicine through the ages has been so great, but it has sreally taken over in birth," Sherri said.

Birthing Your Way is an unregulated birthing suite, meaning it isn't subject to state health regulations.

"That's exactly what our patients want," Sherri said. They don't want constant monitoring or an I.V., which restrict movement for the laboring mother.

"Sometimes that woman needs to walk and have that pelvis move," Sherri said. Other physical manifestations of labor include screaming, throwing up, even laughing -- all of which can help labor progress, tightening the abdomen and relaxing the lower part of the body. Sherri said at a certain stage of labor, she'll start telling jokes, getting the mother to have a good laugh.

Both Sherri and Heather do routine prenatal checkups, but they put an emphasis on education. They teach classes on the various stages of labor and techniques to handle the pain, such as subtle position changes and pressure points.

For example, even if you aren't going to deliver your baby in the water, getting into a warm bath during labor is what Sherri calls a "home birth epidural." Just as a bath helps relax you when you have the flu, getting in the tub can help a woman relax and manage the pain of contractions.

"The more relaxed you are the less its going to hurt and the faster it's going to go," Sherri said. And the more you know about the process of labor, the better it's going to go.

"The process is really empowering to women," Sherri said.

Who is a candidate for a midwife?

"We deliver healthy women," Sherri said. The majority of pregnancies are routine. High-risk women, though need to be under the care of a physician.

"There are usually little signs that get you in the right place," Sherri said, noting that most midwives are spiritual in one way or another.

For Heather, she wants the women who come to her to be certain this is the right situation for them.

"I will never talk a woman into a home birth," Heather said, saying that if a woman has reservations, there is probably a reason for it, even if she goes on to have a normal birth in the hospital. "You never ignore those feelings."

Of the 50-plus births Sherri has done in the past two years, she has had to transport three to the hospital, two of which required a cesarian section.

"Ninety-eight percent of the time, you are going to have a normal birth," Sherri said. "In reality, stuff happens.

"The good stories need to be told. The bad stories are usually embellished."

While any malpresentation -- when the baby's head is not the first to come down the birth canal -- is not good, midwives have successfully delivered breech babies.

"Physicians and midwives need to hold hands better," Sherri said.

For both Sherri and Heather, the important thing is that women can decide where they want to give birth, whether it's in a hospital or not.

"Don't take that choice away from women," Heather said.