Midwifery Today 2009 Conference

Today I am back home after spending 5 days at the Midwifery Today conference in Eugene. For the most part I am still absorbing all that I experienced. As with everything there are always a few disappointments but overall, I know that I came back home with a huge amount of new learning, new friends and inspiration.

So my plan is to write a bit, hopefully through this week and next to share just a bit of the inspirations I found.

In the picture above is Naoli Vinavar, sharing techniques with a Rebozo that traditional Mexican midwives use. I have always wanted to learn to work with a rebozo, but so far youtube videos were the closest I came to visuals on these techniques. Well now after a few sessions with both Naoli and Kara Spencer from Eugene, I am now excited to add this to the skills to help my Doula clients and future midwifery clients. Kara Spencer also introduced me to a healing technique that I have been very interested in learning, Craniosacral therapy for mothers and babies. So again after this taste my hope is to train further so as to offer this fully to clients.

I think some of the most inspiration I found these last few days were from learning how to connect more with Mothers and Babies energetically. How to help them more through subtle touch and traditional methods. This conference gave me much less of a technical knowledge as it did a reminder to go within and find the knowledge stores within myself. Knowledge passed through traditions. To not rely as much on tools as my senses and intuition. Midwifery unlike so much of the medical field is definitely a combination of technical knowledge and sensory knowing, and it is so easy to rely on the technical. So my goal, to always remember that the majority of knowledge will come from within. They need to walk hand and hand together.

I just don't understand

I recently cared for a client who ended up with a repeat C-section, and just heard of a friends family member who also ended up having a C-section. Now both of these cases as well as numerous other ones I know of were due to fetal distress. It was deemed that the baby was in danger and needed to be born intermediately. This is fairly common reason for surgical births.

So my first issue with this and I base this from a medical place of knowledge, I mean I have worked as an RN in Labor and Delivery (please never hold that against me) If a C-section is being done for fetal distress, why does it take 2-4 hours for it to occur. It seems to me that if a baby is deemed in fetal distress and is not capable of being born vaginally then it is an emergency and the surgery should occur right away. If 2-4 hours can pass, what amount of distress could that baby have been experiencing when the surgery decision was made, not much in my opinion. Of course once a family has suffered the fear and disappointment and made this decision and the epidural has been administered, they have lost any hope of a natural vaginal birth. Yet in 2-4 hours the mother could be completely dilated and able to birth her baby.

Another clue to me of the unnecessary-ness of these surgeries is babies that are born via C-section for fetal distress and have an APGAR score of 9/9 This makes no sense. A baby who has been in distress (not getting enough oxygen and is compromised) in utero should never come out and score a 9 in their first minute of life. That babies was not in distress. That mother was railroaded into an unnecessary surgery.

Recently Time magazine posted and article by Pamela Paul on VBACS and the author of that article followed up with a post on the the Huffington Post

There is so much information that needs to be put out there to hopefully stop the C-section rates from rising so that there does not need to be this issue of fighting for a VBAC. We as women need to fight for our rights to not be misled. to not be bullied, to not feel like child abusers when we chose to birth naturally and normally.

Re-emerging with the need to share

I have been hugely absent from this blog for a couple reasons, first off I have been deeply immersing myself in study's, Doula clients and all that is life and family. Thus my blog has suffered greatly. Secondly I found that I was not truly expressing myself here, but instead sharing what I had found others where saying and then agreeing with them by posting. Well I suppose it is time I start expressing my thoughts and beliefs a bit more.

I tend to not want to offend, and sadly in the birthing world that is very easy to do, especially as a Doula dealing very often with the medical community. I see though that while I encourage the very families I support to share their wonderfully natural birth stories I am not living up to that, so time to make changes and walk what I talk :)

So my hope is to share a bit more here about what I am learning, what I am seeing and what I believe. Of course no one need agree with me but if it someone learns or finds value in anything I have to share, well more the better then.