The fantasy doula league

Fantasy football is ending. Sad? You won't be after listening to this podcast which envisions...a fantasy doula league!

These dads are obviously quite familiar with the doula trade and are fantasy doula league experts. They really pick up on the crucial skills and stats of doula practice. And, then of course, there's the placenta-kiwi foam.

Fantasy Doula Report - Comedy from Jon Cragle on Vimeo.

"With Rebozo moves like this, she will not be available long!"

More on the UW midwifery program

Seattle columnist advises you never to get between a midwife and a birthing baby:

Last month, the faculty there recommended eliminating the UW's 19-year-old midwife training program.

That isn't surprising on its own. Just about everything is on the chopping block these days.

It was their reasoning. It has angered midwives all over the region. Not to mention thousands of moms.

The nurse-midwife program was judged not to meet a "societal need." In fact, maternal and newborn health were not even on the list of societal needs drawn up by a UW committee looking to cull programs.

Surprisingly, this isn't directly about money. The students in the program pay more in fees than it costs to educate them. Plus midwives are a force that drives down birth-related health costs. ...

The UW hooked me up with Carol Landis, a professor in the nursing school who helped draft the recommendation. She said it was not an "arbitrary devaluing of midwives." Driven by state budget cuts, the School of Nursing is reducing the number of areas in which it is teaching- and training-focused (regrettably to her), she said. The emphasis is on high-level research, the kind that brings in grant money.

And Shari, a midwifery student at UW, commented with the following clarification to my last post:

I would like to clarify and issue with this proposal to cut our program. It is not because of the budget per se, as the Midwifery program is funded entirely from student funds. We are one of the only programs operating in the black. This is politcal decision that must be reversed! Please stand with us and sign the petition! Research dollars do not trump the health and welfare of women and children

The petition already has almost 2500 signatures - with a goal of 10,000!

Sign to save the UW midwifery program

The nurse-midwifery program at the University of Washington is currently slated to be cut. I am shocked that in this day and age universities would be cutting, instead of expanding, nurse-midwifery programs. With our entire health system increasingly depending on mid-level providers, and with the excellent outcomes of nurse-midwives in caring for low-risk women, it seems like a bizarre decision. According the the ACNM website, this is one of only two midwifery education programs in Washington state.

If you would like to support the program you can sign a petition urging the University and the state government to reconsider their decision (you don't need to be a local).

"Doula" in the New York Times crossword puzzle!

My family has always been big crossword puzzle fans - the New York Times crossword in particular. My grandmother, at eighty-seven, still completes the Sunday crossword every week. We're also, of course, Will Shortz (the crossword editor) fans in general; now that I'm working nights, I'm bummed that I miss out on listening to Weekend Edition on Sundays for his puzzles.

So imagine how excited I was to hear that "doula" was in this week's Monday puzzle: "58A: One providing nonmedical support for a woman in labor". Funny to read through the comments on a crossword blog about it - real mix of people who were very familiar with the term, and those who had never heard it before. But now they have!!

A few links to start the New Year

Happy New Year! Here is a total mishmash (not even sorted! only sort of related!) of interesting links for your enjoyment. It feels good to start clearing out my starred list in Google Reader, at least!

Many perspectives on why to have a doula for your homebirth (and a few on why you might not have one).

Doulas serving the expat community (as well as locals) in South Korea

The Well-Rounded Mama posts a list of obesity and birth/breastfeeding research on her Christmas wish list. Any public health peeps out there want to get on it?

The amazing Cathy Genna has a page on tongue tie including pictures and posterior tongue ties.

One mother's struggle with getting her daughter's tongue tie (and lip tie) properly diagnosed and treated - she ended up traveling to Dr. Kotlow to get treatment. "My prayer is that it will not always be this difficult for tongue-tied babies and their mothers. It should not require so much time and so many resources to simply feed your baby."

Interesting and varied responses to the updated UK guidelines on c-section availability.

Knit your own baby-wearing coat extender!

A post on cultural issues and breastfeeding, specifically on diet. My preferred way to deal with this (right now) so as not to contradict any breastfeeding cultural traditions: when people ask me if there are foods they should eat/not eat, I say "Every culture seems to have their own foods that they say are good or bad!" and then I name some examples. Hispanic mothers are often surprised to hear that Americans think broccoli is bad, for instance. I say "If there are foods that your culture thinks are good or bad, then go ahead and do what is recommended. Unless you hate the food! Then you don't have to eat it."

"One thing that brings me joy"

You all know I love Centering Pregnancy. My involvement recently has been limited due to work schedules but I'm hoping to do at least a little co-facilitating soon. Watching this video got me so excited about getting back into Centering land! I can personally attest to the fact that Centering becomes a fun part of the week that I think everyone involved really looks forward to.

Check out what Centering providers, patients, and one of Centering's founders think about the model, and what it can do for perinatal outcomes:

What's the opposite of NaBloPoMo?

I thought several times during November how it was ironic that I was reading through the fruits of other people's daily posting regime while almost totally neglecting my own posts. It got me to think about why I've fallen off in the posting, a trend which has continued well into December.

I do WANT to post! I like writing and being part of a great community and talking about this stuff. I don't want this blog to go dormant long-term. But I've also never been a super-disciplined blogger in the sense that I set goals for viewership or try to earn something from this (ha!) or even necessarily have a specific goal for the things I'm writing. When I first started blogging, my main goals were to 1) get all the birth-y stuff off my private blog and into the world where they could stop annoying the friends who didn't want to read it (but allow the friends who did to follow me and get to learn more about my experiences with the birth-y world) and 2) to have a dedicated place to think about maternal and child health/public health/doula stuff as I started grad school for my MPH.

Now I'm in a different place and sometimes it gives me a mini-crisis of conscience about this blog (not to mention my career path). I am no longer in school or even necessarily in public health at the moment. I work full-time as a lactation consultant where my job is very clinically focused. I am involved with research projects on the side and am trying to shoehorn more of that into my job, but it's not actually in the job description. In the meantime, with a full-time job I have definitely cut back the doula side of my life.

When I come up with ideas for posts, they tend to be sparked by the stuff I'm working on at the moment, so right now that is breastfeeding, breastfeeding, breastfeeding. Which is certainly a topic I've always covered on this blog (and was a passion of mine before I became a doula) but I look at the title of my blog and think "Hmm, it says Public Health Doula, not Clinical Lactation Consultant". It might sounds a little silly to try to stick to a title I chose on the spur of the moment over three (!) years ago, but I want to maintain a diversity of blog posts not just because it's what I originally intended to do with this blog, but what I originally intended to do with my life. I LOVE being a lactation consultant and doing clinical work, and right now as a newbie I am learning a huge amount about hands-on support, but I do want to end up in a public health-oriented direction and want to keep my hand in that (thus all the research projects on the side.)

Finally, it's complicated (as many doula and other health care professionals know) to maintain confidentiality (both for HIPAA and for my own ethical considerations); I composite and change details and all that good stuff, but that's a lot harder than just being able to tell the story of the class discussion I had yesterday.

All that is to say, the things that I used to do that sparked more diverse blog posts are less a part of my life now; and the things I DO do, I tend to second-guess posting about.

However, I think the hiatus has given me a little more fuel for the writing fire. I've seen some neat public health breastfeeding- and birth-related stuff recently and gotten very interested in writing about some issues from a public health perspective (co-sleeping, anyone?) There's also definitely a big post o' links coming from my starred items in Google Reader. (Still waiting for a Reader replacement...)

I am also piloting a shared-call arrangement with two other doulas to be able to keep attending births while working and am super, super excited to be able to consistently take doula clients (even if it's not many) for the foreseeable future. Hopefully that will get my doula thoughts going too!

So, that's my life-via-blogging update. I know the holidays aren't going to exactly focus my thoughts on new posts (more like focus on cookies...mmm, cookies), but I'm thinking there will be more to come in the new year.