I really enjoyed this post from Bellies and Babies on what to read and what not to read when you're expecting. (Sneak peek: definitely NOT What to Expect When You're Expecting"). She also breaks her "to-read" suggestions down into 3 categories: Citizen ("for the average Joanne), "Seeker" ("for the one who is definitely looking into her options"), and "Sold" ("she knows, she has researched, she is a proactive consumer"). Her recommendations are right on, too - for example, the Sears & Sears Pregnancy Book is a good "Citizen" read but the Birth Book is more for the "Seeker".
Ultimately my goal is to have a really great "doula library" of books that I can lend out to clients, and send out to friends, who are at any of those "levels". Her recommendations have definitely added some titles to my wish list!
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Where to find conferences?
My school has some travel awards and I'd like to use one before I graduate! I've been thinking about putting together a poster of my undergraduate thesis research (lo, those many years ago!) and seeing if I can be a presenter somewhere. Does anyone know of a centralized listing of birth and/or breastfeeding-related conferences? (There would need to be at least some breastfeeding.) Wish I could go to the International Breech Birth Conference but it's too soon (and hard to find a reason to present there with a poster on WIC clients' views on breastfeeding).
Kanye + VBACs
So I try not to link to the Unnecesarean aaaaall the time, and hope and trust that my readers have it in their feeds as well. But you can't miss Kanye talks VBACs. As I noted in the posts, it is right up there with Kanye interrupts Barack Obama.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Another way to build your birth(/pregnancy/breastfeeding) library
I've mentioned before that the thrift store of a college town is a great place to build my "doula shelf" of books that are useful to me and to lend out to clients and others. Last weekend I was at Barnes & Noble where they were selling "Birthing From Within" for the list price of $20. A half-hour later I found it at the thrift store for 25 cents!
Finds like that don't come along all the time, though, and lately I've become enamored of PaperBackSwap. The way it works is pretty simple: you post books you have to offer. Every time someone requests one from you, you mail it, and get a credit. When you find a book you want, you request it, and use a credit. Since every book you mail costs about $3 by media mail, each credit you use has basically cost you about $3 - not 25 cents, but not bad either.
Some books are hard to come by (I think I'm something like #171 on the wish list for "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth") but others come easy - I lent out and never got back my Sears & Sears "The Birth Book", and when I looked there was already one posted for me to request (hopefully not the one I lent out originally!) And it's a good way to get rid of books you're not going to read again! The thrift store reads I don't want to keep, I just post up there and they go to a good home.
So that's my tip for the evening. Now back to homework!
Finds like that don't come along all the time, though, and lately I've become enamored of PaperBackSwap. The way it works is pretty simple: you post books you have to offer. Every time someone requests one from you, you mail it, and get a credit. When you find a book you want, you request it, and use a credit. Since every book you mail costs about $3 by media mail, each credit you use has basically cost you about $3 - not 25 cents, but not bad either.
Some books are hard to come by (I think I'm something like #171 on the wish list for "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth") but others come easy - I lent out and never got back my Sears & Sears "The Birth Book", and when I looked there was already one posted for me to request (hopefully not the one I lent out originally!) And it's a good way to get rid of books you're not going to read again! The thrift store reads I don't want to keep, I just post up there and they go to a good home.
So that's my tip for the evening. Now back to homework!
What I want my friends to know
I started this blog for a few reasons. One was to take all the doula-, birth-, and breastfeeding-related stuff out of my personal blog and put it in one place, where it would be easier for me to think and write about (and expand on) separately. Another was to have a place for myself to make connections between what I was studying in my MPH and other issues that I care about. It has been a great place to do those things, as well as provided a more unexpected benefit of connecting me to an amazing community of smart, interesting, challenging bloggers who think about the same stuff I do.
But I had another motivation for starting this blog. Yes, I took a lot of my birth-related stuff out of my personal journal - but my hope was that my friends would humor me by adding Public Health Doula to their Google Reader as well, and that maybe I could draw in a few more friends/classmates/relatives. And then, THEN, I could expose those people to all the things I was learning and thinking about birth, maternity care, breastfeeding etc. I don't want to be the Obnoxious Friend bringing it up all the time...or worse, the Obnoxious Friend bringing it up while my friend is actually pregnant or parenting. Once someone is pregnant, I try to offer my services in a low-pressure way, then shut my damn mouth and only bring something up if they bring it up first. (Do I always succeed? No, but I try.) I don't want anyone to feel like I'm judging their choices, even if my intention is only to offer more information or ask questions. This blog is a way to make my thoughts available without forcing them on anyone.
But yet I've been thinking lately about how reading about my feelings on a lot of these issues could make some of you out there in real-world friend land feel judged. Or at the very least, not sure whether or not I would judge you for choices you might make. And let me say, at this stage in my life, it feels like EVeryone I know is having babies. So I am writing this post now, just to say: as a doula, I do not judge my clients for any of the decisions they make. I want them to make educated, supported decisions they feel happy about. God knows I want no less for my friends, and hope I would treat them with no less respect and consideration.
So I thought I would write down the things I do and don't care about, so I can make sure I'm clear:
Here are things I DON'T care about:
-I don't care if you give birth in a hospital
-I don't care if you hire an OB-GYN
-I don't care if you get an epidural
-I don't care if you have an elective induction
-I don't care if you have an elective c-section
Yes - I encourage working with a midwife, taking a childbirth education class, avoiding unnecessary interventions, inductions, and c-sections, breastfeeding, and using a mother- and baby-friendly birthplace.
But I encourage these things NOT because I think they make you a better woman, mother, or person. I encourage these things because I care about you, and through reading the evidence and from personal experience, I think these are your best shots at having a happy healthy birth experience and having a happy healthy baby.
If you decide something else is the best choice for you - it's your body, your baby, your choice. Do I want you to know the risks of an elective induction before you choose it? Yes, which leads me to:
What I DO care about:
- I care that you know enough about birth, and your choices (and RIGHTS) in birth, to make educated decisions and know what your priorities and values are. This is the biggie. I hope you never think "I wish I had known..." or "If only someone had told me..." If I am ever pushy with information, it is with this goal in mind.
- I care that with what you learn about pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, you resist the misinformation out there, and refuse to spread it yourself. If one of my friends says, "Once a child's old enough to ask for it, he's too old to breastfeed" ...well, let's just say we'll have to talk.
I also have some hopes - things I cross my fingers that my blog posts are teaching you more about:
- I hope you know that you have many options and variations in terms of maternity care. How one individual care provider practices is not necessarily the gold standard that you cannot question.
- I hope for you not to be frightened of birth, and I want to balance out the voices that might be feeding you fear.
- I hope for you to feel supported in whatever choices you need to make for your health (mental and physical) and your baby's health (mental and physical).
- I hope for you to feel happy and at peace with whatever happens at your birth, and if you don't I am there if you want to process your feelings or want help finding more information. But I never want you to feel like I am playing the "If Only" game with your birth unless you have specifically asked me how I think things could have been different.
So again: no matter what happens during your pregnancy, birth, and parenting - I want you to NEVER EVER feel judged by me for any of the choices you make and if you do, call me on it.
And I am here for you. If there is anything I can do to help you...whether it be troubleshooting breastfeeding at 2 am or just needing to talk through your feelings...I am here for you. And that's the most important thing I want you to know.
But I had another motivation for starting this blog. Yes, I took a lot of my birth-related stuff out of my personal journal - but my hope was that my friends would humor me by adding Public Health Doula to their Google Reader as well, and that maybe I could draw in a few more friends/classmates/relatives. And then, THEN, I could expose those people to all the things I was learning and thinking about birth, maternity care, breastfeeding etc. I don't want to be the Obnoxious Friend bringing it up all the time...or worse, the Obnoxious Friend bringing it up while my friend is actually pregnant or parenting. Once someone is pregnant, I try to offer my services in a low-pressure way, then shut my damn mouth and only bring something up if they bring it up first. (Do I always succeed? No, but I try.) I don't want anyone to feel like I'm judging their choices, even if my intention is only to offer more information or ask questions. This blog is a way to make my thoughts available without forcing them on anyone.
But yet I've been thinking lately about how reading about my feelings on a lot of these issues could make some of you out there in real-world friend land feel judged. Or at the very least, not sure whether or not I would judge you for choices you might make. And let me say, at this stage in my life, it feels like EVeryone I know is having babies. So I am writing this post now, just to say: as a doula, I do not judge my clients for any of the decisions they make. I want them to make educated, supported decisions they feel happy about. God knows I want no less for my friends, and hope I would treat them with no less respect and consideration.
So I thought I would write down the things I do and don't care about, so I can make sure I'm clear:
Here are things I DON'T care about:
-I don't care if you give birth in a hospital
-I don't care if you hire an OB-GYN
-I don't care if you get an epidural
-I don't care if you have an elective induction
-I don't care if you have an elective c-section
Yes - I encourage working with a midwife, taking a childbirth education class, avoiding unnecessary interventions, inductions, and c-sections, breastfeeding, and using a mother- and baby-friendly birthplace.
But I encourage these things NOT because I think they make you a better woman, mother, or person. I encourage these things because I care about you, and through reading the evidence and from personal experience, I think these are your best shots at having a happy healthy birth experience and having a happy healthy baby.
If you decide something else is the best choice for you - it's your body, your baby, your choice. Do I want you to know the risks of an elective induction before you choose it? Yes, which leads me to:
What I DO care about:
- I care that you know enough about birth, and your choices (and RIGHTS) in birth, to make educated decisions and know what your priorities and values are. This is the biggie. I hope you never think "I wish I had known..." or "If only someone had told me..." If I am ever pushy with information, it is with this goal in mind.
- I care that with what you learn about pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, you resist the misinformation out there, and refuse to spread it yourself. If one of my friends says, "Once a child's old enough to ask for it, he's too old to breastfeed" ...well, let's just say we'll have to talk.
I also have some hopes - things I cross my fingers that my blog posts are teaching you more about:
- I hope you know that you have many options and variations in terms of maternity care. How one individual care provider practices is not necessarily the gold standard that you cannot question.
- I hope for you not to be frightened of birth, and I want to balance out the voices that might be feeding you fear.
- I hope for you to feel supported in whatever choices you need to make for your health (mental and physical) and your baby's health (mental and physical).
- I hope for you to feel happy and at peace with whatever happens at your birth, and if you don't I am there if you want to process your feelings or want help finding more information. But I never want you to feel like I am playing the "If Only" game with your birth unless you have specifically asked me how I think things could have been different.
So again: no matter what happens during your pregnancy, birth, and parenting - I want you to NEVER EVER feel judged by me for any of the choices you make and if you do, call me on it.
And I am here for you. If there is anything I can do to help you...whether it be troubleshooting breastfeeding at 2 am or just needing to talk through your feelings...I am here for you. And that's the most important thing I want you to know.
Monday, September 14, 2009
A Peace Corps volunteer in Africa
Lately I've been really enjoying the blog of a friend of mine from college, Aaron. He's now about a year into a two-year Peace Corps stint in Burkina Faso, a small country in West Africa. He's able to send out periodic e-mail updates, which another friend then posts to his blog. Aaron has had some great stories and reflections - touching, humorous, sometimes sad, often illuminating about the nature of doing development work and being a foreigner in a very different place. Some of his work focuses on reproductive and maternal/child health, which makes it extra interesting (at least for me!)
Some of my favorite posts:
On Porridge - on combating malnutrition in infants and toddlers.
Christians and Play-dough (not the actual title, but that's how I think of it) - what happens when charity efforts go a little awry.
Sort've like home - getting kids in Burkina to play American theater games.
If you're interested in Peace Corps, development, international health work, or just in some great stories and pictures I encourage you to check it out!
Some of my favorite posts:
On Porridge - on combating malnutrition in infants and toddlers.
Christians and Play-dough (not the actual title, but that's how I think of it) - what happens when charity efforts go a little awry.
Sort've like home - getting kids in Burkina to play American theater games.
If you're interested in Peace Corps, development, international health work, or just in some great stories and pictures I encourage you to check it out!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Delivery room football again
Last weekend, I went to a wonderful birth. One of the things that was nice was the immediate skin-to-skin contact mom and baby had right from birth, which was very important to the family. But I didn't realize at the time exactly how it came about. When I went for my postpartum visit, the dad told me the story:
Because of a complication right at the beginning of labor, mom and baby were both being carefully monitored and baby was looking absolutely fabulous on the monitor. No problems at all. However, as things were getting closer to pushing time, the midwife said she wanted to warn them that because of the complication, the pediatric team would need to come, and would want to take the baby right away. That would mean there would be no immediate skin-to-skin or delayed cord clamping.
(I have seen this happen at that hospital before, usually because of meconium in the amniotic fluid: with any mec, the protocol is that the peds team stands hovering around the warmer, and as soon as the baby is born - no matter how healthy and vigorous - they take the baby to the other side of the room. Then they spend five or so minutes wiping, suctioning, and monitoring while mom is craning her neck trying to see. It just seems...silly. She wants the baby, the baby wants her, the baby is healthy, why go through that routine? But I digress.)
So the midwife was explaining this to the mom, who was on her way to the bathroom and going through transition and not listening very closely, and to the dad, who was listening very closely indeed. I was in the bathroom with the mom, supporting her through contractions, so I did not know about this part until the next day:
While we were in the bathroom, the midwife was explaining this to the dad, and he said, "But the baby is healthy, right? You keep telling us she's doing great."
"Yeees...but we're really supposed to have the pediatric team here, and if they come, they usually don't just want to stand around. They'll want to take the baby."
"Even if the baby is born healthy and totally fine?"
"Yes, they'll want to take her."
Skin-to-skin and delayed cord clamping were really important parts of their birth plan, and the dad hadn't really heard a reason yet for that to change. He was focused on his wife who was going through a lot at the moment, and was in the bathroom vocalizing very loudly, and he just wanted the conversation over.
He said firmly, "You can call them, and they can come. But if they try to take our healthy baby, I will tackle them. I will just...tackle them."
And the midwife looked back at him and said, "Okay. Let me give them a call and see what we can work out."
Birth time came, peds hovered around the warmer, baby was born looking good, went straight to mom, had all newborn assessments done skin-to-skin, and cord was allowed to pulse before they cut. Then baby was taken for a couple minutes for a quick check and suction, then went straight back to mom and started breastfeeding.
Go dad!!
When I heard about how he made it happen, his threat to tackle reminded me of the original Delivery Room Football". Rixa at Stand and Deliver posted about it recently again, talking about "iron in my soul".
So a note to dads, moms, and other birth partners: as a doula I can encourage you to know your rights and be assertive, but only you can actually DO it. Don't be afraid to!
Because of a complication right at the beginning of labor, mom and baby were both being carefully monitored and baby was looking absolutely fabulous on the monitor. No problems at all. However, as things were getting closer to pushing time, the midwife said she wanted to warn them that because of the complication, the pediatric team would need to come, and would want to take the baby right away. That would mean there would be no immediate skin-to-skin or delayed cord clamping.
(I have seen this happen at that hospital before, usually because of meconium in the amniotic fluid: with any mec, the protocol is that the peds team stands hovering around the warmer, and as soon as the baby is born - no matter how healthy and vigorous - they take the baby to the other side of the room. Then they spend five or so minutes wiping, suctioning, and monitoring while mom is craning her neck trying to see. It just seems...silly. She wants the baby, the baby wants her, the baby is healthy, why go through that routine? But I digress.)
So the midwife was explaining this to the mom, who was on her way to the bathroom and going through transition and not listening very closely, and to the dad, who was listening very closely indeed. I was in the bathroom with the mom, supporting her through contractions, so I did not know about this part until the next day:
While we were in the bathroom, the midwife was explaining this to the dad, and he said, "But the baby is healthy, right? You keep telling us she's doing great."
"Yeees...but we're really supposed to have the pediatric team here, and if they come, they usually don't just want to stand around. They'll want to take the baby."
"Even if the baby is born healthy and totally fine?"
"Yes, they'll want to take her."
Skin-to-skin and delayed cord clamping were really important parts of their birth plan, and the dad hadn't really heard a reason yet for that to change. He was focused on his wife who was going through a lot at the moment, and was in the bathroom vocalizing very loudly, and he just wanted the conversation over.
He said firmly, "You can call them, and they can come. But if they try to take our healthy baby, I will tackle them. I will just...tackle them."
And the midwife looked back at him and said, "Okay. Let me give them a call and see what we can work out."
Birth time came, peds hovered around the warmer, baby was born looking good, went straight to mom, had all newborn assessments done skin-to-skin, and cord was allowed to pulse before they cut. Then baby was taken for a couple minutes for a quick check and suction, then went straight back to mom and started breastfeeding.
Go dad!!
When I heard about how he made it happen, his threat to tackle reminded me of the original Delivery Room Football". Rixa at Stand and Deliver posted about it recently again, talking about "iron in my soul".
So a note to dads, moms, and other birth partners: as a doula I can encourage you to know your rights and be assertive, but only you can actually DO it. Don't be afraid to!
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