Half a million women also die during pregnancy or birth, and another 10 million suffer from related complications
Click here to read the full article at ippmedia.com

These statistics are staggering and heartbreaking. These are also the same statistics that the media and medical community use to scare women in developed countries. They try to lead us to believe that the reason the rates are so much lower than in undeveloped countries is because of modern obstetrical care.

While modern obstetrical care does save some women and children without a doubt, they cannot take full credit for having a lower neonatal mortality rate than the average third world country.

Most laboring mothers in developing countries do not have access to:

• Bacteria free running water
• A clean home for a birthing environment
• Sanitation systems
• education about proper hygiene, warmth, and breastfeeding
• Accurate information about birth
• Access to medical intervention in the event of an emergency
• Adequate prenatal nutrition

Many women in developing countries do not know the importance of keeping a newborn warm for example. A simple newborn cap to keep the infant warm could save countless lives. Visit Annies Attic for information on how to provide basic essentials to women in third world countries who desperately need caps and sterile blades to cut umbilical cords.

Taken from Annies’ Attic:

“Go to savethechildren.org or warmupamerica.org to download your kit of step-by-step directions and materials, or call (800) 728-3843. There are knit and crochet patterns, a template for your note to the President, a tag to personalize your gift to a mother in need and all the information you need to join in this effort and save lives.”

Click here to read the full article

Sheryl’s comments:
And people think unassisted birth is uncivilized??? This is a classic example of why using a midwife is no guarantee of a natural birth. Even the best intentioned midwives frequently interfere with the natural progression of birth.

Midwives have financial incentive to avoid sending the birthing mother to the services of an obstetrician and they often have to adhere to an arbitrary legal birthing time line so to avoid a hospital transfer for “time reasons” midwives often do all sorts of things to women to “speed things up”. Midwives are also trying to avoid lawsuits and many are admittedly in as much of a rush to go home to their family as any obstetrician.

Some midwives, particularly “medwives” (CNMs who practice in a hospital setting and fancy themselves obstetricians) also engage in the barbaric and insane practice of immediate cord clamping. In a natural birth when the cord is done pulsing and the baby has received their life giving oxygenated blood and the baby has successful transfered to pulmonary oxygenation (lung breathing) and the baby begins breastfeeding and oxytocin floods the mother’s brain (not from a poisonous shot of Pitocin) then the placenta will naturally detach. There is simply no need to yank on the cord!

DO NOT LET YOUR OB-GYN OR MIDWIFE CUT OR CLAMP THE CORD IMMEDIATELY!

Up to 1/3 of your baby’s blood (that belongs inside your baby’s body) is still contained in the placenta. This is the leading cause of infant anemia. This final blood transfusion is a backup plan for delayed breathing or complications and provides critical oxygen before the oxygen from breathed air hits the baby’s brain.

It absolutely infuriates me that these birth attendants are in such a damn rush that they can’t let the baby have its own blood and oxygen. If I am fortunate enough to have another child and unfortunate enough to have another person in attendance, I will knock them out cold before I let them touch the cord.

If you are going to let someone else attend your birth then please:

1. Make him or her sign the birth plan stating that you insist that they do not touch the umbilical cord until it is done pulsing
2. Do not let him/her convince you that they will “give you two minutes”. It takes 10-20 to stop pulsing.
3. Threaten legal action if he/she clamps the cord, even for a cesarean
4. Get a new OB-GYN or midwife if they refuse to let your child keep the oxygen/blood that is rightfully theirs. How on earth can ten minutes of that person’s time be worth blood and oxygen from your baby’s body? Ten lousy minutes when they are making thousands of dollars off of you. Are you willing to risk a lifelong birth injury from oxygen deprivation to your baby’s brain? Your midwife or OB-GYN is certainly willing to risk it unless you stop them.

Or you can make the civilized choice and try unassisted childbirth or homebirth with a midwife who values cord blood, to ensure that no one inflicts this harmful procedure on your innocent and helpless child.

Adults have their own rhyme and reason for birth choices. Doctors and midwives make choices for convenience, scheduling, to avoid lawsuits or for profit. You may make decisions based on personal beliefs, research, the influence of others, your own benefit, and quite likely for what you believe to be the good of the baby.

Doctors and midwives may claim to “first do no harm”, but that apparently does not hold true in childbirth which is evidenced by the United State’s embarrassingly high infant mortality rate and intervention rate. It is your job as the parent then, to distinguish fact from fiction to uncover what is really in the best interest of your child. What is really best for your baby? What is your baby thinking or feeling during childbirth? What does your baby really want?

BABIES WANT TO AVOID PAIN
It is fairly logical to assume that your baby does not want to experience pain. Many birth interventions such as breaking the water, labor inductions, forceps or surgery can cause the baby pain by forcing the babies skull against the mothers pelvis, crushing the baby with intolerable and relentless contractions, nicking the baby with a scalpel, or the unimaginable pain of forceps dragging them out of the birth canal by their head.

Labor inductions can cause crushing contractions which smash the babies head into the mother’s pelvis repeatedly. For some barbaric reason anesthesia is rarely used in circumcision which is clearly excruciating for the baby not to mention totally unnecessary. Vaccinations are also painful. Some of these procedures are so painful and traumatic that the baby fails to make eye contact with its parents or breastfeed at all.

BABIES WANT OXYGEN
Babies also seem to enjoy adequate blood and oxygen. Anything that compresses the umbilical cord which is quite literally, the babies lifeline, will understandably cause fetal distress and if not resolved can cause potentially irreversible brain damage. This is the worst nightmare of any parent but I am quite sure the baby didn’t sign up for it either. A combination of broken waters and a supine (on the back position) can cause the baby to lie on its own cord and compress it.

The supine position also compresses the mother’s vena cava which is the main vein supplying blood to the uterus. Pregnant women dutifully sleep on their side through pregnancy only to get to the hospital and start suffocating their baby to give the doctor a better view.

Many interventions used in hospitals restrict blood flow to the uterus either through contractions or from the fight or flight response of the mother. The violent contractions brought on by Pitocin and Cytotec restrict or eliminate the blood supply to the uterus causing dramatic fetal distress often “necessitating” a cesarean section. Overly long or strong contractions essentially suffocate the fetus by only allowing the fetus to “breathe” briefly between contractions.

By far the single most common intervention that literally robs a newborn of up to one third of their blood supply is the insane practice of immediate cord clamping. There is not one scientifically valid reason to clamp a cord immediately. The cord pulses for approximately 15-20 minutes following birth and this pulsing is the babies final and vital blood transfusion. The cord blood is rich with stem cells, iron, and oxygen and it is 100% the property of the baby.

The cord continues to pulse during the baby’s crucial transition to pulmonary oxygenation (breathing through the lungs). It can take several minutes for the oxygen from breathing air to reach the baby’s brain and the oxygenated cord blood compensates in this critical time. As you can imagine, cutting the babies lifeline literally starves the babies brain of oxygen until the lungs can take over. In addition to potential irreversible brain damage, immediate cord clamping also robs the baby of vital iron and causes widespread childhood anemia. The easiest way to avoid anemia? Let the baby retain the blood that is rightfully theirs.

BABIES WANT SECURITY
Babies want to stay in the comfort and safety of the womb until it is time to come out. Inductions and C-sections that are scheduled for convenience or some other arbitrary reason are quite simply removing the baby prematurely. Birth will happen when the baby is done growing. Babies stay inside the womb for a reason and they want to remain there until they are done growing. Some studies indicate that doctors are the leading cause of premature births in the United States.

The unfortunate truth is that virtually all medical interventions carry risks to the mother and baby. In fact, many of the interventions are so harmful to the baby that they lead to fetal distress which puts parents under pressure to submit to even more procedures that carry even greater potential for harm. Almost no parent will say no to something that will save their child when the baby’s heart rate is dropping precipitously. The fact remains that the doctor or midwife caused the distress in the first place.

BABIES WANT A LOVING WELCOME
Try to imagine that you are coming into the world for the first time as a baby(or an alien if that is easier for you). You feel yourself being blasted from the sanctity of the womb to the shrieks of agony of your mother and the militant shouts of others as you are suffocated on and off for twelve hours while your head is rammed repeatedly into bone. Then you feel your body become heavy and unresponsive as you are drugged into oblivion. You are suddenly exposed to blinding light and a crowd of eyes peeking between mask and cap as your mother is filleted to rip you from the safety of your mother’s body. 1/3 of your blood supply is drained from your body as your primary life giving organ is cut from your body without painkillers. Your lungs are not fully developed since you are a few weeks early and since you didn’t travel down the birth canal the amniotic fluid was never squeezed from your lungs. You are whisked away in the latex gloves of uncaring, unresponsive hurried strangers who ram a syringe up your nose, weigh you on a cold metal table, inject you with toxic chemicals, blind you, and irreversibly mutilate your penis without any painkillers. You are finally handed to your mother who is too tortured, butchered and drugged to hold you much less breastfeed.

Conversely imagine coming into the world for the first time in a homebirth setting. You stay in the uterus until your mothers highly evolved and naturally intelligent birthing mechanism understands that you are ready to be born. You feel the strong and gentle hugging squeeze of the uterine contractions as they gently but firmly propel you into the birth canal. You can hear the familiar sounds of your parents and maybe some music. They are talking to you, encouraging you, telling you they love you and cant wait to meet you. You feel the familiar rhythm of your mother’s body moving into various positions that give you ample room to comfortably rotate into the perfect position to be born in. You are squeezed out with a final hugging push or two into the loving warm waiting arms of your parents (perhaps to the sound of your mother’s orgasm) and you are placed on mom’s warm waiting chest within seconds. You blink a bit in the semi darkness and hear your mothers voice without the buffer of the womb for the first time. You hear her love and see into her eyes as you instinctively latch on. Meanwhile your body is being infused with the final blood transfusion that will give you all the oxygen, blood, stem cells and immunity you need for the healthiest start in life. While you latch on to your mother’s warm, waiting breast, her body releases oxytocin which improves your bonding, releases her breast milk, and causes the cord to stop the transfusion, the placenta to detach from the uterine wall and deliver itself naturally. The colustrum from your mother’s breast is all the Vitamin K you need especially since no one will be mutilating your penis. There is no Hepatitis vaccine since you aren’t sexually active quite yet and your penis stays happily and gratefully intact.

There are many arguments for and against natural birth but from the baby’s point of view there is undeniably no contest.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/silversldr/2451035644/

In a world where women deliver their babies under the influence of drugs, flat on their backs and being either screamed at or sliced into, most women never see the beautiful, life giving organ that allowed their baby to survive nine months. Modern, detached women may view the placenta with disgust and revulsion, but it is a highly evolved, incredible organ that carries both function, spirit and yes, nutrition.

What is the placenta?
The placenta is an amazing organ unlike any other in the human body. It is a flat, circular organ that weighs approximately one pound or 1/6 the baby’s body weight at birth. The placenta has two sides, one for the baby and one for the mother. The baby’s side is smooth and the umbilical cord usually emerges directly from the center. The mothers side is attached to the wall of her uterus and after the placenta is delivered, it appears bumpy and knobby and should be intact with no missing pieces.

The placenta is formed from the same sperm and egg that eventually become the fetus so many cultures treat the placenta with respect, as they would a twin. The placenta is also unique to other human organs because not only is it the only temporary human organ but it is also the only one that is housed outside of the body.

What does the placenta do?

The placenta is a large, highly complex organ, capable of a multiplicity of synthetic, secretory, filtration, analytic, and transport functions. It serves as the interface of the maternal and fetal physiological systems. cogprints.org

The placenta does more than any other organ in the human body and it makes life possible for your baby. The placenta acts as lungs, kidney and digestive system for your baby. It takes over hormone production around 12 weeks gestation, which will trigger labor and delivery, generate relaxin to prepare your body for birth, and provides estrogen, progesterone and hCG just to name a few.

The most amazing part of the placenta is its ability to bring maternal and fetal blood right next to each other without mixing. The maternal blood enters the placenta loaded with nutrients for her baby, leaves the nutrients behind and takes away her baby’s waste products. Conversely, the baby’s blood enters the placenta with waste products and returns from the placenta with maternal nutrients.

In addition, the placenta provides valuable stem cells to the fetus, protects the fetus from infections and harmful substances, provides energy for the baby by synthesizing glycogen, cholesterol and fatty acids and also provides passive immunity to the newborn through the transfer of maternal antibodies. The placenta even secretes hormones that “cloak” it from the mother’s immune system to prevent attacks.

Mystical and Cultural Significance of the Placenta
There are a variety of rituals surrounding the placenta that vary by culture. Many cultures revere the placenta for its role in their babies life. Certain cultures consider it the baby’s older sibling, best friend or deceased twin. Burying the placenta is a common practice either to honor the placenta, to nurture a tree that is planted a year later or to have a funeral ceremony for the “relative” of the baby.

As natural childbirth takes hold in western civilizations, more women are choosing to honor their placentas with various activities rather than letting a medical provider either sell it or burn it. Many women freeze their placentas for either a future ceremony, future meal or to be dried and ground at a later date. Marci Marcari discusses the freezing of placentas in her book She Births, and refers to those who freeze their placentas as member of the frozen placenta society (FPS).

Other women are finding lotus birth to be the most natural, gentle way to “cut the cord”. In a lotus birth the cord is not touched at all and usually falls off on its own in a few days. The placenta is either kept moist in a dish next to the baby or kept salted in a little pouch. Both methods are designed to keep odors at bay. The undisputed best part of a lotus birth is that the baby gets to keep all the blood and stem cells that belong in its body but there are other benefits as well such as allowing the mother and baby to stay close, lay low and enjoy their babymoon.

One other tradition that is taking hold even if the cord is cut is placenta printing, a sweet practice in which the placenta and umbilical cord is placed against a piece of paper and a print resembling a tree is left either using paint or the remaining blood and amniotic fluid.

Eating your placenta
Eating the placenta is also known as Placentophagia. Many animals, including herbivores, routinely chew through the umbilical cord and proceed to eat the placenta after their babies are born. Instinct driven creatures, it has been said, do not make mistakes. Human beings ignore their instincts, for better or for worse, and are driven by cultural and social forces, dogma and stigma. Due to these factors, the practice of eating your own placenta is relatively rare among humans, but still practiced among a small number of people around the globe, for both nutritional and ritualistic purposes.

The human placenta is so nutrient rich that you must plant an adjacent tree a full year after you bury the placenta or the tree will die. The placenta is loaded with nutrition that can replenish what a new mother lost due to pregnancy and childbirth. Placentophagia is believed to prevent postpartum depression, postpartum hemorrhage, help shrink the uterus and helps to relieve other pregnancy related complications.

The placenta is the only meat that a person can eat without killing or maiming another living being which may appeal to vegetarians. The placenta can be eaten raw, usually by blending it with vegetable juices and spices or simply swallowing a small piece whole. If the nutrients are to be preserved, then it certainly makes sense to eat it raw and fresh the way the animals do. While this sounds great in theory, most people cannot stomach raw, red organ meat of any animal so most people will not be able to enjoy the benefits of raw placenta either.

If you want to the benefits of eating placenta in a form that mimics meat cooked the way you are accustomed to eating it, then you will be able to find a number of recipes for cooked placenta, such as lasagna, pizza, roasts and other familiar foods. You can also simply fry it up with onions and peppers or cook it any way you would cook a steak.

Many families will create a ceremony out of the placenta meal and all will partake, similar to a burial ceremony or any other ritual that celebrates the role the placenta has had in their lives. Keep in mind that the rest of the family does not have depleted nutritional stores from pregnancy and childbirth so they do not need the placenta nearly as much as you will.

Final Function
You may find it strange that some people eat their own placentas but there is a modern placenta practice that is so barbaric, cruel and wrong that it will make eating placenta seem as benign as eating birthday cake.

In a practice affectionately known as “active management of the third stage of labor”, unscrupulous doctors and midwives routinely amputate the placenta while it is still functioning in a move reminiscent of the urban legends involving kidneys and bathtubs. Like the kidney thieves, many hospitals profit from the sale of the placentas for research and cosmetic purposes, but the doctors and midwives simply do it because they are in a rush and they either do not know any better or they simply do not care.

Your birth attendant may yammer on about preventing postpartum hemorrhage, but it does not take a rocket scientist (although obstetricians can’t figure it out) that amputating one end of a live organ and then literally ripping it from the uterine wall is more likely to cause hemorrhage. These people are not only idiots, they are routinely performing one of the greatest human rights violations in modern medicine.

“The results of routinely clamping the cord after the placenta has delivered should soon persuade the birth attendant of the value of this practice – five-minute Apgar scores are routinely 10, even when one-minute Apgar scores are below 4.” Birthbraininjury.org

If someone were to drain 1/3 of your blood or harvest one of your organs without your permission, could they go to jail? Of course they would. Even if you somehow survived, no one is allowed to take what is rightfully yours, in your body without your permission. If you test the DNA of placental blood, does it belong to the midwife? the OB? the mother? No, no and no. It belongs to your baby. It is simply not the birth attendant’s choice to rob a baby of it’s own blood. As long as the umbilical cord is pulsing, the placenta is functioning and infusing the newborn with blood, oxygen, stem cells and immunity.

While removing that percentage of blood from your body would kill you, birth attendants believe it is OK to save themselves 15 lousy minutes of time with no concern whatsoever for long term injury to the baby because it does not kill them and long term effects of oxygen deprivation may not appear for years and naturally can no longer be proven. How convenient.

Not only does this oxygen rich blood belong to the baby, but this final blood transfusion serves a very important purpose in the period immediately following delivery. The placenta and umbilical cord provide oxygen to the baby prior to the baby’s first breath. Even if a baby takes its first breath immediately, it will take a few minutes for the oxygen from breathing to reach the lungs and be dispersed through the baby’s body, most importantly to the brain. Placental oxygenation is the bridge that keeps your baby’s brain and cells fully oxygenated until pulmonary oxygenation takes over. Immediate cord clamping is a heinous practice that literally deprives every single newborn baby of oxygen in that critical time period.

In addition, delayed cord clamping helps prevent postpartum hemorrhage because it allows the placenta to detach naturally when its job is over. When the cord is left open, the placenta is allowed to give up its blood which then allows it to spontaneous detach from the uterine wall, often with the aid of natural oxytocin released through breastfeeding. No ripping, tugging, pulling or manual traction is necessary. The problem is that 99% of birth attendants are not willing to wait.

Keep in mind that there are only two legitimate, scientifically based reasons for immediate cord clamping and they are a torn cord and placenta previa. A cesarean, premature delivery or severely compromised infant are never grounds for immediate cord clamping, in fact these compromised newborns are in even greater need of the life giving, oxygenated, nutrient filled blood that the placenta contains.

Unfortunately you have very few choices if you want your baby to retain life giving blood, oxygen, stem cells and immunity that the placenta carries for that final blood transfusion. Having an unassisted childbirth is the best way to 100% guarantee that no malicious cord clamping is performed on your newborn. Your second choice is a lay midwife who respects your wishes and the role of the placenta and will allow you to either have a lotus birth or wait until the placenta is delivered although they have also been known to ignore the parents request to leave the cord alone. Some midwives have to be physically blocked or placed in another room to keep them away from the cord. Do yourself a favor and get references from women who used the midwife and the cord remained intact.

If you are going to deliver in the hospital, whether it is with a certified nurse midwife or a doctor, your odds of allowing your baby to keep its blood and oxygen fall sharply. Even with written instructions via a birth plan and verbal instructions, these people are bound and determined to clamp that cord as fast as possible. If you have simply given them a written birth plan with your wishes in addition to your verbal instructions, you can pretty much count on them clamping and cutting the cord anyway.

Here is your number one takeaway “get your birthplan signed by all parties, including an attorney.”

No matter what your verbal or written instructions say, be prepared to physically stop birth attendants from both injecting you with pitocin (they can be very sneaky) and from cutting the cord (they will be very fast). It is your job to protect your baby, it is your OB’s job to get to his tee time. You very well may need to get your partner or doula to physically stop them or you have have to kick them or fight them off (don’t forget to use lawsuit threats). Get it on film if they cut the cord anyway and sue their asses off. Do not let them talk you out of it or blabber on with nonsense that has no scientific basis such as jaundice or anything else. It is all bogus and they either do not know what they are talking about or they simply care more about 20 minutes of their time than your baby’s long term health and well being.

In either event, you need to take matters into your own hands. You are a paying customer but that does not matter. They will do whatever they want to you unless you take steps to legally enforce your wishes. The best way to ensure that no one in a hospital touches the cord before the placenta is delivered is to get it in writing and signed prior to the birth. You will most likely have to get an attorney involved and have every relevant party sign the document well in advance of the birth. Threaten in advance to sue if they ignore your wishes and clamp the cord before the placenta is delivered. You can insist on keeping the cord intact for all deliveries, including cesarean births. They will hate it because they might have dinner reservations, but that isn’t your problem now is it?

Perhaps the best way to avoid any cord issues with birth providers is to insist on a lotus birth. Get it in writing, in advance with a legal document. Then you will also avoid any issues you may have with keeping your own placenta for freezing, burying, printing or even eating. Apparently hospitals tend to think of your placenta as their property as soon as it leaves your body and some women have had to take legal action after the fact in order to keep what is rightfully theirs. If you do not want a lotus birth, simply cut the cord yourself after all hospital staff leave the room or after you leave the hospital. Extreme? Absolutely. Do they leave us a choice? Unfortunately, no they don’t.

The placenta is more than a miraculous organ that sustained life for nine months, it is a bridge from the born to the unborn. Some call it disposable but that is a great insult to the friend and organ that made life possible for your little one.

Additional resources and reading:
Wikipedia: Placentophagy
Placenta Party
Placenta recipes
Personal story of placetophagy and postpartum health
How to End the Birth Litigation Crisis
Unknown to mothers, placentas collected & sold
Lotusbirth.com
Don’t cut the cord!
Civil Action to Protect Babies Umbilical Cord
Umbilical Cord Issues/Delayed Cord Clamping
Criminal Teaching on immediate cord clamping on an infant’s pulsating lifeline, the umbilical cord

Image source: http://flickr.com/photos/alfon18/2423985845/

Another episiotomy myth that bears mentioning is the absurd notion that cutting the vaginal opening will prevent tears. That has got to be the most asinine thing I have ever heard. That is like siphoning your gas tank so you don’t run out of gas. It is beyond ridiculous. Please fire your doctors or midwife if they try to throw that garbage at you.

My awful midwife (Gail Heathcote, Grand Rapids, MI) gave me a nasty episiotomy (and a subsequent botch repair job) despite my verbal and written instructions to the contrary. I do not know if I can ever forgive her for the things she did to me and my baby that day. It is not true that midwives will not do episiotomies. Certified Nurse Midwives who deliver babies in hospitals under the same idiotic notions of medially managing childbirth, will in fact perform episiotomies as well as many other cruel and unnecessary procedures in the interest of “moving things along”.

Most homebirth midwives respect a woman’s body, perinatal integrity and her ability to birth and will make every effort to avoid cutting an episiotomy. Virtually eliminating your risk of genital mutilation for the convenience of your OB or med-wife is just one more great argument for homebirth. Until the unlikely day that Certified Nurse Midwives and doctors start respecting our wishes for childbirth, homebirth whether assisted or unassisted is the only real way to avoid an episiotomy. Episiotomies are genital mutilation plain and simple.

Why Unassisted Childbirth and Direct Entry Midwife Assisted Homebirth is the way of the future.

by Sheryl Lyon

Someday anthropologists are going to look back on this period of history with shock and horror. They are going to study how not only the medical community routinely invaded childbirth for convenience and profit but also performed unnecessary tests and procedures, inevitably harming and in some cases killing innocent women and their babies.

Not only will they study the ritual tortures and abuse but they will also shake their heads in amazement at how virtually 100% of western culture’s trusting citizens bought into the lies and not only believed them but perpetuated the myths onto their children and grandchildren.

Most people refuse to believe the truth even when presented with evidence. The truth is too horrible to accept. Modern obstetrics created a specialty out of virtually nothing. They have convinced perfectly healthy women that they are incapable of birthing on their own. In order to convince them of this fact they have invaded the majority of births to some extent or another until it is the only way of childbirth that women have ever seen. Women truly believe the interventions are necessary. 99% of the time they are not necessary. 100% of the time they are detrimental on some level. They all hurt the mother or baby and they all impede the natural birthing process.

We need to stop the insanity. We need to stop telling women that it is OK to deliver in hospitals unless something is terribly wrong. We need stop spread the word that these interventions are dangerous and although it makes us sick to admit, most of them are totally unnecessary (unless you are an obstetrician with a Mercedes payment).

Yes, a small percentage of women should deliver in hospitals via C-section. Women with placenta previa should deliver via C section for example. The vast majority of women do not have low lying placentas however, yet they still walk in voluntarily, strip down for strangers that will turn around and torture and mutilate them and then steal blood and oxygen from their babies. (Yes, immediate cord clamping always steals blood and oxygen that rightfully belongs to the baby.)

This is not being dramatic. This is reality. The medical model of childbirth is either blasting babies out, literally filleting them from their mother’s womb or physically pulling them out by their head. The maternity floor is a torture chamber that women can avoid entirely if they have the facts and the confidence in their body’s innate ability to birth a baby. If women open their mind, admit they have been bamboozled for the last century, and then get the heck out of the hospital as fast as they can.

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/elina/177211485/

Author: Anne Childs

When it comes to childbirth, most women are able to make it to the emergency room or their prearranged birthing centers; however not all are. While there is a good chance that you will make it to your intended destination before your baby arrives, what would you do if you couldn’t make it? Unfortunately, a large number of expectant parents have no idea. That is why it is important that you take the time to familiarize yourself with emergency childbirth, just in case.

Perhaps, the best way to familiarize yourself with emergency births is by speaking to your pregnancy care physician, whether that professional be your primary care physician, an OBGYN or a certified nurse midwife. There is a good chance that your pregnancy care provider will briefly touch on the subject of an unexpected birth, but it is important that you know as much as you can about the situation, including what you can and cannot do. For that reason, you may want to make a list of questions that you should ask him or her.

One of the most important questions that you need to ask your pregnancy care provider is where you should or shouldn’t have your baby. Depending on the situation, you may not have a choice, but you might just have one. For instance, if you are going into labor at your home, you may want to know where the best delivery location would be. From a medical standpoint, you will want an area of your home that is safe and clean, but also one that will be comfortable. Your OBGYN, primary care physician, or certified nurse midwife should be able to give you the most accurate answer.*

During emergency childbirths, it is recommended that the births occur on clean surfaces, at least a surface that is clean as it could possibly be. Although you might not have enough time to make it to the hospital, there may be enough time to sanitize the area in which you plan on giving birth. The only problem with sanitizing your birthing area is that not all cleaning products are safe for you and your child. That is why it is advised that you seek professional assistance. If cleaning supplies need to be used, it is important that you know which ones are safe and which ones are not.

Cleaning supplies are not the only items or supplies that you need to be concerned about. As beautiful as childbirth is, it can also be messy. That is why it is often recommended that you wear protective clothing, such as gloves, and have a number of towels or blankets on hand. You should ask your pregnancy care provider what items, as well as how many, you should have on
hand. In fact, your healthcare provider should be able to provide you with an emergency birthing checklist or you could easily make your own.

Although it is best to get your information directly from your own pregnancy care provider, you can also familiarize yourself with emergency childbirth by using the internet or by buying a pregnancy book from one of your local retail stores. These books and online resources may not provide you with as detailed or as personalized information, but they can do in a pinch. If at any point you find that you have unanswered questions or need further assistance, you are advised to seek assistance from a professional healthcare provider.

Whether you learn about emergency childbirth through your physician, the internet or a printed resource guide, you are advised to follow all of the information and directions given to you. It may also be a good idea to take additional precautions. For instance, it will likely be recommended that you have the above mentioned supplies on hand; however, you may want to take it a step further. It may be a good idea to keep the materials needed for an emergency childbirth in number of different locations, such as your car or your workplace.

Despite the fact that your labor and delivery may go exactly as planned, there are no guarantees. By asking the above mentioned questions, you should be prepared for anything that happens, whether it be expected or not. The information you will learn may come in handy; however, it is important that you share it with those that you will be around. Since you will be occupied, you will need to rely on assistance from those around you, whether they are medical professionals or not.

About the author:
Anne Childs is a contributor to Healthline.who has also conducted many seminars focusing on childbirth and other issues related to women’s health.

Sheryl’s comment:
A. Childbirth is not an emergency for the mother or baby. If your baby is ready to come out, it is exciting and thrilling!

B. Childbirth outside of a hospital is only an emergency for the OB-GYN’s Mercedes payment

C. You should be familiar with how birth works no matter who (if anyone) is attending the birth.

D. You can give birth in any room in your home including your bathroom. If it is clean enough for you and your newborn to live in or to conceive the baby in, then it is clean enough to give birth in.

E. You will be catching your baby so the surface that you are kneeling or squatting on is somewhat irrelevant. Clearly you are not going to give birth in your cats litter box or in a obviously unsanitary location. We are talking about western civilization here people, not the third world. Think “reasonably clean” or “company is stopping by clean”

F. Lay down a shower curtain or some old towels. Childbirth without incisions and episiotomies is a lot less bloody. There will be amniotic fluid however, so be prepared for that. Some women give birth in the bathtub, over the toilet or on a tiled floor for easy cleanup. If you are at home, fill the tub, climb in and get ready to meet the new love of your life. Location is really not that big of a deal.

G. Don’t welcome your baby into the world with latex gloves. That is insane. You will be holding your baby for years in your bare hands. Why is this crucial moment any different?

H. Try a lotus birth and you wont have to worry about cutting the cord. If you do want to cut the cord (PLEASE only cut if after it is done pulsing) then cut it with a clean/sterile scissors. You might want to have a large bowl on hand to place the placenta if you do not do a lotus birth. If you were in fact planning a hospital/birthing center birth, then the doctor or midwife will want to examine the placenta to make sure it is intact. (Otherwise how can they get paid?)

Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/ouij/50115629/

Once upon a time, women’s only childbirth option was to give birth at home. As medicine evolved, doctors’ offices and hospitals became the norm for labor and delivery which created an entire industry but not necessarily to the benefit of women and children.

Rural communities remained isolated from modern facilities and midwives took their place by the mother-to-be side at the time to give birth arrived. Today, midwives are professional health care providers, qualified and accredited by medical boards.

This is the result of an increasingly common trend: giving birth at home. Whatever the reason, many women prefer to stay at home often attended by a midwife.

There is no place like home, and that saying takes the right place when pregnancy comes to end. The comfort of your home will reduce the tension of labor, thus facilitating delivery if you are a pregnant woman in good health and without previous miscarriages or pregnancy complications.

Hospitals are committed to bringing you the ultimate technology experience, and their services are useful if your gynecologist has determined that you will need medical assistance during the childbirth process, but the cold atmosphere of a hospital room can never be compared with your bedroom.

Any expectant mother has the right to decide where she wants to give birth and if you are generally healthy and have had an uneventful pregnancy with no special conditions, then there is no reason in the world that you could not choose to birth in the privacy of your own home.

The first step is to choose your birth attendant. Although not set in stone, you will often find that a lay midwife will assist you in your home while a CNM (certified nurse midwife) will work in a hospital setting along side of an obstetrician. Please do not be fooled by a CNM and try to have a “natural birth” in a hospital setting. It does not happen and they will inevitably do horrible interventions to you and your baby to “speed things along”. If you want a natural birth, you have to deliver at home, period.

Take some time to check the attendant background and qualifications, then schedule an interview and ask all what you need to know, including number of births attended and the names of a few persons you can talk with for references. It is vital that you question the time they allow you to labor (if they will do potentially dangerous and unnecessary things like give you pitocin, episiotomies or yank on the umbilical cord to “speed things up”). Most lay midwives have the brains to avoid cutting the cord until it is done pulsing. This is one of the best reasons to have a home birth.

One of the most important preparations you can make for a successful home birth is to consider any eventual complication. Make sure that the person who will attend you is familiar to emergency procedures and has the appropriate equipment in case of postpartum hemorrhage, the need to resuscitate a newborn, or any other unexpected medical event. If you are planning an unassisted homebirth you should know infant CPR yourself and have transportation to the hospital lined up should you start bleeding or have some other complication.

Your midwife may also have oxygen and masks on hand as well as some other basic birthing supplies. Lastly, remember to check your insurance coverage, because many plans will not cover home birthing. If everything goes okay, you can give birth in your own home, that of your parents, your best friend, or in a home close to a hospital or the physician who keeps your medical history records.

About the author:
For more information about home birthing and childbirth information you can check out childbirth.me.uk

The Homebirth Advantage
Image Source: http://flickr.com/photos/myjuly/537376204/