The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
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The federal government now says it's OK for pregnant women and young children to be injected with mercury in the H1N1 vaccine. However, if there were more mercury-free vaccine available, they would recommend that pregnant women and young children get that instead. Don't be fooled! Thimerosal is a form of mercury! Autism rates dropping in California—is phase-out of thimerosal the reason? [from 2005] Current thinking is that only genetically vulnerable babies will be affected by the thimerosol . . . maybe even as low as 1 out of 200 or 0.5%. But if it's your child, it's 100%. Read this mother's story about her children's recovery from mercury-related autism. |
First-time moms are much less likely to have the more serious complications of placental retention and postpartum hemorrhage because the uterine muscle tone is better in a first-time mom.
The "problems" they are more likely to have are that their labors may take a little longer. This is more of a problem in the hospital, where they like to see your labor progress at a certain rate and can get aggressive with interventions if your body doesn't naturally keep things moving along. (Which is made harder with all that pressure. Alas. The increased probability for a first-time mom to end up with pitocin or an epidural and eventually a cesarean might actually make the hospital a significantly more dangerous place for a first-time mom than one having a second or third.)
So, the "problems" with first-time moms are likely to be that things are "taking too long", either labor or pushing. Fortunately, that isn't an emergency. It might mean that you end up transporting to the hospital, but it's not going to be life threatening.
Really, it's hard for me to imagine why anyone would say that homebirth
isn't appropriate for first-time moms? If anything, you know they aren't
having a VBAC. And if they plan a homebirth with the first, they reduce
their chance of a cesarean, which can make it harder to plan a homebirth
with your second.
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