The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
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I just had my mind expanded this morning by Laureen Hudson's hour long online session on how to use the internet to get a message out. Laureen's session “Creating an Online Presence," gave me a wealth of information in a short time and impressed me with how many people are out there who completely rely on the internet for their information. I needed that, and maybe you do, too. - Ina May Gaskin I just hung up the phone from doing the hour long session with
Laureen Hudson on “Creating an Online Presence”. Laureen’s know-how
and expertise were enough to wake up even the birth oldtimers like me and
Ina May to the many unused opportunities of the internet. Laureen’s
engaging and easygoing teaching style made even those scary (to me) terms
like “hypertext, streaming, wordpress, technorati, feedreader and trackback”
start to make sense. Her passion is to reach the generation of young
women who have not yet given birth BEFORE they fall into the black hole
of aggressive obstetrics. I came away from the class today with lots
of ways to improve my website and make it more modern, usable and interesting
for readers. This class will run again this coming Friday (August
22) and I heartily recommend it.
Cost: $35 per session Each session will be 60 minutes in length Creating An Online Presence
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In thinking about doing a homebirth with my next baby, what are some things that should be thought about when trying to decide if homebirth is right for you? I am not pregnant yet, but would like to be prepared with what I should look into before I need to make that decision. Thanks for your input!I'm a homebirth midwife, but I had to do a lot of research on the safety issue before overcoming my personal bias revering technology. (I have two science degrees and spent 15 years working as a computer programmer. It took a while for me to acknowledge that machines are all very good and well for many things, but that they are best used sparingly, if at all, in such a human activity as giving birth.)
The best place to start in learning about homebirth is probably the book, Homebirth by Sheila Kitzinger. This is the book that tends to convince my techno-oriented friends. She discusses the studies on comparative safety that show that homebirth is safer than hospital birth for all levels of risk, and discusses the things that can go wrong and how they are handled at home, sometimes by transporting to the nearest hospital.
Rahima Baldwin's book, Special Delivery, is also very helpful, as it's written from the point of view of couples who are planning for a homebirth delivery without necessarily having any professional help at hand. It's even more specific about the variations on normal that could become dangerous and what to do about them.
Since the key to safety for a baby during labor is a relaxed mom who is breathing slowly and deeply to help her baby recover between contractions, I think the safest place for the birth is wherever the mom feels safest. For some women, this is actually the hospital.
However, there are many women who are frightened by their first trip to the hospital, usually on the "hospital tour", where they see the narrow beds, the machines and the generally sanitized environment. There also are women who become frightened that they will become a pawn in the labor and delivery assembly line, driven as it is by protocol. These are rarely issues in homebirth, where the woman and her family have ultimate control over who comes and goes, and what is done to and for them. They are supported at home by the implicit belief that they can do it, that they can do it without mind-altering drugs, and that they will birth vaginally in whatever manner their body directs them.
If you believe that a healthy woman giving birth is a biologically normal
activity, designed to happen without medical intervention, then you are
probably a good candidate for homebirth.
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