Pregnancy Needn’t Mean Hard Labor: Laboring Without The Labor Bed Cuts Need For Artificial Oxcytocin To Advance Slow Labors

ScienceDaily (July 7, 2009) — A University of Toronto pilot study that re-conceptualized the hospital labour room by removing the standard, clinical bed and adding relaxation-promoting equipment had a 28 per cent drop in infusions of artificial oxcytocin, a powerful drug used to advance slow labours.
The study, called PLACE (Pregnant and Labouring in an Ambient Clinical Environment) was published in the current edition of the journal Birth.

In addition, more than 65 percent of the labouring women in the ambient room, compared to 13 per cent in the standard labour room, reported they spent less than half their hospital labour in the standard labour bed.

Led by Dr. Ellen Hodnett, Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing professor and Heather M. Reisman Chair in Perinatal Nursing Research at the University of Toronto, PLACE included 62 women at two Toronto teaching hospitals.

Hodnett devised a set of simple, but radical modifications to the standard hospital labour room, with the intention of surrounding the women and their caregivers with specific types of auditory, visual and tactile stimuli.

“The removal of the standard hospital bed sent a message that this was not the only place a woman could labour,” says Hodnett. A portable, double-sized mattress with several large, comfortable cushions was set up in the corner of the ambient room. Fluorescent lighting was dimmed, and DVDs of ocean beaches, waterfalls and other soothing vistas were projected onto a wall. A wide variety of music was also made available.

“The intent was to allow the women the ability to move about freely during their labour, to permit close contact with their support people, and to promote feelings of calm and confidence,” says Hodnett.

Reaction to the ambient room was overwhelmingly positive, as respondents were pleased to have options for mobility and for helping to cope with their labour. They also indicated they received greater one-on-one attention and support from their nurses.

“This study raises questions about the assumptions underlying the design of the typical hospital labour room,” says Hodnett. “The birth environment seems to affect the behaviour of everyone in it – the laboring women as well as those who provide care for her.

Hodnett hopes to further this study with a larger, randomized controlled trial.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090706113650.htm

Birth Video Winners

Go to http://birthmattersva.org/videocontest.html to see the complete list of winners and finalists of Birth Matters Virginia’s national video contest. The winners are:

Prevent Cesarean Surgery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZy0JPtubiQ

The Nature of Natural Birth http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrIPtVEjVnc

Misconception http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRmVciXy-g

Trusting the Birthing Body

Delivering a Baby without Medication
by Kelley Granger, June 01, 2009

Of all the different childbirth methods that exist, there seems to be a common belief that threads them together: Women know how to give birth, and they can do it without medication and without fear. Still, research continues to confirm alarming trends involving medical interventions in the birthing process. The National Center for Health Statistics released a report in January revealing the birth trends for 2006, which found that 22.5 percent of births in this country used induction (medication to enhance labor)—double what it was in 1990—and a cesarean delivery rate that rose to an all-time high of 31.1 percent of all births. Once a woman has had a C-section, research indicates that her next birth will be done by caesarian 92 percent of the time, often without attempting normal delivery.

For Jennifer Houston, a certified nurse-midwife from Catskill, these interventions are all part of a modern misconception that birth is a medical event. “Doctors are practicing a medical model—they’re selling services,” she said. “They’re keeping an eye out for danger and they’re looking through a filter of pathology. Medicine makes birth pathology, and it’s not pathology. It becomes pathology when it’s not supported.”  While hospitals and medication certainly have roles to play in risky pregnancies and abnormal labor and delivery scenarios, they are simply not necessary for the average, normal birth.

read more at :
http://www.hvhealthyliving.com/issue/2009/6/Healthy+Living+Feature/Trusting-the-Birthing-Body

What the Midwife Does

The midwife comes to worship at the birth, be it day or night, leaving behind the world of her family and her own existence. Her patient adoration has grown over the months of prenatal teachings, prayers, and caresses that some call “exams.” She enters the birth room, cleansed and hushed by songs she sings on her way there. She wonders at the power of the Mother as Her moans & movements make way to reveal the coming soul. She watches how the Mother is guided, sometimes even by midwife hands or words that point to make clear Nature’s way. She lays out her sterile scissors, clamps, & herbs for just in case, yet her hands rest calmly, knit baby booties, or soothe the laboring Woman. She listens to the rhythms of the process- the distant bouncing of the Baby’s heart, the Mother’s labor song of earthy sounds, prayer or curse, the rhythmic dancing of the womb. She smells the amniotic fluid and it whets her appetite for that common miracle to come. When necessary her hands can have halos and her breath is divine. Usually she needs only kneel down to catch and lift up the newborn to the breast of Life, and attend to the placenta’s safe delivery while Mother and Child are falling further in love. After that climax, she dotes still, like the woman she is, coming & going for weeks, learning the Baby’s name, seeing that milk aplenty drips from the Mother, and that their rhythms have synchronized into the gentle waltz of everyday nurturance.
-By WiseWomanhood – Women’s Holistic Health and Writings

Hello world!

Welcome to Natural Birth DC.  Since 2003 I have worked with pregnant women and their partners in Washington DC, watching their ignorance and fear transform into knowledge and trust. Knowledge about the natural birth process and trust in their bodies and trust in birth. This blog will work to support that knowledge and trust.