BOLD Statements

Just got some photos from BOLD Duluth's 2008 performance of my play. Before their performance they asked their community to donate whatever they could to their event and with their donation write a "BOLD Statement" about childbirth. Above are a few of those statements...they filled the entryway of their performance that night with them!

Tell Obama What Kind of Maternity Care YOU want!

Susan Hodges, superstar grassroots organizer and director of Citizens for Midwifery, recently sent out an appeal to all Americans to make our voices heard on maternity care to President-Elect Obama!

Obama can't change what he doesn't know...let's tell him the truth about maternity care...from the mothers.

It's time for the problems and solutions about maternity care that mothers know to Trickle UP!

Here's what to do:

Read about Obama’s proposals for health care at:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare

Click on the paragraph under "Present Your Ideas." This will take you to an online form you can use to offer your ideas on health care to the new administration.

Susan Hodges urges:

You can urge the administration to support increased access to midwives and to take a look at the Midwives Model of Care page on CfM's website (http://www.cfmidwifery.org/mmoc). Issues that could be brought up: The need for accountability for outcomes and costs in maternity care; the need for transparency so women can find out accurate information about the practices of maternity care providers; the need to address disparities in access to care and effectiveness of care. A policy for evidence-based practices in maternity care, including the Midwives Model of Care, would help to address these issues. We also encourage you to suggest that the new administration implement the recommendations of Childbirth Connection's Evidence-Based Maternity Care: What It Is and What It Can Accomplish." (http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10575) This will bring this comprehensive policy report to their attention.

The more the campaign hears from us about the problems in maternity care and the SOLUTIONS, the better!

Come on, Lisa Belkin...

Of course I should have seen it coming. The New York Times does a nice piece on home birth (okay, it was in the "light news" Home Section)and then another New York Times reporter uses a colleague's birth story to slam home birth and scare women into running to a hospital. That's what Family Life reporter Lisa Belkin did this week in her Motherload column (A Near-Death Birthing Story). She allowed a colleague's unfortunate birth story to be an example why women should not give birth at home.

Come on, Lisa.

I got the feeling that she, like many people, think home birth midwives show up to people's birth with a couple of wash cloths. In the case of this woman's birth story, who was discovered to be pre-eclampsic when she arrived at the hospital (which is a serious condition that makes her high risk) it's very clear to everyone who has had the pleasure of using a well-trained home birth midwife that this would have been diagnosed immediately at home and the midwife would have transported her to the hospital (with plenty of time - in the article the woman who gave birth says the hospital let her labor until 6 centimeters...a clear indication that a midwife who discovered her condition had plenty of time to get the woman to the hospital without threatening her life).

I can appreciate and sympathize deeply with a low risk woman who develops pre-eclampsia at the end of her pregnancy, but let's not use this story to deter people from using qualified midwives. That's irresponsible to women. Especially when there is such a high rate of cesarean and other interventions on low risk woman who do not need these interventions.Trained midwives are not sitting around a woman's house baking bread and boiling water - they are taking blood pressure, fetal heart tones, and they know women who are pre-eclampsic should not be giving birth at home.

Thankfully, the blog entries that followed the piece included several people who pointed this out, including this one:

There are always near-death horror stories that are dredged up to scare people away from home births. I am sorry for Catherine’s ordeal, but I want to point out (as someone who worked on a documentary about home birth) that midwives who practice home deliveries are very good at spotting trouble before it becomes an emergency and transferring women to hospital when needed. It is the expertise of these midwives that makes home birth safe. Catherine, her husband and her mother in the car didn’t know she was in danger, but this does not in any way correlate to what might have transpired if she had planned a home birth and was under the care of a trained midwife.

And, finally, at my own privileged Manhattan childbirth class, which was absolutely focused on natural birth, the instructors were clear again and again that we are not ever in control of our birth. In fact, successful birth necessitates letting go of the idea of control. You can have an idea of what you would like to happen, and it is good to think ahead about options, but when it comes down to it, your plans may be completely worthless.


If you want to add your voice to this piece click here.

PS: I should add that I normally love Lisa Belkin's well-written, perceptive pieces in the Times...which made this even harder for me to read!

Today Show on doulas

It's always nice to see doulas get mentioned, especially on national television, but this morning's Today Show piece was disappointing. I'm just wondering if Dr. Nancy Snyderman could look a little less interested in this topic? Her piece was "balanced" in the good and evil sense (good doula, really bad doula), but let's face it most subjects fall closer to the middle.

I thought it was irresponsible for her to interview a doctor in Reston, Virginia who has banned doulas from their hospital because they feel doulas get in the way from allowing women to make "the right decision" (TRANSLATION: The decision the hospital thinks is best) because many times women are facing medical emergencies (Yes, almost always due to medical interventions). A good investigative journalist would have to point out the disasterous medical statistics of most hospitals: over 30% c-section rates, etc and that this alone would suggest hospitals may not have women's best interests in mind in their labor and delivery rooms.

Also, as Ms. Snyderman hinted, if women did not hire a doula most are left to labor alone until they are pushing. Is that ideal for women?

I completely agree when anyone is considering taking on a care provider you must look at their credentials and ideally get firsthand feedback on them (this includes when a woman looks for an OB or midwife too), but when Ms. Snyderman suggested people contact their doctors about what doula they should use I have to stop and say to women: just remember, if you are going to a doctor that supports the kind of birth you want then this makes sense, but if you are going to a doctor who has a high cesarean rate and you want a natural birth then you better think twice before you take the doula that doctor recommends. I've unfortunately heard this story too many times: mom seeing a doctor who doesn't completely agree with how she wants to birth her baby, she hires a doula recommended by the doctor practice thinking this doula will be the key to her getting the birth she wants and then the disappointment that the birth she gets is what 90 percent of the doctor's patients have been getting.

The moral of this story: get educated women! Positive childbirth options are out there! Choices in Childbirth in New York City has done alot to promote safe, gentle birthing options through their Guide to a Healthy Birth. Check it out! (click here to get the guide)

3:52am

I woke up this morning greeted by my 2 sons and my mother (hubby is away for work) singing Happy Birthday to me. At 3:52am 42 years ago I was born. I hadn't thought about how special it would be to see my mother's face on my birthday...she always feels bad that she can't remember much about my birth other then being happy I was a girl and that I didn't have a cone head like my brother did....yet as I lay there in bed this morning (at 6am!) and stared into my mothers eyes I had a viceral experience of the first moment I met her at Englewood Hospital in New Jersey 42 years ago. We both may be older, but her loving eyes looked just the same.

I know presents will be opened tonight (my youngest son has been busy gluing and taping something that seems monstrous in size!) but in many ways I feel like I already got my birthday present for the day...mom.

Birth Activists Save Birth Center!

What great news - grassroots birth activists in Massachusetts have helped to save the North Shore Birthing Center! Hospital officials who made the decision to shelve plans to close the birth center noted in today's Boston Globe that the intense grassroots campaign to save the birth center "did not go unnoticed."

YES! Congratulations to all the families who marched and wrote letters and stood strong for positive birth choices for women. You ROCK!

Check out today's Boston Globe article: click here

BOLD Red Tent Kelowna, Canada on You Tube

Sometimes I'm left speechless and this contribution from the BOLD Red Tent in Kelowna, Canada did just that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GtjDvjXdMo

Check out The New York Times

Check it out!

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/garden/13birth.html?_r=3&pagewanted=1&ref=garden&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Yesterday's piece in the New York times on home birth had me dancing around my kitchen after I took my kids to school. Sure, it pointed out that ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) is so against home birth they even recently convinced the American Medical Association to join them in the witch hunt. But thankfully this reporter had the sense to also cite that over in the UK their equivalent association of OBs said for low risk women home birth is beneficial.

It seems American women are slowly waking up to this reality despite ACOG's attempt to scare women into thinking it's common for low-risk pregnant women to suddenly become high-risk. Sure it is...in a hospital setting where a low-risk woman is given interventions. It happens every day. But when you don't intervene with drugs this is rare.

The only thing this article forgot to mention is that along with Ricki Lake's fabulous film there has also been a BOLD movement of activists doing my play for three years, over thirty BOLD Red Tents around the world this year gathering women to tell their birth stories, and these BOLD events have raised lots of money for grassroots birth networks and other needed services that expand birth choices to all women! (BOLD has raised over $100,000 for its beneficiaries since 2006. Oh, and let's not forget the film "Orgasmic Birth" showings around the world this year! There's alot that has contributed to swinging the childbirth pendulum and I'm proud of everyone who is out there contributing to raising awareness.

Also check out the slideshow from the New York Times' piece:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/11/13/garden/20081113-BIRTH_index.html

Get BOLD: Save a Birth Center!

A passionate and growing group of birth activists (including BOLD's 2007 Boston organizer Cathleen Barstow!) are furiously organizing to save the North Shore Birth Center in Massachusetts. There is a very serious move to stop all births at the birth center which would greatly restrict mother-friendly birthing options for women in that area.

This is a great opportunity to be BOLD for the women of this area!

THEY NEED YOU TO ACT NOW!

On November 18, 2008, the Board of Trustees of the Northeast Health Corporation will consider a proposal to no longer allow women to labor or birth at the Birth Center.

Will you take a moment to write a letter in support of the birth center? Click here.

And if you live in the area or know someone who does attend their rally on November 18th. They already sense the numbers at the rally will be high.

It's just incredible to me that with such strong research supporting birth centers and midwives this could happen. When's common sense going to surface?

If you're in to Facebook here's their link on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=33650813774

The Power of Women Gathering

I receive alot of photos from BOLD locations, but last week I popped in the photos from BOLD Austin's BOLD Red Tent this year and I got to thinking about the power of women gathering...so many women gathering in BOLD Red Tents around the world...and how even when the numbers are only five or six this act of gathering bonds us, puts out the intention that women want childbirth to be the best it can be, women want to support all sisters through this journey, and women know that great change can come from small gatherings.

In swahili they say "pole pole" - slowly. Change is coming.

Rock on, BOLD Red Tents!

Yes We Can

Well, America spoke last night. As a community organizer, a mother, a writer...and a childbirth advocate...what I heard loud and clear were the words: Yes We Can.

Here are a few post-election day "Yes We Can's" from me...

Yes We Can find ways of bringing a hospital obstetrician and a home birth midwife together, agreeing to come to the table open-hearted, to agree to disagree but know that the common goal is increasing the number of (emotionally and physically) healthy mothers and babies.

Yes We Can say to our children that we will work hard to give all women access to safe birth choices so that when they become adults those choices will be available and considered normal.

Yes We Can envision a world where women in developing countries don't have to have a baby under a tree in their village with no qualified labor and delivery attendant or supplies available, where the women are given free care and treated humanely.

Yes We Can show the next generation of women and men that women's pregnant bodies ROCK so that they look for birth choices that pick them up.

Yes We Can build a movement of people who use every peaceful, nonviolent method to BOLDly tell our representatives that now is the time to make maternity care work for mothers, now is the time to treat women with respect in the labor and delivery rooms, now is the time to not just use the technology of saving lives but to use compassionate words with women having a baby so that compassion can spread into everything we do and are.

Yes We Can be BOLD.

Yes We Can!!!!!

This is why I'm BOLD

Got this email in my inbox this morning. Now this is why I"m BOLD (I've taken out the name of the hospital)...


My name is Julia. I am thirteen years old. I am not nor have been pregnant yet but I just wanted to tell you how much your program inspired me. I have heard of such hospital "horrors" as the things that some of the women were saying in the tents (the BOLD Red Tents). My own mother went through such during my own birth.

My mother gave birth to both my sister and I at XXX Hospital. XXX Hospital is a College and students were learning there so a student was giving my mother epideral. The student had tried six times to give my mother the epideral, failing to do so each time. After my father had been removed from the room by hospital security because he was demanding for a real doctor to continue, a doctor finally did come in and give my mom the epideral.

I'm sure that this is mild compared to some of the stories you've been told but I believe that no mother should be treated this way or any other way during the birth of their child. Isn't birth supposed to be a happy time for a family?


Thankyou for being such an inspirational program and just being a program!

Sincerely,

Julia