Belly Tales

And of course, something needs to be said about Birth on Labor Day, aka BOLD, a new event slated to occur annually on Labor Day (appropriate, eh?). Created by playwright Karen Brody, and clearly modelled off of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues and the subsequent V-Day that was created to call attention to violence against women, Birth on Labor Day centers around a play, Birth, which is based on interviews Brody did with over one hundred women during 2004-2005, and relates the stories of 7 women and their differing birth experiences. Birth, and BOLD, is designed to examine the way women give birth in this country, calling attention to the birth machine and the huge disempowerment and disconnect women feel between their minds and bodies during the birth experience. BOLD is an attempt to start up a new dialogue about ways to create mother-friendly birth in our country, raising awareness through education, truth and action. Sounds like a good plan to me!

BOLD events are scheduled to occur in over twenty cities across the USA this Labor Day, as well as internationally in India, Malta, and Bermuda. If you live in the New York metro area, there are some fabulous BOLD events taking place, including talks with Dr. Christiane Northrup, Barbara Harper and Henci Goer, and of course a performance of Birth will take place. Check out the BOLD website for a full schedule of BOLD events, especially the ones in New York City.

This just arrived in my inbox, moments ago. I can’t find a single news story written about this yet, in any of the papers. Is it really possible for a blog to beat the newspapers when it comes to a story? Neato!

We did it!
At 9:20 a.m. today, the FDA approved over-the-counter access to the “morning-after” pill!

Dear *******,

Thanks to the letters, petitions, and support from people like you, the FDA finally overcame the political pressure from the White House, Congress, and anti-choice lobbyists, and approved the morning-after pill for over-the-counter sales.

Medical experts and scientists at the FDA have asserted for years that the morning-after pill - which can prevent an unintended pregnancy if taken within 72 hours after sex - should be available without a prescription. It’s safe, it’s effective, and it’s a commonsense way for women to prevent unintended pregnancy.

Thank you again for helping achieve this victory for women - your action does make a difference.

My best,

Nancy Keenan
President
NARAL Pro-Choice America

Wow, is this for real?? HOORAY!!! It only took two years too long, but let’s hear it for strong scientific evidence finally winning out in the end. I’ll update with more articles on this as they are written, because I’m sure this will be in the news today. This calls for a real celebration, though, and a thankful prayer for a return (even if, perhaps, momentary and fleeting) to rational, evidence-based thinking on the part of our government. I’m thrilled! Just got back from a long shift at work, and am off to bed, but with news like this, I’m off to bed HAPPY.

(I really hope I don’t wake up later today and find out that this was all a dream. Someone pinch me, please.)

ADDENDUM:

This news is now in The New York Times, so it must be true. Wheeee!

Feministing maps out the conservative response to today’s news, with unabashed glee.

As we approach the 1 year anniversay or Hurricane Katrina, here’s an interesting article from the Washington Post on the ways that pregnant women, and newborn infants and new mothers have been short changed when it comes to disaster management plans, and how new plans are being made to finally accomodate the needs of pregnant and immediately postpartum women and infants during diasasters. I was very glad to see that midwives were included in this article, and in the management plans, and are even having a say when it comes to making these plans in the first place.

“We will be in situations where there are no health-care facilities. In fact, if there is a pandemic flu, a hospital is not where you take a pregnant woman or an infant to,” said Robbie Prepas, a certified midwife who heads disaster preparedness at the American College of Nurse-Midwives. During Katrina, Prepas helped many pregnant women with deliveries in airports and ambulances.

“We will have to retrain care providers to be comfortable with assisting deliveries outside hospitals,” she said.

Exposing more health care practitioners to the idea of out-of-hospital birth is always a good thing, in my book. And it’s always nice to see midwives actually included at the table when it comes to making national healthcare policies, plans and goals.

There is also a prominent article on the Ask Dr. Manny website that focuses on the new legislation which was recently passed in Wisconsin legalizing CPMs and CPM attended homebirth, as well as similar legislation that’s currently being debated in Alabama, North Carolina, Idaho, South Dakota, Illinois, Kentucky, Georgia, Missouri, and Indiana. The article hashes out both sides of the debate pretty well, and is a fairly mainstream venue for such an indepth focus on CPMs. Congratulations, Wisconsin! We’ll have to keep our fingers crossed for the other 10 states.

It’s slowly dawning on me that the summer is nearly over, as e-mails from professors begin to crowd my inbox and book lists and homework assignments are already beginning to stack up. I feel strangely ambivalent about it, at this point. On the one hand, I’m looking forward to sinking into the work of school again. I’ve really taken the summer off: haven’t been reading very much, haven’t been posting here, haven’t been doing much of anything birth related besides working. It’ll be nice to have a renewed sense of purpose again: nice to have homework to do, things to learn, assignments to turn in. And yet, at the same time, I’m dreading it! If I thought last semester was hard, this one is going to be ridiculous. And permeating all of this as well is a strange sense of unreality. This is the semester I’m going to actually, finally learn how to catch babies! NO WAY! I’ve been working towards this for five years, looking forward to it, dreaming about it, pining after it…it’s been a goal that has been so far out on the horizon for so long that I really can’t believe it’s actually going to happen. Somewhere along the way, on some level, I forgot that the heart of midwifery is actually birth. I’ve gotten so caught up in primary care and well woman gynecology and prenatal visits….but no, wait, this is actually about birth? Wow! There really will come a point where, yes, I will actually catch a baby?? NO WAY! To be honest, it scares the living bejesus out of me. I don’t feel like I’m ready. I certainly don’t know enough. They’re going to let someone like me catch a baby??? You’ve got to be kidding me! It makes me cold. And really excited at the same time. And also disbelieving. I don’t think it’s actually going to happen. I don’t think I’ll believe it until I actually have a brand new squalling baby in my hands, which will never happen, obviously.

So, uh, yeah…that’s kind of where I’m at right now. Not sure if this makes any sense at all. But this is the semester, supposedly. We’ll just have to wait and see.

In response (backlash?) to all of the negative comments garnered by the BabyTalk magazine cover, here are two very cool pages devoted to posting as many images of breastfeeding as possible: Celebrity Babies (which sports an enormous breastfeeding gallery, and where you can post a picture of yourself—get posting!), and Wet Feet, who has assembled an impressive gallery of ‘boobs from around the net’. Beautiful breastfeeding babies…something we all need to see more often.

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week (August 1 - 7th), here’s this month’s cover of Baby Talk Magazine, which has sadly received a lot of flak for the audacity of putting an enormous breast on the cover of a magazine, with a nursing baby to boot (gods forbid we see images of a breast being used for the purpose it was actually designed for, on a parenting and child magazine, no less!)

As you can see, an absolute outrage of flesh and lewdness.

Many other bloggers have commented on this, so I’m not going to hammer this into the ground, but last week’s uproar over the cover clearly demonstrates that even as government-funded commercials and programs are hard at work trying to promote the concept of breastfeeding in this country, we still have a loooooooong way to go in terms of acceptance. The first step in this acceptance is applauding and supporting breastfeeding and breastfeeding women, wherever you encounter it, so, towards that end, if you’d like to e-mail the folks at Baby Talk and tell them how gorgeous their cover is, here’s where to go. If you’re looking for more information on World Breastfeeding Week, or local ways to celebrate and get involved, Women’s Health News has a great list of resources, per usual, but I think some of the best and simplest things to do would be to breastfeed unashamedly in public this week (and every week!), as much as possible, and be sure to tell all your breastfeeding friends that you’re proud of them, and you’ve got their back.