Monthly Archives: August 2011

One World Birth about to launch!

Just stumbled upon this via a friend on Facebook, and watching the welcome video just sent chills down my spine.  Two passionate filmmakers are creating an interactive, continuously-updated online TV channel focusing on nothing but birth, and the state of birth in our world right now, by interviewing the world’s leading experts in birth and […]

Posted in Birth Stories, Cesarean Birth, Homebirth, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Labor Support, Midwifery, News, Vaginal Birth, VBAC | Leave a comment

Midwifery Care Associated with Better Outcomes

Via MidwifeInfo, a systematic review spanning 18 years and encompassing 21 studies has found that midwives provide comparable or better care to women than care managed exclusively by physicians.   This finding was part of a larger review focusing on advanced practice nurses (nurse-midwives, nurse-anesthetists, nurse-practitioners etc.), and will be published in the upcoming September/ […]

Posted in Journal Articles, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, News, Research | Leave a comment

Why midwives “talk shop”

My husband has been known to complain about this from time to time: get two or more midwives in a room together during any social occasion, and inevitably the conversation becomes nothing but “shop talk”—pregnancy, birth, babies, birth, rotten clinic hours, birth, national politics as pertaining to midwifery, birth, local midwifery jobs, birth, attendings we […]

Posted in Labor and Birth, Midwifery | Leave a comment

More Business of Being Born

Back in 2007, I was lucky enough to attend an advance screening of The Business of Being Born in New York City, and I wrote this review of it at the time.  Since then, it’s become widely popular and widely viewed, loudly praised and criticized by opposing sides of the birth debate, and has served as […]

Posted in Birth Centers, Education, Homebirth, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, News, Politics | Leave a comment

More mother than midwife, these days

Well into my second month of maternity leave, now, it is finally dawning on me that I am a mother.  You might laugh at this.  Didn’t I know I was going to be a mother, from pretty much the moment the pee stick turned positive?  Didn’t I fully understand that this was the logical outcome […]

Posted in Mothering, Postpartum | Leave a comment

Well done, NPR!

NPR has a great series up on their website right now called Beginnings: Pregnancy, Childbirth and Beyond, which explores myriad aspects of pregnancy and childbirth, from cultural, economic, global and scientific perspectives.  Overall, an incredibly balanced and informative series, well worth checking out (I’m especially enjoying the Baby Project, which is a blog following the […]

Posted in Good Enough to Share, Labor and Birth, Mothering, Myth, Folklore and Ritual, Postpartum, Pregnancy | Leave a comment