Category Archives: Homebirth

More Business of Being Born

By The Midwife | Published: August 24, 2011

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 […]

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Sebastian’s Birth Story

By The Midwife | Published: June 7, 2011

Awhile ago, during the pregnancy, I joined an online forum with other women who were also pregnant and due in May, and this group of women became my “due date club.”  About halfway through our pregnancies, we decided to do a bead swap, where most of the women of the group decided to send each […]

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Homebirth in the Washington Post

By The Midwife | Published: June 6, 2011

Just a quick link to a recent article in the Washington Post about why a journalist there chose to have a planned homebirth.  I think she does a good job of articulating the many benefits associated with homebirth for low-risk women, but she also emphasized that this choice is not right for everyone (obviously).  Nice […]

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My Birth Story

By The Midwife | Published: May 27, 2011

It’s funny to be writing this.  I have heard and listened to so many women share their birth stories with me, posted birth stories here on my blog, attended births and helped women write their birth stories, but now I come to a first for me: the writing of my own birth story.  I think […]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Good Enough to Share, Labor and Birth, Vaginal Birth | 1 Comment

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

By The Midwife | Published: May 13, 2011

I feel like I need to be singing the Tom Petty tune right now… 39 weeks pregnant now, everything is ready.  Our fridge is full of food and drinks (gatorade, coconut water) for the birth. The birth tub has been inflated and set up close to the bathroom, ready to be filled. I’ve prepped postpartum […]

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What happens when midwives get pregnant?

By The Midwife | Published: April 7, 2011

<insert Monty Python voice> And now for something completely different… I’ve been keeping this news to myself for quite some time here.  I guess I’m finally ready to blog about it (not that anyone is currently reading this anyway, so it’s more or less like writing in my journal), but guess what??  I’m pregnant!  And […]

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CPM bill introduced in Congress

By The Midwife | Published: March 24, 2011

I have already written extensively on the differences between CNMs/ CMs and CPMs, about how there is a national divide between these qualifications which may prove very hard to bridge, and about how the lack of a unified standard of midwifery in the US continues to divide and destabilize our profession.  Part of the problem […]

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A case in point…

By The Midwife | Published: May 4, 2010

…just to illustrate the bind that the homebirth midwives find themselves in at the moment after the closing of St. Vincents hospital and the subsequent loss of their back-up hospital/ written practice agreements (see yesterday’s post): Last night I was working (at the HHC public hospital in Brooklyn where I spend a good deal of […]

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Homebirth in NYC needs your help!

By The Midwife | Published: May 3, 2010

St. Vincents hospital was the most homebirth-midwife friendly hospital in Manhattan, and quite possibly in New York City, period.  It was certainly the only hospital in Manhattan which accommodated homebirth and homebirth midwives.  My own midwife delivered her patients there, and she would often comment to me about what a lovely set-up they had at […]

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Ina May on Midirs

By The Midwife | Published: November 5, 2008

Midirs Midwifery Digest, the premiere midwifery publication in England, has recently posted an interview with Ina May Gaskin, one of the fouding midwives of The Farm and an international midwifery leader and homebirth midwife.  The podcast of the interview is available here, and the written version can be found here.  It’s really fascinating, once you […]

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