Category Archives: Labor and Birth

Well done, NPR!

By The Midwife | Published: August 4, 2011

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 [...]

Also posted in Good Enough to Share, Mothering, Myth, Folklore and Ritual, Postpartum, Pregnancy | Leave a comment

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 [...]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Homebirth, Vaginal Birth | Leave a comment

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 [...]

Also posted in Homebirth, News | Leave a comment

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, Homebirth, Vaginal Birth | 1 Comment

The Obstetrician’s Lament

By The Midwife | Published: May 19, 2011

There is an astounding collection of writing going up on The Unnecesarean regarding the growing rift between obstetricians and the out-of-hospital birth community.  All of this is in response to the The Obstetrician’s Lament, written by OB-GYN Anette Fineberg, MD, which came out in the May edition of ACOG’s Green Journal (Obstetrics and Gynecology).  I [...]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Complications, Hospitals, Journal Articles, Politics, VBAC | Leave a comment

Blessingway Poetry

By The Midwife | Published: May 13, 2011

I also wanted to share the two poems which were read at my Blessingway, because they are so beautiful, and even now, just reading them will bring tears to my eyes. Mother Wisdom Speaks by Christine Lore Webber Some of you I will hollow out. I will make you a cave. I will carve you [...]

Also posted in Birth Art, Myth, Folklore and Ritual | Leave a comment

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 [...]

Also posted in Homebirth, Vaginal Birth | Leave a comment

NIH Consensus updates on VBACs

By The Midwife | Published: March 3, 2011

One of the advantages to being a midwife is being on all kinds of funky mailing lists, which means that all softs of health information, conference invitations, and sometimes even free samples often show up on my doorstep.  A few days ago, I got just such a mailing– the NIH Consensus Development Conference Statement on [...]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Complications, Hospitals, Research, Vaginal Birth, VBAC | Leave a comment

Vaginal twins at 25 weeks

By The Midwife | Published: February 24, 2011

So one of the advantages of working as a midwife in a hospital is that I get to participate in many births that I wouldn’t have the opportunity to experience in private practice.  If I were working as a private practice midwife, and as a homebirth midwife in particular, there is no way I would [...]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Complications, Hospitals, Vaginal Birth | Leave a comment

The Exhaustion of Hospital Midwifery

By The Midwife | Published: December 18, 2010

Haven’t updated in awhile. I blame the craziness of my job.  Seriously.  And I feel like very few people actually understand how bad it can get, unless you too are a hospital midwife on your feet 12 hours a day, triaging, admitting, delivering and then doing it all over again, and again, and again. This [...]

Also posted in Hospitals | Leave a comment