Category Archives: Labor and Birth

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

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 [...]

Also posted in Complications, Homebirth, Hospitals, Issues, Litigation, Midwifery, Politics | Leave a comment

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 [...]

Also posted in Homebirth, Hospitals, Issues, Midwifery, News, Politics | Leave a comment

Recession relief: midwifery saves money

By The Midwife | Published: December 30, 2008

Let’s face it: the economy sucks right now.  We haven’t yet hit rock bottom, and it’s going to be awhile (probably a long while) before things begin to recover.  In the midst of this harsh financial reality, companies and industries are scrambling to find ways to save money.  Birth activists have been trying for decades [...]

Also posted in Birth Centers, Issues, Midwifery, Politics, Women's Health | 2 Comments

Newsworthy 11/11/08

By The Midwife | Published: November 11, 2008

One week after our historic election of Barack Obama as the 44th president of the United States, here’s a very interesting article on what his presidency might mean for Women’s Health (of the non-”airquotes” variety), namely improved access to birth control and sex education (i.e. the federal government no longer funding abstinence-only programs), a reversal [...]

Also posted in Choice, Complications, Contraception, Education, Feminism, Politics, Pregnancy, Research, Sex and Sexuality, Women's Health | 4 Comments

Just a hemorrhage kind of night

By The Midwife | Published: October 28, 2008

Last night was a very strange night. It wasn’t that busy, and yet, somehow, neither the other midwife nor myself were able to take a break. The pace was very steady. We kept expecting it to settle down, but it never did. Just as we were thinking “oh, as soon as this woman is discharged, [...]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Complications, Hospitals, Midwifery, Vaginal Birth | 4 Comments

The AMA joins ACOG in homebirth-bashing

By The Midwife | Published: June 21, 2008

The AMA has recently issued a resolution supporting ACOG’s Statement on Homebirth which agrees that the safest place to have a baby is the hospital, of course, where obstetricians work and get paid.  What’s really awful is that they’re using Ricki Lake’s movie, The Business of Being Born, as a tool to try to pass [...]

Also posted in Homebirth, Midwifery, News, Politics | 1 Comment

The Biggest Baby I’ve ever caught

By The Midwife | Published: June 9, 2008

Here’s a lovely birth story to share, my 99th delivery: We were all expecting a big baby. Her estimated fetal weight from Leopold’s palpation was judged to be approximately 4500 gms. The baby felt huge: fat and happy, and we were all duly nervous, because her first baby was only 7.5 pounds. She wasn’t a [...]

Also posted in Birth Stories, Vaginal Birth | 7 Comments

“Choosy Mothers Choose Cesareans”

By The Midwife | Published: April 24, 2008

Sometimes, briefly, you feel like you’re making progress, that midwifery outreach is making a difference, that people are becoming more educated and informed, and then you read an article like this one, over at Time Magazine, and you realize that you exist in a small bubble where your philosophy on birth is far different than [...]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Complications, Hospitals, Research | 5 Comments