Category Archives: Litigation

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, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Politics | Leave a comment

NAPW guest bloggers over at Feministing

By The Midwife | Published: February 8, 2007

Amanda from Pandagon and Jessica from Feministing, both of whom were lucky enough to attend the National Advocates for Pregnant Women Summit a few weeks ago, decided to continue to explore many of the issues and topics covered at the summit through weekly guest bloggers hosted on Feministing. The first two are up already: Jill […]

Also posted in Choice, Feminism, Issues, Midwifery, Politics, Pregnancy | Leave a comment

The news from the NAPW summit

By The Midwife | Published: January 22, 2007

National Advocates for Pregnant Women just concluded its 4 day Summit To Ensure the Health and Humanity of Birthing Women in Atlanta, GA, this past weekend. This summit, one of the first of its kind, was organized by NAPW and NAPW’s director, Lynn Paltrow, to explore the grey area where pregnancy, birth and the law […]

Also posted in Choice, Feminism, Fertility and Conception, Homebirth, Hospitals, Issues, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Politics, Pregnancy, VBAC | Leave a comment

Unecessary Cesareans

By The Midwife | Published: January 5, 2007

So, not the most pleasant way to start out our new year, but our national Cesarean Section rate is somewhere around 29%, possibly even higher now, given that this data was from 2004, and we’re still awaiting the final tallies from 2005 at this point. To quote Marion Toepke McLean from her article Cesarean on […]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Issues, Labor and Birth, Midwifery | 3 Comments

Homebirth prosecution

By The Midwife | Published: April 12, 2006

The New York Times has been turning out a lot of articles on birth, pregnancy and midwifery, lately—seems like there’s been at least one major article a month for a few months now. Here’s the latest one, from last week, which centers around the prosecution of Jennifer Williams, a CPM practicing homebirth in Indiana. Because […]

Also posted in Choice, Homebirth, Issues, Midwifery, News | 3 Comments

Coercive C-sections

By The Midwife | Published: October 31, 2005

This is a fantastic article from Parenting.com, which was brought to my attention in one of the natural birth online communities I frequent. I am posting it in its entirety here, so that everyone can read it, even if you’re not subscribed to Parenting (although it’s well worth subscribing to). Can you imagine being prosecuted […]

Also posted in Cesarean Birth, Labor and Birth | 1 Comment