Category Archives: Politics

Female Genital Circumcision revisited

By The Midwife | Published: November 1, 2007

A few weeks ago, Dark Daughta over at One Tenacious Baby Mama asked me for a contribution to her new weekly series entitled Reloaded, which happens every Sunday and features old posts that are worth posting and reading a second time (oldies but goodies, as she calls them). She wanted posts that I was particularly [...]

Also posted in Choice, Education, Feminism, Myth, Folklore and Ritual, Sex and Sexuality, Violence Against Women | Leave a comment

Birth in developing countries

By The Midwife | Published: October 21, 2007

The BBC has put together an amazing series of articles on birth and maternal mortality in developing countries. This year, at the half-way mark towards the Millenium Goals set for 2015, we’re not even close to reaching the desired 75% reduction in maternal mortality. These articles explore the reasons behind these failures: everything from lack [...]

Also posted in Complications, Demise, Issues, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Pregnancy | 3 Comments

Old and New News Roundup 10/2/07

By The Midwife | Published: October 2, 2007

So, I’m back in the blogosphere again, and realizing that I’ve been missing a lot of important news by taking a vacation for a few months. Here’s a quick overview of some of the stories I’ve found most pressing (and/or impressive) lately, even though some of these stories are old news by blog standards, and [...]

Also posted in Breastfeeding, Choice, Education, Feminism, Midwifery, Women's Health | 2 Comments

2007 ACNM Student Report

By The Midwife | Published: October 2, 2007

Guess today is Catch-up From Chicago day. In addition to the very long post on the ACNM, MANA and CMs which I just posted below, I also wanted to “unofficially” post the 2007 ACNM Student Report, which I helped to draft at the annual meeting this year with approximately 20 other student representatives from around [...]

Also posted in Academia, Education, Issues, Midwifery, News | Leave a comment

Why the ACNM needs more CMs

By The Midwife | Published: October 2, 2007

I never had a chance to post much about my experiences in Chicago at the ACNM Annual Meeting in May, mostly because I was finishing up my semester at school, and graduating, and then studying for my board exams, and blogging was not a high priority. But I’ve been thinking a lot about my time [...]

Also posted in Issues, Midwifery | 16 Comments

ACNM Annual Meeting: Day Two

By The Midwife | Published: May 26, 2007

After signing off yesterday, I had some lunch then promptly attended three educational sessions in a row, two of which I paged. The first was entitled Cervical Ripening: What We Know and Why A Paradigm Shift is Needed for Reducing the Incidence of Preterm Birth, which focused on how our preterm labor treatments (tocolytics) are [...]

Also posted in Breastfeeding, Complications, Education, Issues, Labor and Birth, Menopause, Midwifery, News, Sex and Sexuality | 1 Comment

The Business of Being Born

By The Midwife | Published: May 8, 2007

Last Friday I was a very lucky duck: I was able to attend a screening of The Business of Being Born at the Tribeca Film Festival, hosted by Friends of the Birth Center, along with a post-show talkbalk with the Abby Epstein, the director of the movie, and Ricki Lake, the producer, followed by a [...]

Also posted in Birth Centers, Birth Education, Homebirth, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, News, Reviews | 6 Comments

UK midwife responds

By The Midwife | Published: April 27, 2007

My post last week on the UK’s new birth agenda Maternity Matters prompted a UK midwife, Anna Skye, to write the following response on her blog Tales of Midwifery—the Truth. Rather a much-needed reality check, I suppose, to someone (yours truly) whose knowledge of the matter was based only on what she was reading in [...]

Also posted in Choice, Homebirth, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Miscellaneous | Leave a comment

Supreme Court upholds abortion ban

By The Midwife | Published: April 18, 2007

Like we didn’t see this coming: as predicted, the newly revamped the Supreme Court is doing its best to steadily chip away at women’s rights without actually having to lift a finger against Roe v. Wade, and in the process is opening the door for State legislatures to enact even more restrictive abortion legislation on [...]

Also posted in Choice, Feminism, News | Leave a comment

UK’s new birth agenda: “Maternity Matters”

By The Midwife | Published: April 17, 2007

So, I didn’t think I’d be doing much blogging over my holiday, but as luck would have it, there’s a big debate about birth occurring in England right now—so big it’s been splashed across the pages of many of the newspapers I’ve been reading, and absolutely impossible to ignore. UK Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, recently [...]

Also posted in Choice, Homebirth, Hospitals, Labor and Birth, Midwifery | 5 Comments