Tuesday Dec 26, 2006

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HI!

Happy Boxing Day!

I hope you all made it through yesterday with only minor trauma. I myself had a very pleasant day. I went to the park and hung out with corriander and doctashock. We watched movies and ate popcorn and drank hot chocolate.

The baby is still in the belly. smile

...and pics are still for sale!


(...bigger pics in my attachments folder, ya'll.)

Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has been so supportive and bought prints and reposted my ad.

It all helps so much. We are about halfway to our goal, and I couldn't be more touched at the support of this community.

I have received a lot of questions about "homebirth" and what I am trying to do and why, so I whought I would answer some of them here.

What is a homebirth?
-A homebirth is what happens when a woman decides not to go to a hospital to have her baby, and to deliver instead in her own home with or without a midwife, doula, or others attending her.

What's a midwife?
I am having an assisted homebirth, which means that I will be attended by this midwife, a doula, and the father of my child.

Shelly, my midwife, is licensed, which means she has the equivalent of a Masters Degree in pregnancy and childbirth, and has been delivering babies since 1972. I'd say she knows what she's doing-- possibly more than most OBGYNs, who spend only a portion of their time in medical school on the process of pregnancy, labor, and delivery. That's why, if you've ever wondered, all OBGYNs don't deliver babies.

Is it safe?
- For most women, yes. Midwifery Today has this to say:
"Today, a carefully monitored homebirth, with women who have been helped to stay low-risk through nutrition and good prenatal care, has been proven to be very safe and successful."

If the mother and baby have been healty during pregnancy, there is VERY LITTLE that can go wrong during labor and delivery that requires immediate care. In the vast majority of cases, women deliver at home without complication. In most instances where the mother has to be transferred, they are in the ER in surgery in just as much time as it would have taken had they already been in the hospital when the doctor was called.

I live less than three miles from a hospital, should we need to transfer for any reason.

Here is more info from the same article including some stats, if you're interested:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

In most cultures throughout history, women have given birth at home. Currently, the majority of women around the world continue to birth their babies in non-hospital settings. This is partly due to culture and a desire to be in a familiar, safe environment. In many areas birth is viewed as an integral part of family life. The advent of obstetrics in this century had a tremendous effect on childbirth customs in the United States. The birthing process became segregated from mainstream family life. Many were led to believe that the only safe birth was a hospital birth. Though doctors and their hospitals took credit for statistics that were better than statistics of previous centuries, in reality it was better nutrition, hygiene and disease control that improved outcomes.Sadly, even today U.S. statistics don't support the premise that the only safe birth is a hospital birth. The United States ranks 18th among industrialized nations for healthy births, at 10.7 infant deaths per 1,000 births. (Data is based upon 1984 statistics from the United Nations Statistical Office.) Hospitals have never been proven a safe place to have a baby. [ed. note: This statistic has gotten WORSE in more recent years. See below. US was #23 in 1990.]

By the 1950s, most births in the United States were taking place in hospitals. Cesarean sections, epidurals and heavy doses of pain medication became the norm. Women were denied feeling and experiencing birth through their bodies, and the drugs were having adverse effects on mothers and babies.

In the 1960s and '70's, women began to question and challenge the way obstetricians were treating them -- as if childbirth were a sickness. Women began to reclaim their power, and the homebirth movement was born.

The 1990s became a time of maternity awareness, a time when people were concerned with making the entire pregnancy and birth experience a family experience. Today, a carefully monitored homebirth, with women who have been helped to stay low-risk through nutrition and good prenatal care, has been proven to be very safe and successful.



Here's good chunk of stats from this website:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

So far, the largest and most complete study on the comparison of hospital birth outcomes to that of homebirth outcomes was done by Dr. Lewis Mehl and associates in 1976. In the study, 1046 homebirths were compared with 1046 hospital births of equivalent populations in the United States. For each home-birth patient, a hospital-birth patient was matched for age, length of gestation, parity (number of pregnancies), risk factor score, education and socio-economic status, race, presentation of the baby and individual major risk factors. The homebirth population also had trained attendants and prenatal care.

The results of this study showed a three times greater likelihood of cesarean operation if a woman gave birth in a hospital instead of at home with the hospital standing by. The hospital population revealed twenty times more use of forceps, twice as much use of oxytocin to accelerate or induce labor, greater incidence of episiotomy (while at the same time having more severe tears in need of major repair). The hospital group showed six times more infant distress in labor, five times more cases of maternal high blood pressure, and three times greater incidence of postpartum hemorrhage. There was four times more infection among the newborn; three times more babies that needed help to begin breathing. While the hospital group had thirty cases of birth injuries, including skull fractures, facial nerve palsies, brachial nerve injuries and severe cephalohematomas, there were no such injuries at home.

The infant death rate of the study was low in both cases and essentially the same. There were no maternal deaths for either home or hospital. The main differences were in the significant improvement of the mother's and baby's health if the couple planned a homebirth, and this was true despite the fact that the homebirth statistics of the study included those who began labor at home but ultimately needed to be transferred to the hospital.

[Dr. Lewis Mehl, "Home Birth Versus Hospital Birth: Comparisons of Outcomes of Matched Populations." Presented on October 20, 1976 before the 104th annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. For further information contact the Institute for Childbirth and Family Research, 2522 Dana St., Suite 201, Berkeley, CA 94704]



Okay, but why take the risk at all?
-To me, the risks lie in not being in control of my body and what is happening to my baby. A hospital birth may be the right choice for some women, who may feel more safe or protected in that environment; and some interventions can prove to be life saving and absolutely vital. I don't dispute the possibility of that. There are undoubtedly many thousands of doctors who are wonderful, intuitive, caring, experienced people who are dedicated to giving women positive birth experiences in the hospital. I know they exist. I just don't have one of those doctors, and I do have a midwife that I know and trust. That's just how it happened. It is simply my choice to do this myself. I don't want someone to tell me, "If you don't push your baby out in 2 hours, we are going to give you a C-section." (Yes, that happens a lot.) Once you are in a hospital, you are on their watch, and they are probably going to try to get you processed and out of there as quickly and expensively as possible. There are many women who feel as though the experience of childbirth was taken away from them by doctors who are covering their own asses or are simply impatient and intervene too soon. (I know one woman whose doctor broke her water on purpose without her knowing it because he thought the baby would be too big to fit through her pelvis if he let her grow any more. The baby was premature and had many complications. Her next child, born at home, weighed 4 lbs more than her first. She did just fine.) I'd rather take control of myself and responsibility for this baby from the very beginning.
...

"The British and American experience, now powerfully supported by the Dutch results, tells us convincingly that homebirth and midwives are indeed 'safer than we thought.' Together they offer the safest option. The danger of home as a place of birth does not lie in its threat to the healthy survival of mothers and babies, but in its threat to the healthy survival of obstetricians and obstetric practice."
-Diana Korte & Roberta Scaer, A Good Birth, a Safe Birth, Harvard Common Press, 1995
Reprinted from Midwifery Today E-News (Vol 1 Issue 29, July 16, 1999)


If you find a website that says that hospital births are safer than homebirths in this country, please consider the source.

"It is important to clarify that safety is measured by death (mortality) or illness (morbidity) during the labor and birth process and shortly thereafter. The United States has consistently high maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity rates compared to other industrialized countries. In 1990 the United States was ranked twenty-third by the Population Reference Bureau, which publishes the mortality and morbidity statistics. This means that there are twenty-two other countries where it is safer for women to give birth than in the United States."

[Barbara Harper, R.N. Gentle Birth Choices. Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1994. Page 52.]


...



So how come your insurance company won't pay for it?
My husband's corporation, who provides our insurance, chose to specifically exclude homebirth from it's benefits plan. They said, "Well, no one ever chooses it, so we excluded it so we didn't have to pay more money to provide that option." After repeated attempts at appeals and communication, they have denied us an exception. They won't even talk to me anymore.

Know why no one chooses it? Cuz insurance companies don't provide it. Duh. Women don't consider it because it is not offered as an option by insurance, and the possibility never even occurs to them.


What else...

ummm...

-I am having a boy.
-Yes, it's true that the daddy and I met on SG.
-No, we don't have a name yet. smile
-My due date is January 5th.
-We owe a total of $4000 upfront. We are down to about $2, 700. Yay!

Again, the pics are by tmronin, AllanSuicide, and Lissa Hahn, and the talented and amazing Twwly did the prep and layout. Awesome.


See you 'round, eh?

x,
Liza

VIEW 23 of 23 COMMENTS
incorrigible:
biggest kiss evah, for all three of you! let the spoiling begin! kiss kiss kiss
koala:
CONGRATS! biggrin

He is simply precious! love

kiss kiss

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