“Beautiful on the inside, beautiful on the outside… Our son enjoying some sunshine before he meets the world. I really wanted to have some Mehndi work done, especially since we plan this one to be our last. I felt blessed to have a such a beautiful baby inside, and the opportunity to have Mehndi done by two wonderful lady friends.”

The Sunday Photo Album is a regular feature of the Safe Birth Blog. If you would like to submit a picture, please email soracolvin@gmail.com.

What would happen if women were taught to enjoy birth rather than endure it?

Orgasmic Birth is a documentary that examines the intimate nature of birth and the powerful role it plays in women’s lives when they are permitted to experience it fully. Powerful, passionate, and thought provoking, it dismantles untruths about labor and birth that women have been told for generations.

On September 25 at 7:00 p.m., Ohio Families for Safe Birth (Columbus chapter) will host the only large-screen showing in Central Ohio at Marcus IMAX theatre at Crosswoods Center (200 Hutchinson Ave.) A panel discussion on “Birth and Sexuality” will follow the film, and door prizes will be given at the end of the evening.

Seating is limited. Advance tickets may be purchased for $10 through the Paypal link below; tickets will be $12 at the door.

(To buy an advance ticket by mail, please send your $10 to Amy Wakeling at 2030 Rolling Meadows Dr. Columbus, OH 43228.)

For more details about the film, visit the Orgasmic Birth website. If you are in the Columbus area, please download the promotional flyer  and put it up in your neighborhood.

Ever wanted to see your favorite recipes published?

Now’s your chance! Ohio Families for Safe Birth is putting together a cookbook to be printed in October and available for sale during the holiday season for only $10/copy. The cookbook will feature a collection of fabulous recipes from Ohio’s natural family living community. Recipes can be submitted in any of several categories including appetizers, beverages, soups, entrees, desserts, and more. One individual can submit multiple recipes, and there is no obligation to purchase any cookbooks if you do submit recipes.

Recipes do NOT need to be original to be included! The only recipes off-limits are those which are trademarked. They are the ones which include brand-name ingredients (e.g., Nestle Toll House Cookies).

Since we are a family-friendly group, how about giving us your recipes for yummy baby-licious foods and some great recipes for kids? Or what about your favorite, healthy recipes for pregnant mommas? Your contributions will make this cookbook a keeper!

First, download the recipe collection form in pdf format. Print out a copy for each recipe you wish to submit. Mail the completed forms to fundraising coordinator Amy Wakeling, 2030 Rolling Meadows Dr., Columbus, OH 43228, before September 20th.

Details about ordering completed cookbooks will be available at a later date. Funds raised from the cookbook sales will support the effort to license Certified Professional Midwives in Ohio.

The Concord Monitor just published a lengthy article centered around Jeanne Browne, who offers home and birth center births to New Hampshire moms.

This paragraph was of particular interest:

Through a series of legislative measures, New Hampshire has welcomed and regulated certified midwifery. Midwives like Browne do not have medical or nursing degrees, but they are required to complete coursework and to spend time as apprentices to practicing midwives. They are governed by a state board of midwifery and are required to apply for recertification every two years. Insurance companies are required to reimburse midwives who assist with births outside of the hospital. “New Hampshire is a leader in this area and has been for a long time,” said Ida Darragh, the chairwoman of the North American Registry of Midwives, the group that certifies midwives nationally.

Even when legal, licensed home birth providers are available, many women’s ability to access them is limited by financial considerations. Health insurance providers may use ACOG’s policy on home birth as grounds for systematically denying coverage for home birth, even though the cost of a home birth is substantially less than for a normal hospital delivery. Private insurance providers which do not have an official policy in place on coverage for out-of-hospital maternity services may or may not cover home birth with an unlicensed provider, and usually, the family must pay their midwife out-of-pocket without knowing whether or not their insurance will provide reimbursement until weeks or months after the birth.

However, even Aetna, whose official policy is to refuse coverage for home birth, has to pay up in New Hampshire.

I am the Chair of Ohio Families for Safe Birth.  I live with my husband and two daughters (Amira and Victoria, both born in Ohio) in the Cincinnati neighborhood of Madisonville. We moved to Cincinnati five years ago, after living in Washington, DC for nine years.  During most of those years, I worked in Field operations for non-profit organizations, developing trainings and communications pieces to help members better understand how to communicate with their elected officials and how to influence the legislative process. 

Since moving to Ohio, I have been increasingly involved in faith-based community organizing through my parish.   Today, I am the State Coordinator for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, combining my training and advocacy experience with faith-based community organizing.   

I bring a passion for this coalition-based birth work based on my own experience of birthing.  With my first, I went into the hospital armed for battle after our Bradley Method class to achieve a natural birth and rolled out recovering from a c-section.  With our second daughter, I decided to skip the hospital battles and birth at home with a direct entry midwife.  

My personal and professional experiences combine in a profoundly fulfilling way to help me lead Ohio Families for Safe Birth in the effort to license midwives in Ohio.

“For me, this is the photo that shows what midwifery is all about. After many hours of labor this simple act of comfort  shouts, “I care.” It says it all.”

The Sunday Photo Album is a regular feature of the Safe Birth Blog. If you would like to submit a picture, please email soracolvin@gmail.com.

Earlier this month, Childbirth Connection released the results of “New Mothers Speak Out,” their 6-month post-partum follow-up study to the Listening To Mothers II Survey. It made headlines in the Wall Street Journal with some alarming findings:  Nine percent of the women surveyed screened positive for all the criteria of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,  and twice that many showed some signs of PTSD.  Mothers who had experienced high rates of medical interventions were more likely to report signs of PTSD. These mothers were also more likely to describe their experience of childbirth as “feeling powerless in a threatening environment.”

There are some excellent obstetricians, family doctors, hospital-based midwives, and nurses who are caring for laboring women and new mothers in a way that is gentle, respectful, and empowering. There are also practitioners who are not even aware of the way their customary manner and routine procedures traumatize their patients. Furthermore, the hospital system itself is frequently percieved as a “threatening evironment” in which mothers (and fathers) justifiably “feel powerless.” The result is that mothers and babies are subjected to unnecessary procedures and interventions, and face a significant risk of coming out of their birth experience both physically and emotionally scarred.

Of the 150,784 Ohio births recorded by the Health Department in 2007, 44,860 babies - 29.75% - entered the world through a surgical incision. Cesarean section, like any major surgery, carries physical risks for both the mother and baby. The psychological and sociological implications of having 1/3 of all children born by cesarean - frequently in an atmosphere of tension, fear, and stress - are barely beginning to be explored. But we now know that, contrary to the prevailing view only a few decades ago, newborn and preborn babies are conscious, aware individuals whose early experiences have a significant impact. Though babies have limited means of communicating with their parents and caregivers and may never be able to verbally express or consciously retain the memories of their pre-birth and birth experiences, they are laying down somatic memories during this period which they will carry for the rest of their lives.

An Israeli news report today announced dramatically higher incidence of adult schizoprenia for babies whose mothers were only two months pregnant during the 6-day war in 1967. If exposure to maternal stress hormones so early in gestation has a demonstrable effect, what is the long-term result for the infants of those 9%-18% of mothers whose labor and birth experience makes them feel so powerless and so threatened that they respond in the same way as war and disaster survivors? How do resuscitations and NICU stays (more common in cesarean-born babies), to say nothing of the routine hospital procedures for healthy babies, impact the newborn psyche?

Frederic Leboyer brought to light the question of the newborn’s experience of medicalized childbirth more than thirty years ago, but his work, and subsequent research on newborn consciousness, has done little to change institutionalized newborn care. In 2008, women who seek a gentle birth experience - for their infant as well as for themself - frequently find that the only way to get the birth they want is to avoid the hospital.

Home birth opponents, including the AMA and ACOG, denigrate mothers for placing an “experience” over the health and safety of their baby. (It is ACOG’s official opinion that “Choosing to deliver a baby at home… is to place the process of giving birth over the goal of having a healthy baby,” though all available evidence indicates that planned home birth with a qualified attendant is a safe and reasonable choice for healthy women.) By framing the issue in these terms, pitting the process against the end result, they deny the increasing weight of evidence that the experience matters. Of course the most important goal is a healthy baby - but it is also clear that the process of childbirth profoundly impacts the mental health and well-being of both mothers and their babies. Women and families, no matter where they choose to give birth, need and deserve maternity care that promotes both a safe birth, a healthy mother and baby, and a non-traumatic (or perhaps even positive and empowering?) experience of childbirth.

My name is Amy Wakeling.  I am originally from Zanesville, Ohio, and moved to Columbus after we had our first child.  I am now the mother of 3 children, with a husband who is a truck driver, and 2 mastiffs!  I went through doula training about 2 yrs ago and about 6 months into that I attended my first out of hospital birth with a VBAC client of mine.  It was then that I realized midwifery was where I really belonged, and began an apprenticeship a little over a year ago. Seeing the challenges that my preceptor has had to face and hearing of many others, I decided to get involved in moving the Profession of Midwifery forward in the State of Ohio by helping to get licensure.  So I took the position of Fundraising for Ohio Families for Safe Birth!  Having had a background in sales in my pre-birthing career gives me a good base for working creatively to have fun and earn some funds at the same time!

Ohio Families for Safe Birth has grown and developed since its inception, and the transition to a board structure from the initial steering committee that guided OFSB through its first year is now complete. The first in-person board meeting took place recently in Columbus. The board draws its membership from all over the state and is made up primarily of consumers. The diverse backgrounds, skills, and experiences of OFSB’s board members creates a dynamic leadership team guided by the mission of supporting public health policy grounded in the Midwives’ Model of Care. In our initial CPM Licensure Initiative, OFSB is working closely with the Ohio Midwives’ Alliance as well as with the National Birth Policy Coalition’s Big Push for Midwives Campaign in pursuing licensure for Certified Professional Midwives in Ohio. Names and contact information for board members as well as their role within the organization may be found here. Starting tomorrow, the blog will help you “meet” a member of OFSB’s leadership team each week by featuring a short biography of each board member.

After almost four years of wondering, hoping, praying and sometimes believing the words of the OB who told her that her first son was too big to come out of her tiny pelvis, Krista welcomes her second son, born at home, with the same exact size head as her “too big” son.

The Sunday Photo Album is a regular feature of the Safe Birth Blog. If you would like to submit a picture, please email soracolvin@gmail.com.