Click here to read this great article about due dates and how the current thinking was developed.

This week in Family Circle we talked about intimacy. The family’s had asked to talk about sex, but I thought before talking about sex life after the baby, perhaps we should talk about intimacy first. We sometimes give sex and our sex life a lot of weight and consider that either we have a sex life or we don’t. That if we have sex, we have intimacy as a couple and if we don’t we don’t. And this is a measurement of our relationship.

What we challenged the families is to think of Areas of Intimacy, as gradients, or degrees, Continue Reading »

I just finished shooting the fundraising video for the Midwives and Mothers in Action Campaign. Visit the MAMA campaign website at www.mamacampaign.com. These are truly mothers in action! We all need to pull together to help Certified Professional Midwives get recognized on the federal level. We need to ensure that our sons and daughters have much greater access to midwifery care when they get older. Visit the MAMA Campaign website and become a Mother in Action. We need your help!

If you are enjoying a natural pregnancy and considering natural childbirth, you already believe in yourself. You want to give your child a safe and healthy start.

When you choose to have a natural pregnancy and childbirth you are choosing to play an important role in your own care, along side your chosen caregiver(s). With a midwife, you will have a wealth of resources to call upon to support each step of your pregnancy and birth, rather than being limited to medical intervention alone. The resources section of this Web site can help, too.

With the best options, knowledge, holistic care, and positive support you will be better suited to enable your body to do its work, and avoid unnecessary medical intervention. What more could you want for what you care about most?

Have you read a great book or seen a great childbirth movie lately that deserves recognition? Now you can nominate the most outstanding works for a unique award. At the 2009 MANA conference, Mother’s Naturally will award the second annual Mother’s Naturally awards! Anyone can nominate a book, movie, website, or blog they think represents excellence in the portrayal of natural childbirth and midwifery.

Nominations will be taken until August 31, and a committee will select the best to be awarded at the conference. Help us find the best of the best, and come to the conference to see who has been recognized!

E-mail your nominations to 2ndvp@mana.org.

One of the biggest obstacles to natural birth is misunderstanding your “due date.” A due date does not mean there is only one safe day for your baby to be born.

It is meant to establish a range of time that your baby is mature and safe to be born. Because modern obstetrics narrows this to a specific day, unnecessary interventions, like inducing labor, come into practice.

In a well-nourished, low risk pregnancy it is normal for your baby to be born between 37 and 42 weeks gestation. Many natural events take place within your body during the last weeks of pregnancy to prepare you for labor. Allow time for the natural process to occur.

Click here for a due date calculator!

America needs better birth care, and midwives can deliver it.
LA Times, December 24, 2008, by Jennifer Block

Some healthcare trivia: In the United States, what is the No. 1 reason people are admitted to the hospital? Not diabetes, not heart attack, not stroke. The answer is something that isn’t even a disease: childbirth.

Not only is childbirth the most common reason for a hospital stay — more than 4 million American women give birth each year — it costs the country far more than any other health condition. Six of the 15 most frequent hospital procedures billed to private insurers and Medicaid are maternity-related. The nation’s maternity bill totaled $86 billion in 2006, nearly half of which was picked up by taxpayers.

Continue Reading »

Stories of birth are as unique as each woman who bears her child and as universal as humankind.  Here each woman shares her experience in her own words, reflecting the collective wisdom of women and the aspects of her own birthing adventure.  We hope you will share your story of birth with Mothers Naturally.  For every child born, there is a mother with an amazing story of love to tell. Click here to share your story with our readers.

Take two minutes to breathe deeply and envision the most perfect childbirth.

Who is with you?

What kind of beautiful or familiar environment are you in?

What surrounds you to give you strength and comfort?

Ahhhh. . . .

It feels good to be in control and have things your way, doesn’t it? It’s comforting, freeing and empowering.

This is homebirth.

Without the stresses generally associated with physician-attended births (unfamiliar people and environment, hospital schedules and policies, bright unnatural lighting, unknown tests, etc.), you are able to relax into your labor.

In a warm, familiar environment, you are able to give yourself the gift of space: for your body’s rhythm to take its natural course, to discover strength within yourself, and, most importantly, to love your baby.

Just as each woman’s dream childbirth is different, each homebirth story is different. It is the role of a midwife to help each dream come true, within the parameters set by the baby’s unique journey into the world. The midwife is a guide, mentor, educator, and professional dedicated to the most modern techniques to guard the safety of mother and baby.

For women with low-risk pregnancies, homebirth with a qualified midwife is as safe as hospital births. In fact, reducing stress and elevating comfort and joy has been shown to reduce pain and the need for unnecessary procedures, which can lead to other complications.

If you are interested in birthing at home with a midwife, click here to find a midwife in your area.

Care with a modern midwife is truly an art form – combining the guiding, healing hands of one’s most trusted advisor and nurturer with today’s knowledge, science and medicine. This fusion is what sets midwives apart from most doctors.

A midwife’s care is based on the idea that the woman is the central decision maker in matters regarding her birth and her child. Midwives respond to mothers as a caring and collaborative partner, highly trained to work with each unique situation individually. Her goal is the health and well being of mother and baby. She has the resources, wisdom and professional training to safely guide the journey of pregnancy.

A qualified midwife provides comprehensive prenatal care, guides labor and birth, and cares for newborns. However, her unique value is revealed as she connects with a woman and her family to offer a deeper level of care. During pre and postnatal visits that are three to ten times longer than standard doctor visits, the midwife listens to what is needed at each step of the process. She can then offer appropriate information, physical, emotional or clinical support, and options.

The safety and benefits of midwife care have been proven again and again in countries across the world. World Health Organization statistics show that births attended by midwives have lower infection rates, lower C-section rates, fewer complications, and healthier outcomes – thus, lower overall medical costs – than physician-attended hospital births. In addition, there is no difference in infant mortality between midwife-attended and physician-attended births for low-risk women. Countries such as the Netherlands, Sweden, and New Zealand, which have the best birth outcome statistics in the world, use midwives as their main maternity care providers.