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• Top OB: Keep Men Out of Delivery Room

  Michel Odent is a big name French obstetrician among natural and homebirth advocates. He's attended more than 15,000 births and written lots of books. He thinks midwives should be present for most births and that homebirth is better than hospital birth in most situations. He's all love, touch, peace, quiet, bond, bond, bond when it comes to women and birth -- a definite shift from the way things were when he started in the biz a half a billion years ago. However! He has recently come out against one of the hallmarks of modern, evolved, woman-centered birth as we know it today. He thinks men should be nearby -- but not present -- at birth. Read More... Posted Apr 16 2008, 03:02 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 11 comment(s) Filed under: homebirth, natural birth, Dr. Michel Odent, delayed labor, interventions, men in the delivery room, husbands in the delivery room, long labor

• Weekly Check-Up: Natural Birth Like the Dutch

  There's an interesting report on the Dutch tradition of giving birth from the perspective of a Reuters reporter. Basically, the Dutch believe birth optimally happens at home (30 percent of births happen this way, compared to a tiny fraction in the U.S.,) no pain medication is necessary, and that labor pains are part of the way the mother bonds with the baby. (If so, I ought to be practically fused to my child.) The bottom line is that birth is not seen as a medicalized process. Oh, and get this: A maternity nurse takes care of the family at home for a week and does cooking, cleaning, and infant care. Sign me up for that part! While I've never been a convert to the notion of natural birth as essential... Read More... Posted Mar 27 2008, 01:29 PM by Kelly Mills with | with 13 comment(s) Filed under: pregnancy, newborn, homebirth, mother, child, maternity, hospital, labor and delivery, Dutch, epidural, infant care, weekly check up, natural birth, nurse, ob-gyn, anesthesia

• Scream-Free Births

  My husband and I took a six-week childbirth class about a month before my due date. The instructor was unquestionably pro-drug-free labors. So, in addition to going over all the anatomy charts and talking about our fears and how we handle pain, etc., we also watched a ton of birth movies. Tons and tons and tons. Her goal was to bore the fear out of us, I think. In fact, by the end of the six weeks, we'd seen birth from all angles -- you know, except the angle of actually experiencing it, which by then felt a little beside the point. Read More... Posted Feb 01 2008, 03:20 PM by Madeline Holler with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: childbirth, you tube, silence, video cameras, natural birth, birth video