"A Woman Who Serves"

Doulas rock. I want to be this lady when I grow up.

Meet my midwives

Today was my first check-up with my new midwives, Mary and Nedra. I'm just loving these ladies, and loving that I get to have two birth attendents for the price of one! Not only are they personable, fun, and great with my kids, but they are also excellent midwives. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any doctor or midwife with stats as impressive as theirs.

Mary, the senior of the two, has been practicing as a midwife for over 28 years. She graduated from the Arizona School of Midwifery in 1980 and has attended over 2000 births. Nedra has been attending birthing women for about nine years as a doula and apprentice midwife and received her midwifery license in March. Now check these numbers out:

C-section rate 1-3%
Hospital transfer rate 2% (for women like me who've given birth before)
Perineal tears "almost never" (maybe once a year they have a woman who needs stitches, approx 1.5%)
Infant deaths None (excluding those with defects incompatible with life)
Maternal deaths None

Can you believe those numbers?! Pretty incredible. The only bad outcome these midwives have ever seen occurred not because of a mistake on their part but simply because the parents refused to transfer to the hospital until it was too late (as a result, their baby's health was compromised). Since that time, Mary and Nedra have adopted a policy to only accept clients who agree ahead of time in writing that they will transfer if it becomes necessary. And I happily signed that agreement!

You might remember this post explaining the extremely painful tearing I sustained when my first daughter was born. When Mary told me how anal retentive they are about preventing tears and that they "almost never" have a client who needs stitches, I think I heard the heavenly choruses singing "Hallelujah!" I am determined that I will give birth to my baby boy without tearing, and it's such a relief to know that my midwives will be doing everything they can to facilitate that goal!

I also love how kid-friendly their office is. They have the coolest wooden toys and puzzles (some with babies inside mommys' tummies), and they have given both of my girls a balloon at each visit. Here they are at our visit today...I love that "midwife" is a regular word in my girls' vocabulary and that it is easy for me to include them in the pregnancy process because of the efforts my midwives make to welcome young children into their office. I love that they get to hear the baby's heartbeat regularly and are already comfortable with Mary and Nedra. So, when their little brother is born, there won't be any strangers coming into our home. Just two women they will already know and love.

I am so thrilled to have chosen Mary and Nedra as my midwives. I know my baby and I are in the hands of remarkable women.

More good news about exercise

The studies keep rolling in... prenatal exercise is so worth it! The New York Times reported Monday about a small Brazilian study showing that regular prenatal exercise significantly reduced the need for pain medication during labor--"only 27 percent of the exercisers, compared with 65 percent of the controls, requested pain medication during labor"(click here for the full article). Here's the study's abstract.

Speaking of exercise... I'm supposed to be running a 5K this Saturday morning. And my Thanksgiving holiday vacation really threw off my exercise routine... yikes. Gotta get back on the ball!

Easing my conscience

This study makes me feel a lot better about "forgetting" to take prenatal vitamins (except for maybe once a month or so). The truth is I've just never felt good about taking them. I prefer to get my vitamins from real foods. So it's not that I didn't get plenty of folic acid in my early pregnancy. I did--peas, broccoli, greens, cereals, etc. Just not from pills.

I'd be interested to see whether folic acid from real food sources has the same negative effect on infants? I'd wager NO. Anyway... I've never been very good about taking prenatal vitamins and my kids have avoided asthma and have never had respiratory tract infections. Interesting.

gDiapers?

My friend, Sarah, told me about gDiapers today. In fact, she's so sweet she's going to buy me a "starter kit" for the new baby. Love you, Sarah! I've tried the cloth diapering thing off and on, but they really are such a pain to clean. We've mostly used disposables for my girls. But I like the concept of the gDiapers... all the eco-friendliness of a cloth diaper, but with flushable liners! No stinky garbage even! Check them out!