Labor Day Meme!

I've never done a meme before but couldn't resist, it being Labor Day and all ...

First, a hat tip to Rocks in my Drier for starting this Labor Day meme!

• How long were your labors? 

#1 --  24-36 hours 
#2 -- 4.5 hours
#3 -- Not sure how to answer b/c labor stalled in the middle. Technically, 4-5  hours, but I had about 1 hour of early labor, stalled for a couple hours, and then once it resumed a little over 2 hours until he was born.

• How did you know you were in labor? 

#1 -- it was a gradual start with menstrual-like rhythmic contractions.
#2 -- after a week of prodromal labor, contractions started fast and furious.
#3 -- strong menstrual-like rhythmic contractions that suddenly stopped after an hour. Midwife checked me, and I was at 2. Midwife thought it would be several more hours. After a nice quiet massage from DH, though, they roared back into a very fast pace.

• Where did you deliver?

All at home ...

#1 -- tried to do a water birth but water cooled off and I had to get out

#2 -- tried to do a water birth but didn't have time to fill up tub (thought it would be long again. Heh)

#3 -- finally had a water birth, but it still hurt like heck! (His hand was up by his face when he delivered, and he was 9 lbs. 3 oz.)

• Drugs?

No. I know they're really bad for the baby, and I realized that only by being at home where (1) drugs aren't available, and (2) natural labor is better supported, would I be able to do what's best for the baby and avoid all drugs and/or anesthesia.

• C-section? 

Thank Goddess, no! But I'm sure the first birth would have been if I'd been in the hospital. She was asynclitic and posterior, and I had a very long labor.

• Who delivered?

Midwives at all of them (sort of), in this order:

#1 -- Direct Entry Midwife 

#2 -- Certified Professional Midwife, but technically, DH "caught" him with midwife off to the side. This was my orgasmic birth!

#3 -- Certified Nurse-midwife (who had been apprentice trained first before going to CNM school)

More on ACOG's campaign against midwives

First, let me explain where the "number two" came in, b/c I'm not sure how clearly that press release explained it...

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) is a private trade union representing America's OB's.  ACOG, along with state doctors' groups around the country, have been spending millions of dollars to fight licensure of home birth midwives, and they've been losing! ACOG just announced their 2008 legislative agenda, and on the state level it's no surprise that Midwives and Home Birth are listed as their second priority. (If you ask me, on a state level, we are their first priority, b/c we often hear from friendly legislators that we are usually the first thing their hired guns bring up when they see them.)

Here's what ACOG says about Midwives and Home Birth:

"Lay" Midwives and Home Birth

We [ACOG] are seeing an increase in home birth and lay midwife bills across the country. Different tiltes for midwives and different levels of training foster public confusion and legislators often cannot distinguish between different types of midwives. Least - qualified midwives are gaining licensure as more and more states adopt the certified professional midwife (CPM) credential for licensure and not the certified midwife (CM) credential which ACOG recognizes.

TRANSLATION OF ACOG'S STATEMENT 

"We are the OBs trade union, and we are hopping mad that women want to give birth without paying into our multi-billion dollar industry, So we're going outspend those consumers who are trying to get their midwives licensed and throw all our political clout around, hoping some of our lies stick."

THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER

Some women are going to give birth at home, regardless of the smear campaign and lies of ACOG, but in half of the U.S., women choosing home birth face a real problem: lack of licensure for the most common home birth provider, certified professional midwives (CPMs). Despite good, scientific evidence that CPMs provide excellent, safe home birth care, ACOG is more concerned with protecting their turf than helping all women access good safe childbirth care.

But what about this "CM" ACOG mentions in their statement? First, CMa are hospital trained, and only about 50 CMs exist in the entire country (compared with more than 1,300 CPMs who are actually educated and trained specifically for out-of-hospital birth). 

Or what about nurse-midwives (CNMs)? Nurse-midwives are not trained for home birth either (in fact, it used to be forbidden even to discuss home birth in CNM educational programs until very very recently). For the most part, CNMs just don't do home birth! (with very few individual exceptions) Only about 1% of CNM attended births take place at home, down from from approx 2% in 1990 at a time when total births are on the rise for CNMs. The trend is fewer home births for CNMs, not more.

So what's a home birth mama to do. in half of our country? Hire an underground midwife, who is then less able to access collaborative care if it becomes necessary? Hire an underground midwife whose qualifications are hard to verify? Go it alone? Hire a midwife from another state and hope and pray she makes it on time? THOSE ARE ALL UNACCEPTABLE! That's why it's paramount that all 50 states license CPMs, and the sooner the better!

WE'RE NUMBER TWO!

A press release from the Big Push for Midwives Campaign ...

PushNews from The Big Push for Midwives Campaign
CONTACT: Steff Hedenkamp, (816) 506-4630, steff@thebigpushformidwives.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, September 1, 2008

Number Two With a Bullet

Critical Women’s Health Issues Neglected as Physician Group Yet Again Sets its Sites on Midwives

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 1, 2008)—In the newest phase of its ongoing effort to deny women the right to choose their maternity care providers and birth settings, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has announced that eliminating access to midwives who specialize in out-of-hospital birth is now the second most important issue on its state legislative agenda. This move puts restricting access to trained midwives ahead of such critical issues as contraceptive equity, ensuring access to emergency contraception, and the prevention and treatment of perinatal HIV/AIDS.

“ACOG claims to be an advocate of women’s health and choice, but when it comes to the right to choose to deliver your baby in the privacy of your own home with a Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) who is specifically trained to provide the safest care possible, ACOG’s paternalistic colors bleed through,” said Susan M. Jenkins, Legal Counsel for the Big Push for Midwives Campaign. “It is astonishing that an organization that purports to be a champion of women’s healthcare would put a petty turf battle that affects less than one percent of the nation’s childbearing women ahead of pressing issues that have an impact on nearly every woman in this country. If this is not dereliction of duty, I can’t imagine what is.”

In recent years, ACOG has led a well-financed campaign to fight legislative reforms that would license and regulate CPMs and has now teamed up with the American Medical Association (AMA) to promote legislation that would prevent families from choosing to give birth at home. Despite these joint efforts, the groups have not been successful in defeating the groundswell of grassroots activism in support of full access to a comprehensive range of maternity care options that meet the needs of all families.

“Wisconsin is a good example of what ACOG and the AMA are up against,” said Jane Crawford Peterson, CPM, Advocacy Trainer for The Big Push. “Our bipartisan grassroots coalition of everyday people from across the state managed to defeat the most powerful and well-financed special interest groups in Wisconsin, all on an expenses-only budget of $3000 during a legislative session in which $47 million was spent on lobbying. When you try to deny women the fundamental and very personal right to choose where and how to give birth, they will get organized and they will let their elected officials know that restrictions on those rights cannot stand.”

Noting these successes, ACOG has recently launched its own grassroots organizing effort, calling on member physicians to recruit their patients to participate in its “Who Will Deliver My Baby?” medical liability reform campaign.

“ACOG itself admits that we’re facing a critical shortage of maternity care providers,” said Steff Hedenkamp, Communications Coordinator for the Big Push. “They certainly realize that medical liability reform is nothing more than a band aid and that increasing access to midwives and birth settings is critical to fixing our maternity care system and ensuring that rural, low-income and uninsured women don’t fall through the cracks. Midwives represent an essential growth segment of the U.S. pool of maternity care providers, but instead of putting the healthcare needs of women first, ACOG would rather devote its considerable lobbying budget to a last-ditch attempt to protect its own bottom line. This is not a happy Labor Day for our nation’s mothers and babies.”

The Big Push for Midwives (http://www.TheBigPushforMidwives.org) is a nationally coordinated campaign organized to advocate for regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and to push back against the attempts of the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to deny American families access to safe and legal midwifery care. The campaign plays a critical role in building a new model of U.S. maternity care delivery at the local and regional levels, at the heart of which is the Midwives Model of Care, based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life processes. Media inquiries: Steff Hedenkamp (816) 506-4630, steff@thebigpushformidwives.org.

# # #

The Big Push for Midwives Campaign is fiscally sponsored by Sustainable Markets Foundation, a not-for-profit organization recognized as tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3). The mission of the Big Push for Midwives is to build winning, state-level advocacy campaigns towards successful regulation and licensure of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Visit the Big Push for Midwives Campaign on the Web at www.TheBigPushforMidwives.org.

Sustainable Markets Foundation | 80 Broad Street, Suite 1600 | New York, NY 10004-2248

The Big Push for Midwives Campaign | 2300 M Street, N.W., Suite 800 | Washington, D.C. 20037-1434

HUGE Court Win in Goslin Pennsylvania Case!

Diane Goslin, CPM, who was charged by the state of Pennsylvania Medical Board with practicing medicine/nurse-midwifery without a license, has scored a huge victory for home birth midwives, winning an appeal to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. You can download a pdf of the Court's ruling here

There are numerous new stories related to this case I'll list some them here that detail the win, with headlines and initial paragraphs.

The Philadelphia Enquirer
Birthing women win legal decision
By Angela Couloumbis
Inquirer Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG - In a case that touched on whether women have the right to give birth where and with whom they want, a Commonwealth Court panel of judges ruled yesterday that a Lancaster County midwife could resume her work delivering babies for the Amish.

Diane Goslin, 50, had been under a cease-and-desist order from the Pennsylvania State Board of Medicine, which had charged her with practicing medicine and midwifery without a license.

But the Commonwealth Court panel, in a 5-2 decision, nixed that order yesterday.

"I am very excited," Goslin, from New Providence, said shortly after she learned of the decision. "This is such an encouraging day of victory for women and families."
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Harrisburg News
Midwife for Amish wins appeal
by DAVID WENNER, Of The Patriot-News
Friday May 23, 2008, 3:41 PM

A Pennsylvania court has reversed state-imposed fines and penalties against a Lancaster-area midwife who has delivered thousands of babies for the Amish.

A panel of Commonwealth Court judges ruled the state medical board was wrong to fine and order Diane Goslin to stop delivering babies.

But rather than state that Goslin is free to deliver babies, the written decision concludes Goslin hadn't been given adequate opportunity to defend herself against charges of practicing midwifery without a license.

Goslin, 50, said today her interpretation of the ruling is that it allows her to resume deliveries. The state board of medicine couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
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York Daily Record
Pa. court allows unlicensed midwife to resume practice
MARTHA RAFFAELE
The Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - An unlicensed midwife who assists Amish and Mennonite families with home births won a legal challenge Friday to a state decision that stopped her from practicing.

The Commonwealth Court's 5-2 ruling also overturned an $11,000 civil fine that the State Board of Medicine imposed on midwife Diane Goslin. The board can appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Commonwealth Court said the board erroneously concluded that by practicing midwifery, Goslin was also illegally practicing medicine and surgery without a license.

The board also denied Goslin due process by charging her under a 1985 state law that established licensing requirements for nurse-midwives, but disciplining her under a 1929 law that requires other types of midwives to hold state-issued certificates, the court found.
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For more information about what's happening in Pennsylvania, visit, SaveHomeBirth.com

Rock, meet hard place

What would you do, if you were on the cusp of winning a 30 year battle to make home birth midwives (CPMs) legal, and in the 11th hour an unanticipated fork in the road was presented to you? One path leads to legalization that's desperately needed, but the twist is many moms could be left to the cold, steel rooms of the surgical suite. The other fork means almost certainly giving up licensure for many years to come.

It's not an easy place to be in. Illinois advocates find themselves wedged tightly between a giant boulder, and one of the hardest places of all. And a lot of moms are hopping mad about it. So mad, that some individuals have threatened to withdraw support of the bill that would licensed CPMs.

The issue is regarding whether or not an Illinois CPMs would be allowed to attend moms who have had a cesarean birth, in their first attempt at vaginal birth (primary VBAC, or first time vaginal birth after cesarean). The twist is that it's extremely difficult, at best, to achieve a safe VBAC attempt in most Illinois hospitals, and in many parts of the state, officially disallowed by hospital protocols.

So we have a group of moms who expect other women (most of them moms themselves) to risk jail or losing ALL their personal assets, to preserve the ability to access vbacs. And another group of women who desperately want to serve vbac moms but don't necessarily want to risk jail and all of their personal assets in order to do so. (And yes, a lot of midwives have served time.)

Where's the balance?

Please post a comment if you have an answer to this quandary. Or just to spout off. (Please note: I understand that this is an emotionally charged issue, but personal attacks will be removed.)