What Is The Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth

What is the Bradley Method

Top 5 Myths About Having a Home Birth

Excerpt from the article:

Whenever I'd tell someone I was having a home birth, their reaction would inevitably fall into one of three buckets:

1. "YAY! I wish I'd done that." (Or, "I have done that.")
2. "How? What? Why?" A million questions.
3. "Are you crazy? What if something bad happens?"

Free Formula Spoils Breastfeeding

Excerpt from the article:

"Almost 40 per cent of new mothers leave the hospital with free infant formula, a recipe for spoiled breastfeeding according to a new Toronto Public Health report.

Women who didn’t receive the free samples were 3.5 times more likely to be breastfeeding exclusively after 2 weeks, said Breastfeeding in Toronto, Promoting Supportive Environments, released Tuesday.

The study, conducted in 2007 and 2008, found that of 1,500 first-time mothers surveyed, 39 per cent were given formula at hospital discharge. As a result, many of these women stopped breastfeeding sooner than those women who weren’t given formula."

Good Little Girls

This one is a MUST read for every woman, especially if you are planning a hospital birth. This rung VERY true for me. We deserve to be treated with compassion and respect and honor and sanctity during our child-birthing experiences and no one is going to hand it to us on a silver platter out of the goodness of their hearts. If we can't/don't stand up for ourselves and our birthing bodies and our un-born/newborn babies, no one else will. Period.

Excerpt from the article:

"So, when it comes time to ask our obstetricians the really important questions, we hold back instead of pressing forward. After all, who wants to be that patient, the “troublemaker?” We wouldn’t want to put him on the spot, make her uncomfortable, or, God forbid, be annoying. Even when the things we are told do not resonate with our sensibilities, with our intellect, and with the very moral fiber of our being, we do not question. We leave the office dissatisfied, with unresolved issues and nagging doubts. But we do not argue. After all, we are good little girls."

10 steps for an easier labor

Excellent, excellent article the briefs 10 things you can do to have an easier labor & birth.

Excerpt from the article:

"2. Seek higher education. Take a childbirth class, and enroll as early as possible: Not only do classes fill up fast, but some, such as Bradley courses, run 12 weeks, which means you need to start them in your second trimester."

Gentle Embrace Doula Service

This is the website of a doula friend of mine. She has observed my classes so she knows and understands first hand the goals and training of a Bradley® couple. She was the doula for one of my most recent couples and they highly sung her praises and said their birth experience was immensely enhanced by her knowledge and presence.

Here you can find a growing list of local Bradley® supportive business owners, such as doulas.

Resources Just For Dad

Bank teller works with baby on her hip | KATU.com - Breaking News, Sports, Traffic and Weather - Portland, Oregon | Business

Bank teller works with baby on her hip | KATU.com - Breaking News, Sports, Traffic and Weather - Portland, Oregon | Business

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy

Excerpt from the article on things you can do right now to combat post partum depression.

"Just like you prepare for what your baby will need, it can be helpful to prepare yourself. You and your baby will benefit if you look after your own mental health and well-being during pregnancy and after your baby is born."

Thought for the day

Women are strong, strong, terribly strong. We don’t know how strong until we’re pushing out our babies.” ~Louise Erdrich, The Blue Jay’s Dance

Take action to stop pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S

"In a new report on pregnancy and childbirth care in the U.S., Amnesty details the maternal-health care crisis in this country as part of a systemic violation of women's rights."

"According to Amnesty, which gathered data from many sources, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately half of the pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. are preventable, the result of systemic failures, including barriers to accessing care; inadequate, neglectful or discriminatory care; and overuse of risky interventions like inducing labor and delivering via cesarean section. "Women are not dying from complex, mysterious causes that we don't know how to treat," says Strauss. "Women are dying because it's a fragmented system, and they are not getting the comprehensive services that they need."

"Amnesty is calling on Obama to create an Office of Maternal Health within the Department of Health and Human Services to improve outcomes and reduce disparities, among other recommendations."

Please follow the title link and send a (pre-written) letter to the head of the Department of Health voicing your concern for the pregnant women of our country and show your support of creating an Office of Maternal Health that would be responsible for instituting change in the current maternal-health care crisis. You & I can make a difference together!

NIH Panel: End Bans on Vaginal Birth After C-Section

NIH Panel: End Bans on Vaginal Birth After C-Section

Excerpt from the article;

"While rare, the complications can be severe and even fatal. However, panel member Carol J. Rowland Hogue, PhD, MPH, director of the women's and children's center at Emory University, noted that VBAC isn't the only risk for a pregnant woman.

"Pregnancy is something of a risky endeavor," Hogue said at a news conference. "Women do suffer complications and their babies do have problems. Fortunately these are rare -- but they occur irrespective of mode of delivery. The very rare experience of maternal death is higher for C-section regardless of whether it is primary or repeat. This is very important for providers to weigh."

Panel Urges New Look at Caesarean Guidelines

Excerpt from the article;

“We found the use of VBAC is certainly a safe alternative for the majority of women who’ve had one prior” Caesarean, provided that the incision was horizontal and low on the uterus, said Dr. F. Gary Cunningham, the conference chairman and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. About 70 percent of women who have had Caesareans are good candidates for trying for a normal birth, and 60 percent to 80 percent of those who try succeed."

Motorist helps deliver baby in car in downtown Rochester

In The Bradley Method® classes we cover emergency childbirth and teach the dad's/coaches exactly what to do and not to do in situations exactly like this one.

The one thing I tell my students about these situations is that if a baby is coming that fast, you can be calm and assured in the fact that there is absolutely nothing wrong. The Mom's body and baby are working beautifully and very efficiently together.

Too Many Women Dying in U.S. While Having Babies

Too Many Women Dying in U.S. While Having Babies

"The report, titled "Deadly Delivery," notes that the likelihood of a woman's dying in childbirth in the U.S. is five times as great as in Greece, four times as great as in Germany and three times as great as in Spain. Every day in the U.S., more than two women die of pregnancy-related causes, with the maternal mortality ratio doubling from 6.6 deaths per 100,000 births in 1987 to 13.3 deaths per 100,000 births in 2006. (And as shocking as these figures are, Amnesty notes that the actual number of maternal deaths in the U.S. may be a lot higher, since there are no federal requirements to report these outcomes and since data collection at the state and local levels needs to be improved.) "In the U.S., we spend more than any country on health care, yet American women are at greater risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes than in 40 other countries," says Nan Strauss, the report's co-author, who spent two years investigating the issue of maternal mortality worldwide. "We thought that was scandalous."

Is my sling safe? -or- Not all slings are created equal!

Excerpt from the article;


"What makes a safe sling? Any sling should hold your baby the way you would hold him in your arms (back carries excepted, and even those can be done in arms if you're flexible enough). So for example, a ring sling is typically used with the baby in a vertical position against your chest, just like you'd hold him in your arms, or with the baby at a diagonal angle across your body, as you would hold him while breastfeeding or reclining. The same positions are preferred in a wrap, pouch sling, or mei tai. You should always be able to see your baby's head and face, without opening the fabric to do so, and he should always be able to breathe freely and easily, with his neck straight and his head in a neutral position (not curled forward onto his chest). Again, these positions, while they may take practice, are possible with every safe baby carrier."

Women have been wearing their babies since the beginning of time. I wore both my babies, perfectly safely I might add, for the comfort to them and convenience for me factor and there is absolutely no reason why anyone cannot or should not wear their baby as long as they are using the right type of carrier and using it the right way.

Panel Questions “VBAC Bans,” Advocates Expanded Delivery Options for Women

Excellent article explaining what took place as,

"An independent panel convened this week by the National Institutes of Health confronted a troubling fact that pregnant women currently have limited access to clinicians and facilities able and willing to offer a trial of labor after previous cesarean delivery because of so-called VBAC bans."

N.Y. Chef Earns Fans, Critics With Cheese Made From Human Breast Milk

Excerpt from the article;

"We realized we were going to have to throw a lot of it out, pour this liquid gold down the drain, and we were not going to do that," Angerer said. "So, me being a chef, we said, 'Hey, let's make some cheese!'"

I am so glad to hear other people calling it liquid gold. That just makes me smile. A critic said,

"Consumption of breast milk could unknowingly expose consumers to infectious diseases like hepatitis and HIV," FoxNews.com Managing Health Editor, Dr. Manny Alvarez wrote in the Fox News Health Blog.

Personally, I don't see any reason why consuming cheese made from milk that comes from a woman would be any more potentially harmful than consuming cheese made from milk that comes from a cow or goat or yak. Sounds to me like this woman has a better diet than most dairy cows anyway. lol

Would I eat it? I might. It would depend I guess on who it was coming from and how adventuresome I was feeling at the time. Risky? Possibly by some stretch of the imagination I suppose, but so is eating blow fish. Yet thrill seekers and culinary enthusiasts continue to seek it out for the adrenaline rush and the bragging rights. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind at all being counted among those who are able to brag about sampling gourmet breast-milk cheese. Will I ever be in the situation where I could if I wanted? Probably not, but I personally see no reason to think any less of those who have, in fact I applaud their open-minded-ness.

Alternative Birthing Methods - ABC News

Alternative Birthing Methods - ABC News

The Bradley Method® of Natural Childbirth listed as the first of five alternatives to avoid a C-section.

Thought for the day

"Breastfeeding is an unsentimental metaphor for how love works, in a way. You don't decide how much and how deeply to love - you respond to the beloved, and give with joy exactly as much as they want." ~Marni Jackson

Making Cytotec (misoprostol) fit their agenda

In this article, Marsden Wagner, a perinatologist, neonatalogist and perinatal epidemiologist from California who is an outspoken supporter of midwifery, showed us that ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) is the only organization out of a list of 10 that, despite its risks to pregnant women and their unborn babies, recommends using Cytotec (misoprostol) for labor inductions.

Here is an excerpt from the FDA’s 2002 statement (PDF):

A major adverse effect of the obstetrical use of Cytotec is hyperstimulation of the uterus which may progress to uterine tetany [uterus contracts and doesn't let go] with marked impairment of uteroplacental blood flow, uterine rupture (requiring surgical repair, hysterectomy, and/or salpingo-oophorectomy [removal of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes]), or amniotic fluid embolism [maternal and infant mortality is very high from this]. Pelvic pain, retained placenta, severe genital bleeding, shock, fetal bradycardia [profound slowing of the fetal heart], and fetal and maternal death have been reported.

There may be an increased risk of uterine tachysystole [contractions coming too fast], uterine rupture, meconium passage, meconium staining of amniotic fluid, and Cesarean delivery due to uterine hyperstimulation with the use of higher doses of Cytotec; including the manufactured 100 mcg tablet. The risk of uterine rupture increases with advancing gestational ages and with prior uterine surgery, including Cesarean delivery. Grand multiparity [usually defined as more than four births] also appears to be a risk factor for uterine rupture.

Dr. Wagner had this to say about the reasoning behind ACOG's outnumbered stand on the continued use of Cytotec for labor inductions;

"How can ACOG possibly be willing to stand alone in opposition to the best scientific opinion in the world? Because so many of ACOG's members already use Cytotec induction off-label for its incredible convenience, the organization needs to support its members by recommending this practice."

Henci Goer , award-winning medical writer, internationally known speaker and the author of The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth., hit the nail on the head when she described it as "a rationale that amounts to “but all the kids are doing it.”"

So then the next question becomes, "why are all the kids doing it?" Why is it that so many obstetricians are using Cytotec for something the drug was not created for and that has the potential to cause SO many serious problems for their pregnant patients, concerning who they swore to first and foremost "do no harm"? I will once again turn to Henci Goer,

"Why, then, are obstetricians so enamored of misoprostol? The answer is summed up by this obstetrician enthusiast:

The best part about it is that you can block-schedule your nurses so that you have enough on hand. . . [I]f we start our inductions at 7 a.m., we know that we’re going to have X number of patients in labor being admitted by 4 p.m. That’s helped our hospital tremendously, . . . [Cytotec is] a great agent. It works very, very efficiently. . . . And it’s ungodly inexpensive: 27 cents per tablet.

In other words, Cytotec’s real benefits are convenience for obstetricians and helping the hospital’s bottom line. For women and babies, though, it’s a roll of the dice. Most times things go fine, but sometimes the dice come up snake eyes."

So, I guess the real question comes down to this. Are you willing to let a doctor, who very well could be more concerned with his bottom line than the ultimate health and safety of you and your unborn baby, roll the Cytotec dice for you? Are you feeling lucky?

Cytotec Induction and Off-Label Use

This article is a little bit long, but contains some excellent information and explanations of why the "off-label" use of Cytotec is so incredibly dangerous, yet continues to be so lightly used during pregnancy.

Excerpt from the article;

"Without adequate testing of Cytotec (misoprostol) for labor induction, obstetricians simply began to use it on their birthing women. They were taking advantage of a huge loophole in our drug regulatory system. Once a drug is approved by the FDA for a specific medical indication and put on the market, there is absolutely nothing to prevent any doctor from using that drug for any indication, in any dose, for any patient he or she chooses. Since the label of the drug contains the indications approved by the FDA, this is called "off-label" use of a drug."

Why Is VBAC a Vital Option?

Excerpt from the article;

"Unless the restrictions for permitting VBAC labor are revised, I believe we will gradually see the few remaining physicians who offer VBAC cease to offer this option; not because they don’t care, but because hospitals, insurance providers, and ACOG guidelines are making it too stressful, both financially and personally, for VBAC-friendly providers."

I am really not sure what the average obstetric consumer can do to affect any changes in these areas other than #1 do everything you can to avoid that first c-section in the first place so that you are not faced later on with all these VBAC hindrances or #2 if you are faced with a VBAC situation, find an excelent home birth midwife with lots of VBAC experience.

Lessons at Indian Hospital About Births

Excerpt from article;

#1 "Doctors and midwives here earn salaries and are not paid by the procedure, so they have no financial incentive to perform surgery."

#2 "The hospital and doctors are federally insured against malpractice, in contrast to other hospitals, where private insurers have threatened to raise premiums or withdraw coverage if vaginal birth after Caesarean is allowed."

#3 "Couples often want more than two children, but repeated Caesareans increase the risk of each pregnancy, so doctors and patients are motivated to avoid the surgery."

I think it would make our heads spin at how fast and far the cesarean rate in our country would drop if just these three changes were implimented in our maternity care system and that is not even considering the difference that cutting out unnecessary inductions would make on those numbers.

Home Births Rise, Mostly By Choice

Excerpt from the article;

"The American Public Health Association, the World Health Organization, and, as you might expect, the American College of Nurse Midwives, all support home and out-of-hospital births for low-risk women."

"Some of the states with big increase: Alabama, California, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin."

CDC Report: Demand for Out-of-Hospital Midwife Births Sharply Increases Research Debunks Physician Group Claims that Actress Ricki Lake is Responsible

Excerpt from the PDF file;

“The idea that American women choose out-of-hospital delivery because a celebrity had her baby at home or because they value the birth ...‘experience’ over the health of their babies is not only insulting, but it reveals an appalling lack of awareness on the part of ACOG and the AMA about the economic pressures influencing the health care decisions that people are making,”

Questions about Home Birth

Excerpt from the article;

There are many questions that people want to know about home birth as it actually plays out rather than the mere philosophy of the setting of birth. This will be an attempt the answer some of those questions.

“Birth Management” Often Leads to Unnecessary Interventions | Induction

Excerpt from article,

75% of all induced labors are not for medical reasons, and research has proven that there are higher cesarean section rates for induced patients.

Thought for the day

Just as a woman's heart knows how and when to pump, her lungs to inhale, and her hand to pull back from fire, so she knows when and how to give birth. -Virginia Di Orio