Save Homebirth in New York City
Posted by doularama | Filed under News, Recommendations
At midnight tomorrow, April 30th, the majority of New York City’s home birth midwives will no longer be able to practice legally. Unless immediate action is taken by the Governor and the NYS Department of Health the women that these midwives serve will be denied access to a home birth with their chosen provider and these providers will no longer be able to practice legally in NYS.
YOU MUST ACT NOW to save the home birth option for New York Women:
Call:
*311
*Wendy Saunders, Executive Deputy Commissioner for the NY State Department of Health, appointed by Governor Paterson. 518-474-8390
*Larry Mokhiber, the Secretary of the Board of Midwifery (518-474-3817, extension 130)
With the closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital, half of the licensed, highly trained home birth midwives serving NYC have lost their Written Practice Agreement (WPA). St Vincent’s was the only Hospital in the city supportive of a woman’s right to choose a home birth and willing to sign a WPA. In the weeks since it’s announced closure, these midwives have reached out to hospitals and obstetricians all across the city looking for support, with no success. Please help us to save the homebirth option in New York.
People can also email the Governor at http://www.state.ny.us/governor/contact/GovernorContactForm.php.
Tags: home birth, Homebirth, Midwives, St. Vincent's Hospital
Face of Birth- Homebirth Documentary
Posted by doularama | Filed under News, Recommendations
This preview was a tear-jerker. I’m sure that watching the film will make me angry. I a hope it makes many, many people angry!
Face of Birth
Where the personal Gets Political
Tags: Australia, documentary, home birth, Homebirth
Birth Bracelet
Posted by doularama | Filed under Recommendations
I am thrilled to share this idea. I’m sorry to say it’s not mine originally, but I think it’s great so I’ve adopted it. It’s a bracelet made with memory wire and a bead for each birth I’ve been a part of. At my postpartum visits, I ask each woman to choose a bead to add which represents her birth.
Tags: Beading, childbirth, doula
The Power of Latching On
Posted by doularama | Filed under Recommendations
I have way too many blog posts floating around in my head, wanting to come out, but I just don’t know when they actually will. Luckily, I’ve just discovered Latching On The Politics of Breastfeeding in America and here’s a couple of cents on that. Sometimes it seems foreign to me to hear that women don’t want to breastfeed in public (or at all) because there is no way on any level that I can relate. Then I teach a class or give a talk and talk to the real women, pregnant, not planning to breastfeed or undecided. I know I help to make up some minds just by answering questions. What’s wrong with us that our women have these questions in the first place?
Tags: Breastfeeding, Latching On, Women Making Movies
Labor-Inducing Cookie Recipe
Posted by doularama | Filed under Recommendations
I loved being pregnant and was never in a hurry to be done with it. Many women, however, are eager for labor to begin and so it is easy to find advice on how to induce labor. There are lots of things to try, some safer than others. Ultimately, they won’t work unless your baby is really ready to come out. Spicy food is supposed to induce labor, probably because of the way it will stimulate your bowels. If you’re not prone to heartburn, I say this is a good excuse to eat a plate of cookies. Alas, I do miss the days of pregnancy!
2 ½ C flour
1 ½ t baking soda
¾ t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
½ t ground cloves
½ t salt
½ t cayenne pepper
8 T butter
½ C sugar
1 C brown sugar
1/3 C molasses
¼ C egg whites
Preheat oven to 350°. Combine flour, baking soda and spices and set
aside. Cream the butter and sugars together. Add the molasses to the creamed
butter, then add the egg whites until combined. Add the dry ingredients
slowly. Once incorporated, roll dough into 1 inch balls and place onto
baking tray. Bake 8-10 minutes. Recipe by Gale Gand.
Cool. Eat. Hope for a baby.
Tags: childbirth, cookie recipe, Gale Gand, inducing labor, labor
Paper or Oshibori?
Posted by doularama | Filed under Parenting, Recommendations
The day my daughter turned six-months-old, she had her first bit of solid food. It wasn’t very solid, but it was officially her first taste of table food. If I had let her, she would have eaten the whole sweet potato. Anyway, at that point I was no longer just dealing with spit-up and poop messes, but with a whole new world of food everywhere. I was prepared, though, with a set of rags for the floor and towels for the table and my very special microfiber towels for my baby’s face and hands.
I bought the microfiber towels at an auto store and, five years later, we’re still using them. They’re soft, absorbent, long-lasting and inexpensive. While we do have a stack of paper napkins at the center of the table, they are only for guests. My children ask for the rag when they need it, I am a neat eater and my husband just doesn’t seem to care much about food on his face and hands.
My children don’t need frequent reminders not to waste paper. They have seen the reason to conserve and they won’t soon forget it. Last year, while vacationing in the Adirondack Mountains, we decided to go for a hike. Really, it was my husband and daughter who decided and I just went along hoping I wouldn’t get any dirt on my boots. We picked up a pamphlet with some directions for area hikes and selected one of the more family-friendly ones, my children being young and me being a priss.
When we got to the site, we found that the directions were somewhat confusing and, after a bit of going back and forth, we decided to go this way rather than that way and off we were on what was obviously the right trail. Well, it would have been the right trail had we intended to trespass on the property of I-don’t-know-what paper company, which is exactly what we were doing.
We’ve gone on nice hikes in the lush “forests” of Van Cortlandt Park near our home in the Bronx and here we were in the wild Adirondacks surrounded by smelly wasteland and oily puddles. It wasn’t a lovely hike, but it was useful in our household as the waste-not lesson goes easily taught with a simple, “Remember the forest in the Adirondacks?”
About a year ago I discovered that school children in Japan have, packed with their bento boxes, moist towels called oshibori. You can just imagine the variety of whimsical cases they sell for them. I remember being given warm, moist towels on airplanes and in restaurants as a child. Those days are gone, but the idea of the oshibori lives on in my family. When packing lunch for one of our outings now, we always include at least one oshibori rather than paper napkins. Not only are we conserving paper, but a wet washcloth is much more handy than a dry napkin even for a neat eater like me.
Tags: adirondack mountains, oshibori, recycling
Unitasking
Posted by doularama | Filed under Recommendations
It is the first of January, 2010 and I started the day by listening to straggling revelers, plotting my cleaning and cooking path for the day, composing an e-mail, planning my outfit for Sunday, thinking about the coming births for which I am on call, willing away a starting migraine and trying to relax and fall asleep. It was 5am and I would be in better spirits now had I been just sleeping.
Unfortunately, like too many of us, I am a multitasker. As I type this, I am making juice, planning tomorrow’s itinerary and talking, squeezing as much as possible in the little time I have. I am remarkably adept at the physical challenge of patting my head while rubbing my abs and switching hands swiftly. Where has that gotten me in life?
My husband has a marvelous ability to focus and tune everything out but for his task at hand. To an outsider it may look like I preface half of my interactions with him with a plea for permission to speak, but actually I’ve learned that not getting his attention first will land me in a monologue. He has accomplished in this way many great things. I am merely able to do lots and lots of little things.
My two greatest accomplishments did involve some extent of unitasking, I suppose. The brain of a pregnant woman shrinks about 7% because she needs to concentrate on a particular job. She is making a human being and this takes a great deal of focused energy even when she doesn’t realize it.
Studies have shown that multitasking is, in fact, inefficient, but I don’t think that will stop me or many of you from overdemanding productivity from so many of our minutes. I will, however, try to focus on some of my undertakings with a little more zeal for simplistic accomplishment. Perhaps during breakfast with my children or yoga or, at least, during savasana in yoga, when I am supposed to be deeply relaxed. For me, these are great endeavors, worthy of my focus.
DoulaRina’s Holiday Shopping Guide
Posted by doularama | Filed under Recommendations
Those who know me may be surprised to learn that I, who so disrelish the commercialism of this season, have written such a blog post. The rest of you will likely be disappointed by my suggestions, but my hope is that I give all of you some ideas you wouldn’t have thought of on your own, probably because their usefulness makes them so boring. I’m not recommending you give your mother an iron on Mother’s Day, though. I think that these gifts will be more appreciated than that subtle suggestion to keep up the good work.
First I should clarify that I am a birth junkie and, as such, am giving here suggestions for the pregnant woman you may know. If you are looking for a shopping guide for someone else, all I say to you is shame- you should have done your shopping last January.
So, if you’re shopping for a pregnant woman and you’re reading this blog, it is quite likely that you can look up her registry and shop from where you are sitting. I don’t discourage that. I like to buy gifts from people’s registries because I know I’ve chosen something that they want (and hopefully need, but with baby things, there is sooo much they just don’t need). I don’t stop there, however. I like to add something to the gift so that it is more personal and thoughtful and so they don’t end up knowing how much I’ve spent. Go ahead and buy the bouncer, but then add a book. Not to be read while the baby is bouncing- I was thinking more along the lines of Active Birth by Janet Balaskas, The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth by Sheila Kitzinger, Birth by Tina Cassidy or maybe The Birth Partner by Penny Simkin (which she should leave lying around for her partner to pick up). Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin has some inspiring birth stories she can easily read without realizing how much she’s getting from them. There are so many great books. For some more suggestions, click on my books tab. You might also consider getting her a mix of herbs to use in a sitz bath or regular bath to heal her postpartum perineum. I make a lovely organic batch you can purchase by contacting me.
Another fabulous idea is some spa time. This is actually good for any adult on your list. In fact, if you know me personally, please assume I am hinting directly to you. A gift certificate to a spa that has regular packages as well as prenatal massage is great because she can choose to use it while she’s pregnant or some time afterwards, when she will probably need it just as much. If she hasn’t used it by the time the baby is born, however, part of your gift should be a nudge to get going as it is likely she will never find the time to do it on her own.
My final suggestion is to offer to pay, either partially or in full, alone or with some friends, for the services of a doula. You might choose a birth doula or a postpartum doula or have the mother-to-be decide which she would prefer. Either way, you shouldn’t actually hire a doula for her, even if you’ve gotten a recommendation for the best doula in town, as hiring a doula is very personal.
I hope that there is a great decrease in the number of unnecessities purchased for the babies of 2010 thanks to this blog.
Happy shopping! (that’s an oxymoron, isn’t it?)
Tags: doulas, gift registries, holiday shopping, pregnancy books, spa
Ocytocin, Super Hormone
Posted by doularama | Filed under News, Recommendations
Just last night, my husband and I were talking about that incomprable feeling one gets around newborns and I told him it was largely hormonal, referring to oxytocin. Oxytocin is my favorite hormone, and reading in The Biology Behind the Milk of Human Kindness that an oxytocin nasal spray was used on test subjects makes me picture oxytocin police spraying people on the streets who obviously need a boost (and it would be obvious). Oxytocin plays many roles in the lives of humans. It helps get the baby out by causing contractions and then it ensures that we will care for that baby by making us feel an overwhelming love for it. Of course, in our capital-loving society, here we see research being done on it’s possible effects on the world of finance. Is it too much to hope that Wall Street will become a little more loving because of this?
Formula-Fed America
Posted by doularama | Filed under News, Recommendations
Oh my goodness! I haven’t been to the movies in years and this might just get me out there. Something tells me, however, that it won’t be a date night with my husband. Maybe he’ll meet me afterwards. I hope it’s not just being released on DVD- I need a good excuse to sit in a room full of adults for a couple of hours. Anyway, here’s the trailer. Please jump on the bandwagon. Too many of us don’t take a strong position on breastfeeding because we don’t want to make anyone feel bad. How much harm are we doing so that we don’t hurt their feelings? Share the facts and you’re bound to change some minds. See you in the movies…
Formula Fed America
Tags: Breastfeeding, Formula Fed America Movie, Formula Feeding
