In today’s modern birthing picture, you finish birthing your baby and the doctor immediately clamps the cord and you wait to expel the placenta before cutting. However, this isn’t actually the norm around the world (though notably there is variability worldwide in clamping practices). Often, mothers engage in what is, in our culture, called “delayed cord clamping” and there’s reason to believe we ought to be changing our norms as well…
Birth stories are awesome. Twin birth stories? Yeah, I just lost myself in excie
"I was in labor for three days (Thursday around noon until Sunday around noon) from the time I started having regular contractions about half an hour apart to the time our son was born. My contractions were 10-15 minutes apart for all but the first few hours. I had back labor. "
. Herein I’d like to talk about a piece from 2008 that looked at elective c-sections and later maternal responsiveness. Not because I want to cause a stink for those who had a c-section, but because we need to understand the effects of our modern birthing practices on those intimately involved – the mother and the infant.
The primary argument in favour of unassisted birth is that we humans are also animals who instinctually know what to do to give birth and need no assistance from others in doing so. But for some, the thought of a woman birthing herself, without any help or back-up, is flat-out dangerous or irresponsible.
With modern technology comes modern interventions and techniques that warrant further discussion. Especially when it comes to birth. Through discussion and research we have come to see the inherent risks and benefits of practices like caesarean sections or the use of drug interventions. Another area that is starting to receive a lot of discussion is cord blood banking.
Another wonderful birth story coming from Australia this time, thanks to Alex over at Alive and Blogging :)
It's been a while since I shared a reprint of ReBirth and I admit part of that has been that it's something I couldn't look at for a while after losing my mother. I have read each and every volume with her in mind and we've had discussions about some of the pieces she wrote or were written by others.
A beautiful home birth story from Sam in New Zealand!
I'm thrilled to share more birth stories, starting with this beautiful story from Jennifer in the USA about the birth of her little boy Braeden!
