Walk Slowly, Live Wildly

The blog Walk Slowly, Live Wildly is written by a woman named Sara Janssen. She wrote an incredible post about pregnancy and birth that I find to be everything I want to say but can't always articulate as well as great tips on a healthy, natural pregnancy. Here is the link to her post and also a beautiful video she put together about the homebirth of her second child. I can't say enough about it. So beautiful!

The Homebirth of Lucia Mae from Sara Janssen on Vimeo.

The Necessity of Home Birth

It's been awhile since we've updated this blog but the natural birthing spirit is alive and well! Life just gets kinda of crazy sometimes. Anyway, I just recently came across this article written by THE home birth guru Ina May Gaskin. She has revolutioned birthing practices since the 70's and has taught doctors a thing or two about birth.
Here's a link to her bio . She is amazing!

This article entitled "Home Birth- Why it's Necessary" is a short piece on the role that home birth has played in the evolution of all birthing practices, even hospital births. I really like that she puts in there how women have to give birth where they're most comfortable and if that is a hospital, then that's where they need to be. Of course I'm paraphrasing but it's all about making the choice that's right for us and that means educating ourselves.

It's About Time...

It's about time that statistics on the risks of C-sections and the "too high" maternal mortality rate in the USA are getting a little national attention. In this article, about 2/3 of the way down, it highlights a report that found that too many women don't have access to more women-centered care like midwives and that too many medical interventions are being used during delivery! If only this one sentence could become commonly-used in our culture, we would see a huge improvement.

Also, note the reference to the recent NIH conference in Maryland where they discussed the dangers of the recent climb in c-sections across the country and the disturbing policy of many hospitals to not allow VBAC's (vaginal birth after cesarean). In other words, they require c-sections for any woman who had one previously. I'll be receiving the email with the final outcome of the conference and will post it, but it sounds like they made a lot of ground in the effort to prove such policies wrong and against a woman's right to give birth the way she wants.

Read the article from TIME:
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1971633,00.html?artId=1971633?contType=article?chn=sciHealth

Enjoy!