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Media Reviews – Issue 147 | Uterus: A New Perspective by Jessica M. Koren. 2016 – The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel Van der Kolk – A Woman of Firsts: The Midwife Who Changed the World by Edna Adan Ismail Read more…. Media Reviews – Issue 147

Wisdom of the Midwives | On Gratitude – Thoughts about Labor Pain – Talking About Postpartum Sexuality with Clients – Interventions – Delayed Cord Cutting Read more…. Wisdom of the Midwives – Issue 147

I am humbled by this life God gave me to lead Midwifery Today. I have had the privilege of traveling to and putting on conferences in 20 different countries—attending, planning, and carrying out 86 conferences. I have also had the honor of planning, writing for, and helping produce 147 magazines, with a fantastic staff and excellent writers. It has been a long and winding road through efforts to change midwifery and birth. I am humbled by the joy, mostly, of getting to be the mother of Midwifery Today. Read more…. My 37-Year Midwifery Today Voyage

Doña Cuca and I sat next to each other looking down at the ground. She was sad. I was too. She spoke of the changes happening in her village around birth. The wimyn were trusting the hospital more than the use of rebozo and sobada (1). The young ones were not interested in a midwife path. She felt the feeling of disappearance. The dissolving of a life she had lived and loved. I told her the loss had already happened for my people and in my land. We sat together. Sad about it all. Read more…. Kneeling before the Elders

When I was sixteen, I attended my first birth: the birth of my baby brother, David. After he was born, my mama delivered the placenta, which was placed in a bowl. My father brought me over to look at it, and he normalized the experience of third stage by observing to me how beautiful the placenta was: “Doesn’t it look like glazed clay?” It did look that way: purplish-red and shining. The future midwife in me was fascinated. Read more…. Wonders of Third Stage Labor: The Placenta

“Hey, sir, can you help me with my birth bag? This one here. I’ve got to deliver a baby. Yes, down these steps. Thank you so much.” I beseech a guy who is walking down the street as I drop my Volvo in front of my client’s home, after speeding the wrong way down her one-way street. Read more…. Healing Birth

The author writes about her experiences about becoming a doula and the pitfalls that she has encountered in the US birth world supporting women. Read more…. My Journey as a Doula and Discovering Something More

Vicki Penwell, of Mercy In Action, has another fantastic article about providing services for birthing women in low-resource areas. The article discusses new strategies to stop and prevent hemorrhage in third or fourth stage, and the need for ongoing training so that midwives are better able to handle emergencies. Read more…. Emerging Strategies: Helping Mothers Survive Bleeding After Birth

I have only had to do an internal bimanual compression one time. She was a redhead (although I do not believe redheads hemorrhage more). My partner, Monika, and I were at the birth, which progressed normally but was followed by a dreadful postpartum hemorrhage that followed the placenta. Read more…. From the Editor: Thoughts on Third Stage

In the process of establishing a birth plan in the ’80s in the US and Europe, an effort was made to make women aware of their choices during labor. It took about 50 years—two whole generations—until women started to face the medical interventions while exploring their own possibilities during childbirth. The formally written birth plan was introduced in the 1980s as part of childbirth preparation to help women avoid escalating interventions (Lothian 2006). Read more…. Birth Plan: Does the Path Still Fit the Objective? Do the Means Still Fulfill the Purpose?