Birth Stools

Ok, ok, I know that I'm a neglectful blogger. I really do promise to have more interesting, fun and insightful posts in the near future! Including one all about the maternity system in Peru. Ahem...

Starting up a practice is hard work, though! I'm spending most of my days writing client handouts. Oh, and shopping for supplies....which isn't really hard work at all, but quiet fun. I'm having a hard time deciding which birth stool to purchase. I want one that doesn't inhibit the sacrum, which is harder to find than you'd think. Here are the ones I fancy so far:

Wooden birth stool
DeBy birth stool
and if money were no factor,
the Birth Mate stool

I need to decide soon. I've personally given birth on the wooden version, and I like it well enough. But, I'm intrigued by the DeBy. I've heard both positive and negative feedback from mothers who've birthed on it.

birth magazines

I'm not sure if Midwifery Today has changed, or if it is my perspective that has changed, but I can no longer devour each new edition that comes out and be left feeling excited and content.

I still love Midwifery Today, of course, and have great respect for their publication and recognize them as the great resource that they are. But lately, almost every article I read in each new edition makes me cringe at some point.

I know I have said it before, but it feels like the more I read other midwives' work or talk with other midwives, the more it has become glaringly obvious how far on the fringe I am in regards to my approach to birth.

I am tired of hearing midwives say that they trust birth and that birth is a normal and natural process, when they turn right around and start trying to convince everyone about how their interventions to 'help' the situation was natural because it only involved their hands (not a knife) and how midwives are needed to save birth, and so on. If birth works so well, then why do some midwives consider it dangerous to give birth with no trained professional?

I have to say....what is up with all of the bed births? Seriously! I'm not just talking about the birth pictures always featured on the inside back cover (which are almost always in bed, with lots of hands on the baby's crowning head and perineum), but about the birth stories themselves. I know that there are women who truly do choose to give birth laying down, and that is fine by me, but I am positive that they are in the very small minority. I think that more often than not, the bed becomes the chosen birth place because it is never presented to the woman as the least ideal place for giving birth (physiologically speaking). Though, again, I don't think that the birth pictures are a reflection of Midwifery Today's philosophy, but probably they print whichever pictures are received, and most of what they receive are bed births.

I am still a devoted reader of Midwifery Today, and I have been wanting to write an article to submit, as I don't think it is productive if all I do is complain about the situation. I have been brain-storming all night about which topic I should write about. Really, my issue I suppose lies more with the reality that I am facing: that the majority of midwives out there from what I can tell approach midwifery and birth very differently than I do. This is something that I am having a hard time coming to grips with, I suppose.