Homebirths on the rise, toxic nursing pillows, nurse-ins and more! It's the SQUAT week-in-review!

Breastfeeding mothers are a lot like exotic dancers, according to a new local law in Forest Park, Georgia. A new city ordinance makes it illegal to breastfeed a child over 2 years old in public, claiming that such an act is publicly indecent. Breastfeedind advocates have responded quickly-- there is now a petition to the Forest Park city council, and a nurse-in scheduled for next Monday in front of Forest Park City Hall.



You might want to think twice about the nursing pillow you're using. A new report this week in Environmental Science and Technology reported that 80 percent of baby products contained toxic or untested flame retardants. Many flame retardants are suspected carcinogens, and toddlers have been found to the three times the level of these chemicals in their bodies compared to adults.

Babies born using increased interventions did not fair any better after birth than those without, according a study of 30,000 births in upstate New York. The study showed no difference in birth outcomes (including whether or nota baby required ventillation,  was transferred to an intensive care hospital, or had a low agpar score) between babies born through c-section or induction, suggesting that a routine reliance on such interventions does not help the health of infants. (Yeah, we could have told ya that!)

Maryland-based midwife Karen Carr, who recently plead guilty to two felonies in Virginia to avoid jail time for her role in a breech homebirth, is now under investigation in Maryland, according to the Washington Post. Karr's case has ignited, yet again, the debate about the safety of homebirth and the rights of women and midwives. See one SQUAT Editor's story of her experience with Karen Carr on a previous blog post.

More women are choosing homebirth--A review of birth certificate information found a 20 percent increase in women choosing to birth at home between 2004 and 2008.

And women who use a licensed midwife to give birth at home in Vermont will now be covered by their insurance, thanks to a new bill signed into law this week. The law will require insurance companies to cover home births attended by licensed midwives; 3 percent of births in Vermont happen at home, the highest rate in the country. 

"Why won't you bitches help me?!?" The joy of labor in media...or not

We all know the formula for birth in movies and television-- the water breaks, everyone panics and rushes to the hospital, the woman screams at everyone around her (especially the father, if he's present), and the baby, usually looking like a  4-month old, is born within minutes. Those of us familiar with birth---whether from having children of our own, or supporting and attending to women in labor--know that real birth rarely follows this strict formula. I would love to see what a Hollywood producer would do with the birth of my first child--which took 36 hours from start to finish and didn't involve even one single taxi cab rushing anyone anywhere!

There is plenty of validity in critiques of the depiction of labor in the media. Children, teenagers, and even young adults are forming their ideas about pregnancy and birth based on these scenes in popular culture, scenes that tell girls that labor is nothing short of horrific, and demonstrates to birth partners that the only thing to do is stand there looking dumb or passing out. Women hoping for a natural birth are typically mocked and end up begging for drugs.

This treatment of labor affects us and our culture--it disempowers women and supports the sense that birth is a medical event that must be managed. At SQUAT, we're dedicated to publishing voices from the across the spectrum of birth experiences to demonstrate the pregnancy and birth can be beautiful, transformational, and empowering for women and families.

That said, these scenes are pretty funny. If you let yourself relax a little, they will make you laugh. So let's take a mid-week laugh break and look at some of the "best of" birth depictions compiled by the SQUAT t


Best Breaking Water: Amy Poehler and Tine Fey in Baby Mama. Complete with flood of water, mad-dash to the hospital, and angry screaming!

Angie's Water Breaks




Baby Mama

— MOVIECLIPS.com

Best Vagina Nick-Name: Dr. Bailey giving birth on Grey's Anatomy.



Best Squat: Comedienne Lauren Weedmen on Funnyordie.com, exploring labor positions and birth goo.

Our Bodies Myself: Childbirth - watch more funny videos

Best Music: Quinn has her baby on Glee. This clip's got it all--the rush to the hospital, yelling at the baby daddy, and... dancing! New York Times Magazine put it best, calling this "the most intense show choir/having a baby sequence in recent memory."




Best Pubic Hair: SNL's natural birth class, complete with a super-large VHS tape of a homebirth.



Best. Satire. Ever. : Monty Python. "What should I do?," asks the mother. "Nothing, my dear! You're not qualified!"

My midwife is not a criminal

Yesterday, which just happened to be the International Day of the Midwife, midwife Karen Carr plead guilty to community endangerment and practicing medicine without a license, avoiding jailtime and a charge of involuntary manslaughter for attending a birth in Virginia. More than 50 supporters stood behind her in the courtroom on Wednesday, many of them wearing the babies that Karen caught in her trusted and experienced hands.

Those hands also caught one of my babies. My son Carter was born in 2007 in my little house in Washington, DC, as the morning sun shone into the window. Karen had been with me all night, and as dawn broke she was frantically calling other clients to rearrange appointments—I’d wave my arms and she’d put the phone down and come to my side, then return to the phone when my contraction ended. I was a first-time mom, shocked and terrified at the intensity of labor, and she guided me through the journey with grace and kindness.

Me and my baby boy September 12, 2007.
Karen Carr was my midwife when I was left out in the cold by DC licensing rules.

So this is personal for me. Washington, DC, licenses only Certified Nurse Midwives (CNMs) to attend births at home. Due to a series of events during my pregnancy, my original midwife was not able to attend my birth, and I was left at 6 months pregnant without a birth attendant. I’d heard about Karen through the grapevine and drove up to Baltimore to meet her. I’ll be honest—I’ve always been one to follow rules, and I was nervous about Karen, who is a CPM, attending my birth illegally in DC. But I knew a homebirth was a smart and educated decision for me, and I knew Karen had the experience to help me along my path.

She didn’t flinch at the idea of being unlicensed in DC. She’d attended hundreds of births in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, often serving women who were risked out of natural birth options in birth centers and hospitals (such as twins, VBACs, and breech births). Quite simply, she went where families needed her.

Very tragically, one of those families lost a baby. And the state of Virginia charged Karen with involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment, with a possible prison term of 30 years. Yesterday she plead the charges down, and will not serve any jail time. She still faces proceedings for a Cease and Desist order in DC, but the nightmare in Virginia is over. She will not practice again in Virginia.

This is all very complicated. It’s sparked a renewed debate about the safety of homebirth, the education and licensing of midwives, and how women should approach childbirth. I’ve struggled at finding ways to talk about this case to friends and family who are not active in the natural birth world; “Why didn’t she just get licensed?” they ask, or “If the baby was breech, why didn’t the mother just go to the hospital?”

Part of me just wants to scream and shake my fists, while the rest of me knows that if I want to spread a message that women have the right to make their own healthcare decisions, and that certifying midwives may not be the answer we seek, I have to take a breath and have these conversations, as difficult as they can be.

At Karen’s hearing, the prosecutor implied that the mother in this case—whose baby was breech—did not have the right to birth at home, given her status as high-risk. This kind of language certainly raises alarm bells, and tells us that we need to keep paying attention to these issues, because they are not going away.

Andrea Kimball (whose baby is pictured above) writes of Karen: "Each day as I cared for the four beautiful children she helped into this world, she was constantly in my thoughts. Her care for me, her compassion, her wisdom, her sacrifices ... so that I could have the choice to birth in the way I knew to be best, in the place I knew to best, and with the people I knew to be best. I would trust Karen with my life and the life of my children."
Photo by Emily Sopha

For more information about Karen’s case, visit In Service to Women. Founded by some of Karen’s supporters, In Service to Women set up a legal defense fund for Karen and other midwives facing prosecution. You can donate to this important organization and follow them on Facebook. 

And Karen, if you read this as the dust settles—Thank you. Your care and support has empowered me as a person, a woman, and a mother. For the gifts you gave to me, and hundreds of others, thank you.

-Sarah, SQUAT Editor

Call for paper based media- books, zines, etc. for Summer 2011

OK- the spring issue just hit the virtual shelves yesterday but we are a forward thinking bunch round here.

SQUAT exists both digitally and in print. I love the fact that digital version of our publication is tree-less, accessible to a larger audience, and available at a lower cost. I also adore holding something in my hands and enjoying its permanence. The imagery is rich, pages can be taped to my wall, it can be packed in a box, left in a waiting room, or handed around to my friends. But let's face it, even Mothering Magazine has gone digital and left publishing (and magazine making) behind. Well, not us. From a financial perspective it makes sense to go paperless. SQUAT makes .60 more on digital copies than print copies of the magazine. But it isn't about the money, it is about the art of the page, and for now we are sticking to it. I am deeply grateful for the paper (trees who have given their lives) on which it is printed, and our continued existence in paper form definitely keeps me smiling.

To get down to the point- because of our love for the hand-held page the summer issue of SQUAT's Stuff We Love editorial piece will be focused on Print media! Think books (ie. paper based readers, super popular up until recently) zines, even newsletters. The key here is that it exists in paper form. SQUAT is radical yes, but old fashioned in some important ways.

Contact us at submissions@squatbirthjournal.org to find out how to have your work considered.

Cheers
Jeramie @ SQUAT

Why Homebirth?

Written by Laura Schuerwegen

A while back, I read this post by Lindsey Beyerstein on Majikthise. In the post, she wonders why anybody would want a homebirth. To be completely honest, a long time ago, in a dark era, before baby came, before I ever became a crunchy, natural birth-obsessed lactivist, there was a time I asked myself the same question. I had read stories of women birthing at home. I found it strange, and found it a very treehugging-people thing.

Becoming a mom changed my views in various departments and guess what, I too became the treehugging kind. But that's another topic altogether.

I had always wanted a natural birth, which to me was just an epidural-free hospital birth with a natural onset; and no lying down on my back. (Little did I know!), but the medical world decided differently for me. I was diagnosed with GD and went on insuline shots soon after. I was told I HAD to be induced (international protocol, yeah right) and spend my labouring attached to an IV and ended up pushing on my back. As a reward, my baby was taken from me to be put on the neonatal ward for the first 24 hours of her life.  Matters worsened even further as I had a serious bleeding little time after giving birth, so I was unable to get out of the bed to the NICU to see my baby.

In a way I am happy about my daughters birth, but if I could turn back time, I might have taken action to do it differently. So slowly, the idea of a homebirth sipped in.

Now why would I want a homebirth?

The first reason is to be in a familiar environment, that you can mold to your wants (dimmed light, some music maybe...) Not the cold and unfamiliar hospital setting.

Reason number two is to not to have to dump baby number one on the grandparents for 5 days. Frankly, I wouldn't know how that would work, because they are all still working, so we would have to get a sitter? Which would be difficult because we have no home of our own over there...

Number three is the greater liberty one has when birthing at home. You can eat and drink what you want (was I ever hungry with daughters birth!). You can move around the way you want. You can give birth in whatever position you like.

Four: There won't be a dozen people walking in and out the room. With dd, I suddenly looked up to find there were 6 or 7 people around me!

Five: If there is a way to escape the overmedicalisation of birth and the train of useless interventions, I'm there!

Six: All these things add up to the fact that you can only be more sereen, which can only make labour easier.

There are probably a dozen other reasons I could come up with why a homebirth would suit me better than a hospital birth, if I would think about it longer. But you get the picture. Now this doesn't mean I think everybody should have a homebirth, but I think it's nice to have a choice, and for it to be an informed one.

Some nice articles and blogposts along these lines:
Intuition in childbirth
On fasting during childbirth
Homebirth safety
Why get a midwife? "The midwife is (or should be) an expert in normal birth, while the obstetrician must be an expert in pathology."
Afterbirth high: why not to disturb mother and child in the hour following birth.
Management of third stage of labour

Laura Schuerwegen is a Belgian mother, wife and writer. She lives in Sub-Saharan Africa. You can find her thoughts on birth, parenting and life on Authentic Parenting.

ACNM Responds to Lancet Home Birth Editorial

by Holly Powell Kennedy, CNM, PhD, FACNM, FAAN,President, American College of Nurse-MidwivesOn the heels of a disturbing AJOG study on home birth, an editorial released today in The Lancet is fanning the flames of the home birth controversy that has been playing out in the media this summer. This morning I talked with an NPR reporter about ACNM’s take on the editorial. View her blog here, and

Time Out for Good News

by Melissa Garvey, ACNM Writer and EditorIt’s a busy week at ACNM. We’re getting ready to open registration for our Annual Meeting and staying on top of a flurry of midwifery advocacy. In the midst of the activity, it’s been especially gratifying to see a hefty amount of positive press about midwives pop up in my inbox each morning. It feels great to have a chance to pause and revel in interviews

Dear Today

This afternoon, ACNM sent this letter in response to The Today Show segment “The Perils of Midwifery” (later renamed “The Perils of Home Births” online). We encourage midwives and their supporters to send their letters to TODAY@nbcuni.com and to adapt ACNM's letter for their own use to share with coworkers and clients. Thank you to the many ACNM members who have already sent letters in support of

The Non-perils of Midwifery

Earlier, the Today Show aired a sad, unfortunate piece called “Perils of Midwifery.” (They later updated the Web segment title to "Perils of Home Births.") Not only does it follow the heart-breaking account of a birth gone horribly wrong; it exploits the couple’s tragedy—turning it into a sensationalized story that scares women and grossly misrepresents midwifery.The safety of midwife-attended

Are You In The Know?

Straight from the ACNM Communications Department, here are our top picks for happenings in midwifery for the week:Authors of an Obstetrics & Gynecology article say they encourage midwifery care and “support future randomized trials to compare” home vs. hospital births. The statement comes in response to a letter from certified nurse-midwife Judith Rooks and Our Bodies, Ourselves Executive

BJOG Study Finds Homebirth as Safe as Hospital Birth

A study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology found that planned homebirth is as safe as hospital birth for women with low-risk pregnancies. The study examined nearly 530,000 births in the Netherlands—a country where one third of women choose to give birth at home. Researchers note the importance of both highly trained midwives who know when to transfer a woman from home