WA: Time for hospital water births

For further information on home birth or water birth, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.

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WA maternity hospitals should allow water births as part of a more flexible approach to cater for women disgruntled with mainstream services, a report into the safety of WA home births has found.

An independent review by Sydney obstetrician Michael Nicholl and professor of midwifery Caroline Homer has found that home births in general are not riskier than hospital births, but calls for tighter scrutiny to make childbirth safer, particularly for high risk babies.

The report was commissioned by the WA Health Department after a series of apparent deaths among home births. It found that while 18 babies with planned home births died in the review period of 2000-2007, none was reported in 2006 and 2007.

… It calls for an urgent review of the State’s home birth policy developed in 2001 and warns that home births are more likely to become unsafe if they are marginalised and out of the mainstream services.

The review found some women were opting for home births because they had limited choices in traditional maternity units, including access to water births, which were often discouraged by hospitals, and women wanting to have a normal delivery after a previous caesarean.

“It seems apparent that the maternity systems are, for some women, too medicalised and restrictive, and do not meet their needs,” the report found.

Professor Homer said when home births were well supported they were a safe option for some but not all women. “Our report does not support that home births in general are unsafe but we need to have the right mechanisms in place,” she said. “We need continued education and more checks and balances.

“What many women really want is continuity of care and services close to their home. They don’t necessarily want a home birth but they want all the things that they perceive home birth women get.” …

It’ll be great if waterbirths can be given the go-ahead in WA, as currently there are no hospitals in WA that support water births. But … having a waterbirth policy does not mean that women will be able to birth in the water. Restrictive policies around fetal monitoring often mean that women are not “allowed” to labour and birth in water. When you remove women who are:
over 42 weeks
under 37 weeks
VBAC
prolonged ruptured membranes
being augmented or induced with syntocinon
having twins
baby ? too small
gestational diabetes
hypertension
any bleeding in pregnancy
long labour
meconium in the waters
having an epidural
had pethidine or morphine

and anything else you can think of, you will see that very few women are actually able to labour and birth in the water. Some hospitals in Sydney offer waterbirths, but only if you don’t fall into one of the above categories, and only if a midwife is on duty who is comfortable with waterbirth. If water birth is important to you, the best way to facilitate this is to book a private midwife for a home birth.

Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448

Tags: Babies, birth, Birth choices, continuity of care, Home birth, hospital birth, intervention, midwife, Midwifery, Midwifery services, Normal Birth, Obstetrics, Public and private hospitals, women's rights

“Eating For Two” Has Consequences For Mom And Baby

For further information about nutrition in pregnancy, contact Melissa Maimann at Essential Birth Consulting.

Article

There is more medical evidence that pregnant women should steer clear of advice to “eat for two.”

Alison Stuebe, M.D. … reviewed data for more than 1,300 women and found that those who consumed extra calories … were more likely to gain more than is recommended during pregnancy that’s 35 pounds or more for a woman with a normal body mass index, or BMI.

Stuebe found that eating an extra 500 calories a day increased the odds of gaining too much by 10 percent. “That’s the number of calories in a muffin or a bagel with cream cheese at Dunkin Donuts,” Stuebe says. “It doesn’t take much for the calories to add up.”

Gaining too much weight is linked with complications at birth, such as pre-eclampsia or requiring a C-section, as well as higher odds that both mom and child will be obese later in life.

… Several eating habits reduced moms’ risk of gaining too much. Women with vegetarian diets in early pregnancy were half as likely to gain an unhealthy amount of weight, and those who exercised vigorously for a half hour a day reduced their risk by 20 percent. The researchers also found that consuming more monounsaturated fat, found in olive oil and nuts, was linked with a lower risk of excessive weight gain.

… It might be obvious that a healthy diet and exercise reduce the odds of gaining too much weight during pregnancy, but more and more women are doing just that. Part of the problem is that providers don’t counsel moms on weight gain, Stuebe says. Other studies have shown that moms who get advice from their doctor or midwife are more likely to gain in a healthy range.

… Eating fried foods “was a huge predictor of excessive weight gain,” …

Melissa Maimann, Essential Birth Consulting 0400 418 448

Tags: Babies, birth, Complicated pregnancy or birth