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Monday, October 05, 2009

Lamaze Conference

We're home, both kids are sleeping, and it's time to update about the Lamaze conference. I met several bloggers face-to-face for the first time, including Amy Romano of Science & Sensibility, Mom's Tinfoil Hat, and Reality Rounds. I also met some amazing LDS women at the conference. We had lots to talk about and I left wishing that we all lived closer. One of them had an idea for a book that I loved and now I have yet another project I'd love to work on--once I get my other ones done, that is.

Can I just say that I love Lamaze's focus and mission? The Lamaze Six Healthy Birth Practices, all based on the best available evidence, should be what every woman in labor receives. They are a great place to start in our efforts to improve maternity care: simple, clear, evidence-based, and universally applicable to all laboring women.


Dio was a real trooper and made it through almost the entire four days with very little fussing. By the end, though, I could tell he was really bored. He'd played with all of his toys, he'd been in the same rooms for days on end, and he was ready for it all to end! After the last speaker, we went into our hotel room and he had a nice long afternoon nap and we all felt better after that.

A camera phone picture of Dio on a makeshift "bed" (two chairs pushed together). He had just woken up from a nap.

Here are some things I noticed at the Lamaze conference.
  • Widespread frustration with the lack of evidence-based care at hospitals
  • Sentiment that often the only way to have a normal birth nowadays is to go to a birthing center or have a home birth
  • Frustration that childbirth educators can talk to pregnant women, get them informed of their options and the best evidence-based research, help them make a birth plan—and then it all falls apart in the hospital and they keep seeing these “train wreck” births where the woman gets every intervention she didn't want and the woman seems stunned by how nothing she asked for happened
  • A desire to have physicians working on the same page as them, but a deep cynicism that that would ever become a reality—sense of hostility between CBEs, doulas, and other birth workers and physicians/hospitals, even as they would like to work cooperatively, not antagonistically
  • Frustration with hospital protocols, routines, and guidelines that hamper what women are “allowed” to do and often compromise good mother-friendly and baby-friendly care
  • A sense that we’re still facing the same problems and frustrations we were 2 or 3 decades ago, that little has changed overall
  • Agreement that many hospital-based providers have never even seen a truly normal, natural, physiological birth at all (and many of the attendees, themselves nurses, agreed on this one)
It's getting late and I feel like my brain is shutting down. Read more specifics about the conference by Mom's Tinfoil Hat's Highlights of the Lamaze Conference and Reality Rounds' Reflections

9 comments:

  1. It was wonderful meeting you and Dio.

    I completely agree with your assessment of the prevailing themes.

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  2. It was a real treat meeting you and seeing you receive the Safe and Healthy Birth Media Award for all you do through your blog! I, too, am just home from a full day traveling, all the way to Seattle, and my head is spinning, but it was a great conference full of info! Looking forward to reading more of what you write, and if you ever get to Seattle, do let me know!

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  3. "Frustration that childbirth educators can talk to pregnant women, get them informed of their options and the best evidence-based research, help them make a birth plan—and then it all falls apart in the hospital and they keep seeing these “train wreck” births where the woman gets every intervention she didn't want and the woman seems stunned by how nothing she asked for happened"

    see. this right here is what frightens me so much this pregnancy.
    Everything is up in the air as to where I'll be birthing (home or hospital) due to the circumstances surrounding it.
    And I'm frightened that if I do need to birth at the hospital that nothing I ask for will happen.

    I'm pretty laid back, and I don't mind certain things, but I don't want a pushy doctor/nurse that I will have to fight with during labor JUST so I can have a normal, intervention free, vaginal birth.
    One that I've experienced twice prior.

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  4. mommymichael, that is what a good doula is for. It's really difficult to be an affective advocate for yourself while you are in labor. Good luck.

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  5. Thing is, advocating for a woman/protecting a woman/trying to speak up for her wishes are exactly things that get doulas their bad name! I would of course really want someone to be able to do this for me if I had to give birth in a hospital--but as a doula, I know that it's not really what we're supposed to be doing and can sometimes get us kicked out because the doctor or nurse thinks we're overstepping our boundaries. It's really a tough place to be in for both women and their doulas.

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  6. Great post. I started my online store because my doctors really didn't help me with the comfort aspect of pregnancy. I then hired a doula to act as my advocate in the labor and delivery room. While I ended up having an emergency c-section it did cause me to start my online store: www.bellybuttonboutique.com to help other women throughout their pregnancies and after.

    Second pregnancy, I wanted a VBAC, I got it, but with a different doctor. Going through what I went through the first time, I knew that I needed a doctor that was going to be on my same page.

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  7. It was such a pleasure to get to know you, Rixa! And I love that the picture from my phone made it onto your blog! :)

    Really, there's nothing like connecting in person with people passionate about the same things you are. I'm so glad I helped welcome you into the Lamaze community.

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  8. Hi Rixa!
    It really was great meeting you in person. *Having lunch on the grass, with me explaining my skirt with the built-in Spanks. Remember? :)*
    I also agree with your themes of the conference. I loved the lecture on C-Sections on Demand that we both attended. It gave me a lot to think about.

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  9. Hi Rixa, there's a blogpost online about Henci Goer's daughter's birth that, I think, says it all about the impossibility of getting a decent birth in hosp. If the woman who wrote "Thinking Woman's Guide" and has all the research at her fingertips can't doula her own daughter through the hosp then who can?

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