by thebirthhour | Aug 20, 2016 | Birth, Blog, Pregnancy
MTHFR and Pregnancy
My personal experience with MTHFR started in 2014 when my best friend lost her son due to stillbirth at 34 weeks gestation. There was no explanation for this loss after a healthy pregnancy up till this point. She just noticed reduced movement one day and when she went in to get checked there was no heartbeat. I stood by her side in that moment and our lives went into a tailspin. In the months following her son Greyson’s death, and many many appointments and tests later we found out that she had a gene mutation called MTHFR which we promptly started referring to as the “Mother F*cker” gene mutation because the problems it causes make it a total Mother-Effer!
Since learning all of this, my friend has gone on to have two healthy pregnancies and now has healthy 4 year old and 2 year old boys, but the journey was really hard and we’ve all learned a lot along the way.
What is MTHFR?
MTHFR is a gene mutation that affects the way your body processes folate. Most people don’t even know they have this gene even though it’s estimated that 40% of individuals do. It often doesn’t present any obvious problems but many woman that have this mutation often find out during pregnancy and reproduction when faced with repeated miscarriage or stillbirth. Even then, many women with MTHFR mutations have multiple successful pregnancies before they discover that they have an MTHFR mutation, they often discover it after it’s too late and they’ve suffered the unbearable loss of a baby.
Blood Clotting caused by MTHFR
Research has shown that the MTHFR mutation can cause blood clots during pregnancy between the growing placenta and uterine wall, in an area called “low flow maternal-placental interface”, which prevents transport of nutrients to the baby. It can occur early in the pregnancy when the fetus is super vulnerable causing repeated miscarriages or later in the pregnancy when a clot forms in the placenta or umbilical cord and causes stillbirth.
MTHFR and Blood Thinners
Depending on which type of mutation of MTHFR you have, your doctor may prescribe a daily baby aspirin or a more extreme protocol of daily injections of a blood thinner called Lovenox. If you know you have MTHFR and are pregnant than you should already be seeing a maternal fetal medicine (MFM) specialist who will discuss your specific mutation and whether you need injections or not.
With her subsequent pregnancies, my friend ended up needing Lovenox and started giving herself a daily shot in her abdomen every day around 8 weeks and continued until several weeks after her baby was born. She saved all of the syringes and took this amazing picture with her rainbow baby when he was a newborn.
Folic Acid
Most pregnant women know that taking a prenatal vitamin is common practice, but for moms with MTHFR, who process folate differently, it’s important to take a prenatal vitamin that uses methylfolate instead of synthetic folic acid which can be harder to find (here’s the one my friend took).
Other Complications
Since excess homocysteine is a common side effect of MTHFR and high homocysteine can cause complications like pre-eclampsia and miscarriage it is important to monitor these levels although it’s been pointed out that complications can occur as a result of MTHFR even if your homocysteine levels remain normal.
Hope for the Future
I know all of can be really scary and confusing and is often amplified by the emotional trauma and devastation of having already suffered one or more losses but it often helps moms to know that there is hope and that many women with diagnosed and treated MTHFR have gone on to have healthy pregnancies and babies and when you are holding your rainbow baby in yours arms, everything will be worth it.
by thebirthhour | Feb 25, 2016 | Birth, Blog
My family of five and I live in sunny central Florida. But we were true Mississippians until our move farther south almost two years ago. To be an aware Mississippian is a special kind of conundrum – constantly battling the horrors of our past, the realities of our modern life and our healthy dreams for the future.
If you happen to be a Mississippian passionate about solving many of our social ills through midwifery care, you are left with the empty shell of a once vibrant midwifery community numbering over 4,000 self-identified midwives according to a 1920’s survey which was the impetus for the first and only regulation of non-nurse midwives in Mississippi.
Our traditional midwives were even trained and supported by the Department of Health. For reasons I can only pinpoint to the growing greed and capitalization of our high birth rates, midwives were systematically targeted and eliminated from the rosters until Mississippi’s midwifery registration was abolished and forgotten. Mississippi midwives were driven underground and very few babies were born in the comfort of their own home with the assistance of qualified midwives.
This is not a unique story. It simultaneously happened across the country as birth became big business and midwives became public policy enemy to the riches and power of hospital birth. Even though this story began to play out generations before I was born, those political power plays affected the births of my children and ultimately drove us 4 hours north of our home to birth with Licensed Midwives – a designation that does not exist in my home state.
Our youngest son was born at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. For three weeks that hot summer, we lived in America’s oldest intentional community. In other words, our son was born on a hippie commune. In 1970, sixty school buses left San Francisco and caravanned to Tennessee where land was cheap and people were nice.
Ina May Gaskin, America’s mother of midwifery, began learning the art of midwifery as she and other women attended births in the caravan for those who wanted to birth powerfully at home with their partners rather than drugged and alone in a hospital.
Eventually, the traveling troupe of buses landed in Tennessee and began working hard, living off the land, and making lots of babies. Ina May and many other ladies threw themselves into midwifery and the modern American homebirth was born. The Farm Midwifery Center continues to serve women and babies with a low-tech, high touch midwifery model of care.
The midwifery model of care is a rare jewel in our culture, exemplified at The Farm:
The Midwives Model of Care™ is based on the fact that pregnancy and birth are normal life events.
- monitoring the physical, psychological and social well-being of the mother throughout the childbearing cycle
- providing the mother with individualized education, counseling, and prenatal care, continuous hands-on assistance during labor and delivery, and postpartum support
- minimizing technological interventions and
- identifying and referring women who require obstetrical attention to doctors.
I saw my local obstetrician for the majority of my prenatal visits leading up to our arrival at The Farm. After so many visits to a cold and sterile OB/GYN clinic, I was ready for my midwives and their model of care. No more 10 minute doctor visits. No more refusing standard interventions. No more institutional care.
My midwifery prenatals lasted up to an hour long and there was no doubt in our minds that this was the right decision for our family. Midwifery care is palpable. See the faces of the motherbaby. Hear the laughter behind closed doors. Listen to women share their birth stories — so similar but all so different. Watch babies breastfeed with confidence. Know your midwife understands the mechanics and the psyche of laboring women.
This was the kind of care I craved during my pregnancy. This was the kind of care that made it worthwhile to be away from our home for three weeks that hot summer the The Farm birth center as we transitioned from a family of four to a family of five.
After an amazing birth experience at The Farm, the day to head home with our newborn finally arrived and my midwife remarked that hopefully we won’t need to birth at The Farm with future babies. Not a flippant remark, this simple statement meant so much to me. It thrust me into a daydream to live in a state where midwives are respected, covered by insurance without huge hassles, welcomed to hospitals where emergency and non-emergency transfers are seamlessly and respectfully conducted and most of all, a daydream where midwives live and practice in my community.
With our move to Florida, that daydream came true. Licensed Midwives, freestanding birth centers and even the great equalizer of Medicaid coverage is a reality in Florida. Now my daydream is not for me but for families across the country to have unbarred access to midwifery care.
Written by Birth Hour Mama, Laura Dearman
by thebirthhour | Jan 25, 2016 | Birth, Blog
Preparing for an Orgasmic Birth
When I was pregnant with my third child, a planned homebirth, I was actively seeking out positive birth stories. You would find me on the internet each night googling phrases like ‘pain-free birth’, ‘empowering birth’, ‘natural drug-free birth’ . I knew how important it was to surround myself with inspiring birth stories that lifted my spirits.
It was during one of these late night Google love-ins that I came across an article about an Orgasmic Birth. Umm… I’m sorry, a what? A little more research and I quickly found myself on the amazing Orgasmic Birth website founded by inspirational international childbirth advocate, Debra Pascali-Bonaro. After devouring the insights and birth stories I found there, I decided I had a new request to add to existing birth plan. I wanted an orgasmic birth. Oh yeah, baby!
How to Have an Orgasmic Birth
Now wanting to experience an orgasm in birth might sound totally kooky. I mean, we live in a culture where birth is depicted to only ever be excruciating, and birthing mamas are screaming out-of-control messes. And I had previously been through a tough birth – I was induced with my first child and, believe me, that experience was definitely less than orgasmic. But I also believe in the power of women’s bodies to birth their babies beautifully, especially with the right support, in the right environment. And I had experienced a pain-free natural birth with my second child so having a pleasurable orgasmic birth seemed like the next natural step. I was willing to give it a red hot go.
Orgasmic Birth Stories
I began seeking out other orgasmic birth stories and immersing myself in only positive birth vibes. I explored the work of Dr Sarah Buckley and the connection between oxytocin – the hormone of love – and the natural flow of labour, allowing birth to unfold without disturbance. I began to understand the power of connection between a birthing mother and her lover, and was mesmerized by stories of couples who used nipple stimulation, passionate kisses, hugs and laughter to birth with pleasure. Of women who touched, stroked and stimulated their vaginas during labour, helping them to feel connected, stay in their bodies, and bring their feminine energy to their births.
My Orgasmic Birth Story
And then it was my turn. This birth was intense. Fast, strong, regular surges were soon established. When my baby decided to initiate labour, she meant business. After a walk around the block to breath through my initial twinges, I soon needed my man beside me, supporting me through contractions. I was labouring in our bedroom, leaning over the bedside table and I needed him right behind me, pushing down hard on my hips and lower back, as I pushed back during contractions. The counter-balance of his strength on my hips and the force of my surges made me feel connected and protected. At one point when he went to open the front door as the midwives arrived, I lost my cool. I couldn’t do it without him, he HAD to stay right beside me. I needed his masculine energy. I needed the circle the two of us were creating.
Orgasm During Birth
And there in our bedroom, in that intimate setting with just my lover and I (our midwives gifted us privacy by waiting and listening from outside of the open door), I could feel an energy building in my body. My surges started to get really intense and I distinctly remember thinking ‘Woah, this is right on the edge now. It is either about to get really painful, or I can dig deeper’. So I dug deeper. I connected in with my baby, I used the energy from my lover’s hands, and I breathed down low into my womb. My sounds started to change, my moans became less guttural and primal, and more pleasurable and ecstatic.
For the next 2-3 contractions, every fibre of my body was tingling, the waves felt all bubbly as they rippled through my body. I was on a total sensual high. My womb was buzzing. It was different to a sexual orgasm, it was much more of a sensual experience. A feminine, arousing, delicious orgasmic birth.
And just 2.5 hours after the first contraction, our daughter was born in ecstasy into her father’s arms (you can read my full birth story homebirth: My Rockstar Orgasmic Birth or listen to it on this episode of The Birth Hour).
And if I can do it, Mama, so can you. Stay open to welcoming pleasure into your birth. Understand the importance of privacy and intimacy and connection. And trust that your body and your baby know what to do.
Shalome is the Editor of the Rockstar Birth Magazine – empowering pregnant mamas to rock their birth, their way. Find out how you can birth like a Rockstar at www.rockstarbirthmagazine.com, on Facebook (www.facebook.com/RockstarBirth) and Instagram (@rockstarbirthmag).
by thebirthhour | Nov 24, 2015 | Birth, Blog
What is a natural birth?
According to wikipedia, Natural birth is childbirth without routine medical interventions, particularly anesthesia. So for many women, natural birth is the choice to go through labor and delivery without the help of medications, particularly pain relievers like epidurals.
Others take the definition of natural birth a step further and consider it birth without the use of any artificial medical interventions like continuous fetal monitoring, precautionary antibiotics or episiotomies. Natural birth also can be taking an approach to birth which allows the mother to listen to her body during labor and cope with the contractions in any way she is comfortable.
Coping with Natural Birth
Some methods that women choose to cope are Hypnobirthing or Hypnobabies, The Bradley Method, moaning/breathing through contractions, visualization, counter-pressure, use of a birthing tub, use of a rebozo, birthing ball or birthing stool.
While the term natural birth seems to have been given the official definition of a completely med-free and intervention-free birth, in today’s highly medicalized birth process many women consider a natural birth to simply apply to a vaginal birth. After listening to many birth stories of all shapes and sizes, I tend to agree with this definition.
Interventions in Natural Birth
So many women work so hard to have a natural vaginal birth and are often required to make use of medical interventions in order to avoid a cesarean section. I don’t think that just because a women had to have continuous monitoring or pitocin because she wasn’t progressing quickly enough (by the hospital’s standards) that she should be denied the right to deem her baby’s birth a natural birth.
My mother had me and my three siblings in the 80s and 90s when an episiotomy was just a given in hospitals. I’m pretty sure that after baby number three, she probably didn’t need to be cut but because it was commonplace and likely her doctor’s policy she never questioned it. My mom never had any pain meds and had always told me that she’d had natural births. Looking back at the pictures I can see that she had IVs hooked up to her and monitors and had episiotomies so many today may not consider that a natural birth but it will always been an empowering memory for her that she had all four of her children naturally.
I had two homebirths and most people consider that about as natural as you can get when it comes to birth but I still ended up needed a few interventions with my first birth and was very thankful to have had a midwife with the skills to do things like break my waters (after a full 24 hours of labor), give me a shot of pitocin when I was bleeding too much and finally go in and manually remove my placenta when the bleeding wouldn’t stop. You better believe that after that extremely hard work, I would’ve punched anyone who told me that I didn’t have a natural birth due to those things.
Can Cesarean Sections be considered Natural Birth?
The one type of birth that most people would agree is “unnatural” is a cesarean section but I would argue than many many women labor for hours and even days naturally before they ultimately end up with a C section. Should those women who not only coped with the intense pain and hard work of labor be denied the use of the term natural birth if they choose to use it? In many cases these mothers are likely the strongest of all as they endured not only the natural birth process but followed it up with a major abdominal surgery! They are then expected to recover and care for their baby in the same ways as a mom who had a short and uncomplicated natural birth.
I also love that the concept of a gentle cesarean is being implemented more and more in some places. The main idea behind a gentle cesarean (or family centered cesarean) is to let moms see their babies being born through a clear drape if they want and to place newborns immediately on the mother’s chest for skin-to-skin which helps promote mother-baby bonding and breastfeeding.
So, I’m curious what all of you think… what do you consider to be a natural birth?
by thebirthhour | Oct 8, 2015 | Birth, Blog, Pregnancy
Who is Ina May Gaskin?
So many of my podcast guests have mentioned Ina May Gaskin and her influence on their decision to have a natural birth. Ina May is a midwife who founded one of the first out of hospital birth centers in the United States called The Farm located in Summertown, Tennessee.
Spiritual Midwifery
In 1971, Ina May wrote her first book, Spiritual Midwifery.
According to Carol Lorente, this first publication was “considered a seminal work, it presented pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding from a fresh, natural and spiritual perspective, rather than the standard clinical viewpoint. In homebirth and midwifery circles, it made her a household name, and a widely respected teacher and writer.”
Due to the impact of this publication, many credit Ina May Gaskin with the emergence of direct-entry midwives, i.e. Midwives who do not become nurses prior to entering midwifery. Once Ina May became a household name in birth circles she was asked to speak at midwifery events around the world and is admired by many natural birthing practitioners.
Ina May Gaskin’s Guide to Childbirth
In 2003, Ina May published her second book about birth and midwifery called Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. This book is a comprehensive guide to the benefits of natural childbirth and focuses on teaching women to trust their bodies and the mind-body connection associated with giving birth without interventions.
In addition to giving pointed guidance on the stages of labor and how to cope naturally with the pain associated with labor, Ina May Gaskin shares the real birth stories of many women who coped with labor and delivered their babies naturally.
She discusses the various ways to reduce the pain of labor naturally including massage and touch as well as the potential to make birth pleasurable with stories of women who have had orgasmic births.
Ina May Gaskin and Natural Birth
Ina May analyzes the various interventions that are common in modern day birth such as episiotomy, induction and cesareans then offers guidance on how to avoid some of those interventions by coping with labor naturally and allowing for natural progression.
Ina May encourages some key ways to assist women in having natural births such as creating a safe place to labor where women can be comfortable and are given the space to let things progress safely according to their body’s needs.
While Ina May Gaskin is most known for her midwifery practice at The Farm and her support of midwives attending home births and birth center births, her book also offers great advice for how to increase your chances of a natural birth in a hospital setting with an OB in attendance.
Ina May Gaskin and Postpartum
Ina May is also passionate about Postpartum support for women and discusses ways to decrease postpartum bleeding and offers support for the emotional aspects of the postpartum period including a Lying in period for mother and baby after the birth.
by thebirthhour | Oct 5, 2015 | Birth, Blog, Postpartum
BWF Conference Speakers
This past weekend I attended a Birth Without Fear Conference here in Austin. I honestly didn’t really know what to expect but I had met January, the founder of Birth Without Fear at an event in Portland and really enjoyed her talk and I’m a huge fan of Birth Without Fear so I knew that this event would be wonderful.
Ever since having babies I’ve been really passionate about birth and when I was pregnant I read nearly every birth story on Birth Without Fear. BWF was actually a huge inspiration to me for starting The Birth Hour Podcast so it was great to be around so many women (and a few men!) that were passionate about birth and making informed choices regarding the births of our children.
The morning started out with a talk by Natalie Hodson who is an amazing mama that works in the fitness industry. While she is really passionate about fitness, her message is so much deeper than that. She promotes self care and self love and spoke about eliminating shame and guilt from our daily lives.
Over the past year, I’ve built up my fair share of mom guilt and it was so nice to hear Natalie talk about how she’s gone through that journey and come out on the other side. She also gave some really actionable advice regarding self love. She talked about taking tiny steps like looking in the mirror and acknowledging the areas that you typically think negative thoughts about and just being neutral. For me, that’s looking at my tummy pooch and just thinking “oh well” instead of “that’s gross”.
Once you can get to a place of neutral acceptance, you can move on to actual compliments for yourself. This was a little bit of an ah-ha moment for me because I’ve always heard that you should look in the mirror and say nice things about yourself (which Natalie spoke about as well), but let’s face it, some days you just aren’t up for that and being able to just acknowledge that it is what it is and get the self hate out of the equation is really freeing.
Birth Without Fear Conference Speaker Brandon Harshe
After Natalie’s talk, January’s husband Brandon spoke about his experiences as a father of six. He talked about their struggles as a young family and the emotional aspects of having kids and the potential for postpartum depression for dads as well. I love the campaign that BWF has started on Instagram called #dontforgetdads because there are so many outlets and support systems online for moms and finding something comparable for dads is not easy.
It was also really refreshing to hear a dad talk about his flaws, my favorite was when Brandon talked about how after bedtime if one of the kids gets up he “turns into a demon ‘GO TO BED!!'” I mean, who hasn’t been there? Brandon and January appear to be such an ideal couple and amazing parents on social media and when my husband and I are in the throws of the bedtime routine it’s nice to know even the most ideal parents have been there too.
BWF Earth Mama Harmony Circle
After lunch we participated in the Earth Mama Harmony circle. We were assigned to a table with six women we had never met and were told to just be completely open and vulnerable because we were in a no-judgement place. Each woman talked about things like their births, breastfeeding and overall journey as a mother. It was really eye-opening to hear how each woman felt emotionally about their birth and how the people in their daily lives had acted towards them based on their birth decisions. I still cannot wrap my head around why people are so damn judgey when it comes to birth choices. My baby, my vagina. Stay out of it.
The day wrapped up with January telling the birth stories of her six children and it was so wonderful to hear them told in her own words. It was such an awesome affirmation for me of why I started The Birth Hour because even though I still love reading birth stories, hearing the emotion from a mama as she tells it out loud is truly remarkable.
January has seriously had just about every type of birth a woman can have and fought hard to get to a place where she was able to freely make her own informed decisions with her husband about HER OWN births. As she said, “it shouldn’t have to take six births to get here.” She is such an inspiration not only for topics surrounding birth but just as an example of a woman who has her shit together and makes no excuses for anyone. I feel super lucky to have been able to attend this Birth Without Fear Conference and secretly hope to run into January at Whole Foods on a regular basis.
