Cultutal heritage in need of urgent safeguarding

Recently my attention was drawn to the UNESCO cultural project to develop a list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding.

Intangible cultural heritage is knowledge and skill that, unlike monuments or collections of clay pots, cannot be touched.  The UNESCO list includes a fascinating range of human activities, from Mongolian calligraphy, to Watertight-bulkhead technology of Chinese junks, to many examples of traditional music and singing.

Readers of this blog may already have joined the dots, and wondered if some aspect of 'midwifery', or 'spontaneous, unmedicated *normal* birth' (or both) could be considered an under intangible cultural heritage in need of urgent safeguarding?

Is the reality of normal (natural unmedicated physiological) birth something that can be called a cultural heritage, and something worth protecting? I say "YES".

My presentation at the Virtual International Day of the Midwife webinar

I am terribly disappointed that I was unable to properly participate in the webinar today. The facilitator Carole took over and read from my .ppt notes. Thanks Carole! I don't know why my microphone failed me, but I could not get a response, no matter what I tried.

I would like to share some of the presentation with my blog readers.
Two of the topics included in the presentation, Midwife-blogger, and Vernix can be found at another blog that I write, http://privatemidwiferyservices.blogspot.com/

There were some great messages sent to the classroom. Here are examples of comments (without names of the writers) on Vernix, followed by general discussion on blogging:

Baby ColdCream

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Super moisturizer! If only we could market it!

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something i did not expect to see on my baby! it was quite a shock but it truly is a miraculous substance!

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When I was working near Mexico ALL the women in the birth room would wipe it off the baby and on their own faces :) So sweet

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good for the crow's feet!
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My last bub had it allon his back, eww! :) I think they wiped it off my hosp babies. :)

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I am a student and other midwifery students are able to use it [a blog] for learning.

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Thirst for knowledge

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Lisa's blog is how I found out about true midwifery practice
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It is a way for those who aren't yet apprenticing to be exposed to information that they may not be able to have a hands-on to yet.

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comments are really mini conversations on a blog

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I'm not a midwife yet, just going to become...But already thinking about a blog that can really help in my future practice. I'm from Belarus and homebirth here is not legal and not that popular yet. Hope to change this situation.

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It creates a feeling of community to discover that someone somewhere else is interested in similar things

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i found blogs to be the only way to uncover the real effect of the new legislations

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I found it interesting to read overseas blogs by midwives who stated they would never work in Aus because of the ongoing battle between medical and midwives.

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As students, blogs from practising midwives are excellent sources of "unconventional" learning. Dont ever stop!!

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Thank you for the lovely comments on your slides, I'll be a reader from now on, if I can find you;-)

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I learn so much from blogs

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i have always been intimidated by blogging... but now it really doesn't seem so bad!

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me too

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You see, even though I wasn't able to do my talk, the audience took over and made the best of it! Thanks to all who participated.

Midwifery knowledge

click to enlarge

One of my current projects is to lead the review of the Maternity Coalition INFOSHEETs - see the APMA blog for more detail. I also headed the previous working group which put together these information sheets in about 2006. Our aim was, and is, to provide reliable information that supports informed decision making for women and midwives who seek to promote normal physiological birthing, and to work in harmony with the natural processes in pregnancy, birth the perinatal period.

It's a big project, and the working group is asked to consider current evidence and practice, and check the information provided on the INFOSHEET. Recently we completed the first to be reviewed, A Baby's Transition From the Womb to the Outside World, (see jpeg file above) and are now working on The Third Stage of labour. Unfortunately I do not know how to link a .pdf file to this blog, so if you would like a copy of the revised document emailed, please send a request to me joy[at]aitex.com.au

A midwife commented to me that "what we need to say loud and clear is that we use Midwifery Knowledge which is very different and definitely not less than obstetric and surgical belief."

Yes, I (sort of) agree – but remember that ‘midwifery knowledge’ is not well defined, as is also the case with some 'medical' practices, or 'alternative health' knowledge. If our knowledge embraces truth, it's true regardless of whose it is. Midwifery knowledge should not belong to midwives only - it should be common knowledge.

If 'midwifery knowledge' is to be accepted as reliable it has to be well articulated and put out to scrutiny. I believe that’s what these infosheets are trying to do.

Management (or non-management) of the Third Stage (S3) and the time interval from birth to clamping of the umbilical cord are two examples of what I would call 'midwifery knowledge', compared with rituals that have been widely accepted by modern obstetrics and midwifery, without any evidence to support them.

I am excited to see changes in the mainstream maternity attitudes to time of clamping the cord, and protocols for active management of S3. This has been in response to evidence, just as the virtual mandating of active management of S3 in hospitals was in response to flawed evidence.

We must continually engage in critical review of all that we do. Many hospital ‘guidelines’ require [that’s an oxymoron I know] immediate clamping of the cord, and none of them that I have seen have a reference linked to it.

Watch the APMA blog in the coming weeks for developments in the revision of this INFOSHEET. This is all voluntary work, and it is put out in the public domain to encourage involvement of anyone who is interested.

Today’s Age newspaper has an article about a research program for which ethics approval is being sought for a cord blood trial, and the relationship between a baby receiving its own placental transfusion and cerebral palsy. There are many questions that this research, if well done, may begin to provide answers to. The proliferation of private facilities that collect and store cord blood, without any reliable evidence that the baby will benefit from it - and without any evidence that the baby has not been harmed by the withholding of that placental blood at the time of birth - is evidence that many parents have taken a punt on this issue.

Your comments are welcome.