thoughts on motherhood

Women contemplating motherhood face enormous challenges.  Pregnancy and childbirth are just the beginning.

Many Australian women tell me that they are angry when the 'system' dictates what they can and can't do.
"It's my body; my baby", they say.
"Surely I know what's best for myself and my baby!"
"Surely you're not allowed to not allow me?"

Women also tell me that they have deep sadness as they remember and reflect upon their experiences in birth.  "I know I needed a repeat caesarean.  But I felt like a piece of meat on a slab.  My baby was taken to the Nursery, while I was in Recovery.  I didn't see him for a couple of hours, and that still makes me sad.  I was afraid for him, and wanted him with me.  If I could have had a natural birth, I would have."

Natural birth has become the ultimate, longed-for experience in childbirth.

Unmedicated, physiological birth; uninterrupted, ecstatic, even orgasmic.
No clamping of the umbilical cord.  No separation of mother and baby - at all!  Not just the first hour, but as long as it takes.

Achieved by only a few.

Who wouldn't want to join that exclusive club?

Not only does the mother appreciate the physical, emotional and hormonal bonuses of working in harmony with amazing natural processes in birth, but the baby also joins in, without any prompting, in this unique primal dance.  


The point I am trying to make, and the main reason I am writing this post, is that there's a problem - women can't pick and choose their maternity journey.  My comments may seem predictable.  How many times have I written this sort of thing, since I started blogging in 2006?  

• The choices or decisions in maternity are quite simple - to intervene or not.  The biological processes in pregnancy, birth and lactation will continue as time passes.  
• Once interventions have occurred it may be difficult to return to the natural, healthy process.
• Undesired outcomes including death may occur, with or without medical or surgical interventions.

I have heard childbirth educators who teach that women who really want natural birth need to surround themselves with a team of supporters who will not waver in their support.  "The chain is only as strong as its weakest link," they say.  "If your supporters (including friends, husband, photographer, carer for children, doula, midwives) stop believing in you, they will cause you to give up just when you should be strong!"

This sort of advice is appalling.

Noone can predict a childbearing journey.  Natural birth is not something that can be ordered like a saleable commodity.  Women can't pick and choose.  A woman's pain in labour may be an indication of serious complication which, if nothing is done to relieve it, has catastrophic consequences.  A woman who shuts down her own responses to pain, and blocks the empathy and care of her supporters is ignoring natural processes at her peril.  A midwife who is disengaged, and sits on her hands rather than guide a woman on in labour, or, make the call to escalate care, is negligent or incompetent.  This might be as 'simple' as, without words, guiding a labouring woman to change her position, thereby moving from the transition to the second stage.  It may be as profound as telling the woman that you are now advising medical intervention, with all that that means.


Advice on childbirth has multiplied in recent years, with social media and internet communications.  A childbirth blog that has (literally) thousands of 'like's, tells us that "The legal authority in childbirth lies with the woman giving birth, not the providers ..." [link]

That's nonsense. 

There is a legal and ethical 'duty of care' that providers (midwife or doctor or other health care providers) are required to take very seriously.   It's an ongoing responsibility that the care provider carries as long as they are in attendance or other relationship such as in phone contact with the recipient of care.

This doesn't mean that all advice or decisions by providers are necessarily 'best practice' or acceptable to the woman.  Some providers maintain practices that are out of date, and believe they should intervene when others consider the progress to be uncomplicated and not requiring intervention.  Some providers (midwives and doctors) take large caseloads that result in cutting corners and burnout.  Human error is a constant threat.  These factors are balanced, to a degree, by the legal right of a competent woman to decline any intervention on herself (but not necessarily on her baby after birth).

We can talk about the legal and ethical standard for informed consent, but the hospitals/doctors/midwives know that they are much more likely to be defending their actions to their indemnity provider or the coroner or AHPRA.  


And there's the uneven playing field. The provider does *it* many times every day, while the woman is doing it for the first (or whatever) time - and takes the 'outcomes' (including pelvic floor damage, surgical wounds, infection, and many other types of morbidity, not to mention mortality) home.
 

Becoming a mother - bearing and nurturing a child - is an awesome and privileged position for any woman to be in.  Our bodies are wonderfully made.  

But, we can't pick and choose what happens in our maternity journeys.

The most healthy and 'low risk' pregnancy can suddenly and unpredictably be subject to life-threatening complications.  Alternatively, a woman with recognised risk factors can proceed without any complication.

Decision-making in the childbearing continuum is an ongoing process.  The woman who can trust her care provider enough to challenge or seek further discussion when any decision point has been reached is, I believe, in the best position.  The woman who believes she is alone, and has to be strong  and resist intervention or professional advice 'no matter what', is likely to be overwhelmed with fear and may make decisions that are not in her best interest.

working in harmony with great natural processes

back-yard bounty

Tomatoes, peaches, figs - summer bounty from our little garden yesterday.  The tomatoes are eaten fresh, and if there are any extras I will blanch and freeze them for later use.  The figs are either eaten fresh, or find their way into Noel's delicious fig jam (which is handed out in small jars to family members and special friends).  The peaches have done well this year, despite the few that have gone to support the local possum population, and the visiting rosella family (see pic below), and the few grubs that find their way into the fruit because we don't spray.  For many years now we have enjoyed poached peaches from the freezer, year-round, as our main dessert fruit.

The natural processes I am referring to include the wind and rain and sun; the soil; and the little group of brown-feathered cleaners (otherwise known as chooks) who maintain a weed-free and regularly fertilised soil wherever they go, but who are quite indiscriminate about what they scratch up and eat.

I work in harmony with these natural processes by choosing places that are exposed to enough sunshine, by watering when there is not enough rain, by adding natural fertilisers and root growth promoters to the soil, and by putting up fences to keep the hens away from plants that they would otherwise destroy.  Some of these measures are even 'interventions', to use language familiar to midwifery.  The end result is a healthy, bountiful harvest.

Two rosellas in a peach tree

We haven't always had good outcomes.  When young plants are not watered, or supported, or given adequate nourishment, or protected from snails, or ...

Sometimes the fruit trees blossom during a rainy spell, and there aren't many bees to do the work of pollination, so not many fruit develop.


The other great natural (even back-yard) process that I seek to work in harmony with, and to intervene carefully into if and when appropriate, is (of course) childbearing. 

It's not enough to simply declare my trust in natural birth; to admire the function of the woman's body; the integration of physical, emotional and hormonal energies that work so marvelously most of the time. 

I, the midwife, function in a similar way to the gardener.  I must understand and respect all the forces, internal and external, that are at play.  I must take measures that will prevent harm from illness (eg pests) or poor nutrition (eg by rotating plants to different garden beds), or physical forces (eg the chookies). 

A midwife colleague challenged me recently when I described a situation when I accompanied a woman in labour to hospital.   After what I considered to be a reasonable period of time had passed, during which the physical progress of the baby into the birth canal was minimal, the woman agreed to a caesarean birth.  I agreed with this decision.

My colleague questioned me sincerely: was I not concerned that the act of going (from home) to hospital could have interfered sufficiently with the labour to CAUSE the obstruction of progress?  Could this woman have given birth 'naturally' if her physiology had not been interfered with?

My answer: No.

I know this because I was there.  This woman's body did all it could, under the natural physiological processes and rules, and it was time to move to Plan B.

The sobering thought, that we must not forget, is that even wonderful natural processes can lead to death and mayhem.  Recognising the points at which timely, and relatively small interventions, such as health promotion through improving diet and activity in pregnancy, or major interventions, such as the need for a caesarean birth, is the work of the midwife.  Just as the back-yard bounty is evidence of many months of careful work, the healthy newborn baby, at the breast of the strong and healthy woman, is evidence of a woman's strength and care of herself and her baby, as well as appropriate maternity care.

midwife-centred language

We midwives have theories about woman-centred care.  The woman and her baby are the focus, and their individual needs guide the planning and providing of maternity care.  The provision of basic primary maternity care through the months of the pregnancy, birth, and neonatal period from a known midwife facilitates, in theory at least, the development of a unique partnership between the woman and her midwife, and supporting woman-centred care.

Many times, in reality, 'woman-centred care' is a hollow and meaningless phrase.   Aspects of the care are dictated by the service providing maternity care, limited by staff numbers and funding arrangements, and fragmented into 'items' that can be entered as numbers into databases.

My attention was piqued the other day when a midwife in a hospital used the word 'passive' in relation to the third stage.  The mother who was about to give birth spontaneously, without medication, had indicated that she did not want synthetic oxytocin to be injected into her after the birth.  The midwife, correctly, informed the woman that the hospital's policy required her to perform active management of the third stage.  The woman replied "No, thankyou."  The midwife then referred to what proceeded as 'passive management'.

• ... passive [management], as opposed to active management

Before you nod your head and say, "OK, passive means not administering the oxytocic, not applying cord traction, not checking the fundus for evidence of separation of the placenta (and whatever else, such as cord clamping, is considered part of active management)", let me explain what is wrong with the concept of 'passive' third stage.

• midwife-centred language

Active management, or passive [non-]management are terms that refer to the midwife's actions.  The woman is virtually invisible.  This is not woman-centred care.

• ignorance

I witness appalling ignorance within the mainstream midwifery and obstetric community with regard to the uninterrupted physiological processes that lead to safe and optimal completion of the third stage of labour.  The 'broad brush' approach, treat everyone, regardless of the need, as required by the hospital's policy, leads to the deskilling of midwives who ought to be competent in protecting and supporting the physiological processes in childbirth.  This is also not woman-centred care.

• denial of a woman's ability to make an informed decision

A woman who is progressing spontaneously in birth, and who indicates that she prefers a spontaneous and unmedicated third stage, can easily be denied the opportunity to proceed when the midwife uses the 'hospital policy' card. 


What is a physiological third stage?
Put simply, a physiological third stage is the spontaneous and unmedicated completion of the birthing process, after the birth of the baby (second stage), resulting in the expulsion of the placenta and membranes.

The Women's Hospital guidelines* defines physiological management of third stage as:

Physiological management: The birth of the placenta and membranes are expelled by maternal effort only and without using uterotonic agents or controlled cord traction.

[note the midwife-centred language: turning the focus from the woman, whose body is achieving a significant and healthy function, to the midwife.]

This is a totally inadequate definition, and is evidence of my previous assertion that midwives and obstetricians have become de-skilled in supporting physiological processes in birth.

I have described aspects of physiological third stages in recent posts, for example:

... The cord was not clamped.  We supported the mother as she stepped out of the birth pool, holding her treasure to her chest, dried them off, and sat them quietly in the prepared chair.  As contractions returned, the mother stood, then squatted over a plastic bowl, all the time holding her naked baby against her naked body, and the placenta was expelled spontaneously.  Blood loss was minimal.  [from The After-Glow]

 and

... A healthy baby made his grand entrance, and no drugs were used.  The woman birthed her placenta spontaneously about 30 minutes after the birth, with minimal blood loss. [from Hospital policy in the spotlight]

What is the midwife's role in physiological third stage?

Having accepted that a woman who gives birth spontaneously and unmedicated, and who is intentional about continuing in the natural physilogical mode unless there is "a valid reason to interfere with the natural process" (WHO 1996. Care in Normal Birth: a practical guide),  the midwife's role is (obviously) to support and protect that natural process.

In the two birth accounts that I have referred to above, the midwife's role included assisting the mother into a supported position, such as sitting upright on a chair, with warm, dry wraps around herself and her baby.  The midwife manages the environment, rather than the labour, encouraging the mother to focus exclusively on her baby who rests quietly in her arms before seeking the breast.  The midwife ensures any activity around the mother is kept to a minimum.  If photos are being taken, this is done in an unobtrusive way.  The midwife notices signs of separation of the placenta, and instructs the baby's father on how to support the mother as she stands or squats over a bowl to expel the placenta, if she needs to.

There is nothing at all passive about the midwife's role in supporting and protecting the natural physiological processes in birth. 

I need to sign off now, as a mother is in labour and I expect to be called soon to attend.

The message of this post is that when we, the midwives, focus on the woman, we are able to work with her.  Our language reveals the focus of our care: either the woman, or ourselves.


*Active Management: go to the Women's Hospital guidelines and click on 'Labour-Third Stage Management'

24/7

"Within the [ ] health services financing structure, there is no room for financing the disutility of 24/7 availablity." [Mariel Croon, Human Rights in Childbirth conference, 2012]

One unavoidable feature of midwifery practice in primary maternity care is that a midwife needs to be accessible to a woman 24 hours a day, and 7 days a week, except, of course, if the birth is a medically scheduled and managed event.  If the midwife and the woman have agreed prior to the birth that they will work together when that time comes, that means the midwife is under a considerable degree of commitment.

I have often pondered the wastefulness, from an economic/time management point of view, of caseload midwifery. Of course I can understand the bean counters, who want midwives to be rostered to hospital wards, for shifts that can be predicted. Of course I understand why inductions of labour happen in hospital maternity systems, as managers attempt to match peak activity periods in the hospital with the times when adequate staff have been booked.  Of course I understand why midwives choose to work shifts in hospitals.

At present I am waiting for three babies: one 'due' last week, one this week, and the third in a week or so. Babies in my practice often cluster, and I can't worry about it because it is outside my control.  I must see each woman as an individual, and not allow stress about the time of onset of spontaneous labour to complicate our relationship.

The quote above, and particularly the phrase  "disutility of 24/7 availablity" caught my attention when I read it. 
The dictionary meaning is:

'disutility'
a. the shortcomings of a commodity or activity in satisfying human wants
b. the degree to which a commodity or activity fails to satisfy human wants
[Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003]

mmm!

My decision to work as a midwife, placing the 'activity' - the needs and wishes of a birthing woman above my need to 'satisfy human wants' - be able to plan my time for work and play and sleep and whatever else - is a decision on principle, not on economics.  The principle relates to my understanding of the unique trust relationship that can be established between a midwife and a woman, enabling the woman to proceed down the often unpredictable and challenging path that leads to the unassisted, unmedicated birth of her child. 

CULTURAL HYSTERIA?

Readers of this blog are probably familiar with the historical roots of 'hysteria'; the Greek word ὑστέρα (hystera) meaning womb, the condition of the wandering womb, and recommended treatments.

"Galen, a prominent physician from the 2nd century, wrote that hysteria was a disease caused by sexual deprivation in particularly passionate women: hysteria was noted quite often in virgins, nuns, widows and, occasionally, married women. The prescription in medieval and renaissance medicine was intercourse if married, marriage if single, or vaginal massage (pelvic massage) by a midwife as a last recourse.[1]" [Wikipedia]

The Medical Dictionary that my computer's online dictionary led me to offers this information:

hysteria hys·ter·i·a (hĭ-stěr'ē-ə, -stēr'-) n.

A neurosis characterized by the presentation of a physical ailment without an organic cause, such as amnesia.

Excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear.[Link]

I wish to contend here that there is a cultural hysteria in response to midwifery.  A cultural neurosis that leads to excessive and uncontrollable fear about that highly contested terrain, childbirth.

While midwives are recognised internationally as essential providers of primary maternity care, Australian midwives (and our sisters in many other developed countries) face exclusion and restriction when simply practising our profession.

Cultural hysteria with regard to midwifery depicts the midwife as someone who lacks skill in management of obstetric emergencies, events that are bound to happen, leading to a mass fear reaction.  Cultural hysteria sets up a fearful scenario, and uses that scenario to prove its point.

I don't have answers to every possible scenario, but I do know that in the State of Victoria, where I live and work, data from privately attended planned homebirth have been collected and reported on for many years, demonstrating the clinical effectiveness of planned homebirth in the care of a midwife.

The mothers who planned to give birth at home have not been uniformly 'low risk': they include births after Caesarean, mothers who are older, or who have had more births, or whose babies are bigger than average.  They are ordinary women, who just want to give birth to their babies.

The midwives have not undertaken any special courses of study: they are simply competent midwives, who seek to work in harmony with physiological processes, and who, generally, refer women appropriately when complications are suspected. 

The Victorian government’s Perinatal Data Collection (PDC) unit within the Consultative Council on Obstetric and Paediatric Mortality and Morbidity (CCOPMM) publishes an annual profile that captures all planned homebirths in the state, and puts the data alongside cumulative data from hospitals and statewide totals. These reports, although retrospective, carry a high degree of reliability.

The reports over the past 20+ years have shown planned homebirth in the care of a midwife as a safe option in terms of maternal and perinatal morbidity, with many features that are considered protective of the mother’s and baby’s wellbeing and safety. 

For example, in 2008, the most recent set of published data in this series:
• 91.5% of women planning homebirth had unassisted cephalic births, compared with 55.4% state-wide.
• Approximately 5% of women planning homebirth at the beginning of labour had caesareans, compared with 19% in small ‘low risk’ (<100 births) hospitals, and 31% statewide.

When looking at the baby outcomes for the same group (2008),
• 95.6% of babies born to mothers who planned homebirth at the beginning of labour did not require admission to a hospital nursery, which is approximately the same as the rate for small hospitals with less than 400 births per year.

These data support our contention that there is safety and protection of wellbeing for mother and baby when midwives attend women for planned homebirth.


I recognise that individual cases may be held up as examples of things going very wrong in birth, whether that birth takes place in a tertiary hospital, a private hospital, the woman's home, a birth centre, or in the back seat of the car. 

There are risks associated with birth, as there are particular risks linked to any life event.

I believe that the safety and wellbeing of mothers and babies in our community is enhanced by a strong midwifery profession that is recognised as essential in effective primary maternity care.

old-style midwifery

I have tried to capture the essence of the 'extraordinary'

The old-style ‘independent’ midwife, who has learnt autonomy and independence in practice and in decision-making from experience as the responsible primary maternity care provider for an individual woman, knows the value of working quietly and without fuss, in harmony with natural physiological processes, and enabling ordinary women to access their extraordinary strength and health in giving birth and caring for their babies.

[From APMA Blog]



Last week I was writing about the changes that I see taking place around me in Australian midwifery, as government and professional regulators make their efforts to improve the status quo - a task that all modern societies entrust to expert decision-making processes.

Other midwifery matters on my mind at present are the review of a university study module on postnatal midwifery care, for which I am tutor and marker, and a liability report I was asked to write in relation to a case in which a baby has cerebral palsy. These themes have influenced my thinking, as I engage with women in my care, at many points on the pregnancy-childbirth continuum.

Younger midwives may object to my comparing of 'old-style' midwifery with 'new'.  But the truth as I understand it is that midwifery today should be essentially the same at the primary care level as midwifery (by whatever name) in all societies and all times.  The new midwife who understands and is committed to 'old-style' midwifery, with linkages to the best and most effective medical services when needed, is practising midwifery well.

Since 'being' a pregnant-childbearing woman is not an illness, and never has been, the midwife with woman in the childbearing-nurturing time of that woman's life sees beyond the current fashions and time-related activities of a society.  That's what I mean by the 'old-style' midwife.

The debate around social and primary healthcare models, which aim to base all health care on the individual recipient of the care (in maternity care, the woman), compared with medical models of care that focus on illnesses or conditions, and the right treatment is readily applied to primary maternity care.  Sociologist Kerreen Reiger has contributed to this debate in The Conversation , in a commentary on 'Evidence-based medicine v alternative therapies: moving beyond virulence'. I am aware that some of my colleagues in midwifery look to alternative therapies, such as homeopathy, naturopathy, and traditional Chinese medicine in an attempt to provide a more holistic and woman-focused treatment option. This, in my mind, is not 'old-style' midwifery.

It might be 'old-style' treatment of illness, in the same way that people of previous generations concocted medicines out of plants that had medicinal properties. That 'old-style' treatment of illness has developed into the world of pharmaceuticals - a whole new terrain for discussion of ethics and power relationships in healthcare.

The basis I have for trusting 'old-style' midwifery is that the physiological and physical and psychological norms of health in the childbearing woman are consistent across time and culture. As long as it is reasonable to continue without interruption in that finely-tuned natural state, there is no better or safer way. The decisions around what is reasonable and what is unreasonable are quite different in a modern society from what our grandmothers experienced. Similarly women in Melbourne today are able to access a very different level of medical management for illness or complications than are women in tribal societies in developing parts of the world today.

'Old-style' midwifery, focused firmly on the woman in the midwife's care, together with the best available scientific, evidence based interventions when illness or complication are detected, is the recipe for best practice in primary maternity care. 

safer and better systems of care

with my first baby 1973

Recently I have spent considerable time reflecting upon and writing about situations in which midwives face complaints of serious professional misconduct after attending home births.

See articles at the MiPP blog

Many of the complaints (notifications) that I am aware of relate to situations in which midwives attend women who have specific risk features of their pregnancy, such as having had caesarean surgery, or being classified as 'post mature', or having a breech birth or twins, for birth at home.

I do not want to seem to be guiding midwives to encourage 'at risk' women to see home birth as their only option. In my experience, a woman with twins, or breech presentation, or birth after caesarean, who is clear that she intends to hold onto 'Plan A' unless a valid reason is given for intervention whether she is at home or goes to hospital (with her midwife) to give birth; this woman will make an informed decision that she believes is in the best interests of her baby, her family, and her own wellbeing. This woman is enabled to take responsibility for her family's social, emotional, and physical health in a new way, in a special partnership with her midwife.

My personal approach to twins and breech births, after appropriate discussion and consultation, is to try to arrange support for a physiologically normal, unmanaged birth in a public hospital that has capacity for emergency obstetric intervention, if the woman believes that is the best way at the time of labour.

 This is not a simple task. It opens the door to a clash of opinion - medical vs social - in each situation. I wrote about that a few years ago - "Why bother coming here if you won't let us manage you the way we think is best?" - when a mother with twins near term followed my advice, and presented at the antenatal clinic of a large public hospital. She was told she had no option other than elective (scheduled) caesarean. The first baby was presenting breech. It's probably no surprise to readers that that mother rejected the advice of the big, well-equipped and well-staffed, public maternity hospital. We were able to engage the services of a smaller suburban public maternity hospital, and the babies were born one morning without incident, and the family returned home that afternoon - see Drive through birthing.

Another mother in my care gave birth to her twins at home. It was only after the first baby had been born, and the mother told me she was having contractions again that she placed her hand on her belly and said to me "Joy there's a lump here. Could it be another baby?" Yes, it could, and it was. By the time I had changed my gloves the second baby was ready to be born - beautifully!

Another mother in my care gave birth to her twins in hospital. The labour was powerful; mother knelt on the bed, and the first baby slipped out into my hands, cried, and went into mother's welcoming arms. The cord was clamped and cut to prevent any twin-to-twin transfusion. The mother's contractions returned quickly and intensely, and she maintained her crouched position, and passed the first baby to his dad. With the next contraction the second baby was born, about 6 minutes after his brother, with the placenta. The placenta had separated from the uterus (abbrupted) after the first birth and the second twin's life was immediately in danger as he had no oxygen supply. He needed to be born quickly, and he was. He revived spontaneously, without difficulty.

In telling this story, I am highlighting a situation in which the urgency for birth can be escalated in an instant, and specific action needed to protect, in this instance, a baby's life. After the birth of the first baby it is usual for the midwife or doctor to palpate the mother's abdomen to check the position of the second twin, and listen to the heart beat of the second twin. The mother, in this instance, refused to go onto her back, and proceeded very quickly, under natural intuitive knowing, to 'eject' the second twin. Had she been a compliant 'patient', and done as asked, and I believe it is possible that her baby's birth may have been delayed, with obvious negative consequences.

On the other hand, had there been no internal pressure to get that baby born, we would possibly have heard the slowing heart rate as the baby's oxygen supply quickly depleted, and an obstetric intervention to extract the baby would have been attempted. It's not helpful to speculate or ask 'what would have happened if?'. In this case the mother's decision to refuse a managed birth, which would have included epidural, was probably the factor that saved her baby's life, because she was able to do the job spontaneously.

I am very distressed when women with twin pregnancies, or babies presenting breech, and their midwives, are so unable to trust hospital care that they see home as the only option. Home or hospital, spontaneous, managed, or surgical, there are no guarantees. The mother's choice of home or hospital for the birth of her babies is her choice, and she will face different challenges with each pathway.

“... We must stop blaming individuals and put much greater effort into making our systems of care safer and better” (ACSQHC National Action Plan, 2001). 

The National Midwifery Guidelines for Consultation and Referral (ACM 2008) (the Guidelines) categorise women with twins and breeches as being ‘C’ (transfer). It is important to understand the place of the Guidelines in contemporary midwifery, and why after appropriate consultation, a woman and her midwife may chose to continue with the plan for homebirth.

The Guidelines were designed primarily for use across mainstream maternity services, outlining a risk management process by which midwives could act either autonomously, or in professional consultation with other maternity care providers, or by initiating transfer of care to a more appropriate maternity service. The Guidelines do not deal with situations in which women make an informed decision to seek out private midwifery services for home birth. The Guidelines do not deal with situations in which women choose care which is outside that which is recommended by the Guidelines, or by individual maternity care providers.

The Guidelines, in the preamble, indicate the purpose of these Guidelines, to address a significant gap that existed prior to their development, in helping “maternity services to meet national policy priorities aimed at improving the quality and safety of health care. When the Australian Council for Safety and Quality in Health Care launched its National Action Plan in 2001, its Chair Professor Bruce Barraclough argued that improving the safety and quality of patient care is one of the most important challenges facing health professionals: “... We must stop blaming individuals and put much greater effort into making our systems of care safer and better” (p 5) (emphasis added)

Systems of care that are safer and better than whatever Professor Barraclough referred to, and that are better than the system that told a mother "Why bother coming here if you won't let us manage you the way we think is best?", are systems that accept different levels of decision-making by different people.  A mother who values the spontaneous work of her own body in giving birth, unmedicated, to her babies, is a mother who the system needs to respect, and work hard to accommodate.

Systems of care that are safe and good for women and their babies will accept, at every level - not just the so-called 'low-risk' birth - that “Childbirth is a social and emotional event and is an essential part of family life. The care given should take into consideration the individual woman’s cultural and social needs." ICM Position Statement on Home Birth.

more thoughts on the birthing space

I have appreciated the recent thought-provoking discussion in connection with the previous post in this blog, which is also linked to Carolyn Hastie's thinkbirth blog.

In the past couple of weeks I have attended three births; two at home and one in hospital. These three mothers were 'first timers'; primipara; a special category worthy of consideration in any maternity setting.

Picture this scene:

A woman is labouring strongly and consistently in an inflated birthing pool, set up in her home.  It's 2 or 3 in the morning, the 'wee hours', when everyone is overcome by weariness.  Her man, whose sleep was interrupted by early labour the previous night, is asleep on a couch.  The midwife is nearby - within reach but dropping off to sleep between contractions, occasionally mumbling words of encouragement.  The student midwife is stretched out on another couch. There is a little light from a lamp or candle; the birthing space is quiet except for the sounds of the labour.  

After some time, the woman's sounds become deeper.  Her midwife encourages her "let your baby come down deep in your body; feel the fullness; you're doing well", and listens to the fetal heart after a contraction.  The woman does not notice that the 'period pain' she had been experiencing has gone.  In fact she has stopped thinking about her labour and has surrendered to the work that her body is doing.

By the time the early signs of daylight are peeping through the cracks in the blinds, the urge to push has become strong.  Daddy-to-be and student midwife are awake; midwife is awake and ready; and mother gives birth, through the water, to her first child.  Mother and child complete the mysterious dance of birth, as baby searches for the breast, and the placenta is expelled.

Today I would like to reflect on recent primipara births, and (without identifying individual women) discuss how the birthing space has supported these births. In the past 18 months, approximately, I have attended 10 women giving birth for the first time. 

Before looking at the birthing spaces, here is an overview of these births.  Of the 10 women:

• 10 came into spontaneous labour; which became strong as the night progressed (there's something special about night and birth!)
• 5 gave birth in water: 4 at home; 1 at hospital
• 2 planned hospital birth; both gave birth spontaneously to healthy babies
• 8 planned home birth
• 5 gave birth at home to healthy babies, without complication
• 3 who planned home birth transferred from home to hospital in labour
• 2 proceeded to spontaneous unmedicated births of healthy babies
• 1 was delivered of a healthy baby by emergency Caesarean surgery

The ages of these women ranged from 24 to 37.
The length of gestation ranged from 36 to less than 42 weeks.
The weights of these babies ranged from 2670g to 4250g.
All babies breastfed from birth.
The estimated blood loss for the 9 women who gave birth spontaneously ranged from 100 to 600ml.


I want to make a point here, which may be obvious to some, yet others may find it a challenging statement in the maternity environment in Australia.
Place of birth - home or hospital - is not a measure of good midwifery care.
Yet the decision to plan homebirth is a huge statement of intent, by the woman, that her plan is for spontaneous, unassisted, unmedicated birth.  Those who plan homebirth with an experienced midwife are able, I believe, to proceed down the path of physiological birth if that is feasible, with a high degree of safety.  Those who plan homebirth, then make an informed decision to transfer their care to hospital because there is an indication - a valid reason - are also able to protect their ability to give birth in harmony with the natural, hormonal, physiological processes that direct labour, birth, and the baby's transition from the womb to the outside world. 

In my previous discussion on birthing spaces I wrote about the physiological phenomenon of *Nesting*.  Understanding normal birth in terms of nesting, as the woman progresses under the influence of an amazing cocktail of hormones, provides a key to the mysteries of birthing.  Nesting supported each of these 10 women, as they came into spontaneous labour.  Nesting supported the three who made a decision in labour to move from home to hospital, and obtain special medical intervention that had become necessary for them.  Nesting supported the choice of position for birth, whether kneeling beside the bed, or squatting in the birth pool, or lying on the bed.

Cessation of nesting happens, I think, when the woman is able to surrender to the huge expulsive urges within her body.  Baby is "coming, ready or not".  Night time and weariness enables this transition to occur without question.  The woman, and her personal support team, have given up trying to understand what's going on; to do it the way they were taught in class.  The midwife is skilled at keeping watch, guiding when needed, without taking control from the woman.

The essential elements of the space for optimal birthing are few.  As long as the woman is able to proceed without interruption; as long as the woman is able to trust her midwife; as long as the woman and her support team are able to hold confidence in the process of birthing ...

... a baby is born.

It just happens.



Your comments are, of course, welcome.

optimal space for birthing?

There is a special interest branch within midwifery and maternity care that overlaps with design and architecture disciplines, exploring the creation of optimal spaces for birthing. I have been reminded of this field of interest, when reading a recent post by my colleague and friend Carolyn Hastie, who writes the thinkbirth blog. Carolyn refers to, and provides a link to a presentation on optimal birth spaces by Maralyn Foureur, Professor of Midwifery at the University of Technology of Sydney (UTS). I wrote in the comments to thinkbirth:

I have seen some wonderfully designed spaces in which women can give birth. I have also seen women give birth beautifully (and, I would say, optimally) in settings that would seem to contravene every goal of the optimal birthing space ideology.

The woman's own nesting, which I believe is hormonally driven more than the result of intelligent planning and preparation, seems to be the key. Nesting can include the choice of setting, as well as the choice of people who make up that woman's birthing team. Nesting also enables the woman to change her plan if her situation requires it, without losing the ability to proceed normally.

I don't want to be critical of the optimal birth space ideology.

HOWEVER ...

The reality in my world is that each birth space is often very different from what the woman had planned or wanted, yet women are able to give birth in that wonderfully spontaneous way, without any regrets.

It would be naive to imagine that a woman's home is automatically the optimal birthing space for her.

I need to do a postnatal visit now, but hope to get back to this post later, and write some more.

[Melbourne readers may know that a private hospital in Hawthorn had recently set up a beautifully designed birthing facility, which has closed its doors after just a few months' operation, because the plan was not working, and there were too few women making bookings.]


NESTING and optimal birthing conditions
Nesting is one of those normal physiological functions that everyone knows about, but rarely pays much attention to.   While researchers have for a couple of decades looked seriously at the impact of the love hormone oxytocin, and the 'fight-or-flight' adrenal hormones, on the birth and mothering behaviours of laboratory animals, nesting doesn't seem to raise research interest or dollars.

A woman anticipating the birth of her child will usually have a 'to do' list, including stocking and preparation of food and other consumables, washing and setting out baby clothes, and packing a bag for herself and her baby in preparation for a stay in hospital, or 'birth kit' items in readiness for giving birth at home.  This process of getting ready would be recognised broadly as 'nesting'.  I have known some who feel the need to clean windows, and sweep, vacuum, and dust almost obsessively in the days leading up to the labour.  This is all intentional nesting, driven mainly by the woman's intellectual grasp of the enormity of the job that lies ahead.

With the establishment of spontaneous labour, physiological nesting becomes more pronounced.  Women who thought they would like to have the other children present for the birth of their sibling will often withdraw into a secluded space.  Women who have a plan to call a trusted midwife will often call her, just to check that she is able to come when called.  Nesting can continue until the peak of first stage, often called 'transition', when the woman must give up conscious control and surrender to the work of bringing her child out of her body. 

Women who plan to go to hospital to give birth face a nesting conflict.  It goes something like this:
"If I go to hospital too early my labour might fizzle.  If I stay at home I won't want to move when the labour becomes strong."  It's their natural nesting drive that makes them want to find the place where they will give birth - not the street address, but the actual room, with its contents, and the actual people with whom she will need to communicate.

Women who are booked at a modern hospital Birth Centre, where there are well-designed birthing rooms, often experience a conflict about the availability of a room.  They know that if the rooms are all in use when they arrive, they will be admitted to a standard hospital suite.  They have heard stories about how often this might happen.  Other matters of 'nesting' concern might focus on the times of shift changes in the hospital. 

I have, on occasion, been called to a 'planned' home birth, only to find that the woman and her home show no sign of nesting.  This dysfunctional nesting is, I think, a sign that the woman's sensitivity to natural instinctive urges has been in some way shut down.  The woman's labour can continue without nesting, and the baby can be born, "ready or not!"

Returning to the initial question of this blog: is there, and what is, an optimal space for birthing?
I would refine the question further, and add the word 'physiological' - the space for medically managed care in labour and childbirth must be very different from the space that enables and supports and protects physiological processes.  Here are a few ideals for that space:

• a place that the woman has chosen to be in
• a place that the woman is happy to continue in, as labour progresses
• a place where the woman can receive care, support, and guidance from a trusted midwife, and other chosen people
• a place where the woman is able to cover windows, dim lights, and make other physical adjustments when she wishes
• a place that allows the woman to feel private and unobserved
• a place where the midwife, as the responsible professional at the time, is confident that the wellbeing of mother and baby are being protected.

As with all other basic life events, "the best laid plans of mice and men ..."  There can be no guarantees.  The only people who we can be sure will be at a birth are the mother and her baby. 

The optimal space for physiological birthing in suburban Melbourne should not be very different from the optimal space for physiological birthing for Inuit women in Nunavik in the Arctic Circle.  The type of bed or birthing pool; the colour of the walls or the pattern of the furnishings - these things can be nice, but are of little significance to the woman giving birth.  The woman's feeling of unintruded privacy, as she reaches the point of surrender, knowing that her midwife is *with* her, is the essence of optimality. 


Your comments are very welcome.