Mark Sloan is a pediatrician and writes about birth and newborns from a unique perspective not often seen in the world of pregnancy and birth books. Sloan has meticulously researched the book.

Birth

You’ll be pulled in immediately as Sloan recounts his own introduction to birth during medical school. From there Birth Day tackles how our own vaginal birth process differs from that of the higher primates – and give possible reasons for why we developed such a complex process of birthing. I differ in opinion from Sloan on some of these issues; however his arguments are well-reasoned and interesting to read. Sloan also discusses the history of vaginal birth and positions used during birth in this chapter.

The second chapter moves into a description of that almost-imperceptible transition babies go through – moving from a fetus living in the water-world of the womb to a newborn snuggled in the airy world of his or her mother’s arms. You’ll find this chapter fascinating. Again, Sloan will keep you turning pages as he weaves the stories of two babies into the factual information.

In the third chapter Sloan discusses cesarean birth. This chapter is really well done. Sloan presents lots of information on the history of cesarean then moves into what the surgery looks like in modern times. The book does a great job of explaining how and why cesarean birth may be necessary for some women and babies – while also acknowledging and speculating on just why the cesarean rate is currently so high.

Pain Relief – Past and Present

Chapter 4 is titled “B.E. (Before Epidurals)” and it’s a fascinating chapter! Sloan has done a good job researching the use of pain medications during childbirth. It’s very interesting to look back at where we’ve come from – and the book moves right into where we are now in Chapter 5. Sloan continues to explore childbirth pain relief from a modern perspective. You may be surprised to learn that in our epidural-dominated world there are other options – including options available outside the US that well, you just can’t get here.

I believe in natural childbirth, but even I have to wonder why some of these relatively effective and possibly less detrimental options are not really available to more women. As Sloan states, ours is a culture of epidurals.

Birth Day does take time to discuss five non-drug methods of pain relief during childbirth. It does a fair job with this, even discussing water for labor pain relief. Sloan does not bring up the issue of water birth (where the baby is actually born underwater) – in fact, he never comments on other birthing alternatives like birth center or home births and how they may affect labor pain or the perception of it.

Doulas are discussed – in a fair amount of detail. Sloan is a fan of doulas, and for good reason. He spells those reasons, all supported by research, out in Birth Day. He also discusses the history of birth attendants.

On Daddies and Babies

There’s a chapter devoted just to Daddies. My husband greatly enjoyed it. We both found it really interesting that new dads (and dads to be) actually go through hormonal changes during their mates’ pregnancies.

The final section of the book covers the cuddly result of pregnancy – the babies. Sloan covers much of the research done on what babies can and can’t perceive with their sense while in the womb, and in the newborn and infant period. It’s interesting reading, though a little drier than earlier chapters of the book!

A chapter covering the “baby worth rearing” is included here. I greatly enjoyed this chapter, which discusses how the current infant “rating” system – the APGAR – came to be. I also found the peek into modern-day pediatrics with its newborn procedure flow-charts to be fascinating.

The last chapter in the book does an inch-by-inch guided tour of the newborn. This chapter has become a favorite “inside joke” of my husband and me because it discusses possible reasons for babies to be pretty generic (Sloan theorizes it’s probably so a man would continue to raise a baby that may not have biologically been his own). Accusations of our own “generic baby” (who with flaming red hair is not exactly “generic”) fly regularly through the house (along with laughter).

But the chapter in itself is a great ending to the book, providing the now expected fascinating tidbits of information on why babies may look like they do, why your science teachers got some things wrong, and other interesting facts.

Sloan does use this chapter to address circumcision. He does a great job tackling this extremely controversial subject. He gives a lot of historical information, good references, and a balanced discussion.

A Real Page-Turner

All in all Birth Day is an excellent read. There were a few parts of it I found myself feeling may be over the top – my views and Sloan’s do differ. But as I stated early in the review, it all gives food for thought.

The entire book is well-written in a consistent and engaging style. Birth Day keeps you turning pages! Because it does discuss some heavier pregnancy and newborn issues you may want to avoid reading it in your third trimester. But otherwise pick it up for an enjoyable and really fascinating read!

I know this is going to differ based on what country you’re in, and where in that country you’re located.  Midwifery regulations are so different all over the world.

I’m in the United States so my experience of midwifery care is different than what a woman will experience in Canada, the UK, or elsewhere.

But here in the US midwives come in a few different varieties.  There are certified nurse-midwives who go through nursing school and then get additional training in birth.  There are also some states that license midwives based upon guidelines the state has determined; often these midwives are “lay midwives” meaning they’ve not gone through nursing or medical school.  They have, however, trained extensively.  There are also midwives who are not licensed and are lay midwives.  Some of them seek and independent certification which makes them certified professional midwives.  To get this certification they must pass rigorous testing (learn more at The North American Registry of Midwives).

So what are my thoughts on this?  I definitely think that women called to be midwives should not be required to go through nursing school first.  I  may be biased because neither of my midwives have gone the nursing route.  But in reality, in the US at least, most women who choose home birth are going to give birth with a “lay midwife” because most certified nurse-midwives deliver only in hospitals or birth centers.  Very few attend births at home.

I think that a lay midwife can and (in general) will know birth as well as a certified nurse-midwife.  They train extensively under midwives in the oldest way to learn a trade – apprenticeship.  A midwife will have attended many, many births before she begins to see clients on her own.

As for my thoughts on licensing:  I do not think a woman must be licensed to be a competent midwife.  However, I am in favor of licensing such as the Certified Professional Midwife licensing.  I believe it gives a level of assurance to the family seeking a midwife’s services.  It causes the midwife to keep current with studies, techniques, and literature.  It shows accountability and professionalism.

State (or national) licensing varies and at times it can be a hindrance – some states may say that women seeking a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) cannot attempt a home delivery with a state licensed midwife.  Others say no twins.  A midwife who doesn’t follow state protocols for things could be penalized severely.  However, in general state licensing again provides a measure of reassurance to the family.  It creates accountability for the midwife, and can help bring midwives together into a unified network.

I am, in general, in favor of licensing midwives and I feel good about midwives who seek to be licensed in some way.  There are sometimes restrictions placed on these midwives that they (or their clients) would rather not have.  But in general licensing is a good thing from the viewpoint of the client.

Of course there will always be unlicensed lay midwives.  There will always be unassisted childbirth.  Women have the freedom to choose what they want.  But I do think that licensing is generally a good thing for families, and a good thing for midwives.

If you have an opinion (if you’re a woman using/considering a midwife, or if you’re a midwife) feel free to comment on this thread or contact me

I again feel so honored to have this little baby in me, and doubly excited that, hey! I’m really pregnant! Hearing that heartbeat makes all this nausea worth it :p

The rest of my appointment went well. I like my midwife a lot and feel very comfortable with her. I also got to meet one of her apprentices yesterday. There were a lot of questions yesterday just for general health history and next month we’ll go over a lot of my previous birth history. We talked about me feeling queasy and tired, and I’ve been constipated some days. I’ve noted my prenatal yoga helps that, and my midwife also suggested some prune juice in the morning.

We did talk about the safety of Dandelion during pregnancy and she says it does have diuretic effects. She also said they are very mild and she feels ok with dandelion being used by a mother who is nutritionally sound. She said there are other herbs with have strong diuretic properties which should be avoided completely. So that was her opinion, but it is important to consider that it does have diuretic properties and diuretics have been shown harmful during pregnancy as the maternal blood volume needs to expand. She suggested ginger tea as an alternative if I don’t feel comfortable taking the dandelion. Since I hopefully don’t have much more time of feeling sick I think I’ll try the tea on afternoons when the nausea is overwhelming so I stick to an herb I feel confident about the safety of, but can maybe get some relief (I always get queasiest in the afternoons).

But babe is healthy, our next appointment is in four weeks. Now the biggest thing for me to do is to eat right and read the slew of information she sent home with me! And debate if and when we’re going to find out this baby’s gender!

I’m unsure about this apparent conflict, having it considered safe by noted women’s herbalists but it clearly have diuretic properties.  I have an appointment with my midwife tonight and I’ll ask her opinion.  For now I think it best to go with other morning sickness remedies.  Reference Joy’s comments in the original post for some ideas on other remedies and a link explaining why diuretics are hazardous during pregnancy.

I also wanted to comment a bit on weight gain.  I’m a member of the pregnancy club for the month around my due date on one of the forums I post on.  These women are from 12-16 weeks pregnant or so, and today already one was mentioning the nurses were warning her about her weight gain!  Sudden, drastic weight gain can indeed be a warning sign in pregnancy, but by and large paying attention to your nutrition is FAR more important than keeping track of the pounds.  If you’re worried about it you should read this page on pregnancy weight gain – also a page done by reader Joy.  In fact, I’d recommend you take the time to read the entire site, it’s an absolute treasure trove of information on having a healthy pregnancy and provides a lot of information hard to find elsewhere.

I have done the same yoga routine through all of my pregnancies – the first three and now in this fourth pregnancy. I use the book Prenatal Yoga and Natural Childbirth by Jeannine Parvati Baker and I cannot be more pleased with it.  In addition to the wonderful yoga routine it has Jeannine’s birth stories and some of her thoughts in it and it’s truly enlightening and refreshing.  And thought-provoking.  I need to write a review to put under my book reviews!

I find yoga to be an ideal pregnancy exercise, coupled with walking.  I think swimming would also be lovely but I’ve never had a place to swim during my pregnancies.  But all three of these activities are gentle and stimulating at the same time.  Yoga and swimming especially help you to be flexible and work on your breathing.  Yoga excels in letting you focus on certain muscles and ligaments to prepare for birth.

I think that my yoga routine has helped me keep my body soft and flexible right up to labor and it has helped me get ready for labor.  It’s especially good at helping me get used to squatting, which can be a helpful position during birth.

Another thing I like is the quiet moments yoga gives me.  Moments I can look inwards and focus on the new life within me – something hard to do sometimes in a busy home.  And I take the time to pray about mid-way through my yoga routine and that is so wonderful for me, a time to pray specifically for my new child and his/her health, my health, and also for a good and safe birth.  Often I find the minutes slip away before I say these daily prayers, but my yoga routine gives me the time.  And I think that’s helped me have three wonderful births

In my yoga book Jeannine says something that I’ve been pondering over today: “Nowadays I understand that real labor begins at conception and that it takes about 9 months to give birth.”  This profound statement rings so true.  It takes all of the nine months to prepare for birth and for the new baby coming.

For me it is a time of caring for my body and preparing my body.  It’s a time of deep inner reflection which inevitably brings to light some weaknesses to work through, and it reminds me of my strengths and teaches me of those I didn’t know I had.  It is a part of labor.  Even this pregnancy, my fourth, is already teaching me new things.  It’s helping me turn a new eye to the children I already have here, and to work through issues with them (a THAT can certainly feel like labor!)  Pregnancy and birth are such an amazing time, and I feel really blessed to have the resources to realize what a gift they are.  I’m glad for the quiet moments yoga and relaxation give me to reflect.  And I’m glad for the challenges of this time that make me realize I need to change and grow.  I am glad for this journey, all nine months of it.  For the entire labor of love

In case you’re wondering Susan Weed, author of the Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year, reports dandelion root to be safe pre-conception, throughout pregnancy, and in the postpartum period.  Weed doesn’t list dandelion root as a morning sickness remedy in the book, but she does mention that it has quite a bit of iron in it and it can help your baby develop a strong liver – and it also aids your liver function.  This is the theory behind why it helps with morning sickness – your liver needs help processing the hormones and everything else flowing through your body right now.

It does seem to be working for me right now, and I’ll report more over the next few days.  I just needed some relief from persistent nausea and constant gagging!  I’ll see how things go from here.

The children are loving being outside though, and I’m loving them being outside!  It gives me some peace.  Right now parenting has gotten overwhelming so it’s a relief to let them be outside.  Today they are enjoying playing with sidewalk chalk.  And Scott has given them the task of keeping the sticks in the yard picked up.  As soon as the rest of the snow is gone from the front yard we’ll be able to rake some of the leaves up – they’ve been sitting there under the snow since the fall.  There’s only a tiny bit of snow at all in the back yard.

I am tired today.  Didn’t get a nap yesterday and I’ve worked hard yesterday and today.  I finally got this blog where it’s supposed to be – http://blog.naturalbirthandbabycare.com – and I’m so happy about that.  Change your bookmarks!  I’m still working on getting links to it integrated into the main Natural Birth and Baby Care.com site and you can see that the look and feel is quite different from the blog to the main site.  That will probably be the case for awhile.  I don’t forsee the time to do a redesign of the blog or the main site before summer comes.  But I am working on the blog little by little as well as the site.

I’m still trying to do spring cleaning which is challenging, to say the least, when I still have a lot of nausea going on.  I’m really hopping this will end soon.  But I’ve gotten much of the office done (though it’s getting cluttered again and I need to work on that).  I’m working on the kid’s room now.  My current secret is to get everything that doesn’t belong in the room OUT.  Then I organize what’s left that actually goes there.  This means my office is pretty clean (except for the hamper because we can’t figure out where to put that…).  It also means the landing upstairs is piled high with “stuff.”  But I like this strategy because I actually see results.  The front rooms (our dining room and den which kind of connect together) have also stayed pretty clean.

We’re going to order a little bookshelf for the kids and some closet organizing things soon.  I’m waiting to get the kid closet clean so I can decide what components of the organizer I want, then we’ll do that.  I think it will improve the organizing situation for both the den and the closets.

So spring cleaning and nesting.  And sprucing up my websites a bit.  A nice pastime for this season.  I’m just hoping I’ll have more energy to accomplish all of my goals soon.  Our little Peanut sure tuckers me out.

I have an excellent book in ebook format. It’s not available any longer but I am going to try and see if I can get permission to share the book with you. Until I find out if I can, the book is based on the work of the late Dr. Tom Brewer – who did tremendous work in the field of prenatal nutrition.

Another source of information on Dr. Brewer’s work is the Bradley Method of Childbirth. If you want to take childbirth classes rather than do a home study I recommend Bradley classes. But even if you don’t take them, their prenatal nutrition resources are excellent. You can read it here.

If you look at the top of the Bradley page you’ll see a link to download a spreadsheet. This will help you keep track of your prenatal nutrition and it’s based on research that has shown results. I downloaded it and I’ve been impressed with the spreadsheet. It takes the work out of keeping track of my prenatal nutrition. It calculates protein and keeps track of all my veggie servings and other things I need on a daily basis. It has made it easier for me to be sure I’m eating well.

I didn’t worry so much about my nutrition early on, I just tried to make sure I was getting three healthy meals a day and some protein servings. But now that I’m reaching the end of the first trimester I know that my baby is going to be building up quickly and I want to know that my diet is complete to support my baby. The Bradley spreadsheet is so helpful. I give my many thanks to whomever took the time to create it, and thanks to the Bradley Method for making it available to mothers-to-be free of charge.

It’s also easy to print, so if you doctor or midwife asks about your diet at each appointment you can just print out your sheets and take them in. I hope this resource is helpful to you!

It has been a rough couple of days for me.  Yesterday I was gagging almost non-stop for most of the day.  Being grumpy, tired, and gagging does not improve my outlook on life or ability to care for the children.  I have been able to read them books on the couch and we’ve done a good bit of singing too.  I seem to be mostly ok when I’m stationary.  But getting up and moving brings the nausea on in huge waves.  We have gone on a few walks.  I want to start my prenatal yoga up too.

I’m officially pregnant because I’ve started getting baby company propaganda in the mail.  I’m sure I can thank our purchase at Motherhood Maternity for that.  I don’t really like getting things from formula companies because I’m going to nurse my baby and don’t need them trying to get me to use their product.  But I really actually enjoy getting the American Baby and Baby Talk magazines, and all the Fisher Price ads.  I highly doubt I’ll want any of it…a high chair, car seat, and good baby carrier are good for me (though I’m debating a bouncy seat maybe?  I want an Amby though so the bouncer may not be needed).  But I do like looking at all the baby stuff.  It makes me excited.  And reminds me that all of this feeling crummy is worth it.

In a few weeks I’ll be done with the first trimester.  I really can’t believe that.  It seems like just yesterday I was holding my breath watching a little stick, praying to see two lines.  Sometimes I still can’t believe I’m pregnant.   I was thinking just last night that I can’t believe that we made a baby, that we’re going to have a little one here in a few months.  It’s so exciting.

I have had trouble cooking too. A friend suggested that I try and do mostly crock pot meals and that seems to be working for now.  At least we are eating good meals again.  Really tired, will update more later.