There are many things that are different about the experience of carrying a pregnancy to term versus choosing to terminate, but one place where you’ll often notice a stark difference is in language.
Recent conversations have focused on the question of whether home birth is safe. Here is why it’s the wrong question to be asking.
Race-based maternal health disparities are no longer a concern of the minority — they are a concern of the majority. And they should be a top priority. If Medicaid doesn’t make room for alternative, potentially life saving maternal health models, we risk endangering the health of generations to come.
The pro-choice movement and the birthing community alike are waking up to the fact that abortion rights and the rights of childbearing women are inextricably linked.
One of the midwives on public television is gone. Instead of rolling my eyes at writers’ poor choice of plot development, I’d like to hear from the community what other accessible television and video represents midwives.
The birth doula movement has certainly grown over the past few years, and innovative and radical projects have expanded care for pregnant people who might otherwise not receive it, such as young mothers and women in prison. During this time, The Doula Project has been building on a new model of doula care: one that supports pregnant people having abortions and choosing adoption.
Childbirth
educator and documentary filmmaker, Vicki Elson likes to say, aside from the
typical hospital birth, there are essentially three kinds of births on
television.
A new web site collects "unbelievable but true" comments made to birthing, pregnant and postpartum women by their ob-gyns, midwives, and lactation consultants. From the looks of it, it’s not hard to see why we’ve got a crisis of confidence in this country when it comes to women challenging the medical status-quo around childbirth.
Georgia’s Community-Base Doula Program has produced some amazing results, including c-section rates nearly half the national rate and breastfeeding initiation rates 25% greater than the national average.
Reproductive and sexual health and rights advocates must be concerned with the full gamut of access issues – including choice in childbirth, which is critical to women’s health and well-being and should be included in health care reform measures.
