Mother Friendly Childbirth Forum 2010

Hello from Austin, TX where I am attending the annual Mother Friendly Childbirth Forum organized by the Coalition for Improving Maternal Services (CIMS- pronounced with a K)! There have been some amazing speakers at the event sharing very exciting new and evolving research on improving maternal services and what we can do nationally and in our own community.

CIMS was created in the mid-1990s as a coalition to promote a wellness model of maternity care that will improve birth outcomes and sustainably reduce costs. CIMS has developed the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative (MFCI) to promote five main principles:

• Normalcy of the Birth Process
• Empowerment
• Autonomy
• Do No Harm
• Responsibility

These principles underlie the Ten Steps of Mother-Friendly Care that make a hospital, birth center or home birth services motherfriendly. You might want to share this information with your care provider to see how many of the steps they have implemented.

At the conference, Childbirth Connection, based in DC presented on improving the quality of maternity care through research, education, advocacy, and policy. Childbirth Connection has recently published a Blueprint for Action informed by the MFCI, emerging from a multi-year, multi-stakeholder collaborative process called 2020 Vision for a High Quality, High Value Maternity Care System. This groundbreaking work is helping to influence language used in the current healthcare bills being debated in Congress. The document also has very practical and detailed strategies for eleven areas where consumers, care providers, educators can begin to implement some of the findings such as their recommendations for Decision Making and Consumer Choice.

Another important way to help inform maternity care today is to fill out The Birth Survey . This survey was created around the 10 Steps of MFCI and quality indicators, to provide higher transparency in maternity care so that women can share their experience with where and whom to birth with, California is one of the target states for this project, so if you haven't filled out the survey, please do so today! Also, if you are pregnant, check out this searchable database for care in your area. The co-chair for The Birth Survey, shared some of the data collected, with 3008 entries CA tops the list of surveys filled out so far! Let's keep that gathering data from the grassroots so we can do our part to improve maternity care and empower all women to know their options and make informed choices.

Stay tuned for more!
Mora

KQED report on Pregnancy Related Deaths in the Bay Area and Sandy Caldwell's response

On KQED's FORUM, Thu, Feb 4, 2010, Michael Krasney did a show entitled Pregnancy-Related Deaths on the Rise?

The audio file is available for download at: http://www.kqed.org/epArchive/R201002040900

In response to this show, Sandy Caldwell, well loved Doula in our community, has highlighted important information and resources to help us all educate and inform our community about pregnancy and birth. This list was originally posted on the Redwood City Mom's Club. 

Email from Sandy Caldwell (doula):

I work with families during the childbearing year(s). As a birth and postpartum doula, I want to make families aware that we have a very active birth community in our region. These are doctors, midwives, doulas, chiropractors, acupuncturists, herbalists and others who support a mother's choices as much as possible, and who are practitioners who also are committed to mothers avoiding
unnecessary interventions. These people practice evidence-based care.

There's so much I could share on this topic but want to get some key information to you on what you can do to take care of you during your childbearing year so I will not say more than my original intent for this email, now.

Besides keeping yourself healthy, one of the key things that make a difference is whom you choose as your care provider. My feeling is that when a birth is 'easy' almost anyone could be your care provider, however, when a birth is more challenging, that is when whom you've chosen makes a world of difference. Some care providers are much more skilled at keeping a challenging birth not only safe but with as few interventions as possible.

Of course, I (perhaps many of you), are truly grateful that these same interventions are available when truly needed.

Since there are so many, I share a few of the main ones, primarily to ensure that you have what you need while you are birthing your child:

LOCAL:
Bay Area Birth Information (chapters on the Peninsula and the South Bay)http://www.bayareabirthinfo.org/

Blossom Birth Services (Palo Alto)http://blossombirth.org/

Harmony Birth and Family (Campbell)http://www.harmonybirth.com/

NATIONAL:
Coalition for Improving Maternal Serviceshttp://www.motherfriendly.org/

Helpful documents from CIMS here:http://www.motherfriendly.org/downloads.php

Articles:

Things to do to avoid a cesarean:http://www.ican-online.org/pregnancy/things-you-can-do-avoid-unnecessary-cesarea\;
n

Additional resources are on my links page:http://doula-la.com/Links.html

Taking this to another level, one of the things we, who work with birth everyday, know, is that the most powerful changes happen in the US when consumers (parents) get passionately involved and vote with their dollars and with their legislative votes.

This news is an opportunity to help make powerful changes in California and the US.

One thing you can do if you have given birth since 2005 is complete survey about your birth at The Birth Survey. The Birth Survey is a nationwide project to increase transparency in maternal health care. Go here to complete the survey:http://thebirthsurvey.com/index.html

If you are pregnant you can use the survey results to learn about the care your doctor or midwife has provided to others, too.

Another thing you can do it inform yourself regarding midwives (home and hospital-based). Midwives are trained in 'normal' pregnancy and birth. In general, they practice what is known as physiological birth.

Today, most midwives (whether practicing at home or hospital) are not totally integrated into our health care system. This limits their freedom to practice and their incomes. Home birth midwives are available in the region.

One place to find them is on home birth midwife Ronnie Falcao's websitehttp://www.gentlebirth.org/local/midwives.html.

There is also the California Association of Midwives:http://www.californiamidwives.org/

And, there is the Midwives Association of N. America:http://mana.org/

Currently there are midwives practicing at Mills Peninsula, Kaiser Redwood City, El Camino (Mountain View and Los Gatos). In all but at Kaiser, there are only 1-3 midwives in each of the other locations.

Hope this helpful and would love to hear others' thoughts as well.

I would be happy to speak or be a resource to the group on birth or postpartum topics such as this at any time.

Sandy Caldwell
www.doula-la.com