Comments for erin ellis midwife

Comment on “If I were at home, I would have died” — The trouble with extrapolating hospital birth events to homebirth by kathivaleii

kathivaleii — Mon, 21 May 2012 11:11:31 +0000

Natalie, I’m so glad you had the experience with the doctor that you did! He sounds like a gem. I can speak for myself, and I think for birth activists in general, when I say that I / we are not opposed to all doctors but to institutionalized birth as a whole. That means that I am opposed to the system and recognize that there are those who choose to operate outside of those parameters. In fact, as a childbirth educator and doula, I have been known in the past to refer my hospital birthing clients to a certain doctor over a hospital midwifery practice because this doctor held more strongly and consistently to a midwifery model of care than the hospital midwives did.

Congrats on your pregnancy! HG certainly requires medical help. Hugs and blessings to you as your prepare for your upcoming birth.

Comment on “If I were at home, I would have died” — The trouble with extrapolating hospital birth events to homebirth by Natalie

Natalie — Sat, 19 May 2012 20:17:12 +0000

P.S. My doctor discussed with me that, in theory, I could have hemorrhaged because of the traumatic vomiting I had throughout my pregnancy and wasn’t as healthy as I could have been. I’m embarrassed to suffer from this condition because I am such a natural advocate is so many areas of my life. However, HG is one of those things that I absolutely have to have medical help with. For myself and my baby.

Comment on “If I were at home, I would have died” — The trouble with extrapolating hospital birth events to homebirth by Natalie

Natalie — Sat, 19 May 2012 20:08:39 +0000

I also think it’s so important that we don’t make doctors out to seem like monsters. I should go to Vegas because I’m part of the 1% who suffer from hyperemesis gravidarum and part of the 10% or less who had post-partum hemorrhage and YES, I had a natural childbirth. But during my HG, I was hospitalized several times from dehydration, also malnourished, and that’s where I met my doctor. My doctor was very natural and has even written books about natural approaches while speaking against unnecessary c-sections. He visited with me for well over a half hour to an hour every time I saw him and because of my condition, that was ONCE A WEEK! He didn’t take on so many patients so that he could do this. With my second baby, I birthed in a hospital being able to walk, squat, sway, using my breathing and concentrating on my body opening up. I didn’t even have an IV (trust me, I was sick of IVs). When I became further along in my labor, I sat in an indian style position with the bed in an upright position. I pushed in a sitting/squatting position. My baby was immediately put on my bare chest for the whole duration of the delivery of the placenta. Then I began to hemorrhage. It was even more painful than labor, but I applied the same breathing methods and concentration while my doctor reached up inside and massaged my uterus with his hands. Again, I didn’t have an IV so there was no medicine intervention until a few minutes later when my heart rate was 180, my blood pressure was 110/40, I begin to see black spots and was really out of it, I was then given shots into my thigh. The whole time, the doctor massaged my uterus and got the bleeding to stop. Whereas I know a midwife is perfectly capable of doing this and would do this, my doctor took these measures rather than something more drastic. Anyway…I just find it disheartening that there is a biased opinion toward doctors just as there are a biased decision toward midwifery. There ARE those few doctors out there who are perfectly fine with and advocate the natural birth experience. I’m currently 7weeks and 3 days with my third and currently going through HG and yes, I have the same doctor! It took me everything I’ve got to type this right now because of how sick I am. But I just love my doctor and wanted to voice this.

Comment on OMG, you did not just cut off a third of my baby’s blood supply?! by newbe

newbe — Sun, 06 May 2012 22:19:28 +0000

yes, I was pondering the same thing. active management of third stage of labor has been proven to save mothers lives from PPH, how can I have the best of both worlds and leave the cord unclamped?

Comment on Seasonal periods, brought to you by Big Pharma by http://mydaughtersmylife.wordpress.com

http://mydaughtersmylife.wordpress.com — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:10:10 +0000

This pill was offered to my daughter by her midwife, with the opening line, “So, are you really attached to your periods? Some women are, but I say, the less the better!”

Comment on “If I were at home, I would have died” — The trouble with extrapolating hospital birth events to homebirth by Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:15:24 +0000

I think the premise of this story was phrased very well. I am due for my second attempt at homebirth in August. The first time I did have to transfer to the hospital but I blame the establishment for that and I really appreciate the care my midwives gave me at home and once I got to the hospital.

The story: I had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes but I didn’t agree that I actually had it. My sugar levels were controlled just fine with my diet but my doctor was still worried that my baby was going to be too big and refused to let me go until full term. So with the expert care of my midwives, we worked for a week to induce labor at home. Once we finally got the contractions to stick, I was already exhausted from days of castor oil, excessive exercise, etc. After two days of heavy labor at home with little progress, we made the decision to transfer to the hospital.

I knew things were going to be more stressful and different there but I stuck to my guns and had a supportive husband and midwifery team to back me up. My doctor immediately started me on pitocin and antibiotics (since my water had been broken for over 12 hours). After 12 hours of pitocin and 4-minute contractions back to back, I was still only 8cm and my doctor told me that I needed a C-section. So when they gave me an epidural in preparation for the C-section, I dialated fully and was allowed to push since my baby’s heartbeat was still strong. 30 minutes later, I gave birth to a tiny 7-pound even girl.

I will not be inducing this time no matter how “big” the doctor thinks my baby is getting. It was that poor and inaccurate “diagnosis” that started the cascade that led to me in the hospital with an epidural that I didn’t want.

In conclusion, I still had to pay the midwife (which was understandable) and got stuck with a $10,000 hospital bill that went to creditors and ruined my perfect credit thanks to the incompetency of the hospital billing department. My daughter got poked and prodded unnecessarily because of my “gestational diabetes”. She also was sluggish for over a month because of the epidural. I just hope there won’t be any long term effects on her except the scar on her foot from where the hospital staff drew blood so many times.

Comment on OMG, you did not just cut off a third of my baby’s blood supply?! by Cord-Clamping.Com

Cord-Clamping.Com — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:21:12 +0000

Joshua, I have read the guidelines recommending immediate clamping and milking blood *away* from the baby in the cases of HIV…however the scientific literature showed there was no biological evidence this was necessary or prevents transmission of HIV. It is a theoretical assumption based on the idea that normal placental functioning, continuing in the minutes after birth for placental transfusion, can increase risk of maternal-fetal blood mixing. So while there isn’t evidence this happens during placental transfusion and transmits HIV, these babies are subjected to a significant hemorrhage.