The Circle of Birth - Story Medicine - Birth & Transformation

The Birth Attendants youtube video:  https://youtu.be/P1Ngtl_x0go

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/birthwithjoy/?ref=br_rs

Website: http://www.birthwithjoy.love

The post E53 – Birth With Joy – Midwife and Birth in a Bus appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

All Photos: Port Douglas Wedding Photography & Designer Portraiture Australia

Hypno-Babies

Book – Down to Earth Birth – Jenny Blythe

Full Birth Video: https://youtu.be/ZsFlwJMwkm0

Our Right of Reply to the Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01vg1F0CfGg&feature=youtu.be

The post E52 – Elective Caesarean to Home Birth, Jessie’s Story of Finding her Autonomy and Safety appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

THIS IS KATHERINES BLOG BELOW – Find it at – http://katherineeden.com/speaking-the-unspeakable-not-celebrating-homebirth/

If this post triggers you or brings up any strong feelings please reach out and speak to someone.

You could call Lifeline , PANDA or Beyondblue

Today I need to be very vulnerable with you. I started writing this post during homebirth awareness week. But I was not, and will not be celebrating. We have since seen some incredible speeches from some inspirational women about the crisis of birth, both in this country and around the world.

My heart hurts. It aches. It aches for me, for my baby, for my family, for my fellow birth workers and for all the women and babies who have been affected by the current climate of homebirth. I want to say something controversial to you;

Don’t get me wrong, homebirth is, and has always been, my only choice for how I want my babies to enter the world. To me it just feels like my complete natural instinct to support the physiological birthing process and birth where I feel most safe. For me that is at home with a Midwife. Homebirth is incredible and we know from countless stories and an abundance of evidence that homebirth is both safer in terms of physical safety as well as providing increased emotional safety and birth satisfaction (more info here). It is our biological norm. When you tell me homebirth and continuity of care are amazing and worthy of celebration you are preaching to the converted.

This is not to discount women who have had wonderful experiences in the hospital. It’s just that at this time we need to start getting more serious about the reality of birth. We know homebirth is safe and incredible and yes we need to continue reminding those who don’t know. We need to remind, and take more action against those who disempower or take away a woman’s control or experience because they are not evidence based or because they work from a place of fear. Yes, we need to continue to have this discussion. Yes, we need to celebrate the amazingness that is homebirth. BUT this CANNOT and MUST NOT be the ONLY discussion!

We are at a crucial time where physiological birth, homebirth or not, is endangered. We are seeing huge increases in intervention birth, and a huge increase in perinatal PTSD (more info here and here and here ) (which actually still isn’t completely recognised, thus not statistically recorded because PTSD was only ever really acknolwedged as something experienced by War Veterans – Sheila Kitzinger, 2006).

We NEED to start being uncomfortable with politics and stories that tell of the truth of what is happening to women every single day!

To discuss even with those who know that homebirth is amazing and worthy of celebration. Because even within these circles many are conforming to policies that dis-empower women, whether they want to or not. We shy away from discomfort in our culture because who likes to feel uncomfortable? No one does. But if we don’t feel uncomfortable then we are IGNORING the truth! And things will continue to get worse.

We need to stop acting as if orgasmic, transformative and ecstatic birth is a type of unicorn birth. Yes, birth is hard. Yes, it takes us to the brink of our being. Yes, it’s painful. But if women and birth were respected, more women would be having these unicorn births where they feel ecstatic more than they feel the pain.

We know this because the WHO statistics, and a number of other studies around what number of women will need intervention is being completely blown.out.of.the.water! The problem is so multi layered and multi faceted it’s hard to see through the fog of where to even start. Well, I’m starting by not celebrating homebirth. I’m not celebrating. I’m getting angry and honest and I hope you are too.

When I was 30+ weeks pregnant, I sat in the theatre watching ‘Why Not Home’. What a beautifully wondrous documentary. But I left the theatre so angry. I cried. I cried such intense tears of heartache and sadness after watching that movie because it reminded me of what we no longer have access to here.

Whenever I want to remember the magic of birth and true women centred care I watch ‘Birth Story’ about Ina May and The Farm. This beautiful utopian commune with wise women holding space for women in their Matrescence, as they transition into mothers. Just as we as women have done for millennia.

Again, during my pregnancy this movie brought me to tears. Not happy tears. Deep resounding sadness. Guttural longing. Because for me these movies were reminding me of what I already know, what I was already striving for, but what I could not have. They reminded me about everything that I wanted for myself, for my baby and for the women I work with. To trust birth and to trust our bodies, but also to have someone to care for us, someone WE could trust. This was not obtainable no matter where I looked.

Gold Standard of Care was not available to me

I’m a birth worker and am fortunate to be pretty networked and connected, particularly in my local area of Adelaide. Yet I could not achieve the care talked about as ideal in these documentaries. So how do we expect women who don’t know anything about birth to find the care that will best support them? These movies honestly felt like, and still feel like, a completely different planet. Universe even. A utopian dream. The guilt I felt for not being able to find the care that would support my needs and the needs of my baby was intense. The frustration and rage continues to affect me daily.

It’s not safe for midwives

The beautiful Midwife that I still have a relationship with from my first birth moved away when I was early pregnant with my second (like most midwives who want to practice independently do) because it’s not safe to be an independent Midwife in Adelaide; or at least it hasn’t been. Their own colleague is on trial. Facing charges of manslaughter. Being used as an example for standing up against the system. But no one really wants to talk about that do they?

This Midwife is being used as an example, strewn through the media like an ‘evil’ character from a movie. Not like the human being she is. The mother. The wife. The friend.

Other midwives have and are working underground around Australia (please be clear, Lisa is not one of them). They are being reported for attending women at home and are having their registration taken away – most, pretty quietly. But here in my own hometown of Adelaide, one is being publicly vilified as if she represents homebirth and independent midwives everywhere. The whole system has gone to shit and women are being forced into scenarios they don’t want to be in because they are not supported. Many of these options are not evidence based OR women centred (or baby centred for that matter). We know that when women are affected negatively by birth, so are their babies. So this is not about choosing one over the other.

I need to say this again… many of the practices and policies governing women’s birthing rights ARE NOT EVIDENCE BASED! Many are actually based around insurance. Ask any Obstetrician about their rights to support vaginal breech or vbac (vaginal birth after c-section) and ask them how much of an impact their insurance company has over how they are ‘allowed’ to support women.

The blame for this mess is not soley on the shoulders of a handful of vilified midwives in this country. No, they were the deviants who dared speak up. Who dared stand by women who chose to opt out of the system because they were backed into a corner. Women like me. Women reporting horrendous things that you do not hear about. Situations where the people perpetrating these scenarios are not personally or publicly vilified and made to represent their entire profession. So many Doctors and other Midwives in the system go completely unnoticed. We cannot just be focusing on those who attend homebirths. We continue to regulate women, rather than change and look at the actual issues leading to women needing to go against these harsh regulations in the first place. Why would women choose to put themselves or their baby in danger? They wouldn’t.

Maryn Green on her IndieBirth Blog spoke the truest words in a recent post about this issue when she said:

I will no longer be silenced. I choose to not erase who I am and what my Truth is. I will be first and loudest; no Midwife should be in JAIL for attending a birth, no matter what the outcome. If we allow criminalization of Midwifery, we allow criminalization of a woman’s choice to birth where, or with whom she feels safest. When we watch Lisa walk through the fire, we acknowledge that we also get burned. I know, as well as I know anything, that she represents all of us. She is all of us, and her persecution brings harm to EVERY woman.

No Test, No Homebirth. The use of coercion for women choosing homebirth to comply.

I was considered ‘low risk’ throughout both of my pregnancies. Something that only a minority get the ‘honour’ to be ‘labelled’. Given that there were almost no Independent Midwives available, and my husband was very unwell at the time so money was definitely a factor, I went with what I thought would give me the same or at least a similar experience as my Independent Midwife. I went through the Midwifery Group Practice at my local hospital.

In reality, after experiencing care from around 10 weeks with my first, this time I spent the first 20 weeks with no support. Apparently your baby isn’t ‘viable’ before then if something were to happen so you don’t ‘need’ a Midwife. Those were the first hand words from a Midwife at my booking appointment. Despite having a slight bleed at 7 weeks (luckily I could call my previous Midwife for support) and a history of birth trauma and PND, my experience as a pregnant woman doesn’t count until after my baby is ‘viable’. Interesting.

Not more than a couple of weeks into the relationship I was told that I would be required to have both the GBS (Group B Streptococcus) and Gestational Diabetes testing. Neither of which I had risk factors of or symptoms for. And both of which I had intended to decline because I do not believe that there is sufficient evidence to support their use. Additionally, testing positive to either would then also force more testing and intervention. For example antibiotics in labour are compulsory (if you want to keep your care) should you test positive for GBS despite the evidence on antibiotics for GBS not being sufficient. GBS is a bacteria that lives in the vagina and can change from positive to negative on a daily basis. The test is done around 36 weeks. So knowing the accurate status of it at birth is completely impossible. You can read more about GBS testing here and here.

Furthermore, according to the Perinatal Practice Guidelines (PPGs), macrosomia (or a large baby) is the reason hospitals give for testing for gestational diabetes (a supposed extra risk for birthing at home). Using the sugar drink (while the evidence is insufficient in determining its efficacy as a test in it’s own right) is not diagnostic for macrosomia. Taking the sugar drink does NOT tell you if you’re having a big baby. And that’s because having gestational diabetes does not mean you will definitely have a large baby. You can have a large baby without GD. And you can birth vaginally with a large baby. Our bodies are a bit amazing like that. You can read more about GD testing here.

The PPGs say that antibiotics are required if a woman tests positive for GBS and that uncontrolled GD and macrosomia are risks for homebirth (rendering you unable to birth at home) but it does NOT say anywhere that you are unable to decline the testing. The insurance companies were overriding the Perinatal Practice Guidelines and had decided that these tests would now be tied up with my eligibility to remain in the homebirth program. By this stage I had been allocated a Midwife who fairly bluntly said that while she herself is not supportive of the tests, should I decline, she would no longer be able to be my care provider and I would not be able to birth at home.

This was a human rights issue, it goes completely against the Australian Medical Association’s statement on Maternal Decision making. I was NOT going to be forced to have unnecessary tests (that cost taxpayers a lot of money mind you) just because an insurance company said so. In fact, it was proof that it was again an attack on those choosing homebirth because my friend who was due a month earlier birthing on the ward was not even asked to have one of the tests. She was highly annoyed because she had actually wanted it! I would not be coerced to have tests against my will. Where do we draw the line? I looked for a conscientious objection for this instance but no one had ever heard of being coerced into medical tests that would remove care in this way. Why wasn’t anyone else outraged about this? When you look for things that aren’t there you are eventually going to find something.

I ended up writing letters to politicians and policy makers who had enforced this ruling of pure and utter coercion pertaining to the fact that if I declined the prescribed tests (not required in Queensland mind you because they’re not evidence based and Queensland just seems a bit more with the times) I would be ousted from the homebirth program. No test, no homebirth. While I still believe that I should have been within my rights to just outright decline, like all women had been able to a month earlier, I negotiated some monitoring that still was considered within the Perinatal Practice Guidelines. I clung to the option of a homebirth with a Midwife by a thread. But my gut, my heart and my head all knew this was not how it should have been.

What does good care actually look like? How should we feel when we birth?

The physiology of birth is such that whether we as ‘sophisticated’ modern human beings like it or not, birth is a completely primal experience. And really, while our society has changed over the last millennia, birth has not. In order for all of the physiology and for all of the interconnected ‘cogs’ in the body to interlock as they are meant to, we actually need to be able to allow ourselves and our brain to become primal again. Michel Odent is like the father of undisturbed birth writing. He and Sarah Buckley talk a lot about how vital undisturbed birth is, not just for the birthing process, but also to the woman and her outcomes, for the baby and their long term outcomes AND how these outcomes then affect future generations.

When birth is disturbed we get all sorts of out-of-whack consequences. For example, if a woman has been traumatised by her birth (say she was frightened, or she had lots of unnecessary intervention and she felt like a failure), aside from the possible physical effects that could be long lasting for her and her child, bonding and attachment, there can also be long term emotional effects. Breastfeeding could be disturbed which has it’s own detrimental effects. She may develop PTSD, PND, PNA which could last months or years. You see the pattern. Hence the saying ‘peace on earth begins with birth’.

Undisturbed, ideal circumstances for physiological, primal and optimal birth includes:

(You can read more about the vital need for undisturbed birth and third stage/golden hour here, here, here, here, here and in the books referenced below)

Additionally, when ‘safety’ is mentioned in relation to homebirth, or birth, what is actually being discussed is solely based on the research which focuses on the physical – morbidity and mortality. However, safety is a completely subjective experience. The research and discussions about homebirth (or birth) ‘safety’ do NOT acknowledge or take into consideration emotional and psychological safety, which we know (from the research on maternal satisfaction and rising rates of birth related PTSD) is greatly impacting women and birth outcomes.

My story. Grateful to be here, to tell you the truth.

Homebirth with a Midwife was taken away from me because I was ‘out of time’. When you reach 42 weeks you are automatically considered high risk . Forget the fact that some women have longer cycles. Forget the fact that I had NO other risk factors or any indication that anything was wrong. Forget the fact that we cannot ascertain the true statistics around being ‘overdue’ because women are booked in routinely for their induction at 40+10. And forget the fact that while there is only 0.0015% (Norwitz et. al., 2010) higher chance of fetal demise between 42-43 weeks, the fear from the hospital was intense, and I was now seen as a ‘deviant’ by not complying with routine induction.

I was given an extra day and a bit to go into active labour… but if you know anything about the physiology of birth, you’ll know that stress, pressure and increased adrenaline and cortisol are the opposite of labour inducers. So of course I did not go into labour within my required time. And I was scared! Scared to be alone. Scared to go into hospital knowing that I would be handed over to the ‘high risk’ team. Scared because my Midwife who was supposed to be supporting me and understanding that I needed support told me outright that I may not have anyMidwife available, let alone her.

I was a mess. But what could I do? No other Midwife would attend me, and I was afraid to birth unassisted (I hadn’t looked into it as a option, and was out of time to feel confident in doing so). I did not trust that I would be supported at hospital. In fact, I kept being told I would be given things I specifically didn’t want because of my deviance of going over 42 weeks. Interventions that are not justified by evidence. Interventions that were unwanted, unnecessary and precautionary. Interventions that I was told with certainty had ZERO side effects but that I had researched and knew came with with risks (however minor you might like to think) I was not willing to take. My fears were never ever validated, they were, in fact, heightened. I had to negotiate tests I didn’t want. I was denied a continuity agreement that I would know the Midwife on call if my Midwife was away (even after a letter from my psychologist). I was being coerced to comply with hospital policy that went against my individual needs, and against all of my instincts.

When I sought other options confidentiality was breached. The Midwife from the other hospital I telephoned in turn called my Midwife to tell her I had enquired to change care. Not only that but she was completely disrespectful with how she spoke about me and my ‘situation’ (being that I was just on 42 weeks and despite recent studiesshowing that the risk goes up only very minimally until 43 weeks, ‘no one wants a dead baby’). Every turn I made I was faced with brick walls. (more info about post dates here and here and here)

The care that I received was not the care that I wanted or deserved. Or that any woman deserves. I did not trust my Midwife at all. She let me down every single chance she had. Trust was never built as it should have been. Had I trusted my care provider and felt that I was being supported and that my own individual needs were being taken into account (not just blanket rules) I would have absolutely considered things she may have deemed necessary.

The only time in our whole relationship that she was ever on time was the moment that the clock ticked over past my allocated time to be able to birth at home. Right as the clock ticked over, she messaged immediately to remind me that my time was up. That no one would come to me at home. I had been such a naughty girl for going over my time.… cos I wasn’t already staring at the clock hoping I would suddenly go into active labour that second. No of course not.

I was not able to fully let go and have the mind-blowing ecstatic experience that I feel like I might have had, had I felt safe. The type of ecstatic birth that Michel Odent talks about as what should be more ‘normal’ when respected and left undisturbed. My experience was still incredible and I do feel grateful and empowered that I did birth my baby on my terms. That I trusted and listened to my insticts. The fact that I birthed my baby on my own despite the shitty care and support that I had makes me feel so happy! I was able to heal in many ways. I am so grateful that we were able to bond and connect. I got the oxytocin rush (albeit brief) that I missed with my first and I did not develop PTSD. I am also certain that my baby got the best possible birth he could have, and he is far better off for it. For that I am grateful.

But this experience did nearly (and I really hate to say it) cost me my life. NOT because homebirth or freebirth is innately dangerous, but because I did not feel safe or supported. I was scared. I didn’t want to freebirth.  I know how corrupt this state’s culture is around supporting homebirth. I didn’t want to be on my own. I wanted a Midwife. My Midwife. Who was supposed to be modelling continuity of care. Who was supposed to have fostered a trusting relationship with me throughout my pregnancy. To be with me; with woman.

Reluctantly, my husband and I agreed to labour at home as long as possible as instructed by the Midwife, and then transfer in. But I wasn’t confident when to transfer after labouring for 3 days last time.

My baby came quickly and unexpectedly. I laboured (early labour) at home for a few hours. Contractions were steady but I didn’t know when/if it was time to go in. I decided to get into the pool (that we had set up because a few hours earlier I was still ‘allowed’ to have a homebirth remember) to get more comfortable and ease my discomfort and nausea. It was like heaven. I finally felt a sense of safety, comfort and warmth.

We decided to call an ambulance when I started involuntarily pushing. I was overwhelmed. I thought I still had ages to go, like last time. My husband and friend kept saying we should go to the hospital. They even packed the car. But I couldn’t move. My baby was coming. Every time I tried to move I vomited. I couldn’t get in the car. I couldn’t even get out of the pool. I refused.

I had not planned to freebirth. I had not planned to go to 42 weeks. I had not planned to not be able to get out of the pool and not go to the hospital. I had not planned to be without a care provider present. I had not planned that my labour would be quick after being many days last time. I had not planned to not know when to go in, to not have anyone to say it was time, and to feel that if I did go in I would be entering some sort of battle because of my ‘high risk’ label applied only hours earlier.

It just happened, and my Midwife told be that she had ensured no one would come to me because I was ‘outside of the guidelines’ by a few hours over 42 weeks. Not even for the labour.

And guess what happened… after birth, I was half a pint of blood loss from death. Half.a.pint. (237ml). I didn’t actually know this until last week when I had my iron checked and I had to have yet another iron infusion (after 2 blood transfusions already). I decided to google how much blood you can lose. I lost 2.6L, most of which was in an ambulance because despite having synto in my fridge, ambulance officers don’t give or carry synto (WTAF?!). Ambulance officers are trained by Midwives, often attend fast births, but still do not give synto? I still haven’t recovered. My body has struggled to build itself back up. I was on a high those first couple of days. I just hadn’t realised quite how dire it could have been.

Grateful for these babies to help with my recovery

But I didn’t die. Nope. I was probably burnt at the stake in another life, but not this time. I will not stay silent. I am angry. This was so easily preventable. If only the message from ‘Why Not Home’ was actually listened to instead of watched in awe as something unattainable. Something we should all swoon over about how ‘they’ over ‘there’ in some other place are getting it so right.

My Midwife tried to deflect any responsibility by saying that my uterus didn’t work. Which makes no sense since I have birthed 2 babies vaginally – my first was just malpositioned in an asynclitic position. It was my first birth and it took a LONG time. I was in labour at home for 3 days. I could not keep food down from vomiting so transferred in. And my second, well he came perfectly, just quicker than expected! She tried to say it’s because I have red hair. Yup, red hair. She asked why I would call the ambulance? They would of course disturb my third stage. The blame was placed on me, my body and nothing to do with the fact that she wasn’t there. That the policies are fucked and not evidence based. That I should not have been high risk because I clicked over to 42 weeks.

This wouldn’t have happened if I had had the support that is celebrated and talked about as ‘gold standard’ as I birthed. If I had had a third stage that was quiet, safe, warm and supported – as it should be. As she knew it needed to be.

And you know what the real clincher for me here is? This blood loss, while I don’t plan to have any more children, does now make me officially ‘high risk’. I was informed as I lay in hospital being told I bled for all these reasons pertaining to my own doing:

I don’t blame my Midwife. I am angry at her. But it’s not all her fault. She was supporting a system that doesn’t support women, because otherwise she herself would be persecuted and burnt. She is scared just like so many other Midwives who want to support women’s choices. She didn’t understand the impact of birth trauma or have any way of supporting it, like so many Midwives. But again, why would she when it’s not acknowledged as important in the majority of circles. I triggered her because I wanted something from her she couldn’t give me. I wanted something she used to be able to provide, that she would like to provide, something she herself had wanted, and something that isn’t available without threat of persecution.

It is reverberating out to everyone – birth workers, Midwives, women. The lack of choice around birthing options and the heightened fear of birth (especially homebirth and physiological birth, or birth outside of the very tight guidelines) can be felt far and wide.

Homebirth should be celebrated but not when women and Midwives are being persecuted in our own backyard. Midwives whom many called their friends and mentors are on trial and going to jail and the ripple of fear against homebirth is traveling world wide.

But you know what, I’ll be honest; I would have done anything to be able to access even an underground Midwife. I would have trusted an underground more than the options I had. And I’ll tell you with certainty… I wouldn’t have bled like I did because my third stage would have been respected. I would have been respected. Birth would have been respected. And if all else failed, I had synto in my fridge that the ambos, who are supposedly taught about birth, refused to give me.

Is freebirthing illegal?

I started Midwifery before I became a doula and I chose not to continue because I knew how restricted and restrained I would be to actually support women and birth in the way that we celebrate. I had never seen firsthand such insidious bullying, fear of those higher up in the hierarchy, such vicarious trauma being thrown around in every direction, and complete lack of ethics (I’m a social worker first so I had a pretty good ethical foundation which made it all the more unbearable). This is not at all to discount the wonderful work of some of my beautiful hospital Midwife friends, and the Midwives I am so grateful for when I have transferred. To the Midwife who was there, who helped stop the bleeding and still ensured my baby and his placenta remained attached, I am so grateful. But what we talk about as an idea of the ‘ideal’ and what the reality of practice is, are two very different things.

As a doula, I and the majority of the doulas here in Adelaide are scared to attend homebirths because there are laws in place that could see us prosecuted. Yes, laws. Not policies. Official, black and white l.e.g.i.s.l.a.t.i.o.n (Restrictive birthing practices could see anyone who is not registered or in the presence of an unregistered person at a birth prosecuted). People think this is just a myth but you know how I know it’s not… because as I bled, three police officers filmed me in my house. Which just led to more blood.

As a doula I was told to call an ambulance if a baby was coming quickly. I knew I wanted someone there to support me and my baby if something did happen. But I had heard many horror stories of ambulance officers physically forcing women into their ambulances with their babies heads half way out and this thought filled me with fear. I could not move. They knocked on the door as my own baby’s head was starting to crown and I instinctively told my husband to ask them to wait just a few moments so I could push him out without being disturbed. At that moment we were completely fine. Great in fact. We just needed an undisturbed moment. He went to the door and calmly explained my request and they said they would wait. We were trying to be responsible.

Unbeknownst to us, during this time they quickly called the police then knocked on the door again and said that if they couldn’t come in right then and there they would leave. My confused husband came back to me and explained briefly (trying to keep the space calm and the interruption to me minimal) that the ambulance officers were going to leave if we didn’t let them in. This was not a conversation I needed to be having as my baby was crowning, which was obviously requiring every ounce of my concentration. I quickly stated that they could come in if they didn’t try and move me. I just wanted them to let me birth my baby. To just be present if they were needed. Isn’t that what you call an ambulance for? Is birth actually an emergency?

The ambulance officers must have agreed and in they came, followed soon after by uniformed police officers who entered our house and my birthing space without invitation, with my husband asking what they were doing here. The ambulance officers called the police to report us to child services and ensure there was no ‘rogue’ Midwife hiding somewhere in our house. They did not trust that I could have possibly asked for an undisturbed moment to birth my baby before they came in wanting to take over and get me out of the pool.

It was rush rush rush. Rub Rub Touch Touch.

They wanted me out. They wanted my baby. I was safe, my baby was safe; chubby, pink and crying! But neither I nor my baby could be controlled while we were in our little warm bubble in the pool. I was not even given a minute to take in what had happened. What I had just done. They were reaching, touching and rubbing and not just letting us be for even a moment. The police officers stood watching as I got rushed out of the pool on my wobbly legs by the ambulance officers. As I had to defend my right (and luckily so given the outcome) to not cut the cord (why aren’t they taught about delayed cord clamping?). They wanted my baby and I to be separated immediately in the cold, while their fear of birth filled the room. While the fear of the police filled the air.

Wet and cold I was instructed to take my sports bra off and told to squat to ‘encourage my placenta to dispel’, which was not ready. The first gushes of blood began. With cameras on their lapels the police were asking what was happening and said they needed to ‘make sure everyone is ok’. I guess we were off the hook because everyone was ok?

The fear was palpable.  The young ones you could see were terrified. One ambo in particular was completely triggered, freaked out and angry. All of this energy was the complete opposite from my needs at this vital time. It is pretty widely understood that the third stage can be a risky time. If a woman’s space is not warm and filled with oxytocin, her risk of bleeding is much higher. It is not just birth that needs to be undisturbed but also, and almost more importantly, the third stage. Placentas are shy organs. They take their own time and like a certain ambiance to emerge. It is no wonder my uterus refused to allow ours to make an appearance.

All this event did was reinforce to the officers why they think homebirth is dangerous. As I stood there naked and bleeding, holding my baby, I should have been warm and calmly waiting for my placenta to arrive on it’s own, riding an oxytocin wave. Instead I was thinking about how these officers will forever have this scary image etched into their mind. I want them to know that it wasn’t homebirth that did this. It wasn’t me being stupid or reckless. If only they could know how amazing, positive and backed by solid evidence homebirth is. That we (my husband and I) were informed about birth and I trusted my body, my baby and homebirth. I just didn’t want to be without a care provider for fear of, well; bleeding, death, or something being wrong for my baby.

Imagine if I had lost that extra half pint of blood. Think of the headlines you would be reading right now about ‘that horrible homebirth in Adelaide’. Imagine the policies that would have come in. Imagine how much more fear and restriction would have been put on women who gestate a bit longer. Well, I’m sure glad I’m here so I can tell you first hand exactly how it is and how it would have been completely misrepresented.

This shouldn’t have happened.

I watched a video recently that made me cry of some ambulance officers who attended a woman birthing at home whose baby was distressed. Despite the officer’s own personal experience with loss, and the woman’s own history of stillbirth (aka high risk) they treated her with so much respect and love. They wrapped her in support and empathy. They spoke to her gently and softly and reassured her that she was amazing. Why couldn’t I get that? Why can’t every birthing woman be treated with that much respect and non-judgment?

I didn’t plan to birth at home in that way but birthing my baby was FUCKING AMAZING (as it should be) and I was a FUCKING GODDESS! We did the ‘right’ thing and called for support, so why was the ambulance officer angry at me? Angry at everyone? She was huffing and grunting at every light we sped through saying ‘this shouldn’t have happened; this will be reported to child services!’ as I bled and winced in pain.

Why was my friend who was there supporting me through my labour and who had tried to get me out of the pool earlier being questioned over and over by police? Being interrogated using different words in an attempt to catch her out as if she was some sort of underground Midwife?  A rogue. One of those witches who supports a woman’s choice on where to birth. She was just my friend, supporting me as best she could, watching me bleed and scared for my life when she wasn’t allowed in to see me in the hospital. Scared for her own safety.

Why did the police follow us to the hospital and further interrogate my husband and my friend prohibiting them from getting to me to see if I was ok? Why was there a guard at my door in the hospital who wouldn’t let my husband in to be with me as I was bleeding? Why?! Why did I feel, in my foggy oxytocin high state that I needed to apologise to that angry ambo for feeling like I had traumatised her, or opened some wound for her. WHAT THE FUCK WAS HAPPENING? (Side note – and I want to say this because I appreciated her gentleness at a time when I needed it the most. The other ambo was beautiful and lovely, calm and kind to me, but her actions were overshadowed by the others).

This should not be celebrated! This is what women and midwives/birth workers are facing as a reality. #enough! Too many birth workers vicariously traumatised. Too many women suffering from birth related PTSD when birth isn’t even recognised as a cause of PTSD. I’m not the first and certainly not the last to have an experience like this. (read more about that here)

Every.fucking.day. No one questions the women and babies injured, violated or traumatised in hospital. I don’t see cops on the doorsteps of hospital Midwives or Doctors or Obstetricians who hurt women and babies. Whose practices are so far from evidence based and more about their own needs. Or their faces splashed over the front page of the newspapers likening them to serial killers. No, because that would create fear. That wouldn’t be acceptable… so how is any of this ok? Why aren’t we standing up to this? It’s not about us vs them either. We are ALL affected. It’s about choice, options and respect for evidence based birth.

Please, I need to ask you one thing. Please do not feel sorry for me. Do not try to understand or pick apart all the layers of my story to find blame where it does not belong. The sympathy in the eyes of others is the hardest thing about my telling my story. Do not feel sad. I had a beautiful birth without the unnecessary intervention I would have had (remember, there was no indication anything was ever wrong or warranting intervention. It was purely a time thing). I birthed my baby into my space, on my terms. My baby had a beautiful entrance into the world despite the aftermath. We did it together, and he was 4 kg of healthy plump, pink goodness with an APGAR score of 10! (FYI APGAR is the score they give babies right after they are born to indicate their health based on their appearance)

What you can do is get angry! Please, get real. Please listen to these stories that women are telling of births that didn’t have to end the way they did. STOP trying to blame the women. It’s not their fault their options are so limited and they are not being listened to. If you are triggered, good, dive deeper into what is making you uncomfortable. Sit with that discomfort. Unpack it. Tell someone about it. THIS is why more women are choosing (or being forced into) planned freebirth. I sure wish I had at least looked into it more. It is not a myth. This is a reality.

If you’re a Midwife in a hospital this is not a personal attack. Or an attack on Ambos for that matter. I know you do an amazing job. I know women have lovely births. I love Midwives! And Ambos are incredible. But you should be able to practice your craft without fear. This is not about you personally, this is about needing to do better as a WHOLE. Take that anger and discomfort and use it. For all women to have the choice to birth where SHE feels safest and with the option of having someone to care for her. For physiological birth to be understood and respected over what we are afraid of.

We need to be getting to the nitty gritty of the seeming utopia that is normal physiological birth at home with continuity of care that we keep celebrating and putting on a pedestal, and why it is not accessible to all women who want it?

Wise words by Heather Hancock:

Women choosing to give birth at home are becoming increasingly marginalised, with fewer options for quality care than those who give birth in other settings. These restrictions only serve to further diminish their confidence in the health system, which they see as working against them.

We need to intelligently and safely accommodate women who want to give birth in their home into the mainstream maternity care system and provide them with safe and varied options. We can and must do better

I cannot sit here and celebrate something that only a very select few can access. We need to be honest and raw. We ALL need to get political. There is no point celebrating the last rhino and how amazing it is. No, we need to use that energy to SAVE ITS FREAKING BUTT!

Hannah Dahlen on our need for change:

One thing is clear: home birth is not going away and government denial won’t resolve this issue. Governments must act quickly to resolve this issue to ensure Australian women have access to safe and supported home births.

I know this experience had to happen for whatever reason. Maybe to give me the fire in my belly to push forward and speak out. I did everything I could to find other options. There weren’t any. I did plan to transfer earlier, but things happened too quickly. I did not expect to be alone at home (without access to a care provider). I did not prepare to be blamed for my bleeding when it was caused completely and utterly by the preventable circumstances of my third stage.

I also know that I am not alone. That increasingly, many women are actively choosing freebirth. Not because they want to, but because they don’t feel like they have any other option. And this is increasing as less women have access to Independent Midwives, and more women are being labelled ‘high risk’ (You can read another similar story here).

I’m not entirely sure where to from here, but we need to WAKE UP! We need to resist and stand up against another witch hunt; against the extinction of homebirth. Rally together, not just for homebirth, but for a woman’s choice to birth where and with whom she feels safe, for a Midwife to practice her craft and for women to reclaim their right to birth undisturbed in any location. We need to remember that homebirth is amazing, but we also need to ensure its survival, and the survival of woman centred care in any setting.

We are talking here about human rights. Read that again – our rights as human beings. To birth as our bodies require. To be respected as birthing women. To make decisions about where and with whom we birth. Do NOT let your fear or discomfort prevent you from standing up and speaking out. Do not let your fear enable its extinction.

This blog, and the discomfort I sit with in sharing my story publicly is my ode and promise to homebirth. To women. To the next generation. To those being persecuted. I will not celebrate until our human right to birth undisturbed, where and with whom we choose is accessible to all women, without fear of persecution.

Thank you to everyone who supported me and helped/doula-ed me through this experience and this writing process. I am so very grateful.

References:

Undisturbed Birth/The Golden Hour:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1595201/

http://sarahbuckley.com/leaving-well-alone-a-natural-approach-to-the-third-stage-of-labour

An actively managed placental birth might be the best option for most women

Odent M. The fetus ejection reflex. Birth. 1987;14(2):104–105. [PubMed]

Odent M. 1992. The nature of birth and breastfeeding. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing.

Odent M. 1994. Birth Reborn. London, UK. Souvenir Press LTD

http://www.sanfordhealth.org/stories/the-golden-hour-giving-your-newborn-the-best-start

https://www.bellybelly.com.au/birth/7-benefits-undisturbed-first-hour-after-birth/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4235060/

http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/maternal-health/hormonal-physiology-of-childbearing-all-fact-sheets.pdf

A woman’s right to choose: Maternal decision making policy

https://ama.com.au/position-statement/maternal-decision-making-2013

Group Streb B- testing and the use of antibiotics:

http://www.cochrane.org/CD007467/PREG_intrapartum-antibiotics-known-maternal-group-b-streptococcal-colonization

https://evidencebasedbirth.com/groupbstrep/

GD testing

https://evidencebasedbirth.com/gestational-diabetes-and-the-glucola-test/

SA Perinatal Practice Guidelines: Planned Birth at Home

http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/76aaf1004f3219c488eefd080fa6802e/Planned+Birth+at+Home_in+South+Australia+2013_ppg_v2.0.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CACHEID=76aaf1004f3219c488eefd080fa6802e

SA Restrictive Birthing Practices:

http://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/legislation/restricted+birthing+practices

Homebirth ‘safety’ in terms of physical safety:

http://homebirthaustralia.org/is-homebirth-safe

https://theconversation.com/comfortable-safe-and-in-control-why-women-should-have-the-option-to-give-birth-at-home-4065

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22972043 (Olsen & Clausen 2012)

Maternal Satisfaction/Rising PND/PTSD

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/mothers-need-better-care-to-reduce-posttraumatic-stress-after-childbirth-20130404-2h8yz.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4399594/ (maternal satisfaction)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/15015989/

https://www.panda.org.au/

www.aihw.gov.au

Post Dates/Induction:

http://www.sarawickham.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/AIMS-Ten-things.pdf

https://evidencebasedbirth.com/evidence-on-inducing-labor-for-going-past-your-due-date/

https://evidencebasedbirth.com/studies-that-calculate-risk-of-stillbirth-by-gestational-age/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889812/

Cotzias CS, Paterson-Brown S, Fisk NM (1999) Prospective risk of unexplained stillbirth in singleton pregnancies at term: population based

analysis. BMJ 1999;319:287. doi: dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7205.2

Norwitz, E R,Belfort, M A, Saade, GR, Miller, H, (2010) Obstetric Clinical Algorithms: Management and Evidence: Chapter 49. Post Term Pregnancy. Published Online: 6 MAY 2010 Accessed Oct 2017

(only a 0.0015% chance of fetal demise at 42 to 43 weeks)

Intervention rates and risks:

http://theconversation.com/birth-interventi

on-and-harm-more-likely-in-private-hospitals-26801

http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/publications/maternal_perinatal_health/cs-statement/en/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743929/

Decline in Women’s Options and Rising Freebirth Rates:

https://theconversation.com/pushing-home

-birth-underground-raises-safety-concerns-6825

http://www.kidspot.com.au/birth/labour/types-of-birth/i-go-to-hospital-in-an-emergency-for-me-having-a-baby-is-not-one/news-story/7ec8618e2fa1f442588d9277ea054be4

What we can do?

https://hypnobirthing.com.au/lets-make-waves-ladies/

https://www.jenniferhazi.com/midwifthis/anarchy

Other Books:

Sarah Buckley (2009) Gentle Birth Gentle Mothering. Celestial Arts, Berkley USA.

Sheila Kitzinger (2006) Birth Crisis. Taylor & Francis Ltd London, UK.

If this post triggers you or brings up any strong feelings please reach out and speak to someone. You could call Lifeline , PANDA or Beyondblue

Website – http://katherineeden.com 

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/nourishedcollective

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/katherineeden_rewilding/

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The post E51 – Why Im Not Celebrating Homebirth – Katherine Eden’s Story appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

We begin our podcast with Emily talking about her own birth: We can see here how Emily has grown into not having fear of birth. All of Emily’s babies have been birthed at home. We talk about her first birth with a midwife during which baby was born in around 6 hours; This was not what Emily was expecting for a first birth! We navigate to Emily’s next birth: same house, pool and midwife, and an epic quick birth at 1.5 hours. Emily describes how she navigated this next transition into her motherhood. During these conversations, we talk about the birth climate in the area.

Emily’s third birth was a different location, a longer birth this time, and Emily wanted to cultivate the longer transition moments. She worked and learned from Whapio and the holistic stages of birth (see resources). This baby was born with a nuchal hand and Emily recalls reaching down to baby as he was coming out and feeling her baby’s little hand hold hers!

So from listening to Emily we have a good understanding about how powerful this woman is and how powerful this film will be to many.

We then speak about Emily’s fourth baby and the film, and Emily speaks so honestly and beautifully about her miscarriages in between. The calling was there for her next baby, the film was agreed upon, and this brought up many interesting and intense feelings for their family. Listen to how Emily navigated this with the upcoming film and what it felt like each time she went through the experience of miscarriage.

We talked about the film now and it was exciting for me to ask so many questions about what it was like to have so many cameras and people present during the birth, how it started, what Emily recalls; My questions went on! I loved how the whole crew of mostly men were in absolute awe of this process, not trying to fix it, wanting to be a part of it and letting it happen; Does not sound common practice, right?

This episode is a beautiful dive into something so intimate and sacred that Emily and her family have so generously shared with the world. This is the voice we need. This film is the healing we want.

Holistic Stages of Birth – http://thematrona.com/the-holistic-stages-of-birth/

Website – https://thesearemyhours.com

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/thesearemyhours/

Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/thesearemyhours/

The post E50 – These are My Hours – First Documentary Filmed Entirely During Labour – Emily’s Story appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

Media Release for Mothers For Midwives March on May 5th2018

With International Midwives Day on May 5th, it is an opportunity for women around Australia to thank the professionals who held their hands during the most important day (or night) of their lives: their baby’s birth day.

It is estimated there are over 32,000 registered midwives, with around 28,000 midwives employed by public and private hospitals in Australia. However, there is also a seriously shrinking population of midwives who assist women to birth at home. Statistics from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare show that in 2014 there were 287 midwives attending homebirths as a primary carer – this not only includes Privately Practising Midwives (PPMs), but midwives attending homebirths that are publicly funded by the government through the 14 hospital-led homebirth programs. The latest data shows that in 2015 that number fell to 241and that number has certainly shrunk dramatically since then as regulations have stifled the health professionals who work in private practice, and who home birthing women rely on to maintain safety.

Amantha McGuinness from Homebirth Australia had this to say:

With a decreasing chance of “normal birth” and an increasing caesarean ratein Australian hospitals, the choice to homebirth is not one that is going away. But with less and less homebirth midwives to assist women during the prenatal, birth and postnatal period, there is a danger that these women, many of whom are casualties of an underfunded, understaffed, fragmented and broken hospital system, will choose to birth at home anyway, but without the safety of a midwife in attendance. Indeed freebirth is said to be on the increase.

Professor of Midwifery Hannah Dahlen says “We have undertaken several studies into the issue of freebirth and it appears to be increasing in Australia. Women tell us the main reasons they freebirth is they are unable to find a midwife in their area or can’t afford to pay for them. More and more women are fleeing mainstream maternity care after previous traumatic birth experiences. We will continue to see adverse outcomes unless we fix the system and respect women’s right to choose their place of birth and care provider.”

Jo Hunter, a privately practising midwife from the Blue Mountains, says she had 14 enquiries for April and had to turn away 10 women as she could only support 4 of them for the month.

Homebirth Consortium Australia [HCA] is a newly formed working group made up of midwife, consumer and organisation representatives from around Australia. The HCA was formed to show support for homebirth and for Privately Practising Midwives (PPMs) and fight for changes to government policies so that midwives can return to working more autonomously and within their full scope of practice to support home birthing families. They are calling on the government, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) and the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) to make the following changes:

Virginia Maddock from HCA says that government regulation of midwives directly affects women’s choices in how and where women birth, so it is important that consumers get behind midwives and fight for change.

May 5thwill see women around Australia participate in the nationwide ‘Mothers For  Midwives March’ to AHPRA offices in every capital city. For details and info please see the Facebook eventor contactAimee Singor Virginia Maddock. Please sign our associated petitionand join the Homebirth Consortium Australia [HCA]on Facebook to stay up to date with the march and its associated outcomes.

https://www.facebook.com/HomebirthConsortium/

https://www.facebook.com/homebirthaustralia/

https://www.facebook.com/Homebirth.Access.Sydney/

Aimee Sing – Check out her podcast! – http://circleofbirth.com/e44-aimee-sing-caesarean-placental-abruption-home-birth-hbac-cared-supported/ AND links below for HomeBirth Access Sydney

Grace Sweeney From – http://homebirthaustralia.org  AND  https://www.facebook.com/melbournehomebirthassociation/ 

Virginia Maddock –  https://www.facebook.com/natural.beginnings.page/ AND https://www.facebook.com/Homebirth.Access.Sydney/

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The post E49- #MothersForMidwives -Homebirth Consortium Australia -Continuity & Mothers Supporting Midwives appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

Vickie in 1970

Vickie and I head back to when she was 18, she had her first job and a trophy of a boyfriend. She then discovered that she was pregnant in the year 1969; those were not the times for someone unmarried to be pregnant. A wedding was arranged yet her husband to be disappeared. Vickie was moved into a convent for unmarried mothers, but she was unaware at the time that there was a government policy forcing religious organisations to coerce girls into giving babies up for adoption. Vickie was looked after in this place, however she was pressured into adopting out her baby. Vickie was amongst many young girls at this time and birthed and saw her baby only briefly before she was taken away. Vickie was nursed at the convent for two weeks and was then sent back home where she pushed all of her feelings aside.

Vickie was told to, “Get on with life.”

Moving on, Vickie talks about the birth of her son Jake which resulted in her becoming very interested in the mechanics of birth. She birthed during the time of women being shaved, having enemas and birthing on their backs. Vickie devoured books from authors including Grantly Dick-Reed and Leboyer, however nothing prepared her for her next birth experience two years later when she birthed still-born twins. Upon leaving the hospital, a nurse said, “There, there, plenty more where that came from.”

Again, Vickie was told to get on with life.

Vickie in 1984 with Amy and Gemma

We talk about Vickie’s other children, how her life traversed around and how she came to the work she is doing today. We talk about the adoption and process of Vickie reconnecting with her daughter, Gillian, and especially connecting with her children while knowing they had a half sister. During this process, Vickie was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder; the unpacking begins. Let’s remember that there was a government policy in place in Australia at this time that would practically force adoption of babies on young mothers like Vickie.

1979 Baby Jake, Amy and Gemma

We then talked about Vickie’s reunion with Gillian; this part is amazing… Listen..

Vickie’s work in birth and death shines out in this story and we shine on some of this amazing, wise woman wisdom. The last 20 minutes of the podcast involves the beautiful interpretation of the collective gifts that Vickie brings into being a Doula. 

Collecting a placenta

After we had finished I thought of something I often tell new doulas, and that is to be aware of cultural interpretations of language, particularly words like  ‘surrender’; to some women this word means standing still with your hands in the air. 

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2011/08/14/3292947.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_adoption_in_Australia

Resource – https://www.amazon.com/Laboring-Under-Illusion-Childbirth-Download/dp/B006GWFD8A

Website: http://www.canberraplacentaservices.com

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The post E48 – Forced Adoption in Australia – 15 Years a Doula – Walking the Birth and Death Paths appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

Natalie begins her talk with the growth of her self as a person. With a history of sexual abuse, Natalie used methods of escapism for a long time before coming to the realisation that she also had a problem with alcohol. Natalie chose health, she chose the path to healing, and then she became pregnant! Her life changed.

Natalie talks about the first pregnancy and feeling into what her body was telling her; what it was like to trust and believe in her body. Natalie talks about her journey within the system during her pregnancy. She had an obstetrician that pulled the ‘your baby will die’ card on her when he wanted to do a stretch and sweep. This process triggered Natalie, feeding in to her history of sexual abuse. We talk through her awareness at this time and how it upset the pregnancy and her emotional state heading into labour; she felt fearful, alone and deserted.

Into the birth, she found some amazing midwives that trusted in her birth process, trusted in her breathing and most importantly, stuck by her. She also describes that the midwives kept the space clear of men, a very importance factor in this birth given her history of sexual assault.

After 23 hours, birth happened after a release from the bowel. Natalie describes this as a big release. Babe was born and handed into her arms and Natalie transitioned to mother.

Post birth they noticed tachycardia and her boy was taken from her for a while. Natalie talks about this process; She talks about how a male paediatrician was holding her baby in the NICU and how this felt for Natalie. Natalie knew her baby was fine, yet he was taken from her and she was left with some resonating feelings, one of which was women fearful of having a voice in the old patriarchal system, fearful of having their babies taken away if they speak up.

Since this birth and leading up to her next birth 9 years later, Natalie became a Hypnobirthing practitioner. She learned so much from her clients and seeing an ‘accidental freebirth’ opened up her mind.

We talked about molar and partial molar pregnancies, a topic which I wanted to delve into a little more as I personally had an experience of a partial molar pregnancy. Natalie describes the miscarriages in between before she become pregnant with her next babe, Cyan.

For this birth, Natalie knew in her visions that she was going to birth at home and her partner would be the only other person present.

The birth was how she imagined, and if you check out the link below for the 7.30 report you can see some footage of this. After this birth story, Natalie tells of an interesting story of a placenta down the toilet and consuming her placenta there and then to alleviate a potential haemorrhage. We talk here about instinct and how this method has worked in the wise women ways.

We finish up the podcast with the 7.30 report and how this looked for Natalie post release.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/the-rise-of-freebirthing/8854118 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-29/freebirthing-if-there-was-baby-death-i-was-capable-of-grieving/8827582 

Website: http://www.hunterbirtheducationcentre.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hunterbirtheducationcentre/

https://mumsofthecentralcoast.com.au/birth-is-not-like-passing-a-large-hard-constipated-poo/

The Hunter Birth Education Centre website offers, lists and refers services that actively improve emotional outcomes for mothers, fathers and babies.

We are:

* An information website,

Our hope is that you may be surprised at all the great options available in the Hunter and feel very glad you found our page.

Sadly, your medical care provider does not have time to mention all the great pregnancy and birth options available to you.

Sadly women who follow standard pregnancy care are often only rewarded with standard birth experiences.

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The post E47 – Freebirth & Taking Full Responsibility in Your Birth – Natalie appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

This is a small snippet of the amazing folk that brought their wisdom to the 32nd Home Birth Conference in Sydney, Australia. I got to sit with some of these people and find out what messages they brought to the conference, what they were seeking, their thoughts on the state of the maternity system in Australia, their feelings around men at birth, how they feel we can best support homebirth in Australia and, most importantly, what they planned to bring back to their community.

Website: http://homebirthaustralia.org

http://www.jerusha.com.au

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The post E46- Reflections from the Home Birth Australia Conference 2017 – #hbacon2017 appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

I am not going to apply any trigger warnings here because this story shares the gifts and the potions of how we can come together and support the death path. Please share this and check out the event Let Me See My Baby in the resources below. 

So, we begin the journey with Amy heading into her three birth stories. Amy describes her first pregnancy as being the entry into the world of birth and advocacy for women. The pregnancies, as Amy describes, were rather straight forward and from in between the first and second pregnancy, Little Silk Wings was born.

Amy talks about her doula journey and supporting families for the best outcome possible. During the unfolding of her journey, Amy found a lack of understanding and support for when baby is unwell; it’s not the issue of people not wanting to support the mother and family, it’s simply the lack of understanding on how to provide support. Amy trained with Still Birthday in Canada and then, indirectly, came into a support role for doula’s called into bereavement.

Amy in her first birth with her doula.

We then talk about her third birth, when Amy would have liked to give birth at home but homebirth was unaffordable. Amy and her doula jokingly talked about a freebirth on the road, and what happened? A freebirth on the side of the road! Amy talks about the whole event and the quick birth that just did not quite make it to the hospital. Everyone felt calm and OK about the situation, an ambulance was called and Amy was in hospital for a few hours then back home again. Amy describes that she never could visualise her birth in a hospital.

Happy roadside family!

From here the journey took a change of direction. Amy describes heading home and having a beautiful dinner and then sleep. The next day Amy started to feel that something was ‘not right’ with her son, Gabriel. She found him to be limp and just not quite right and, having been there twice before with her daughters, knew that something was different. On day 3 Gabriel started to vomit a little, the colour seemed not quite right and Amy says she was advised to try to be positive. An ambulance was called and then they left not long after saying, “He is fine.” Amy was still concerned and took him straight to hospital and her concerns were right; little Gabriel had mal-rotation of the bowel.

Recovery after the surgery – Amy describes – “His face was swollen and he had a machine breathing for him. He had cords coming out of him in numerous places and had a big, red slice across his tummy. They had put his little white beanie back on, I was thankful for that.”

The surgery process was massive: Amy describes being left in the surgery waiting area covered in newborn vomit and completely tired, not really understanding what was happening. Surgery went well and Gabriel recovered quickly; Amy describes the emotional journey throughout this time. We talk again about supporting people in this journey, terminal illness and thus how Little Silk Wings turned into bereavement support and the event Let Me See My Baby. 

Amy with the amazing Vickie Hingston-Jones (stay tuned for her story soon!) She will be guest speaker at Let Me See Baby Event.

Still Birthday Doula Traning  – https://stillbirthday.com/sbd-doula-registration/

Let Me See My Baby Event Canberra 4th December 2017 – http://www.littlesilkwings.com.au/let-me-see-my-baby-canberra/

Birth Story in Amy’s Words – http://www.littlesilkwings.com.au/a-mothers-instinct-pays-off/

I’m a mum myself to 3 little people – Elsie-Rose, Anastasia and Gabriel. I’m also Mum to our children who aren’t so lucky, being that stranger trying to hold pieces together in the name of foster care.

Over the years I’ve enjoyed setting myself personal challenges. These started out as long-distance walks. My first walk, many moons ago, was from Brisbane to Canberra. It was called Walk With a Rose, and it became a national awareness raising event about Acquired Brain Injury and the lack of respite care available in Australia. It raised an amount of $50,000 and received extensive national coverage. You can see the episode of Australian Story here. And you can read over the blog I kept here.

My second initiative was called Strength to Speak. It was aimed at raising awareness of depression and anxiety. With strong local and national support I created the Strength to Speak program which was placed in 425 schools across Australia. To promote the program, I completed a four month walk from Perth to Canberra in. You can take a look at the program here. And you can read over the long and dusty blog I kept here.

I went on to do some uni work, travelled, and began working with disadvantaged youth and in a program for young sex offenders – I stayed with these programs for about 5 years.

In 2006, I won the Young Person of the Year Award through the Foundation for Young Australians, have become the ACT Youth Advocate for Drug Free Australia, have established the Walk With a Rose Foundation for people in the ACT with acquired brain injury to access respite care, and became the 2008 recipient of the Young Canberra Citizen of the Year award.

I then become a certified Simplicity Parenting coach and had my first daughter Elsie. So I started to talk to parents a lot and ran group gatherings and workshops to childcare providers, foster parents, grandparents, social workers, educators, counsellors and other care professionals who work with children and families in order to guide them in reconnecting with their own values through layers of simplicity that can be incorporated into their family lives.

For the past seven years, I have worked as a foster carer for high risk adolescents, mentoring and supporting while they live with me in my home.

I have since become double certified as a birth doula after my second daughter was born and started up a business as a placenta encapsulator…this is a beautiful service for happy birth outcomes and you can find a list of verified placenta encapsulators available by state here.

During the time I was spending journeying with birthing women as a doula, I always felt there was more of a pull towards being with the women who devastatingly learn of their baby’s death or learn of their baby’s fatal diagnosis…yet I felt unequipped. There were questions I needed answers to and things I felt I needed to learn before I continued to step into those spaces.

I found some bereavement doula training which was detailed and confronting – it was just what I needed – however, it was based overseas, which came with differences in systems and legalities. Nevertheless, the content was what I needed at the time.

I gave birth to my son, and decided to then focus on my role as a bereavement doula to only be available for these women. I felt like I was being true to my passion and gift. Then, over a period of time, I was contacted by families in other states in Australia, asking if I could find a bereavement doula to help a mother there who is experiencing the death of her child. More often than not, I had no luck. There is an abundance of doulas, yet the training to be a bereavement doula is different. For example, there is specific knowledge about how labour can work differently (and not in the mother’s favour) if the baby is sick or has died.

However, I’ve now ‘worked’ from afar with mothers experiencing the death of their baby for long enough to know that it shouldn’t be me being with them .. I never does feel quite right. Instinctively, I know the person to best serve that mother was someone already in her tribe. So I then began to change the way I worked and would instead train them, the bereaved mother’s sister, over the phone and online, so that they would be the one able to offer support and have knowledge regarding options for that woman. Which felt so much better, as it meant there were no shift needed to the already established tribe around that woman.

Working forward to improve things from there I knew what was needed and am developing my business Little Silk Wings. This is an Australian bereavement doula training platform and resource centre. It will provide both immediate, free information about what to expect when supporting a mother whose baby had died or will die, as well as the option to be a part of extensive, detailed training to be certified as a Little Silk Wings Practitioner and be called upon to support other mums in your community.

I feel strongly about continuing to connect with young people in my community and am passionate about working with families for best outcomes particularly for children and will continue to do this through Little Silk Wings with the intention of supporting, guiding and informing young people about grief and death.

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The post E45 – Let Me See My Baby – Amy Little Silk Wings – Honouring Birth and Death – Road Side Birth appeared first on The Circle of Birth.

Learn more about the important work Homebirth Access Sydney is doing by supporting homebirth families and increasing awareness to better our access to this service in Australia. https://homebirthsydney.org.au

This story below is written by the hand of Aimee… 

Our baby boy’s birth story really starts with his big sisters birth. After researching and planning a homebirth and finding our perfect birth team we were so excited about meeting our first baby! My pregnancy was really asymptomatic, I felt well and happy but I had some minor and some major episodes of bleeding due to a subchorionic hematoma (SCH). Still, we kept planning our homebirth and counting down the weeks before we would meet our baby. At 36+4 weeks I woke to a gush which, once I checked, I realised was actually bright red blood! I rang my midwife and said I was bleeding a lot and thought I was having a placental abruption to which she advised we head to the hospital and she’d meet us there. Our birth plans were tipped on their head and I ended up ha ving an emergency caesarean section to deliver our baby girl, Willow, safely. While for many women a homebirth caesarean (HBC) can be traumatic, for me I was really blessed in that I was upset and mourning the birth experience I had so hoped and planned fo r, but I had no trauma related to the birth at all…the hospital stay afterwards on the other hand was horrendous and I vowed never to expose myself to that sort of treatment again if I could prevent it !

Birth With Willow

In the months and years following my HBC I continued to research everything I could about placental abruption. I had many tests to try to figure out why I’d had the placental abruption, but there was no reason discovered . While this was a blessing it was also really hard as I had no reason to ‘blame’ and acc ordingly nothing to ‘fix’ to prevent it in future . The only small bit of information that I felt might explain the placental abruption was that a lack of protein (malnutrition) can result in one, and I’d gone entirely off meat and didn’t substitute it for anything throughout my pregnancy, so I started to up my protein intake for a subsequent pregnancy.

I researched everything I could about vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) and home VBAC (HBAC) , and I searched for anyone who had birthed a baby at home af ter a prior abruption , but to no avail. I watched HBAC videos and read their stories, I spoke to my midwife and women in my community and online and eventually I decided that, provided we were blessed with another pregnancy, I would be trying for a HBAC ne xt time. It took my husband and I 18 months to really decide that we would try for another baby (I was terrified of losing a baby, he was pretty scared of losing me), and after that point it took another 6 months and partially weaning my 2yo daughter to ac tually conceive! Despite doing all I would to maintain a healthy pregnancy (eating well, seeing a naturopath, acupuncturist, maya abdominal massage therapist, counsellor, kinesiologist and chiropractor) I sadly lost two pregnancies in the following 6 month s. Feeling very disheartened and confused I decided to cut almost all of the work I had been doing and to just trust my body would do what it needed if we were meant to have another baby – surrender was the word for this pregnancy, birth and postpartum per iod! W e stopped ‘trying’ to have a baby and I weaned my daughter entirely…we fell pregnant that month with a healthy, perfect pregnancy!

My pregnancy was very simple and easy once I got past the first trimester fear of losing another baby. Everything with bub and I measured and looked perfect, we avoided most of the routine procedures , though we did have scans (mainly to ease my mind regarding placental position and function). As I approached 35 weeks I started nesting like crazy – washing clothes, cleaning the house and prepping for bub, as I’d found it so frustrating being so unprepared when my daughter had arrived early. 37 weeks rolled around and I was shocked and so grateful to still be pregnant! I actually got to have a mothers blessing and experience having henna decorating my belly. My chiropractor did a couple of adjustments on my pelvis and soon after that our baby engaged. Then 38 weeks came along, and I was feeling even more shocked and blessed, everything was going perfectly this time! Over the following couple of weeks I finished work and baby moved further and further down, but I still felt totally comfortable and happy to be pregnant, not about ready to pop at all! I had a few fears surrounding birth, mainly regarding haemorrhage (I guess f rom the abruption being in my mind) , and had discussed those and what would happen if my waters broke early with my midwife, commenting that it rarely happens anyway but that I’ d like to be prepared . On the 12 th November I decided to start doing spinning babies exercises as bub was always curled towards my right hand side and I was worried that would cause issues for labour and birth – it felt really good to stretch everything out a bit.

On the 13th November, our babies due date (and the day after my and before my MIL’s birthday ), I woke up and commented to my hubby ‘I’m still too happy and comfortable being pregnant for this pregnancy to almost be over, this baby is going to be in for a while yet ’… then about two hours later at 9:30am my waters broke while I was lying down reading the ‘Birthing from within’ book! I said ‘Oh…’, and shifted and bit, felt a gush and said ‘OH!’ and ran to the vinyl area in our kitchen. My hubby looked over and said ‘is everything OK?’ and I said ‘either I’m wetting myself, a lot , or my waters just broke!’. He grabbed some towels, we mopped everything up and I was delighted to notice that the waters were crystal cl ear with little flecks of vernix ! I was so elated, hugged my hubby in excitement and rang my midwife and texted my dou la to let them know. At the same time I still felt this was so surreal, surely we wouldn’t be meeting our baby soon. I told hubby we had to keep the toilet extra clean and that if I hadn’t started contracting soon I’d start high dose vitamin C and bug beat er from our herbalist…still, I was so excited to recognise that regardless of what happened it would only be a few more days at most before we met out newest family member!

We decided to take Willow up to our local growers market and walk around a bit to see if it started anything off, and we saw lots of familiar faces while there , including a fellow homebirth mum, which was totally lovely but had me rushing away for fear of blurting ‘I’M GOING TO BE HOLDING MY BABY SOON!!!’ . While walking I kept feeling g ushes of fluid and was filling pads pretty quickly. I also noticed I was starting to have little, niggly braxton hicks. I could easily walk, talk and act normal through them, but hubby said my face turned bright red with each one, so after stocking up on some food we headed back home. I had always planned to set up my birth space and bake a cake (chocolate , at my daughter’s request) with my daughter while in labour, but once I got home I realised things were potentially starting to pick up! I thought I should rest because maybe this wasn’t the real deal and it’d fizzle out, so I asked Juz to look after Willow and went and laid down and listened to some hypnobirthing tracks to try relax and sleep. After 10 minutes of trying to do that and realising that laying down was making the braxton hicks worse, and that I was starting to need to moan through them, I came out and told Juz that we better get stuff ready. We set Willow up with a few toys, I packed the food from the markets away and my hubby helped me set up my birth space which was very basic with just affirmations (lots of them!), willow tree figurines, my birthing necklace, some stones, beeswax candles I’d made and a plant my mum had bought me for my birthday .

By the time we’d finished setting everything up I was swaying and stopping during surges, and found the most comfortable position to be on all fours with a heat pack on my lower belly. My mum called at 1:30pm during a surge and I managed to talk to her through it saying ‘I’m just having some niggles, nothing serious’ (because honestly, I didn’t know if this was the real deal!). Soon after though the only way I could manage through contractions was to rock forwards and backwards over a fit ball, vocalising with heat packs on both my lower belly and back (one of which my daughter took a lot of convincing to part with !). At 2:15pm I asked Juz to call our midwife and she listened to me through a couple of surges, said I was coping well and wanted to know whether I needed her to which I replied ‘I don’t kn ow’ (because I STILL wasn’t sure whether this would just peter out, I didn’t want her driving all the way just for me to not be in labour!). Straight after speaking with her I decided I needed my doula there to watch our daughter, I needed Juz with me for every surge and if he wasn’t there I wasn’t coping so well, so I decided to text her…4 surges later and no text sent I asked Juz to call her and ‘please just get her here!’.

At 2:45pm I told Juz I needed my midwife , I couldn’t feel bub move very often an d even though I intuitively felt everything was f ine I was still a bit concerned, t hough I’m not surprised with the lack of me feeling movements given my contractions were only a couple of minutes apart ; not much time to relax and feel a baby move! Regardl ess of whether she needed to come I also wanted to know whether I could get in the bath, thank goodness she said yes! This fit – ball – rocking business was starting to make me nauseous and I kept whimpering ‘I don’t want to vomit’ with each surge. So once I h ad the go ahead I started running the bath, and because it takes 20 minutes to fill up I decided I wasn’t waiting, I was getting in straight away and would just keep rocking and labouring in there with hot nappies instead of microwaveable heat packs. Now I think about it, I must ha ve looked pretty ridiculous in 1 cm of water rocking away in the bath, but even just having SOME water around me was helping me cope and get in the right mindset. I asked Juz to put some music on and I remember music playing for a couple of songs, but then it didn’t anymore and I honestly didn’t care, it wasn’t making the atmosphere any different for me anyway.

This is where I lost all concept of time…I remember Juz coming in and saying Jacquie was here, then after another surge I saw her feet at the door and I thought (but didn’t say) ‘where’s Annalise?’ (her daughter) . S he sat on our toilet and watched me through a couple of surges after which she commented I was d oing really well and that I must be progressing well given how I was vocalising. I think she stayed for a few surges and rubbed my back, put hot packs on and gave me a cool washer with lavender for my forehead – this was way better than I expected, I normally don’t like the smell of lavender but it was awesome! I remember Willow coming and going, at one point she was whining and I lost it and said ‘GET HER OUT OF HERE!!’ (not my best mothering moment…), but I don’t know when that was in the scheme of things . I remember Jo arriving, seeing her calm smile and all of a sudden feeling a flood of relief – my birth team was here and that meant I was going to give birth soon!! Jo checked on bub and kept saying ‘that’ s one happy baby ’ each time which made me feel wonderfully reassured and calm. I remember my mum calling and me thinking that she’d clue on that I was in labour for sure and that I didn’t want her to because I didn’t want her to be worried about me, but Juz just said ‘Aimee’s in the bath’ and left it a t that, and she didn’t ring back (but boy was she surprised when I spoke with her the next morning!!). I kept having surges lying over the edge of the bath with my head on a pillow and heat packs on my lower belly and back, and they were OK, but for some r eason it felt like they weren’t going anywhere! I all of a sudden got frustrated and decided I was getting out of the bath because it was taking too long…I remember thinking that Jo was wondering what I was doing , but I just felt like I had to get out of t he bath at that point .

I walked to the bedroom and asked for the blinds to be closed (they already were) and used the fit – ball again, rocking backwards and forwards with heat packs on my front and back

which Juz and Jo kept warming in the microwave. I thi nk I spoke with Jo about being out of the bath, saying the surges were feeling like they were progressing more outside the bath, getting more intense, and she said something like ‘that probably means we should stay out of the bath for a while’. After a fe w more surges on the floor my knees were getting sore so I got up on the bed with the fit – ball and started rocking again with heat packs on my front and back. I’ve no idea how long I stayed like this, I was very much in my own little world and I remember n ot talking much during these surges. I also remember seeing Jo timing my surges with an app and thinking how funny it was that I’d downloaded the same app that morning! After a while longer like this I decided I needed the bath again, I think I went to the toilet first and then hopped back in and it was blissful! I kept going as I had before, head on the pillow resting between surges and then using heat packs during them which Juz, Jo and Jacquie were all helping me with. Willow came in to check on me a cou ple of times and Jacquie took some photos, and there were some weird conversations that I caught tid – bits of but can’t remember anything about now! Then all of a sudden having the contractions while sitting in the bath wasn’t working, I needed to stand! S o I’d float around between contractions, sometimes falling asleep which had me thinking ‘maybe I’m close to transition’ and then doubting myself and thinking ‘no, I have forever to go here , this isn’t nearly hard enough yet !’, and as the surge came I’d stand and hold a heat pack on my front, Juz would support me and hold a heat pack on my back. This continued for a while until I started needing to put one leg up on the edge of the bath – I remember that feeling much better. Then as I was having a surge I felt something drip out of my vagina and looked down and it was a bit of mucousy blood! Jacquie noticed it and told Jo, and she came and watched me through surges for a while, but this was one of the fears I’d broached just a week earlier with her (any bleeding scares me!). A few more surges and more blood kept coming, Jo kept checking bubs heart rate and all looked perfect, but she commented that it’d be helpful to know how far dilated I was to try and figure out where the blood might be coming from. I agreed to a vaginal exam which Jo did on the bed and she told me I was 8cm (What!?! No way!). I remember thinking that not being able to move during the surges was unbearable! How anyone could lie on their back throughout labour beats me, that was the worst!

After that I got back in the bath and Jo said she’d be keeping a close watch on bubs heart rate given the bleeding (big reassurance for me anyway) , but to keep doing whatever I felt was right. I kept on as I had before, standing for the surge with one leg elevated and then laying down and falling asleep in between, but these surges were more intense. I randomly remember around this point that Juz organised for some pizza to be ordered (later I questioned what the pizza delivery person thought about my moaning away but my doula met them at the bottom of the driveway – clever!) . I remember Juz asked Jo what the time was and I said ‘NO, don’t say!’ and then said ‘hey, it’s dark, when did that happen?!’. I looked at the affirmations all around the room and the main one that kept standing out was one that said ‘surrender to the power of your body’ , and this really was all about surrender and just trusting in the process so far. I remember looking at Jo and pleadingly saying her name, I wanted her to give me a way to escape. I whimpered and told my birth team I wanted to go home to which Jacquie said something along the lines of ‘that’s the wonderful thing about homebirth, we’re already here’. I told everyone I needed an epidural and Jo told me she couldn’t give me one. I kept asking how many more surges were left and Jo said ‘just focus on this one, love, and so I kept repeating ‘just this one’ in my head with each surge, but I’m sure I asked another four or five times! Last of all I remember saying ‘I can’t do this anymore’ and Jo said something like ‘you don’t have any other option’ or ‘what’s the alternative’, and I was thinking (but not saying) ‘the alternative is that we go to hospital and pull this baby out !! ’. T hen all of a sudden , after only a few of these transitional thoughts, I remember thinking ‘hey, there’s pressure in my bum at the end of the surge’. I went with it for a few surges and noticed I was getting pushy towards the end of each one, but I was convinced this was just a weird baby – position thin g and that it’d go away soon enough…no way was I close to second stage! Then slowly the pushing urge took up the whole surge, not just the end, and I commented ‘I’m pushing’ (Jo had already noted this with Juz several surges prior). This was the most incredible feeling, it was totally overwhelming and surreal! I wasn’t pushing on purpose but my body was doing it for me, and it was seriously powerful! I was blown away by how with each surge the push would come, peak and go, and so too would the vocalising. There was a beautiful image I had on my affirmation board of a baby crowning that I kept visualising with each surge and I started getting really excited – maybe we’d be holding our baby soon! The pushing surge s kept coming and going, coming and going, and I wanted to know when it’d be over…these were incredible but intense, was it really going to end in a baby coming out of my vagina like I’d been dreaming of for so long? I remember saying ‘come ON baby, please just come out’ and also asking Jo ‘how much longer’ and her saying ‘I don’t know love , maybe see if you can feel anything’ . I reached up as far as I could into my vagina and felt nothing…I started wailing ‘there’s nothing there, it’s going to be FOREVER’, but Juz just squeezed my hand and said ‘it won’t be forever, you’re doing it, just focus on the next one’. It w as around this point that Jo recommended we fill the bath up a bit higher and with warmer water, and I noticed a thermometer had made its way in to the bath, which had me thinking that bub must be pretty close now! So the next one, and the next one, and the next one I focused on, and then I decided to check again and what do you know, there was something hard in my vagina!!! I got so excited, ‘I CAN FEEL THE HEAD’ I said, and then I demanded that Juz feel it too despite his reluctance. I was blown away thinking ‘how awesome is this!?!’ and with each surge I’d check where bub had gotten to and show Jo on my finger, usual ly with a big grin on my face because bub was progressively getting lower and lower. I noticed bub would move back up sometimes, and that really annoyed me, but then the next surge would come and it’d be even closer than before. When it got to 1 knuckle away I remember just sighing and grinning, and Jo said ‘wow, you’re so lucid!’ – I felt incredible and womanly, and despite being totally out of control, somehow I felt entirely powerful and capable. Then came a BIG surge, and bubs head started to crown – I could feel what I thought was w hat people described as the ring of fire, but it didn’t really feel like fire to me…just lots of stretchiness! Jo said to say ‘Hah, hah, hah’ and we said it together as bubs head moved further down. Jo checked on bub with the mirror and the doppler, all was going well, and then bubs head did crown and with it came a gush of blood. Despite Jo remaining really calm I could tell this wasn’t the norm, I started getting a little worried but then realised that my babies head was right there, I could see it, and whatever happened the only way it was coming was out of my vagina, so all I could really do is keep on working with my body for now. Jo tried to get the heart rate but it was behind my pubic bone, and while she kept reassuring me that this was probably why she couldn’t get it, she suggested I try to get the head out with the next surge. It felt like the next surge didn’t come for about 10 minutes…come on body, I want to meet my baby!! I gave a big (involuntary) push with the next surge and felt a rubbery feeling as the head moved through and down, and then I stared at my babies head – here’s my baby, half inside me and half out! This is crazy, wonderful and amazing! I rubbed the head full of hair and said ‘hi baby, hi’ and waited and waited for what felt like an eternity for the next surge. Jo still couldn’t get the heart rate but I told her not to worry, I could feel the baby moving, ‘the baby is pulsing’ I’d said…then the next surge came , out came the shoulders and the rest of bub and lo and behold bubs cord was around the neck – THAT’S what the pulsing had been! Jo and I scooped bub out of the water and I got to meet our baby for the first time! As I was picking bub up I realised there was a handful of something foreign there – a penis and testicles! We had a baby boy! But it didn’t matter enough to acknowledge just yet because bub was still coming into his body – he was a bit floppy and not breathing and so Jo kept asking that I rub him, but I think I was a bit too shocked to act at all the way I needed to and so Jo ended up giving him a good rub too. Willow was saying in the background ‘it’s a baby!!!’ and was trying to get into the action, and Jo had to say ‘just give us a chance to get him breathing…him or her’. In the end bub had some suction and that go t him into his body and screaming a hearty cry…and then I was just awestruck by how perfect and squishy and beautiful this little human was! Jacquie took some photos, Willow gave me a high 5, Juz stared at his perfect son (a boy, he was still reeling!)…it was seriously perfect.

Some time after that I remember looking into the water and realising I could see my legs, but only just, and that that was usually the point at which women needed to get out of the bath to ensure there was no post – partum haemor rhage going on. So we got out of the bath and into the bed to feed bub and deliver the placenta which came 45 minutes later with no troubles, though the pressure in my back when delivering that was sick, I didn’t like that bit at all! Once the placenta was born we snuggled and sat in awe of the little miracle that had just occurred, and then we separated bub from his placenta via cord burning while Willow fell asleep watching very closely. Despite managing to burn the cord all the way through it didn’t seal up as well as we’d hoped and continued to bleed a little so we tied and cut it in the end, but there were no complaints from bub at all throughout the whole process. We weighed and measured bub, and I did a wee (my goodness, that was a relief!) and then we snuggled up in bed together, just the three of us as Willow had gone to sleep and been transferred into her bed earlier.

Gentle Birth Gentle Mothering  – http://sarahbuckley.com/gentle-birth-gentle-mothering

Homebirth Access Sydney – https://homebirthsydney.org.au

Aimee is a mother, wife, university lecturer, eternal student and lover of all things birth, babies and breastfeeding! She lives with her husband and two beautiful children in the glorious Blue Mountains. While Aimee has completed a doctorate in plant physiology, since having babies she discovered her passion lies with birth, breastfeeding and parenting. Accordingly, she has begun training to become an ABA counsellor, has recently become the editor for Birthings magazine and often toys with the idea of becoming a doula – We’ll just see what life has in store!

The post E44 – Aimee Sing – Caesarean Placental Abruption & Home Birth HBAC – Cared & Supported appeared first on The Circle of Birth.