What can I say here, to update how midwifery school is going?
To sum it up in one word: BUSY.
I love my intrapartum class. To me, this is the heart of learning to be a midwife. I love everything about birth. The good, the bad, the ugly. I just am loving that I am soaking it all up like a sponge! I need to set up my certification in fetal monitoring as part of the completion requirements for the intrapartum course, but that is no biggie. How long have I been reading EFM strips? A long, long time. We adopted all of the NICHD guidelines about 1-2 years ago at work, so knowing the different categories and definitions is a piece of cake.
On to Market Research! I like this class too. Although, it is a little difficult getting all of the convenience sample surveys done from consumers. I'm getting there though. Then it's a matter of writing up all of the data into a paper. That's the "big" project for this 1 credit course. Yeah, some people may say it's a fluff type of course, but it's good to know how to determine what women know about midwifery care, and how to go about educating women on midwifery care. This course is also heavy on the birth center aspect - of which there are none within an hour's drive. However, in Pennsylvania, I have to admit that we are blessed with several birth centers (freestanding birth centers, that is). You just have to drive quite a distance to get to them.
We have:
Birth Care and Family Health Service in Bart, PA
The Birth Center in Bryn Mawr outside of Philadelphia, PA
Reading Birth & Women's Center in Reading, PA
The Midwife Center for Birth and Women's Health in Pittsburgh, PA
Valley Birthplace in Huntington Valley, PA
Bear in mind though, that Pennsylvania is a very large state, and women may not have easy access to the birth centers listed above. We need more. I know the need is there. I see women in the big ol' city hospital who come in wanting natural births, and are low risk, but they don't have the option locally to go to a birth center.
I was able to tour a birth center a few months back, in another state. It was fantastic! (Look back to May of this year - I think I posted pictures too.) I didn't actually see a birth, but rather, took a tour of the birth center. And learned a whole lot about the nitty gritty of owning and operating a birth center.
What I would really love to do is see a homebirth. Up close and personal. I am dying to see what birth is like, unhindered, without the strict rules and protocols of a hospital setting. It would probably anger me, in the long run, to have to go back to the hospitalized birth setting, and see all the nonsense that we do to mess with birth. (Sometimes needed, more often than not, it isn't needed.)
Life is never easy, is it?
8 comments:
I think you are right to say that after witnessing a homebirth or better yet-an unassisted birth. The experience would drive you away from the hospital model at a dead run tearing your hair out. The differences are intense. There are lots of them to read about online and some are so well-written that it is like a front row seat. I live vicariously thru women who are strong enough to do it.
Glad to hear you like your classes this term! I'll be taking them in spring 2012. :)
I had the opportunity to visit the Reading Birth & Women's Center as a part of the AABC workshop. I enjoyed the tour!
I have been to one homebirth (also a waterbirth), and it was really wonderful. It was everything I imagined a homebirth to be. Of course, I don't have too much to compare it to, seeing as I've only observed 5 births so far. :) But I can't imagine that many women would be disappointed by their homebirth experience.
How funny, we're quite the opposite. I'm going from a homebirth loving, UCing bubble straight into my own personal hell of the hospital model. Hoping we've moved before I finish up my RN so I don't have to be an OB nurse at the local hospital (where they could use some of my hippy good-ness) that drives me absolutely batty with their dark ages. I'm quite surprised they don't bleed their patients. I've often read your blog and wondered how different some of your posts would be if you started with out of hospital births. Hopefully you'll get to attend a few homebirths, especially with knitting midwives.
When I went to nursing school in Lancaster the local Amish midwives allowed the nursing students to tag along. The very first birth my roommate witnessed was an Amish home birth by candlelight.
Depending on where you are in Eastern PA, the local Amish may be open to you observing.
My sil had a few babies at the birth center in Bryn Mawr and loved it. It was very, very hard for her to go back to the hospital when she moved and no longer had access to a birth center.
Thank you for all of your input ladies! I have a few people that I know (or know through others) that are part of the homebirth community. I need to get some more feelers out there, about attending a homebirth or two.
You have been busy! Thinking good homebirth thoughts for you! I'm sure you'll find someone... who knows maybe eve a reader of your blog!
Hi there! I haven't been to your website before, but I'm so glad that I visited. I actually gave birth at the Birth and Women's Center in Reading. They are truly a wonderful set of CNM's that run it. Because of them, I've decided to go ahead and become a birth doula (I have a young family, so I'm going to have to wait on becoming a midwife). To go to the birth center though, we have to drive about an hour and fifteen minutes. I barely made it there for both of my births. I was their for 15 minutes before my second child was born, and 25 minutes before my third child (this past April) was born. It certainly made for a harried car ride that my husband did not enjoy! ;) I would have loved a homebirth, but we live exactly 30 minutes from the nearest hospital, and frankly, it's one that does NOT work with midwives at all, which would create a dangerous situation in an emergency.
PA is in desperate need for more birthing centers and midwives, especially where I live (Schuylkill County). My midwives refer to my area as the "black hole of birth services". I'm always on the lookout for birth services around me for my doula certification, and this area is certainly bleak. Our county doesn't even have a Le Leche League.
I'm a regular reader and I had two babies at the Bryn Mawr Birth Center. While its perfect, I felt very fortunate to have a birth center option 20 minutes from home.
I'm now living in a rural part of northern Israel and there is a birth center 45 minutes away (across the highway from the closest hospital).
Post a Comment