Welcome to Tree of Life Midwifery
If you're expecting a baby or planning to in the near future, congratulations! This time will be unlike any other in your life, full of questions, hopes and fears. I hope you find the information on this site useful, but more importantly, I hope it leads you to ask more questions and seek out answers. The birth and rearing of your child is too important to be left up to others. Make informed decisions and transcend mediocrity!
I would like to share my background and philosophy about birth, so that we can begin to know each other.
My studies of natural birth and midwifery began in 1980; I was still in high school. Over the years, I read voraciously on the subject of birth. I taught childbirth classes off and on, attended births when I was invited. And I gave birth to five children at home between 1985 and 1993.
While lactating and changing diapers for nearly ten years straight, I learned. I learned to knit, spin and weave, play the banjo, train a horse, handfeed baby cockatiels. I learned to identify and prepare herbal remedies, skin a rabbit, change my oil, and chart my fertility cycle.
Then, in 1999, I began my formal midwifery apprenticeship and started working toward my NARM certification. During that period, I also coached soccer, rode my horse in a novice (25 mile) endurance ride, worked as a doula to buy more books and equipment, raised dairy and pack goats and suffered a miscarriage. All these learning experiences have prepared me for the vocation of midwifery. I hope to be the compassionate, skillful attendant to my mothers, that my midwife and mentors were to me. When my hair gets a little whiter, I'll pass the knowledge on to some special apprentice and continue the tradition.
As a midwife, I am constantly in awe of the transformative power that a natural birth has on the life of a family, and a woman in particular. My hope is that women will regain the confidence in their body's ability to give birth, so they can become active participants in the birth process rather than being "actively managed" by a so-called healthcare system .
My Philosophy of Childbirth and Midwifery
Naturally, as a midwife, I am highly opinionated. Usually, I keep my opinions to myself, but if you're viewing this page I assume you want to know my opinion, so I'm happy to share.
A woman's body is perfectly designed to give birth. The process of birth works best when interference is kept to a minimum. But intervention in the normal birth process disrupts the body's natural responses, often resulting in more intervention, including surgery. Also our cultural conditioning, fear, and poor health habits work against our nature, making birth more difficult than it need be.
Perfect health is our natural state of being. When we work to align ourselves with Natural Laws, we regain our health and ALL functions of our bodies begin to work normally. This is a Holistic, Preventative approach to healing. This is the Midwifery Approach to childbirth.
In Transformation Through Birth Claudia Panuthos writes, "Healthy Mothers make Healthy Babies." It's simple. It works. When a woman is willing to let go of unhealthy patterns she can replace them with healthful ones. My role is to give her resources and strategies to create an healthy pregnancy and birth.
A midwife does not deliver babies from their mothers or mothers from their labor. She quietly stands guard at the Gates of Life, a specialist in normal birth. An obstetrician, on the other hand, is a surgeon, a specialist in the complications and treatment of high-risk pregnancy and birth. A midwife views birth as normal and stays alert to complications. A doctor views birth as a potential for crises and actively manages it before it can go wrong.
The role of doctors and midwives are very different, yet complementary. But the roles are not interchangeable. When this becomes common knowledge, maternity care in this country will begin its healing process.
Midwifery Services
My midwifery services include the following prenatal, labor and delivery, and postpartum care.
FREE CONSULTATION
This gives us a chance to meet and discuss whether a planned homebirth is appropriate. I'll get some background information, explain the scope of my practice and answer any questions or concerns.
INITIAL VISIT
At this visit we will review the informed consent and financial agreement, do a complete history, physical exam and nutrition analysis.
PRENATAL VISITS
Return Prenatal Visits will follow a regular schedule; once a month until the seventh month, every two weeks until the eighth month. a home visit at 36 weeks and then every week until the birth.
Each visit lasts about an hour and consists of weight check, urinaylsis, B/P, abdominal palpation of fetal position and growth, and a check of fetal heart rate. We have time during each visit to discuss concerns and just get to know each other better. I encourage you to bring family members to these visits, including children who may be present at the birth.
LABOR and BIRTH SERVICES
When we determine you are in active labor, I go to your home and stay until after the birth. My role is to help you create a safe space that will allow you to give birth. I can recognize complications and offer suggestions or techniques to correct these. In the rare event of a true emergency, I am trained to keep mother/baby stable until we can reach medical help. After an hour of family bonding, I will perform a complete newborn exam.
POSTPARTUM CARE
My services include the following postpartum care.
* a one-day home visit.
* a five-day office visit. Includes PKU(metabolic screening) and filing of the birth certificate.
* a six-week office visit. Includes baby weight/growth check and a well-woman exam.
OTHER SERVICES
Telephone Consultation
I am available to answer questions by telephone during regular office hours.
Lending Library
I have a variety of books and videos clients are welcome to borrow.
Apprentice-Faith Hobby
Faith Hobby assists Betsy Melancon during Grace's birth.
Faith Hobby has been working with me for several months now. She is a great asset to my practice, and I frequently wonder what I'd do without her. Her son was born at home and sometimes joins us for prenatal and home visits. Faith is an experienced lactation consultant working part-time in a busy WIC office teaching breastfeeding classes to our Hispanic moms. Her fluency in Spanish, a result of living in Puerto Rico for over nine years, is what makes her indipensible to me during our prenatal visits. At least 50% of the women I serve speak only Spanish y hablo un espanol un poquito, solamente. Faith has also worked as a doula for couples choosing hospital birth, so she has all kinds of great ideas for comforting women in labor.
Faith has been a dedicated student, actively pursuing her NARM certification. I have no doubt she'll be a compassionate, skillful midwife.
Planned Home Births Better for Mom
A 2000 study of home births in the US and Canada concluded that planned home births attended by certified professional midwives resulted in lower rates of medical intervention than their low risk counterparts at hospitals. For example, in the hospital 33% of the women received episiotomies compared to 2.1% of the women who began their labor at home. The caesarean rate was 19% of the low risk births in the hospital. For intended home births in the study, the caesarean rate was 3.7%.
No maternal deaths occured. Neonatal and intrapartum mortality rates were about the same at home or the hospital.
The study followed 5418 women who planned to deliver at home, of which 12% were transferred to the hospital during labor (more than half for failure to progress, pain relief, or exhaustion). Transfer rates were highest for women giving birth for the first time.
In the United States, where birth has become "an economic, medical, and industrial enterprise" costs for an uncomplicated vaginal birth in a hospital are about three times those of home births.
"Our study of certified professional midwives suggests that they achieve good outcomes among low risk women without routine use of expensive hospital interventions. Our results are consistent with the weight of previous research on safety of home birth with midwives internationally. This evidence supports the American Public Health Association's recommendation to increase access to out of hospital maternity care services with direct entry midwives in the United States. We recommend that these findings be taken into account when insurers and governing bodies make decisions about home birth and hospital privileges with respect to certified professional midwives."
Mothering the Mother
Doulas are featured into today's New York Times in anticipation of PBS airing Danny Alpert's A Doula Story.
A Mother's Brain
Katherine Ellison's article "This is Your Brain on Motherhood" points out some of the scientific evidence that shows parenting might actually improve your brain activity, in contradiction to the widely-held stereotype of mothers as incompetents.
This is, in fact, what some leading brain scientists, like Michael Merzenich at the University of California, San Francisco, now believe. Becoming a parent, they say, can power up the mind with uniquely motivated learning. Having a baby is "a revolution for the brain," Dr. Merzenich says.
The human brain, we now know, creates cells throughout life, cells more likely to survive if they're used. Emotional, challenging and novel experiences provide particularly helpful use of these new neurons, and what adjectives better describe raising a child? Children constantly drag their parents into challenging, novel situations, be it talking a 4-year-old out of a backseat meltdown on the Interstate or figuring out a third-grade homework assignment to make a model of a black hole in space."And there are other ways that being a dedicated parent strengthens our minds. Research shows that learning and memory skills can be improved by bearing and nurturing offspring. A team of neuroscientists in Virginia found that mother lab rats, just like working mothers, demonstrably excel at time-management and efficiency, racing around mazes to find rewards and get back to the pups in record time. Other research is showing how hormones elevated in parenting can help buffer mothers from anxiety and stress - a timely gift from a sometimes compassionate Mother Nature. Oxytocin, produced by mammals in labor and breast-feeding, has been linked to the ability to learn in lab animals."
Episiotomies: More Harm Than Good
On May 4, 2005, JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, released the results of their study on The Outcomes of Routine Episiotomy.
"The evidence is clear: Routine use of episiotomy is not supported by research and should stop," said Katherine E. Hartmann, director of the Center for Women's Health Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who led the analysis published in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. "Women need to know this information so they can talk with their care providers before they are in labor."
Related Links
The Washington Post
"Contradicting the long-accepted rationale for the procedure, called an episiotomy, the analysis found that it increases the risk of tissue tears, leading to more pain, more stitches and a longer recovery after childbirth. In addition, an episiotomy increases the risk of sexual difficulties later and does not reduce the risk of incontinence, the federally sponsored study found."
Associated Press
"For years, some doctors believed that an episiotomy, an incision to enlarge the vaginal opening during childbirth, would prevent spontaneous tearing that would be harder to repair. They also believed the procedure would help women avoid incontinence and improve their sex lives.
"It turns out those beliefs were myths.
"A new review of 26 research studies shows that episiotomies are linked with a higher risk of injury, more trouble healing and more pain."
Vaginal Birth of Twins
Congratulations to Robert Brady, who is now the proud grandfather of twins, who were born vaginally in a midwife-assisted birth in Japan.
In "Natural Surprises: Thursday, August 7, 2003", Grandpa Brady details everyone's surprise and joy that his new grandchild turned out to be identical twin girls.
"Echo called again, saying that after the baby was born they were waiting for the placenta, the midwife saying 'This is taking an awfully long time' (it sounded to me like bad news coming) and 'That looks like a very large placenta, but it doesn't seem to be progressing at all,' so the midwife gave a listen with the stethoscope and nearly fainted when she heard another heartbeat in there. There is nothing in the world as deep as a natural surprise.
"If Kasumi had had an ultrasound scan, and thus found out she was carrying twins, the midwife would have had to refuse to attend the birth. By Japanese law, all multiple births must be delivered in hospitals; but since no one knew until mid-way through, it was a first for the midwife too."
In Natural Happiness: Sunday, August 9, 2003" he explains why his daughter, Kasumi, didn't want to give birth at a hospital again.
"Anyway, Kasumi hadn't wanted to go back to the hospital she'd been sent to last time, because there they took Kaya away as soon as she was born, and against Kasumi's wishes fed her formula instead of letting Kasumi breastfeed. Mother and baby were just stats to them. "
