Archive for March, 2009
-
Cara Muhlhahn
Monday, March 30th, 2009There has been a great deal of discussion during this last week regarding Cara Muhlhahn, the midwife portrayed in Ricki Lake’s film, The Business of Being Born. The article does a very good job of outlining several different aspects of her practice. Ms. Muhlhahn has birthed many hundreds of healthy babies and appears to be well thought of by the majority of her clients. She has also settled a “just under a million dollar” malpractice suit stemming from a baby damaged during birth and has had a baby die under her care.
-
Same Sex Families
Wednesday, March 11th, 2009I am in the line of work of building families. Well, actually not building them (their parents do that) but rather welcoming beautiful children into families. Families of all types, from all different kinds of backgrounds. It is remarkable all of the ways families can be created. I grew up in a traditional, Midwestern family. Within my own family, I have two stepsons, four “grandchildren” who call me “Tia”. They have four sets of grandparents and my own son calls my husband’s ex-wife Grandma.
-
Homebirth vs. Hospital Birth – The Gloves Are Off
Wednesday, March 4th, 2009Birthing babies is what I love most in the world. The fact that I now have women ask me “is it really bad for me to have my baby in a hospital?” breaks my heart and has forced me to come out swinging. Enough is enough. I can no longer sit back and listen to this dialogue about homebirth come up again and again without inserting some badly needed facts and a serious reality check. The argument is always the same by homebirth advocates. Hospitals are loud, hectic, bright, insensitive, uncaring machines full of greedy doctors and overworked “medical personnel” – (I am pretty sure as a nurse, that means me) who are just waiting to hook women up to unnecessary medications and prevent them from “trusting their bodies”.
