One of the first things they talked about during the portion of the midwifery conference that I attended last week, was how to balance having a family & home life with being a midwife. I knew that there was a lot of time & sacrifice involved (being on call, getting calls at 3 am by new mothers who would be concerned about every little thing, having to attend labors sometimes for days), but I didn’t realize just how much. I’d already kinda known that midwifery was not the exact path I wanted to take – not right now, anyway – and this just confirmed it.
The same with being a birth doula. I would love to, because I want to be in a position to advocate, but to be a birth doula also requires the same kind of time & sacrifice. The midwife who was speaking said that it’s not so bad if you go into a relationship where you’re already a Midwife, but quite another if you have the husband & kids and THEN go into it. Really, the women you attend to come first. She actually said the words, “Midwifery equals death to a marriage.” Eventually – when Nugget is older and I’m older, I would love to be a birth doula. My own birth doula was so incredibly instrumental in recognizing & supporting me to do what I truly seemed to want – the home birth. If not for her, I might not have done it.
But I want to help, and I very much want to advocate & educate and try to convince others to go the home birth route. Or at the very least, a birth center. So I’ve finally made a solid decision and started taking steps towards it. I’m going to be a birth educator and postpartum Doula, which will allow me to be supportive in a different way – and I particularly feel I would be a good choice for women far from family & friends and who are having breastfeeding troubles. I’ve been there, hooo boy. Many postpartum doulas or LC’s (Lactation Consultants) will push and push and push & refuse to give up on breastfeeding. But I know that sometimes that can be a strain & cause a lot of extra pressure and make everything that much worse. So I can support someone in wanting to do that, but I think I would also be able to recognize when they’ve reached the breaking point or need to try something else. I can offer pumping and … ta da! Goat milk!
The birth education thing is obvious. That will put me in a position to EDUCATE and to be able to, hopefully, convince some people that home birth is a really good option. Just to be able to convince one or two people, even, to go for it would be so tremendously fulfilling to me.
I’ve signed up to attend a postpartum Doula class in July. Before that, I need to fulfill a couple prerequisites if I want to be certified with DONA – simply going through a lactation consultation class, in person or online, and reading a couple of books.
In any case. I took a few random notes during the session I attended last week. Such as:
- Detection vs Prevention: Hospitals and OB/GYNs focus on detection, whereas midwives focus on prevention
- pre-eclampsia: preventable with calcium & aspirin
- Why do you want to be a midwife/doula – “is it a romantic thought or a call on your life?”
- OB/GYNs fear first time mothers and step in with interventions often because they have an “unproven pelvis”. (And afterwards I wrote “HA HA HA HA HA HA!”)
- When women call up the midwife (who was speaking) and ask if she’d take a first-time mother, her answer is HELL YES. They are yet unhurt, unscarred, untainted, and haven’t yet been told they can’t do something and are not full of all the fear. They are fertile ground for the experience.
- Diets – if you gain a good amount of weight, doesn’t matter what you eat. Ideally, would not be mostly Snickers bars, for example, but if you gain the weight, the baby will be ok.
- Ultrasounds – still an unknown. Have been shown to produce smaller babies. Also have been PROVEN to cause cellular change in very, very early stages.
- Rogam – still kind of up in the air. Need postpartum shot, only?
- Prenatal vitamins – a waste of money? (Possibility of too much iron, really only need vitamin C? ** Look into this further)
- http://www.midwifeupdates.com/ – good website, source of info
- WHO also recommends LATE CORD CLAMPING (**This blood is for the baby!)
I also subscribed to Midwifery Today, which is a great resource if this is something you’re interested in.