Brochure - Nurses, Midwives, Dads and Doulas - FROM RONNIE Falcão's MIDWIFE ARCHIVES

The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

Brochure - Nurses, Midwives, Dads and Doulas

The Best Thing You Can Do for Mothers, Babies, Birth and Families is to Become Net Savvy!

I just had my mind expanded this morning by Laureen Hudson's hour long online session on how to use the internet to get a message out. Laureen's session “Creating an Online Presence," gave me a wealth of information in a short time and impressed me with how many people are out there who completely rely on the internet for their information. I needed that, and maybe you do, too.

- Ina May Gaskin

I just hung up the phone from doing the hour long session with Laureen Hudson on “Creating an Online Presence”. Laureen’s know-how and expertise were enough to wake up even the birth oldtimers like me and Ina May to the many unused opportunities of the internet. Laureen’s engaging and easygoing teaching style made even those scary (to me) terms like “hypertext, streaming, wordpress, technorati, feedreader and trackback” start to make sense. Her passion is to reach the generation of young women who have not yet given birth BEFORE they fall into the black hole of aggressive obstetrics. I came away from the class today with lots of ways to improve my website and make it more modern, usable and interesting for readers. This class will run again this coming Friday (August 22) and I heartily recommend it.
- Gloria Lemay

REGISTER NOW! SPACE IS LIMITED!

Cost: $35 per session

Each session will be 60 minutes in length

Creating An Online Presence
Sunday, September 7 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, September 19 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, September 22 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern

Search!
This session will include a case study of Dr. Amy and how we shoot ourselves in the collective feet by visiting and commenting on her website. (PS Hope you enjoyed the Gotcha! page from our last email!)
Sunday, October 5 at 5:00 p.m. Pacific / 8:00 p.m. Eastern
Friday, October 24 at 12:00 p.m. Pacific / 3:00 p.m. Eastern
Monday, October 27 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern

Most women wonder what labor will be like and who will be there to provide physical and emotional support for her. In this pamphlet I will explore the various options available for the birthing women.

Nurses

Nurses who work on a maternity ward are a special breed. They are specifically trained to take care of you in the best medical way possible. They receive their orders from your Dr. And have the knowledge it takes to assess you physically as you progress through labor. Their duties include assessing you when you come to the hospital doing such things as:

settling you into your room
taking your vital signs
doing a vaginal exam to see what stage of labor you are in and calling the Dr. To report it.
hooking up a fetal monitor
inserting an IV and administering any medication
attending to her other patients

During labor they may or may not provide emotional and physical support, it depends on the nurse that is assigned to you and or the duties that they must perform. A study was done that showed that even with one nurse to each patient, nurses were only able to spend 6% of their time providing support to the laboring mother. While you are in labor the nurse may have to:

adjust your IV and fetal monitor
read and record your fetal monitor
record other factors such as your urine output etc.
go on her meal break or go home
help another nurse in another room
attend to her other patients

The time just before your baby is born is a very busy time for your nurse...she may have to:

call your Dr. or midwife
gather together all the equipment that the DR or midwife will need to use during and after the birth and the items needed for your baby.
if your hospital does not have labor/birthing rooms she will have to help bring you to the delivery room.
when the DR or midwife arrives she may have to be reading the fetal monitor, handing the Dr or midwife the instruments etc.

Immediately after the birth is another time when your nurse will have many things to do:

assess, clean, weigh, warm your baby
clean the room and put everything away
chart everything that just went on
massage your uterus
possibly have time to teach a little about breastfeeding.
attend to her other patients

Midwives

Midwives are wonderful people. Most do not use the medical model of care ( that birth is a medical process vs. Normal and natural)for birthing women. You should probably question your midwife as to how she works as some do go by the medical model of birth. They spend more time with you than a Dr does and just might be available to provide some labor support. But the midwife also has other duties that include but are not limited to:

doing vaginal exams to check your progress
checking with the nurse about the monitors etc.
checking on her other patients
setting up equipment to assist in the birth
doing all other things related to the birth
after the birth she may assist you with breastfeeding

Dads

Many partners want to be with the women they love during labor and be present during the birth of their baby. Since all men are different your baby's dad may:

take classes to help you through every stage of labor and the birth
not take classes but still want to help the mom
not want to do any physical comforting only emotional
not want to be there for labor but for the birth or visa versa
Not want to be there at all..the squeamish type
not able to be there
just wants to stay and hold your hand

The presence of your baby's dad is encouraged as it will help immensely with the bonding of you all as a family. Dads need encouragement, advice, snack breaks, sleep etc. If dad can't or isn't willing to provide labor support and the nurse and midwife is too busy who will ...

........Enter the Doula

A doula is a woman trained in labor support, who knows that birth is an awesome, empowering experience for a birthing women and her partner, and wants very much for you to have the birth experience that YOU want. The doula can:

meet with you before the birth and assist you with making a birth plan, and answer any birth related questions
stay with you for the whole time that you are in labor and for awhile after the birth
provide continuous physical, emotional and information support.
assist and support you after the birth with breastfeeding issues, baby care etc.

In other words, a doula
Mothers the Mother