Dr Rachel Reed
midwife • author • educator • researcher
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Care providers are responsible for providing adequate information to women in order to facilitate and support their decision-making. Full study: https://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12884-019-2288-5If you have listened to my audiobook and enjoyed it, I'd love for you to leave a review where you bought it and/or on Goodreads. It helps others find the book. Thank you xBirthing the placenta is a joint effort between mother and baby. Disrupting physiology by distracting mother/baby or removing baby from mother = active management of the placenta may be a better option.Couldn't let that moment slip by without a capture :DThank you for all your lovely comments about my big life/work change. I feel supported and reassured that I am part of a much bigger 'collective culture' of people committed to reclaiming childbirth. We can do this together!There is lots of research about the effectiveness (or not) of interventions during the birth of the placenta. We carried out this study because there was no research asking women about their experiences of birthing the placenta. I particularly love the descriptions of the sensations! The article is open access ie. free to download.
Archived by the National Library of Australia and Partners
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Recent Posts
Top Posts
- The Anterior Cervical Lip: how to ruin a perfectly good birth
- An actively managed placenta may be the best option for most women
- Amniotic Fluid Volume: too much, too little, or who knows?
- The Curse of Meconium Stained Liquor
- Gestational Diabetes: beyond the label
- Shoulder Dystocia: the real story
- Post-Dates Induction of Labour: balancing risks
- VBAC: making a mountain out of a molehill
- Big Babies: the risk of care provider fear
- In Celebration of the OP Baby
Author Archives: MidwifeThinking
Responsibilities in the mother-midwife relationship
Updated: April 2020 When I facilitate workshops with midwives and students, there is always a lot of discussion and debate about professional responsibilities in the mother-midwife relationship. These debates often get heated, and the complexities of legal, professional, and ethical issues … Continue reading
Posted in law, midwifery practice, opinion and thoughts, uncategorized
Tagged information giving, law, risk
29 Comments
The Anterior Cervical Lip: how to ruin a perfectly good birth
Updated: June 2021 Here is a scenario I keep hearing over and over: A woman is labouring away and all is good. She begins to push with contractions, and her midwife encourages her to follow her body. After a little … Continue reading
Posted in birth, intervention, midwifery practice
Tagged birth, cervical lip, cervix, occipito-posterior, OP, pushing
442 Comments
VBAC: making a mountain out of a molehill
VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarean) is big. A google search for ‘vbac’ results in ‘about 795,000’ results. Reviews, guidelines, policies and statements are being produced by every organisation with an interest in birth. Support groups and networks are growing. I am … Continue reading
Posted in birth, intervention, midwifery practice
Tagged birth, caesarean, uterine rupture, vbac
347 Comments
In Celebration of the OP Baby
Updated: June 2021 How many times have you heard “I had to have an epidural/c-section/ventouse/etc. because my baby was facing the wrong way”? An occipito posterior (OP) position occurs when the baby enters the pelvis facing forward with his back … Continue reading
Posted in baby, birth, midwifery practice
Tagged birth, blame, cervix, intervention, labour pattern, occipito-posterior, OP, optimal fetal positioning, positions
209 Comments
The Placenta: essential resuscitation equipment
Updated: September 2019 The common practice of premature cord clamping has been challenged in recent years due to a greater understanding of how this intervention disrupts the physiology of placental transfusion (Mercer & Skovgaard 2002). Premature cord clamping results in … Continue reading
Posted in baby, birth, intervention, midwifery practice
Tagged ARM, baby, birth, heart rate, intervention, nuchal cord, placenta, resuscitation, syntocinon, umbilical cord
115 Comments
The Human Microbiome: considerations for pregnancy, birth and early mothering
This post was co-authored by Jessie Johnson-Cash and based on her presentation at the USC Midwifery Education Day. The human microbiome is rather fashionable in the world of science at the moment. The NIH Human Microbiome Project has been set up to … Continue reading
Posted in baby, birth, midwifery practice, pregnancy
Tagged birth, breastfeeding, Chris Kresser, gut bacteria, gut microbiota, human microbiome, microbiome, nutrition, pregnancy, probiotic, stress
119 Comments
Perineal Protectors?
Updated: September 2019 Most women will sustain some damage to their perineum during birth (AIHW 2018). Around 50% will have a tear or graze in the skin and/or vaginal wall (1st / 2nd degree). Occasionally (1% of non-instrumental vaginal births) … Continue reading
Posted in birth, midwifery practice
Tagged birth, episiotomy, perineum, positions, pushing, water
109 Comments
In Defence of the Amniotic Sac
Artificial rupture of membranes (ARM) aka ‘breaking the waters’ is a common intervention during birth. However, an ARM should not be carried out without a good understanding of how the amniotic sac and fluid function in labour. Women need to … Continue reading
Posted in birth, intervention, midwifery practice
Tagged amniotic fluid, amniotic sac, ARM, birth, caul, contractions, heart rate, induction, intervention, syntocinon, waterbirth
224 Comments
