Since your bill would essentially mandate surgery for the underprivileged women in your community, I highly encourage you to become educated about the risks of cesarean section, especially when a woman has more than one.  The maternal death rate is rising in our country.  The CDC has acknowledged that the death rates are actually under …

Please take action now to stop two bills HB 2163 and HB 2167 introduced into the House to limit the practice of Certified Professional Midwives.  These bills have been introduced by Delegate Matthew Lohr- Harrisonburg.    URGENT: Please send him an email TODAY telling him that you would like him to pull these bills from the …

The monthly Birth Circle meetings sponsored by Birth Matters Charlottesville have become incredibly popular in the midwifery community.  These informal gatherings generally involve birth stories, resources sharing, and building connections among expecting and new moms in the Charlottesville area.  The group is not midwife or home birth exclusive. In fact, the compelling nature of the group comes from …

This image by Susan Tibbles accompanied Jennifer Block’s Op-Ed about midwives. On Christmas Eve, Pushed author Jennifer Block opined in the LA Times that homebirth and Certified Professional Midwives must be key elements of Obama’s healthcare reform strategy.  Read the article or more cool stuff on Jennifer’s blog, PushedBirth. She highlights some pretty startling facts: Not …

Many of you have already heard about the new film, Orgasmic Birth, but the mainstream is about to get an earfull when 20/20 takes on the question of whether orgasms in labor are possible, and if so…how do you get one? http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6120045&page=1 It’s great to see this kind of story about birth.  The fact that …

This is one of our clients. Please pass this request on to anyone you know who might be willing to share extra breast milk. Thanks, Brynne On September 3rd, I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl (Haylie Peyton) via an outdoor water birth at home. It was everything I had hoped for and more. …

An article published this month is the journal of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology recommends labor prior to a primary cesarean as a preventive measure against uterine rupture in future pregnancies. A powerful argument against medical induction, the researchers tracked over 10,000 women from their primary c-section to the end of their second …

I sat down this evening with a cup of tea to read all about the new publication Evidence-Based Maternity Care by Childbirth Connections, The Reforming States Group, and The Milbank Memorial Fund.

Hello Charlottesville! This is a birth announcement for our new blog: The Midwife Monologues. Our vision is to have a forum for dialogue for all things pertaining to modern midwives and the clients they serve. Topics will include Advocacy, Research, Health, Parenting, Breastfeeding, and (oh yeah) Birth! We invite you and your midwives to join …

I am very excited to be attending Rosita Arvigo’s Maya Abdominal Massage Practitioner Training in Belize in in January of 2009! I have taken the level one (self care) course and can’t wait to be able to offer this simple and profound technique to the women of Charlottesville.  The basic concept is that your uterus moves, …