Please contact Carrie@birthteacher.com to register.

Vernix caseosa as a multi-component defence system based on polypeptides, lipids, and their interactions.

Full study found here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2315785

Vernix caseosais a white cream-like substance that covers the skin of the foetus and the newborn baby. Recently, we discovered antimicrobial peptides/proteins such as LL-37 in vernix, suggesting host defence functions of vernix. In a proteomic approach, we have continued to characterize proteins in vernix and have identified 20 proteins, plus additional variant forms. The novel proteins identified, considered to be involved in host defence, are cystatin A, UGRP-1, and calgranulin A, B and C. These proteins add protective functions to vernix such as antifungal activity, opsonizing capacity, protease inhibition, and parasite inactivation. The composition of the lipids in vernix has also been characterized and among these compounds the free fatty acids were found to exhibit antimicrobial activity. Interestingly, the vernix lipids enhance the antimicrobial activity of LL-37 in vitro, indicating interactions between lipids and antimicrobial peptides in vernix. In conclusion, vernix is a balanced cream of compounds involved in host defence, protecting the foetus and newborn against infection.

Discussion:

Beginning Tuesday 5/12-6/16. We’re metting at 7:30pm at my home. I will have several guest speakers this time. This 6 week series will be a “mixed bag” of both home and hospital birthers.

please see the website for more detail. It’s been recently updated: www.birthteacher.com

The mama and her family worked so hard and for so long, but as it is in many places and with induced births (even the medically necessary ones) sometimes a surgical birth is necessary.

Parents are doing well, baby is a ray of light. Everyone is recovering!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7998417.stm

Research from the Netherlands – which has a high rate of home births – found no difference in death rates of either mothers or babies in 530,000 births.

Home births have long been debated amid concerns about their safety.

UK obstetricians welcomed the study – published in the journal BJOG – but said it may not apply universally.

The number of mothers giving birth at home in the UK has been rising since it dipped to a low in 1988. Of all births in England and Wales in 2006, 2.7% took place at home, the most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics showed.

The research was carried out in the Netherlands after figures showed the country had one of the highest rates in Europe of babies dying during or just after birth.

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It was suggested that home births could be a factor, as Dutch women are able and encouraged to choose this option. One third do so.

But a comparison of “low-risk” women who planned to give birth at home with those who planned to give birth in hospital with a midwife found no difference in death or serious illness among either baby or mother.

“We found that for low-risk mothers at the start of their labour it is just as safe to deliver at home with a midwife as it is in hospital with a midwife,” said Professor Simone Buitendijk of the TNO Institute for Applied Scientific Research.

“These results should strengthen policies that encourage low-risk women at the onset of labour to choose their own place of birth.”

Hospital transfer

Low-risk women in the study were those who had no known complications – such as a baby in breech or one with a congenital abnormality, or a previous caesarean section.

Nearly a third of women who planned and started their labours at home ended up being transferred as complications arose – including for instance an abnormal fetal heart rate, or if the mother required more effective pain relief in the form of an epidural.

The NHS is simply not set up to meet the potential demand for home births

Louise Silverton
Royal College of Midwives

But even when she needed to be transferred to the care of a doctor in a hospital, the risk to her or her baby was no higher than if she had started out her labour under the care of a midwife in hospital.

The researchers noted the importance of both highly-trained midwives who knew when to refer a home birth to hospital as well as rapid transportation.

While stressing the study was the most comprehensive yet into the safety of home births, they also acknowledged some caveats.

The group who chose to give birth in hospital rather than at home were more likely to be first-time mothers or of an ethnic minority background – the risk of complications is higher in both these groups.

The study did not compare the relative safety of home births against low-risk women who opted for doctor rather than midwife-led care. This is to be the subject of a future investigation.

Home option

But Professor Buitendijk said the study did have relevance for other countries like the UK with a highly developed health infrastructure and well-trained midwives.

Women need to be counselled on the unexpected emergencies which can arise during labour and can only be managed in a maternity hospital

RCOG

In the UK, the government has pledged to give all women the option of a home birth by the end of this year. At present just 2.7% of births in England and Wales take place at home, but there are considerable regional variations.

Louise Silverton, deputy general secretary of the Royal College of Midwives, said, the study was “a major step forward in showing that home is as safe as hospital, for low risk women giving birth when support services are in place.

“However, to begin providing more home births there has to be a seismic shift in the way maternity services are organised. The NHS is simply not set up to meet the potential demand for home births, because we are still in a culture where the vast majority of births are in hospital.

“There also has to be a major increase in the number of midwives because they are the people who will be in the homes delivering the babies.”

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said it supported home births “in cases of low-risk pregnancies provided the appropriate infrastructures and resources are present to support such a system.

But it added: “Women need to be counselled on the unexpected emergencies – such as cord prolapse, fetal heart rate abnormalities, undiagnosed breech, prolonged labour and postpartum haemorrhage – which can arise during labour and can only be managed in a maternity hospital.

“Such emergencies would always require the transfer of women by ambulance to the hospital as extra medical support is only present in hospital settings and would not be available to them when they deliver at home.”

The Department of Health said that giving more mothers-to-be the opportunity to choose to give birth at home was one of its priority targets for 2009/10.

A spokesman said: “All Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) have set out plans for implementing Maternity Matters to provide high-quality, safe maternity care for women and their babies.”

Giving birth can take a toll on new mothers, especially after the baby arrives. Studies have shown nearly a quarter of all new moms experience some degree of postpartum depression. To combat the symptoms, some women have chosen a controversial approach – the ingestion of the human placenta.

Sage Khouerie admitted she was concerned about giving birth after the age of 40. So the 41-year old chose to ingest her placenta to avoid postpartum symptoms; the action of doing so is called placentaphagy.

“I was 40 when I delivered. I thought ‘Wow, this could be a little tougher on me than a younger woman and I want to be open to anything that would make it easier’,” said Khouerie.

The placenta, an organ about the size of a dinner plate, delivers nutrients from the mother to the child during gestation. Some mothers have chosen to eat it after childbirth, while others have cooked it and ground it into pill form.

Naeemah Jones is a doula (an assistant who provides various forms of non-medical support in the childbirth process) who helps new moms understand the benefits of the process. She feels ingestion of the placenta can decrease the negative symptoms that can occur after childbirth.

“Hair loss, a very small amount of breast milk,” said Jones, “(placentaphagy) helps produce more breast milk, it get the balance of the hormones together, it’s like a happy pill for the moms.”

Laura Taylor, 36, has three children but only chose to ingest her placenta after giving birth to her third child.

“So when I took them this time, I never had such a wonderful recovery after having a baby,” said Taylor.

While most mammals eat their own placenta, no studies have been done on the health benefits of human placentaphagy. Still, it’s growing in popularity. Jones says “now new parents are doing their homework, they are finding out they have choices.”

Research has shown that the practice is safe as long as mothers ingest their own placenta. There are some alternative medicines that include human placentas but those should be avoided due to a high risk factor.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

The perfect place to meet all the local birth professionals in one place! There will be massage therapists, midwives, Child Birth Educators and Doulas and other associated vendors.

Saturday, March 14 11-2pm
Baby Depot at the Citadel Mall.

THIS IS A FREE EVENT

Find a variety of Resources for Expectant Parents! Information on your New baby, pregnancy, Labor, Birth and more!!

Free Resource Guide: Birth and Beyond 2009 Provided by Colorado Springs Birth Newtwork

Enter to Win a prize courtesy of Baby Depot!

I’m giving away an asian style carrier:

http://www.consumerreports.org/health/medical-conditions-treatments/pregnancy-childbirth/maternity-care/overview/maternity-care.htm

Noninvasive measures can mean better outcomes for baby and Mom.When it’s time to bring a new baby into the world, there’s a lot to be said for letting nature take the lead. The normal, hormone-driven changes in the body that naturally occur during delivery can optimize infant health and encourage the easy establishment and continuation of breastfeeding and mother-baby attachment. Childbirth without technical intervention can succeed in leading to a good outcome for mother and child, according to a new report. (Take our maternity-care quiz to test your knowledge.)
“Evidence-Based Maternity Care: What It Is and What It Can Achieve,” co-authored by Carol Sakala and Maureen P. Corry of the nonprofit Childbirth Connection analyzed hundreds of the most recent studies and systematic reviews of maternity care. The 70-page report was issued collaboratively by Childbirth Connection, the Reforming States Group (a voluntary association of state-level health policymakers), and Milbank Memorial Fund, and released on Oct. 8, 2008.

Overuse of high-tech measures

The report found that, in the U.S., too many healthy women with low-risk pregnancies are being routinely subjected to high-tech or invasive interventions that should be reserved for higher-risk pregnancies. Such measures include:

Inducing labor. The percentage of women whose labor was induced more than doubled between 1990 and 2005
Use of epidural painkillers, which might cause adverse effects, including rapid fetal heart rate and poor performance on newborn assessment tests
Delivery by Caesarean section, which is estimated to account for one-third of all U.S births in 2008, will far exceed the World Health Organization’s recommended national rate of 5 to 10 percent
Electronic fetal monitoring, unnecessarily adding to delivery costs
Rupturing membranes (“breaking the waters”), intending to hasten onset of labor
Episiotomy, which is often unnecessary
In fact, the current style of maternity care is so procedure-intensive that 6 of the 15 most common hospital procedures used in the entire U.S. are related to childbirth. Although most childbearing women in this country are healthy and at low risk for childbirth complications, national surveys reveal that essentially all women who give birth in U.S. hospitals have high rates of use of complex interventions, with risks of adverse effects.

The reasons for this overuse might have more to do with profit and liability issues than with optimal care, the report points out. Hospitals and care providers can increase their insurance reimbursements by administering costly high-tech interventions rather than just watching, waiting, and shepherding the natural process of childbirth.

Convenience for health care workers and patients might be another factor. Naturally occurring labor is not limited to typical working hours. Evidence also shows that a disproportionate amount of tech-driven interventions like Caesarean sections occur during weekday “business hours,” rather than at night, on weekends, or on holidays.

Underuse of high-touch, noninvasive measures

Many practices that have been proven effective and do little to no harm are underused in today’s maternity care for healthy low-risk women. They include:

Prenatal vitamins
Use of midwife or family physician
Continuous presence of a companion for the mother during labor
Upright and side-lying positions during labor and delivery, which are associated with less severe pain than lying down on one’s back
Vaginal birth (VBAC) for most women who have had a previous Caesarean section
Early mother-baby skin-to-skin contact
The study suggests that those and other low-cost, beneficial practices are not routinely practiced for several reasons, including limited scope for economic gain, lack of national standards to measure providers’ performance, and a medical tradition that doesn’t prioritize the measurement of adverse effects, or take them into account.

Doula work can be difficult.

But doula work is non-clinical and non-invasive.

When I became a doula for military wives in the early 1980′s, the word doula was just a Greek word for the most favored woman in the ancient Greek household. It had not yet been linked to a trained (and often certified) woman who gives informational, educational and physical support to laboring women and their families. Today, after 24 years of practicing as a doula and seven years as a doula trainer for DONA, it disturbs me to hear stories of how my fellow colleagues have stretched…and in some cases stepped outside of the scope of practice of being a doula.

By mutual definition of “doula” of the major organizations now training and certifying doulas (such as ICEA and DONA), doulas perform no clinical tasks such as altering IV drips, rearranging electronic fetal monitors, or performing vaginal exams. Yet doulas in many communities contact us expressing fears of “doulas on the edge” performing such tasks in their communities. What are the implications of these actions and are there any safety nets for either the clients or medical professionals who experience the actions of such “doulas on the edge?”

The implications of such actions is that even though one doula in a community chooses to step outside the bounds of accepted practice, all doulas in that community will feel the repercussions for a long time…months, years. And this ripple affect is difficult to stop!

Women enter the doula profession for many reasons: they have a passion for birth; they have had wonderful birth experiences and would like to “give back” to others so that they may have equally as wonderful experiences; they desire to enter the nursing or midwifery field in the future but choose doula work now as a stepping stone; OR they have a conscious (or unconscious) agenda of saving women from the medical community.

Does this sound harsh or blunt? Probably so. However this last reason for choosing doula work is a stepping stone for becoming a doula on the edge. Armed with a little information/knowledge and a whole lot of attitude, these doulas on the edge chip away at the acceptance that others have worked so hard to attain. They strain relationships between physicians and doulas, nurses and doulas, the public and doulas and each other.

Doula organizations have a Scope of Practice and Code of Ethics that their certified members are expected to follow. It is vital that doulas be held accountable when they step outside of the Scope and Code. If a non-conflictive conversation with the “doula on the edge” does not produce positive responses, contacting that doula’s certifying organization is the next step. Many of the organizations have grievance committees that are activated when a situation arises. Having the committee examine the situation and make recommendations/sanctions to the doula relieves the local doula community of this potentially explosive responsibility and hopefully helps the doula in question to get back on the right track.

Dealing with people that are negative or passive are some of the most challenging relationships. It is not always possible to correctly identify the reason(s) for someone’s poor behavior and so speculation can often lead to additional conflict. In your doula community, try to develop potential solutions for resolving a problem BEFORE it happens. Try to maintain a positive attitude about the person or the situation and this will help you to manage conflict with confidence…resulting in a positive outcome for all!

http://www.birthsource.com/scripts/article.asp?articleid=71

One study found that women who started their leave in the last month of pregnancy were less likely to have cesarean deliveries, while another found that new mothers were more likely to establish breastfeeding the longer they delayed their return to work.

Both papers were part of the Juggling Work and Life During Pregnancy study, funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration and led by Sylvia Guendelman, professor of maternal and child health at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. The research takes a rare look into whether taking maternity leave can affect health outcomes in the United States.

“In the public health field, we’d like to decrease the rate of C-sections (cesarean deliveries) and increase the rate of breastfeeding,” said Guendelman. “C-sections are really a costly procedure, leading to extended hospital stays and increased risks of complications from surgery, as well as longer recovery times for the mother. For babies, it is known that breastfeeding protects them from infection and may decrease the risk of SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), allergies and obesity. What we’re trying to say here is that taking maternity leave may make good health sense, as well as good economic sense.”

The study on the use of antenatal leave – time off before delivery with the expectation of returning to the employer after giving birth – and the rate of C-sections is the first examination of birth outcomes in U.S. working women, the researchers said. It will appear in the January/February print edition of the journal Women’s Health Issues.

The researchers analyzed data from 447 women who worked full-time in the Southern California counties of Imperial, Orange and San Diego, comparing those who took leave after the 35th week of pregnancy with those who worked throughout the pregnancy to delivery. Only women who gave birth to single babies with no congenital abnormalities were included in the analysis. They adjusted for sociodemographic factors such as income, age and type of occupation, as well as for various health measures such as high blood pressure, body mass index, amount of self-reported stress and average number of hours of sleep at night.

Using a combination of post-delivery telephone interviews and prenatal and birth records, the researchers found that women who took leave before they gave birth were almost four times less likely to have a primary C-section as women who worked through to delivery.

The study authors pointed out that the United States falls behind most industrialized countries in its support for job-protected paid maternity leave. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act provides for only unpaid leave of up to 12 weeks surrounding the birth or adoption of a child.

The bulk of studies on leave-taking and health outcomes from other countries suggest that taking leave prior to birth can be beneficial. The authors point to a macroanalysis of 17 countries in Europe that linked failure to take such leave with low birthweight and infant mortality. Rates of pre-term delivery were lower among female factory workers in France if the women took antenatal leave, and a study conducted in several industrialized countries found that paid leave, but not unpaid leave, significantly decreased low birthweight rates.

According to the U.S. Census, among working women who had their first birth between 2001 and 2003, only 28 percent took leave from their jobs before giving birth while an additional 22 percent quit their jobs. Twenty-six percent of women took no leave before birth.

“We don’t have a culture in the United States of taking rest before the birth of a child because there is an assumption that the real work comes after the baby is born,” said Guendelman. “People forget that mothers need restoration before delivery. In other cultures, including Latino and Asian societies, women are really expected to rest in preparation for this major life event.”

The authors added that financial need may also deter women from taking leave in the last month of pregnancy. Only five states – California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island – and the territory of Puerto Rico offer some form of paid pregnancy leave, and none offer full replacement of the woman’s salary.

The study on maternity leave and breastfeeding is in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. Using data from 770 full-time working mothers in Southern California, researchers assessed whether maternity leave predicted breastfeeding establishment, defined in this study as breastfeeding for at least 30 days after delivery. Phone interviews were conducted 4.5 months, on average, after delivery.

In this study, women who had returned to work by the time of the interview took on average 10.3 weeks of maternity leave. Overall, 82 percent of mothers established breastfeeding within the first month after their babies were born. Among women who established breastfeeding, 65 percent were still breastfeeding at the time of the interview.

Researchers found that women who took less than six weeks of maternity leave had a four-fold greater risk of failure to establish breastfeeding compared with women who were still on maternity leave at the time of the interview. Women who took six to 12 weeks of maternity leave had a two-fold greater risk of failing to establish breastfeeding.

Having a managerial position or a job with autonomy and a flexible work schedule was linked with longer breastfeeding duration in the study. After 30 days, managers had a 40 percent lower chance of stopping breastfeeding, while those with an inflexible work schedule had a 50 percent higher chance of stopping.

Overall, the study found that returning to work within 12 weeks of delivery had a greater impact on breastfeeding establishment for women in non-managerial positions, with inflexible jobs or who reported high psychosocial distress, including serious arguments with a spouse or partner and unusual money problems.

“The findings suggest that if a woman postpones her return to work, she’ll increase her chances of breastfeeding success, especially if she’s got a job where she’s on the clock and has less discretion with her time,” said Guendelman. “Also, women who are in jobs where they have more authority may feel more empowered with how they use their time.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that babies be breastfed for at least the first year of life, and exclusively so for the first four to six months.

According to the AAP, increased breastfeeding has the potential for decreasing annual health costs in the U.S. by $3.6 billion and decreasing parental employee absenteeism, the environmental burden for disposal of formula cans and bottles, and energy demands for production and transport of formula.

The study authors noted that just having maternity leave benefits offered by an employer was not helpful in breastfeeding establishment unless the leave was actually used, indicating the importance of encouraging the use of maternity leave and making it economically feasible to take it.

“These new studies suggest that making it feasible for more working mothers to take maternity leave both before and after birth is a smart investment,” said Guendelman.

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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Other co-authors of the paper in Women’s Health Issues are Michelle Pearl and Steve Graham, senior research scientists at the Sequoia Foundation, a California-based non-profit organization focused on public health research; Alan Hubbard, UC Berkeley assistant professor of biostatistics; Dr. Nap Hosang, lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Maternal and Child Health program and a practicing obstetrician; and Martin Kharrazi, research scientist supervisor in the California Department of Public Health Genetic Disease Screening Program.

In addition to Guendelman, Pearl, Graham and Kharrazi, the Pediatrics paper was co-authored by Jessica Lang Kosa, research associate, and Julia Goodman, former graduate student, both at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health.

The study published in Women’s Health Issues received additional funding from the Center for Health Research at UC Berkeley. The paper in Pediatrics also received support from the UC Labor and Employment Research Fund and the UC Berkeley Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.

Source: Sarah Yang
University of California – Berkeley
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Article URL: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/134498.php