More about The Farm

I have had many questions about the safety of a birth center versus the hospital and many questions about The Farm in general. So hopefully this blog will answer some of those questions and give you immediate links to do some more research for yourself if you so desire.

First some pictures from our last visit:

Myself, Carol (the midwife who will attend Savanna Zoe's birth), and Caleb:

We bring a lunch and picnic at The Farm or at one of the lookout sights along Natchez Trace Parkway. Last time we had our picnic in front of the birth center.

Caleb enjoys our trips immensely. He is highly entertained by the outdoors. In these pics he found a Caterpillar to play with:

Then a puppy:

Inside the Clinic:

Caleb got to use an old style fetalscope to listen to the baby:

Us walking to the cabin we will be staying in:

The Cabin:


Now for the info on safety:

I have done a lot of reading this pregnancy. I was surprised to learn that midwives have lower maternal and infant mortality rates than hospitals.

For a normal, healthy pregnancy, without complication- which is by far the overwhelming majority in the US, there is no need for any type of medical intervention. Our society has taught us through the media that birth is a traumatic, dangerous, and even unnatural experience that should be treated as an illness. This is simply not true. God designed the female body to have babies. It is one of the many things we are perfectly equipped to do. Yes, in the distant past women died during birth at home. This was largely in part to poor prenatal health and unclean delivery practices. Since education on prenatal health and sanitation has increased, maternal and infant mortality has decreased. However, the US still has the 2nd highest infant and maternal mortality rates of all industrialized nations; not to mention an outrageously high C-Section rate.

Hospitals and OBs are needed for complicated pregnancies and the few times when birth requires emergency care. Even in normal pregnancy, a woman CAN have a completely natural, unmedicated, uninterfered with childbirth in a hospital, but this is rare due to the way hospital and OBs operate. One medical intervention almost always leads to another and another ending in some form of forced delivery. I experienced this for myself with my first birth.

No drug has been proven safe for an unborn baby. Did you know that the street drug LSD was created when scientists were trying to synthesize Oxytocin (Pitocin is synthesized Oxytocin)? Read the Pitocin Fact article to learn about the hazards this drug poses to women and babies. Epidurals have their own risks as well. They can lead to a drop in infant heart rate and thus a forced delivery. They also cause maternal fever in some cases and this results in c-section and a round of unnecessary and potentially harmful antibiotics for the baby once it is born. These drugs can be beneficial in true emergency situations, but are used much more frequently than they should be.

Tearing of the perineum is less likely to happen with a midwife because they are less likely to use drugs to induce the labor process and because they are more likely to allow the woman to labor and birth in a position(s) other than flat on her back like in a hospital. Midwives also frequently use massage techniques to soften and prepare this tissue for birth so that tearing happens less often. Oh, and one can't forget that forceps delivery almost always results in at least a 2nd degree tear.

Lying on your back is the worst possible position to have a baby in. It makes contractions less effective which means labor is longer. It cuts off oxygen to the unborn baby. And gravitationally speaking it makes no sense, the tail bone ends up in the way of the baby coming out of the birth canal. Also, it does not allow for the pelvic bones to spread as effectively, making labor more painful and difficult. Lastly, on the back does not allow the baby's head to put as much gradual pressure on the perineum as squatting, sitting, standing, or walking. This gradual pressure will help the tissues to stretch slowly and avoid tearing.

The Farm's statistics are posted on their site and their statistics have been researched in other studies as well. Check out this article.

Another good article is one on the 6 myths of childbirth.

I decided that having a natural birth would be extremely unlikely for me in the hospital here in town and therefore chose to see a midwife in order to increase my likelihood of success in this endeavor (the midwives at The Farm are world renown and extremely well experienced). Laboring here at the local hospital would mean no food or drink, immediate and continuous hook-up to an IV line (I hate needles, especially IVs, and this greatly limits one's ability to move around and change position during labor), constant fetal monitoring and after the water broke or was broken by force internal fetal monitoring, I would have to labor and deliver on my back after 5 cm (not very far along), and if I did not dialate at least 1 cm in any 2 hour period of time I would be given Pitocin to speed things up. Then the baby is taken from our room and put in a nursery for a few hours each day to make it easier for the nurses to do all the infant check ups at one time.

These are practices that we are not comfortable with and that after much research we have learned are actually more harmful to the progress of labor and delivery, the mother, and the infant when the pregnancy is normal and healthy. Dr. Bradley is a believer in hospital births due to the slight risk of complication, but he favors only those hospitals/OBs that operate in an observation fashion and allow the parents to birth unmedicated and without intervention unless absolutely necessary.

The Bradley method teaches about consumerism. You will get the product you buy. If you go to a hospital with high epidural, pitocin, c-section, forcep, vacuum rates, then you will mostly likely get pitocin, an epidural, and ultimately a forcep/vacuum/or c-section delivery. We are in no way saying that hospital birth is wrong or that it can never be a truly natural birth, so please do not be offended if you had your baby in the hospital. Caleb was born in a hospital. However, if you are pregnant I would urge you to do your research on different birthing locations, ask your providers the tough questions (a list of questions for each type of provider is included in Ina May's Guide to Childbirth -probably available at your local library) and take Bradley classes- they are beneficial where ever you chose to give birth. Then, after being well informed on all of your choices, decide what is best for you. We have chosen to do what we feel, after much research and education, is the best for us and our baby.

If you are still interested in doing some more reading I would recommend the following books:
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin (Head midwife at The Farm)
Mothering Magazine's Having a Baby, Naturally
Husband Coached Childbirth by Dr. Bradley
Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way

I haven't given birth naturally yet to give you my comparison, but I will be sure to post a blog letting you know how it went afterward (though it may take a few weeks while we all get settled into a larger family).

God bless,
Jade