vaccines, homebirth safety, birth center legislation

to be edited and fluffed out shortly

i believe i've posted about this before but heres a reminder.

"The American Association of Birthing Centers (AABC) is seeking federal legislation that would add freestanding birth centers to the list of health professionals and providers eligible for payment under the federal-state Medicaid program. ... Next week, AABC’s bill will be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Susan Davis (D., CA) (San Diego). It will then be assigned a bill number and an official name. ... AABC is asking all birth professionals, birth advocates, and supporters of improving maternity care to help us lobby for this bill. Grassroots support phone calls to Congress is the single most important element in whether a bill like this becomes law. " more info to be found here http://cfmidwifery.blogspot.com/2009/04/grassroots-network-action-alert-help.html the bill is being introduced THIS WEEK!!!


also several of my favorite blogs have been talking about vaccines lately. so i'm researching the issue further myself. this is where i'm starting. http://www.fourteenstudies.org/index.html because this is, well i'm not sure i'd use the words anti-vax, but at least somewhat antagonistic towards the status quo re vaccination, i'm including a link to the cdc's site also http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/ . there is so much to learn on this topic i honestly just quit researching after a certain point. but i feel like its time to re-open the topic.


and pinkyrn has been wondering if more folks are choosing homebirth and wondering about the safety compared to hospital birth. see this post
http://pinkyrn.blogspot.com/2009/04/home-birth-are-more-folks-choosing-this.html to which i posted a comment " i agree that birthing alone is outside of evolutionary and cultural norms though i can't make up my mind as to the actual risk involved. i do think if a woman chooses an unassisted birth she has a responsibility to have a back up plan for emergencies. she needs to take the time to read some resources in addition to internet forums and message boards, have an idea as to what constitutes a reason to transfer, an idea how to accomplish a transfer if one is needed, etc. that said attended childbirth can be just as safe as hospital birth and thats based on research. essentially the same conditions should be in place as i would expect for uc...but the presence of a midwife who knows what to look for in identifying emergencies and ideally has some medical back up herself, can make that back-up plan much more likely to function safely. regardless of what kind of homebirth a woman chooses i think she should consider her own health, anything that would risk her out of a midwife attended homebirth in most instances is at least worth researching, yk. also to be considered: ease of transport, distance to hospital, traffic, what kind of reception will she recieve at the hospital, etc....i think i have so much to say on this topic i'm going to steal my comment and post it on my blog :)
April 28, 2009 7:52 PM " and this " i forgot to come back and link any research re safety though i guess thats been covered because i was primarily refering to the new dutch study which yes is a different climate than the us in many ways. what is different about the dutch system? mmmm.... midwifery model is more prevalent, much better more centralized, standardized transport system, i'm not sure what else....maybe socialized healthcare has something to do with it? problems may be caught earlier even in low income women? in the us i think low-income is something of a risk factor whereas it wouldn't be there. i'm just speculating on that though. re wether or not more people are doing it i don't have full text on this but " In 2006, there were 38,568 out-of-hospital births in the US: 24,970 were home births and 10,781 occurred in free standing birthing centers [5]. From 1989 to 2003 the rate of home births in the United States declined from 0.69 to 0.57 percent of births, or by an average of 0.01 percent annually. The 2006 figures represent a very slight increase in both absolute numbers and rate, reaching 0.59 percent of all births [5]. This rate is comparable to that in other industrialized countries with two exceptions: England has experienced a slight rise in its home birth rate from 1.0 percent in 1989 to 2.7 percent in 2006 [6], while the Netherlands has maintained rates of home birth of approximately 30 percent [7]." http://www.uptodate.com/patients/content/topic.do?topicKey=labordel/15656 in the same summary i found this interesting in regards to safety "Mothers who had a home birth were ... much more likely to report not having had prenatal care. Such women could include unplanned, emergency home births, as well as mothers who wished to avoid traditional prenatal care." which does go along with my speculation as to why it may not be as safe here. according to this article in the ny times midwives in ny are getting more calls for homebirths http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/garden/13birth.html i think that just goes to show more news coverage of homebirth though...
May 3, 2009 11:08 AM"

and congrats to rixa at stand and deliver! http://rixarixa.blogspot.com/