WHO's Next (Talkin' 'Bout My Generation)

I have been checking regularly and finally the World Health Organization has posted an update on the six pregnant women around the globe. They had their babies. Don't tarry! Go read about them. The various birth stories and conditions are amazing. Interestingly, the only Cesarean birth was to the woman in England.

On the local front, I'm impressed by my current doula client's changing attitudes toward birth. She is a medical professional who has a lot of contact with new mothers and newborns. I assumed she would have absorbed a lot of information about birth from the setting she works in. And yet she was surprised by a lot of what she learned in her Lamaze classes and has been reading some of the books (Birthing from Within, Mind Over Labor, Natural Childbirth the Bradley Way) that I loaned her.

In two months' time she has gone from saying "I want an epidural as soon as they'll let me get one" to "I'd like to try to go without medication." She said she'd simply never known before that there were any reasons to avoid an epidural. But of course she had obvious reasons to want to avoid pain.

All of which is to say, the role of eduation is so so so so important. Mothers want to do what's best for their babies. When given complete and accurate information, many of them elect to try a harder, but safer route.