This is a 4 minute video produced by a student, who followed a midwife around for a while.
Like Heaven Into My Hands
Midwifery: March 2007 Archives
13 Ways Queening is Better than Modern Childbirth
1. No one tries to induce a cat.
2. No one ever schedules a c-section for a cat.
3. Cats don't need IVs.
4. Cats are allowed to choose their own positions for labor and birth.
5. Cats are allowed to use the litter box during labor and are not catheterized or forced to go on a bedpan.
6. Cats squat for delivery. (I didn't even have to tell her it was an evidence-based pratice!)
7. No one would ever think of separathing the kittens from the queen to "give them a bath and shots" within the first hour. That would just be cruel.
8. Cats aren't asked whether they want to breast or bottle-feed.
9. Cats don't accept anyone removing their kittens from them even if they insist it's "policy." (Trust me on this one. I tried to pick up one of the kittens and was sternly warned not to do this!)
10. Cats believer in skin-to-skin (or fur-to-fur) contact and practice this.
11. No one tries to do an amniotomy on a cat.
12. We don't have continuous kitten monitoring during labor.
13. Cats don't sue you if something goes wrong
If you choose to comment at the magazine's site, please focus on the positives not the negatives!
Drugs, Knives, and Midwives
the American birth industry is in a crisis because we have turned a natural event into a medical condition. As a result, we've allowed obstetricians -- and not the midwives who safely deliver the majority of the world's babies -- to control maternity care. The ironic result is that in our efforts to make birth as safe as possible, we have saddled American women and babies with a system that, despite being the most expensive on earth, puts us in the bottom tier of care for wealthy countries.
Midwifery's Renaissance
Because the midwives feared God, they did not do as commanded by the king.
-Exodus 1:17
A midwife is lectured at by committees, scolded by matrons, sworn at by surgeons, bullied by surgical dressers, talked flippantly to if middle aged and good humored, seduced if young.
-London Times, 1857
