Safe Birth — Who’s in Charge?

By anncowlin | Published July 23, 2010
Who Con­trols Birth? Defin­ing the Argument.

Peri­od­i­cally, argu­ments arise in the birthing field over who con­trols the way we give birth. Often this hap­pens at times when birthing women change their behav­ior trends, putting finan­cial pres­sure on pro­fes­sion­als work­ing in this field. The major play­ers in this argu­ment are med­ical doc­tors (obste­tri­cians), cer­ti­fied nurse mid­wives and pro­fes­sional home birth midwives.

Cur­rently we are see­ing women leave the tra­di­tional hos­pi­tal set­ting for birth in larger and larger numbers…and tak­ing their dol­lars with them in the process. While the ques­tion of home birth safety arises every time this con­trol argu­ment comes around, the ques­tion of whether it is safe to inter­vene in a labor that is pro­gress­ing nor­mally is a new com­po­nent of the dis­cus­sion. This time the argu­ment is: The safety of home birth vs. the safety of using hos­pi­tal tech­nol­ogy to inter­vene in nor­mal birth.

How Money Affects this Issue

As with all com­mer­cial ven­tures, con­trol­ling access to safe birth requires con­trol­ling the infor­ma­tion in the mar­ket place. This infor­ma­tion needs to address the per­ceived wants of the tar­get audi­ence. For a long time the main mes­sage has been: Safe birth is only avail­able in a hospital.

The finan­cial pres­sure of giv­ing women (con­sumers) what they want — a nor­mal expe­ri­ence of birth in a safe set­ting where med­ical help can be quickly avail­able — has pow­ered the birth-center indus­try. Free-standing and in-hospital birth cen­ters have grown in num­bers, and are largely enabled by cer­ti­fied nurse-midwives. Mean­while, pro­fes­sional home birth mid­wives have increased both their cre­den­tials and prac­tice stan­dards, as well as their visibility.

Both of these options, birth cen­ters and home birth, threaten the liveli­hood of tra­di­tional obstet­ri­cal prac­tices. Low risk births (about 70% of births) have the poten­tial to be nor­mal births, requir­ing lit­tle or no inter­ven­tion. But, giv­ing birth in the hos­pi­tal means par­tic­i­pat­ing in mea­sure­ment pro­ce­dures that inter­vene in the labor process.

So, to con­vince women they need to be in a hos­pi­tal to be safe, med­i­cine has main­tained the argu­ment that home birth or out of hos­pi­tal birth is not safe. How­ever, research does not indi­cate this is true. The nature of this ongo­ing argu­ment is dis­cussed in a 2002 arti­cle from Mid­wifery Today.

What’s New? The Counter Argument.

The phys­i­ol­ogy of nor­mal labor is dom­i­nated by parasym­pa­thetic, med­i­ta­tive, gonadal energy sys­tems. Mea­sure­ment is a sym­pa­thetic, ratio­nal, adrenal energy dynamic. Only when it is time to expel the baby does the under­ly­ing energy sys­tem make a tran­si­tion (tran­si­tion, get it?) to an adrenal impe­tus for the strength activ­ity of push­ing. Imme­di­ately fol­low­ing nor­mal birth, mater­nal phys­i­ol­ogy is again dom­i­nated by gonad-driven energy along with a rush of endorphins.

“Inter­vene enough and things will go awry. You can eas­ily end up being cut and/or sep­a­rated from your baby at birth.” These ideas have gone viral. With the arrival of the inter­net, women have found a very quick way to do what we have always done: Share information.

Thus, in my exer­cise pro­gram and in my child­birth prepa­ra­tion classes, I have more and more fre­quently been field­ing the fol­low­ing ques­tion from women who want a nor­mal birth and want to be safe: “How can I avoid inter­ven­tions while I am in the hospital?”

So, I ask them what leads them to ask this ques­tion. And, they say: “I read on the inter­net and/or heard from my friends that inter­ven­tions make birth less nor­mal and less safe. I want to pro­tect myself.”

Women them­selves are enter­ing the argu­ment in a much more con­scious way than in the past. Some pro­fes­sion­als would like to keep women out of the argu­ment. But, like with many things in our 21st cen­tury world, we have already past the point of no return. As they say, the horse has already left the barn!

Word has got­ten around. More and more, as a pre­na­tal fit­ness expert who strives to lis­ten to my clients, my job has become edu­cat­ing and phys­i­cally train­ing women to cope with a stren­u­ous and prim­i­tive process in a tech­no­log­i­cal world.

Hope­fully, we can all keep our eye on the ball here. Pre­vent­ing trauma should be one key goal. Just as we have learned to hold our new­borns skin to skin so they can smell and taste us, lis­ten to our heart beat and voice, and main­tain their core tem­per­a­ture, let us learn to com­fort and nur­ture our new moth­ers, while we steel them for the rig­ors of birth.

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Beyond Yoga

By anncowlin | Published July 4, 2010
Beyond Yoga

I love Yoga. But…Power Yoga, Hot Yoga, Fast Yoga, Pilates-Yoga, Fresh Yoga, Baby Yoga and even Pre­na­tal Yoga…not so much. I find these phe­nom­ena strange.

Why? Well, 40 years ago – when I first learned Yoga – it was a priv­i­lege. A per­son came to Yoga in the search for a mean­ing­ful life path. It was a blend of the spir­i­tual and the phys­i­cal, and it required a com­mit­ment to what was revealed within the prac­tice. Before being allowed to take my first class, I had to demon­strate that I already prac­ticed med­i­ta­tion. It was not exer­cise per se.

It was not adapt­able like it is today. Depend­ing on the teacher, you learned an ancient sys­tem – Hatha, Vinyasa, Ash­tanga, Iyen­gar, or Kun­dalini. Those were the major meth­ods that have Hindu roots, and those who prac­ticed these art forms knew what they were doing. The teach­ers them­selves had worked on their craft for decades. Today, I know only a few teach­ers who have a pro­found grasp of each of these methods.

Why is Yoga so popular?

Is there some­thing within the work itself – even in the diluted forms, hybrid ver­sions and the celebrity/competitive stu­dios – that allows it to thrive in the self-centered, free-wheeling, branding-crazy mar­ket­place of the early 21st cen­tury devel­oped world?

I find the answer to this in a strange place:  Zen prac­tice, Bhud­dism. One of my favorite notions is from Suzuki’s text Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. “When you feel dis­agree­able, it is best to sit.” This is an ele­ment of nin – con­stancy – or being present in the moment. Not patience, which requires a rejec­tion of impa­tience and there­fore can­not accept the present as it is. When you sit – just sit period, that’s it – all that is real is the moment. This is at the heart of all spir­i­tual experience.

I’m not an expert in Yoga. I don’t teach Yoga, although I have inte­grated Yoga-based skills into my work. I have prac­ticed Hatha and Vinyasa over the years enough to learn how cer­tain skills are treated…belly breath­ing, slow deep breath­ing, main­tain­ing posi­tion and lis­ten­ing to the wis­dom of the body, and iso­met­ric strength­en­ing in prepa­ra­tion for more expan­sive shapes or motions. Long ago, I inte­grated these skills from my Yoga expe­ri­ence into my teach­ing style because these skills are effec­tive for the pop­u­la­tions with which I work. But, I do not teach Yoga.

Can Research Help Us?

Researchers find Yoga a night­mare. There is so much vari­ance now in the prac­tice that find­ings from any one study can­not be trans­ferred to the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. One of the most reveal­ing experimental-design stud­ies found that none of the claims of Yoga improv­ing metab­o­lism could be demon­strated. When asked why they thought this out­come had occurred, the teach­ers who were used in the study said they thought the par­tic­i­pants in the study were not fit enough to do Yoga!

One of the most suc­cess­ful Yoga teach­ers in my area, and one of my favorites, has for decades used a bicy­cle for her pri­mary mode of trans­porta­tion. She cred­its her longevity and suc­cess to Yoga. I attribute it to bicy­cling. Dr. Cooper is right…fitness (which means aer­o­bic fit­ness) is the biggest bang for the buck. Unless you are fit, it is hard to exe­cute some of the more sub­tle demands of many exer­cise regimens.

Some Yoga teach­ers will say that you can make Yoga aer­o­bic or that some forms are aer­o­bic. OK, then it’s aer­o­bics, not Yoga. When­ever I see “aer­o­bic Yoga” it reminds me of aer­o­bic danc­ing. It’s help­ful to remem­ber that Yoga devel­oped in a time and place where sur­vival was depen­dent upon fit­ness. Peo­ple didn’t need to do more aer­o­bics to find enlight­en­ment. They needed reflec­tion and to be present in the moment.

So, I insist on aer­o­bic fit­ness as the first goal of a fit­ness reg­i­men. In the pre/postnatal field, this is the only con­sis­tently demon­strated fac­tor in improved out­comes. As a birth prepa­ra­tion there are Yoga-based fac­tors that will help in labor and birth IF THE WOMAN IS FIT ENOUGH. It is the fact that some Yoga-based skills help fit peo­ple find nin that is my jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for con­tin­u­ing to use them in con­junc­tion with aer­o­bics and spe­cial pre/postnatal prepa­ra­tion and recov­ery exercises.

But, there are cau­tions. Not all Yoga assanas (posi­tions) are safe for preg­nancy. Down-dog, in par­tic­u­lar, scares me because of inci­dents reported in obstet­ri­cal lit­er­a­ture in the 1980s and 1990s that indi­cate such a posi­tion is impli­cated in fatal embolisms. Some shapes are just not doable and oth­ers become less com­fort­able over time. The ones that work have been iden­ti­fied since the 1940s and 1950s and inte­grated into birth prepa­ra­tion courses.

What’s Next?

All exer­cise components -

  • Mind/Body
  • Strength
  • Flex­i­bil­ity
  • Aer­o­bic or Car­dio­vas­cu­lar Fitness

- are nec­es­sary for a bal­anced fit­ness rou­tine. Too much empha­sis on any one fac­tor often results in injury. Aer­o­bics is where the great­est health ben­e­fits reside. Recent research has demon­strated that it is phys­i­cal “fit­ness” (which we can mea­sure) as opposed to just spend­ing time in phys­i­cal activ­ity (which can be a wide range of inten­si­ties) that is respon­si­ble for improved health out­comes. Strength and flex­i­bil­ity train­ing need to be pur­po­sive. There are things we don’t need to do unless we are going to play pro foot­ball or dance Swan Lake! Mind/Body skills help us recover and prepare.

I for one will be glad when we get beyond yoga and back to cross training!

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Birth Mode

By anncowlin | Published December 5, 2009

The Sec­ond Stage of Birth is dif­fer­ent from the First Stage. The actual expul­sion of the baby requires a change in energy axis. Dur­ing dila­tion (first stage), oxy­tocin is most eas­ily released from the pitu­itary gland dur­ing relax­ation (see pre­vi­ous post), but dur­ing tran­si­tion, a change occurs so that the ergotropic response takes over and adren­a­line is key in help­ing oxy­tocin to spike.

What does this mean as far as prepa­ra­tion is con­cerned? While it is impor­tant to learn to relax or main­tain posi­tions such as one does in yoga, the abil­ity to sprint, or turn on an aggres­sive action at the end, is crit­i­cal. You need  good aer­o­bic con­di­tion­ing. Begin exer­cise with easy breath­ing and move­ment, then prac­tice aer­o­bic endurance and power moves at the end of your work­out! Fin­ish up with cool down and stretch­ing.

The con­trac­tions them­selves change. They remain intense for a longer stretch, but the time between them increases. Push­ing involves not only the uterus con­tract­ing, but the pres­sure exerted by the trans­verse abdom­i­nal (TrA) mus­cle. Sim­i­lar to squeez­ing a tube of tooth­paste, TrA pres­sure helps press the baby toward the exit — yes, that is the vagi­nal open­ing. If the labor­ing mother is not able to apply ade­quate pres­sure, labor assis­tants some­times apply pres­sure man­u­ally to the top of the uterus or — if need be — for­ceps or a vac­uum extrac­tion may be necessary.

How can a mom best pre­pare so that the TrA can pro­vide the needed pres­sure? Strength train­ing the TrA! Like any other motion requir­ing power strength, this mus­cle can be strength­ened to do its job! Here’s how:

pic­ture 1:  sit upright, inhale

pic­ture 2:  exhale, com­press abdomen and curl down

Return to upright and repeat 8 times. Rest. Repeat 8 more times.

What if some­thing goes awry? Cesarean, or sur­gi­cal birth is an alter­na­tive. Major com­pli­ca­tions before labor include a pla­centa pre­via, infec­tion or unde­liv­er­able breech posi­tion. Dur­ing labor, the most com­mon prob­lem is dys­to­cia — stalled progress through dila­tion (first stage) or push­ing (sec­ond stage). In the push­ing stage, head to large for pelvis is the most com­mon difficulty.

What hap­pens next? If the birth is nat­ural, you will feel a tremen­dous eupho­ria. Bring the baby right up onto your chest for skin-to-skin con­tact. If you have had med­ica­tions, your response may be slightly blunted, but you will def­i­nitely be over­whelmed by the emo­tions of birth.

Third Stage is expul­sion of the pla­centa, which can no long remain con­nected to the shrink­ing uterus. When it detaches, the nurses or mid­wives will ask you to push and !plop! out it comes. It can be inter­est­ing to see what has nour­ished your baby for so long!

CONGRATULATIONS!  YOU’RE A MOM!

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Total Pregnancy Fitness™ helps women Birth Strong!

By anncowlin | Published November 16, 2009

There is noth­ing so joy­ful as a group of moms-to-be, at var­i­ous stages of preg­nancy, mov­ing freely and fully. Cel­e­brat­ing this spe­cial state of being by main­tain­ing strength, endurance and range of motion pro­motes emo­tional well-being as well as health dur­ing this major life transition.

By select­ing activ­i­ties that pro­mote fit­ness, health and well-being for their pro­grams, our teach­ers insure that moms-to-be receive the max­i­mum ben­e­fit from the time they spend in class.

Here are some birth sto­ries from our clients (edited for privacy):

• We’re happy to report that [our baby boy] was born on Sat­ur­day at 12:31 am…our exer­cise classes were ESSENTIAL in the later part of labor — the doc­tor and nurse described me as a “nat­ural” at push­ing, but I had to admit to them that I’d been prac­tic­ing my c-curves twice a week for a few months already! — G.S.

• We arrived at the hos­pi­tal at 8pm on Fri­day and I was 6 cm dilated…I deliv­ered by 1 am with­out pain meds.  It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence. You really do focus inward.  I found sit­ting in the shower hold­ing the sprayer to be help­ful.  Def­i­nitely try dif­fer­ent posi­tions.  I used the bar for when it can time to push.  Just know that there is an end in sight and just hold­ing your baby at the end is the most won­der­ful, amaz­ing feel­ing in the world!  — P.E.

• We arrived at the hos­pi­tal at 6am and I was already 4cm dilated…[at] 5cm dilated, I requested an epidural. The anes­the­si­ol­o­gist did a great job, and I was still able to move my legs with the epidural. I found move­ment dur­ing labor to be very help­ful, and in par­tic­u­lar, cir­cu­lar move­ments of my pelvis (i.e. belli danc­ing). Post par­tum recov­ery has been quick. No doubt that [your] guid­ance and prepa­ra­tion was cru­cial to this end. I would like to thank all of you for your sup­port…  — K.L.

• On Sunday…after more than 26 hours of labor, [my wife] gave birth to [our baby boy]. Through the help of her birth sup­port team she was able to deliver with­out pain med­i­cine. She did a tremen­dous job, and we used many of the skills learned in class to focus, draw her out of her body, breath and relax.  — M.&L.S.

• I just wanted to share with you the very good news that [our baby boy] was born at 8:38 pm last night. He weighed 8 lbs 11 ozs and mea­sures 21.5 inches long. He finally enabled me to put my c curves and such to direct use by arriv­ing a mere 8 days late (instead of the 11 days late that would have led to my sec­ond c-section).  We are hav­ing a very nice time right now…and look for­ward to mak­ing our joint return to the gym in a few weeks!  — F.A.

• Our beau­ti­ful baby boy was born Tues­day night at 9:09 p.m. The deliv­ery went well (drug free!) and I received many com­pli­ments on my 50 min­utes of push­ing. Thanks for every­thing and I hope to see you in 4 weeks or so!  — A.E.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth — Labor

By dancingthrupregnancy | Published October 10, 2009

The First Stage of Child­birth is the long, hard labor. It is the slow process that pro­duces dila­tion, or open­ing, of the cervix — the “neck” or out­let at the bot­tom of the uterus. Once the baby’s head can fit through the open cervix, it is time for the Sec­ond Stage, but that is another topic for another post.

Labor is generally a long, slow process...there is no "enter" button for dilation!

Labor is gen­er­ally a long, slow process…there is no “enter” but­ton for dilation!

Before the baby can leave the mother’s body, s/he must leave the uterus. The open­ing of the cervix to let the baby out of the uterus gen­er­ally takes up the most time. For a first time mom it can be 10 or 12 hours…or, yes, a cou­ple of days. Of course, for some moms, this time is dif­fi­cult and for oth­ers it only becomes dif­fi­cult in the last few hours.

But, you know all this, right? What you want to know is:  Why do I have to go through this? And, if I must, how can I make it the least painful?

Why labor is impor­tant. Let’s go to another ques­tion:  How impor­tant would your off­spring be if it was no big deal to drop one out? If you were walk­ing along the side­walk and you could sim­ply drop a new­born on the pave­ment, would you even stop to pick it up if you could do it again in a few days, when, of course, it will be much more convenient?

Frankly, preg­nancy and labor remind us to pay atten­tion. A new­born can­not sur­vive on its own for at least two years. If we don’t pay atten­tion, it will die.

Okay, now that labor has your atten­tion, what else does it do that is ben­e­fi­cial? It stim­u­lates the baby’s stress response and teaches the new­born to be alert dur­ing sit­u­a­tions of duress. Each con­trac­tion is pulling the cervix, help­ing it slowly open. If you are upright, each con­trac­tion is also alert­ing the baby to the influ­ence of gravity.

Why is labor painful? So, you need to go through this because it is the bridge from preg­nancy to par­ent­hood. Why does it have to be painful?

The first thing to keep in mind about pain is that pain is a com­bi­na­tion of sen­sa­tions and emo­tion, mainly fear. Fear makes you tense; ten­sion reduces blood flow. Reduced blood flow to the uterus makes the con­trac­tions less effec­tive. In addi­tion, cor­ti­sol is released, mak­ing sen­sa­tions stronger and evok­ing greater fear.

Fear is the emo­tion of fight or flight. Inter­est­ingly, the oppo­site response, the relax­ation response, is very effec­tive in pro­mot­ing labor. So, relax. Breathe deeply and slowly, focus, move through the cen­ter of your expe­ri­ence. You don’t have to be in fear if you know what is hap­pen­ing and if you are phys­i­cally fit and pre­pared. Both child­birth edu­ca­tion and phys­i­cal fit­ness teach your body to work with dis­com­fort. By includ­ing them in your prepa­ra­tion, you give your­self a tremen­dous advantage.

Does this mean you will never feel like you want to stop in the mid­dle of labor? No, but it does mean you can do it. It is finite. The notion that the baby will not do well is also tied to your phys­i­cal fit­ness…babies of fit moth­ers less often expe­ri­ence fetal dis­tress. Your care providers will let you know if there is some fac­tor beyond your con­trol that requires med­ical intervention.

Birth is an empow­er­ing event. But, before the baby can be born, it must escape the uterus. It is a clas­sic con­flict and the mother’s body is the venue. Give your­self over; go with it. Only women can do this.

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Pregnancy Pathway, Birth

By dancingthrupregnancy | Published September 21, 2009

There is no birth of con­scious­ness with­out pain.

Birth is a process with two major components

Birth is a life process with two major components

Okay, be here now:  This is about a really major experience…bringing human con­scious­ness into the world…opening a door to a room of love in your heart that you can only know by giv­ing birth to this person…changing your iden­tity forever.

Get­ting your mind around the image: If you have not taken the time yet to get your mind around this, take a moment. Breathe in deeply. Gen­tly blow the air out. Repeat. Repeat. Let go of any resis­tance. Slow your heart. Slow your mind. Con­sider:  Your body has the power to cre­ate a per­son. Your body has the power to expel this per­son when the rent is up.

Your brain, glands and organs are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion with the baby’s brains, glands and organs. At some point, this dis­cus­sion reaches a place where it is time to end this arrange­ment of two peo­ple shar­ing one body. It is true that occa­sion­ally the pas­sen­ger doesn’t want to leave, but that is rare. And, we have a rem­edy for that. Let’s just focus now on the what hap­pens when it’s time to go.

Labor starts how? Well, it depends. Some­times con­trac­tions start in fits and spurts and take a while to get orga­nized. Some­times they start strongly from the get go, and for oth­ers the process of get­ting rolling can take a few days. Some­times it starts early, and some­times has to be helped to start. Once in a while, the water breaks and labor starts…or not. So, the first les­son of hav­ing a child come to live with you is that you need to be flex­i­ble in your expectations.

In the next two posts, we’ll cover Labor and then the Birth Mode. Each of these processes is unique. They involve dif­fer­ent energy sys­tems. They require dif­fer­ent mind-sets from the mother and her sup­port team. The out­comes are dif­fer­ent. Going through the cen­ter of these processes helps you deal with them, helps you recover from their stren­u­ous nature and helps you move on to being a parent.

Remem­ber: Breathe in deeply. Gen­tly blow the air out. Repeat. Repeat. Let go of any resis­tance. Slow your heart. Slow your mind. Con­sider:  Your body has the power to cre­ate a per­son. Your body has the power to expel this per­son when the rent is up.

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Pregnancy Pathway — Review and Labor begins!

By dancingthrupregnancy | Published September 4, 2009

Just to let read­ers know where we are on the preg­nancy path­way, here is the large graphic. We have just fin­ished Preg­nancy and are get­ting ready for Birth. Labor is beginning…are you tim­ing those con­trac­tions?!! If you have want to review any of the con­tent prior to Birth, you can scroll down and find an entry for each bub­ble. Or, use the Search Top­ics tool on the right side bar for a faster find.

So far, the blog has covered through Pregnancy; next Birth (purple)

So far, the blog has cov­ered through Preg­nancy; next Birth (purple)

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American College of Nurse Midwives updates

By dancingthrupregnancy | Published August 12, 2009

Two updates on the ACNM web­site of interest:

• the value of exer­cise in pregnancy

• health care reform

Check out the ACNM site!!

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Worthy Global Human Endeavors

By dancingthrupregnancy | Published July 21, 2009

There are only two truly wor­thy global human endeavors:

1. Humane Birthing. Find out more from the White Rib­bon Alliance for Safe Motherhood.

2. Space Explo­ration. Find out more from the Augus­tine Com­mis­sion.

Pass it on.

If you are not yet con­vinced about the global need for humane care for preg­nant and birthing women, google (or bing, or yahoo…) “fis­tula.” If you want more first world infor­ma­tion, com­pare med­ical birth with what’s on YouTube; while these two approaches to birth are at odds in con­tem­po­rary med­i­cine, in a humane set­ting they are both necessary.

As for space, let me para­phrase Craig Nelson’s notion:  In time, the Earth will per­ish. This is noth­ing you need to lose sleep over. It will be a long, long time before this hap­pens. But, we need to start now to pre­pare. In time, the Earth will per­ish, and we will need to be some­where else when that happens.

These two things will reap all the rewards that need be reaped. The enabling of safe moth­er­hood and our move­ment into space are the only things that ensure human survival.

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Rant: Health Care Reform/Pregnancy

By dancingthrupregnancy | Published July 13, 2009

Since Health Care Reform is a hot topic, let’s look at it from the per­spec­tive of preg­nancy and birth.

What revi­sions would most ben­e­fit preg­nant women, their off­spring, fam­i­lies and communities?

1. Reward healthy behav­iors. A sys­tem that pro­vides reduced pre­mi­ums for health care for women who exer­cise, eat well, do not smoke and are in a nor­mal weight range is evidence-based.

Yes! We could pro­vide finan­cial incen­tives for being healthy dur­ing preg­nancy. Why? Healthy moms have healthy babies; healthy babies cost the payer less money.

2. Review best prac­tices. Is a 40 or 50% cesarean rate the best prac­tice?  Accom­pa­ny­ing the rise in cesarean births is grow­ing infor­ma­tion that babies born by cesarean are at increased risk for a num­ber of immune dis­or­ders. But the busi­ness model of med­i­cine rewards cesarean because it both pays the provider more and is defen­sive med­ical practice.

Fetal mon­i­tor­ing to deter­mine if a cesarean may be nec­es­sary, is wrong 3/4 of the time. In an effort to change this, guide­lines are chang­ing for the use of mon­i­tors dur­ing labor. What is the evi­dence that this change of prac­tice is ben­e­fi­cial? Will it lead to more or less mon­i­tor­ing, which may itself be an inter­ven­tion that can dis­rupt nor­mal labor?

3. Change the busi­ness model for health care. When we make finan­cial incen­tives for care providers, base them on best prac­tice, not on enrich­ing the mid­dle man. Cur­rently the pay­ers (insur­ance com­pa­nies) are mid­dle men, mak­ing money (i.e., con­duct­ing busi­ness) by charg­ing fees. They ration pay­ments for ser­vices in order to pay their own salaries and over­head. They do not actu­ally do any­thing pro­duc­tive. This is why sin­gle payer, gov­ern­ment, and health care coop options have been pro­posed. They elim­i­nate most of the cum­ber­some mid­dle layer.

Why does insur­ance pay for cesare­ans? Well, they will do it once. After all, the care providers have to prac­tice defen­sive med­i­cine. But, once you have a cesarean, you become a risk for the insur­ance com­pany (they know what the research says about cesare­ans and off­spring health prob­lems) and may be denied insur­ance. They can no longer afford you.

Because care providers are paid fee for ser­vice and must prac­tice defen­sive med­i­cine, preg­nancy and birth have become increas­ingly bur­dened with inter­ven­ing pro­ce­dures that do not nec­es­sar­ily pro­mote a healthy preg­nancy or birth process. How is this play­ing out? Increas­ingly, we see women giv­ing birth in what they per­ceive as a more sup­port­ive and health-inducing set­ting:  their own homes. Think of it this way:  many women now believe that it is safer to stay home than go to a hos­pi­tal to give birth.

Unless health care becomes about best prac­tices and healthy out­comes — not price, size, and get­ting paid for pass­ing money back and forth — the U.S. will con­tinue to have some of the worst maternal/infant out­comes in the devel­oped world.

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