Who's afraid of a bum?

Breech Births. Who'd of thought that the sight of a tiny baby bum could frighten the obstetrical world so much?  But up until just this past couple of months Doctors seemed to find the thought so terrifying that they made the mass decision that they couldn't stand it any more and had to cut 4% (average statistics for breech births) of babies out of their mothers bellies for no other reason.

 Luckily last year  Andre Lalonde, head of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada made the announcement that "The safest way to deliver a baby has always been the natural way,"  said last year when it began an effort to bring back breech birth. "Vaginal births are the preferred method of having a baby because a C-section in itself has complications."

"The new guidelines were announced last June, but change has been slow.
The problem is that many doctors have never delivered a breech baby and others have limited experience. It had become a lost art."

 ...A lost art.  How sad is that?  Sadder still is that it's not just breech births that are becoming a "Lost Art".  VBAC's are becoming just as rare, and trust me, through my own personal experience I've seen the fact that the medical machine is loosing it's ability to deal with VBAC births almost as quickly!!

I'ts time to take back our births!!  It's time to stand up to the faceless doctors that stand on high and make arbitrary decisions about how we are "allowed" to birth!!

Giving birth, the natural way

 

By Elizabeth Payne, The Ottawa CitizenApril 11, 2010

Every birth is a miracle, of course. But the arrival of Lily Luck-Henderson, just after midnight last Tuesday morning at the General campus of the Ottawa Hospital, was something else as well.
Lily was breech, as are about four per cent of babies, meaning she emerged from her mother's womb bottom first, rather than head first. But, unlike most breech babies born in Canada in recent years, Lily was delivered vaginally, rather than by caesarean section.
Her successful delivery is seen as a harbinger of coming change in the way babies are delivered in Canada -- or at least a step along the way.
At five days old, she has already played a starring role in something significant, according to Ottawa midwife and researcher Betty-Anne Daviss, a leading advocate for the return of breech birth deliveries in Canada, who, along with two obstetricians and a doula attended the birth. It "was a pretty momentous occasion in Ottawa," she said, and an important step toward normalizing childbirth in Canada, something the organization representing Canadian obstetricians stands behind.

 HERE to read the entire article