Midwifery Reviews

The flag of births Morris Heights is one of the last few places in the city of New York, where women have a real chance of Labor naturally. Photos: Courtesy of Morris Heights Health Center

I know that many people have an aversion to the colour Pink for girls, which is understandable because our culture of Barbie, but if we are to combat the consolidation of equality between the sexes in societywould you say us address also based on the sex of languages such as Latin languages who anthropomorphize the same objetset Japanese, a language that separates the sexes in hierarchical form? We would do better to return to a time (1940s) when the more “delicate” blue is the designated women’s color (and Rose, a softer shade of red, was for boys)? It is something to consider as we ring in the new year. I sincerely hope that this vibrant shade of pink is incorporated in more men’s fashion.

Inside, three women were experiencing labor, each in a private suite with a queen bed and home-like touches, including duvets, pillows and cabinets.

While their birth, two certified midwives flavor back and forth, slipping behind the doors of spearmint color. They checked the heart rate every half hour, proposed to change position to relieve the pain and helped the women in and out of their bathtubs Jacuzzi.

When the day was done, three healthy babies were born.

The scene seems timeless and perhaps unremarkable. But in New York, where the rate of births per Article Ceasarean increased 42% between 1998 and 2007, giving birth without medical intervention is increasingly rare. Women, Morris Heights Health and flag of labor, is now endangered.

“Labors of women may slow down when they arrive at the hospital because they do not feel particularly safe,” said Jennifer Jagger, a midwife who has worked part time at the Bronx center for the past two years. “When they get to hospital – boom! – This is what the hospital must. ”

There are currently just under 200 freestanding birth centers in the United States, centers not attached to a hospital that offers an intimate environment. ? These are occupied by midwives to help women naturally provide low risk, release of medical interventions such as incitement, cesarean or epidural. ? Supporters of the movement-natural birth feel? it’s a better experience physically and emotionally for the mother and child.

The 175 birth centers in some countries, a significant percentage are located in the suburbs. Jagger said she often tells her patients Bronx? they get a service that is normally available only in non-urban areas richer.

“There is some truth,” admitted Ronnie Lichtman, president of the midwife Education Program at Downstate Medical Center in New York. “In general, middle class educated women are more aware of options available to them and more assertive in their search. ”

But the irony is that the pockets of the richest city of New York, birth centers have closed shop over the years because, Lichtman said, a variety of factors – the gaps in the budget, management problems and a medical approach that has made a disease of delivery, rather than a natural process.

Last year, a nonprofit group tried to raise funds for an independent health and birth center in midtown Manhattan, near Macy.

The group had obtained much of its funding and had established a Board of Directors which included Ricki Lake, talk show host turned natural childbirth advocate who, with his documentary pro-natural birth, 2008 “The Business of arise from high-profile “has become the poster mom? assisted by the midwife’s work.

But with the recession, Lichtman says the efforts of the new Centre were “stunned. “Investors abandoned and the center never opened. And established several centers have thus failed.

In 2003, the Birthing Center of Elizabeth Seaton – who has been associated with St. Vincent’s Hospital and was the first birthing center in the country – closed with the hospital. Last September, the Bellevue Hospital Center a component and its delivery.

The closure of these centers have prompted the Board committees of the City of New York Health and Women to hold a joint hearing on monitoring the status of delivery options in New York City earlier this fall.

Advocates who testified at the hearing argued that birth centers are essential to help reduce the rate of caesarean section. Patients in both natural centers are not connected to fetal monitoring machines, which frees them to move to. Proponents of this approach say it gives women a better chance to mess naturally, it uses gravity to help the baby navigate in the basin.

Mothers with low risk babies were delivered by midwives certified professionals had significantly lower rates of cesarean surgery – 4 p. 100 – than those offered in hospitals – 19 percent? Farrah said Diaz-Tello, a lawyer with the National advocates for pregnant women, citing a recent study.

Currently, only three birthing centers are in New York City – the Center at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Birthing Center and the Brooklyn Heights Morris. The first is the only facility that speaks directly to low-income women, which he did by accepting Medicaid and help those without insurance to get it.

“The only time we accept a patient is if someone starts really late prenatal care – our cut off is after seven months,” said Susan Billinghurst, a clinical manager at the Centre. “Otherwise, we accept everyone here. ”

Indeed, the difficulty is not running? patients away, but to attract the attention of pregnant mothers in the first place. ?

“One of the biggest challenges is trying to find the time and help them learn and understand what a birth center is and how it works,” said Kristin Paul, midwife. “Many of them come here without necessarily being aware of what are the potential benefits to an output parameter from the hospital. ”

To achieve this objective, the Centre conducts? on classes for new patients? the benefits of a non-hospital birth – more support, more time to work naturally and a judicial review of the technology.

Jagger, the midwife part time, added that there are some immigrant communities in the district seeking the Centre because you feel fuller naturally is customary for them culturally.

“I think particularly of Mexican immigrant women,” she said. “There are lots of them in this neighborhood and they tend to naturally Labor usual – the usual. They do very well. ”

But for all this effort, deliveries still represent only a small% of cases of what the flag. It also provides spectrum and gynecological care for women.

Indeed, customers in 2000 or so who visit the antenatal institution each year, Billinghurst believes that 70 per 100 are not candidates for central delivery. Only women with low risk are approved for a delivery center, which eliminates anyone with medical conditions such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes – conditions that are wreaking havoc in the South Bronx.

The remaining 30% of customers who come for antenatal care, only about 60 to 100 actually end up delivering each year in the birthing center. ? Some are unable to because of restrictions imposed by the Centre. For example, a woman who is planning to birth at the Centre, but fails to enter the labor force within 12 hours of her water breaking is transferred to a hospital, as a woman who goes two weeks after its due date.

But other women simply choose not to have a birthing center birth, choosing instead to engage in the Bronx Lebanon Hospital, Bronx, Central or other nearby hospitals.

“It is not easy to get women to be confident that they do not need an epidural,” said Paul, “or to be OK with their choice when everyone around them will to the hospital to give birth. ”

Because of the relatively small number of babies delivered, the Centre relies heavily on revenue from other services such as general obstetrics and gynelocgical careful to stay afloat. Billinghurst said that some treatments at the Center are covered by federal grants and state, but most of the money comes from billing patients or insurance. There is no fixed fee for services, and staff working with patients and insurance companies at rates in accordance to what they can afford.

And the Center also benefits from the fact that births are relatively non-invasive low cost.

In testimony to the City Council hearing in September, Diaz-Tello, National advocates for pregnant women lawyer, cites a 2005 study which concluded that the burden of the national average for hospital confinement ranges from $ 7 000 to 16 000 USD, while a delivery birthing center was about $ 1 600.

But it’s true for all birthing centers, yet Morris Heights is one of the few that develops.

Billinghurst said the real reason why the Centre has continued to succeed where so many others have failed is that it has been in the area “forever” and has developed a genuine trust. Women whose mothers, sisters, cousins ??or friends, delivered at the Center know they can go and have the experience they want in a comfortable private room rather than in a shared room in a hospital.

I came to love the pink colour, although I have my personal favorite hues and tend to be picky about it. Come 2011, I can add a little more rose to my wardrobe which currently consists of black, white, Brown and grey. I look forward to a sort of Manhattan Rose of the year!

“I recently had the privilege of offering the baby a mom first time aged 20 who was born at the Centre itself,” said Jagger. “There is a community that’s been here a long time. ”