Sharing Notes from the ICAN 2011 Conference - Part 3

Another plenery session, Gail Tully, CPM (spinningbabies.com) gave a presentation titled, "Breech Update for Parents"

Gail Tully is a homebirth midwife and doula. She supports women finding their way with breech and other births in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Spinning Babies website can be located here. This website is full of fantastic information about belly mapping, techniques, as well as research, links and real stories. The site isn't just for women with breech babies. Any woman, pregnant or not, would benefit from visiting and reading on this site, to learn more about our bodies.

Some notes from Gail's presentation:

-during a breech birth many practitioners are now practicing, "hands off". The baby knows how to work its way out and can do some in most instances without assistance or touching, which may startle the baby. Frank Louwen, German OB is leading new emergent ideas in breech vaginal delivery. "Hands and knees, hands off". Mother on hands and knees, no touching the baby. Baby rotates out of the pelvis, down the birth canal.
-2009 Canadian ACOG (SOCG) set precedent for no more automatic breech cesarean deliveries.


A concurrent session with Dr. Poppy Daniels, OB/GYN, "The 3 Ps of VBAC: Pregnant Woman, Provider, Proviso: Navigating the Waters"

Dr. Poppy Daniels is an OB/GYN in Poplar Bluff, MO. Her interests include midwifery/physician collaboration and VBAC support. She is the mother of five boys. She has a website and a blog (you can read about her surprise VBAC!)

Some notes from this presentation:
-Vitamin D deficiency and low progesterone levels are being linked to pre-term birth, women should be tested for both levels during their pregnancy and given necessary supplements.
-more than 40 lb weight gain tends to decrease VBAC success
- recommends A Woman's Guide to VBAC to read if planning a VBAC
-No prostglandins for women with scarred uterus
-Mobility during labor should be allowed
-Heplock preferable to IV
-Food/drink during labor permitted
-Continuous labor support (doula) shown to reduce risk of cesarean
-Tell your nurse what you want
-Epidural alone is associated with higher rates of surgical delivery


A plenery session with Pam England, MA, CNM, gave a presentation titled "Gates of Cesarean Birth Story Healing"

Pam England, MA, CNM, homebirth midwife, internationally known speaker, author of Birthing From Within and her newest book, Labyrinth of Birth. Pam has a website and blog, Birth Peeps. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Some notes from Pam's presentation:
-Healing from a traumatic or cesarean birth that was felt to be traumatic or a loss: "finding the scattered and shattered bones of your story, collecting them and putting them back together. Merging together what you wanted, with what happened is the ultimate goal and can take years."
-Seeing birth as a hero's journey
-Passing through the Nine birth story gates to complete the hero's journey

Thanks to Lisa Garcia of ICAN of Montgomery County for sharing her notes with me. Combining our notes together helped me to make these 3 posts possible!

Blog Posts around the Birthy Sphere

There are too many interesting one today!

http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2011/4/26/touring-ldrs-around-the-country.html Great overview about hospital L&D maternity units, great for a first time parent to read and know if what they say in the tours are really the limits of your behavior in a hospital.

http://birthunplugged.blogspot.com/2011/05/theres-more-to-back-labor-than-fetal.html What else can be done for back labor?

http://wonderfullymadebelliesandbabies.blogspot.com/2011/02/would-you-rather.html About vaginal tearing and  options...with graphic photos.

http://naturalbirthinkitsap.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-natural-birth-isnt-beneficial.html A nice viewpoint on natural birth....without aids an interventions it is the biological norm.

The VBAC Conference A Year Later: How far have we come? 

http://www.themidwifenextdoor.com/?p=1540 Please go to this link and watch the video, very enlightening and features Jill from The Unnecesarean being interviewed!

Sharing Notes from the ICAN 2011 Conference - Part 2

One of the concurrent session choices that we had was Kristen Oganowski's presentation, "A Woman's Guide to VBAC: Advocacy and Empowerment in the Web 2.0 Era".

Kristen Oganowski, CD(DONA) is a doula, writer, PhD candidate, and mother of two boys in Columbus, Ohio.

Kristen is one of the co-coordinators of the VBAC resource, "A Woman's Guide to VBAC: Navigating the NIH Consensus Recommendations". You can check it out here. She also runs a blog, Birthing Beautiful Ideas.

Kristen shared her experience of attending the NIH Consensus Development Conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean: New Insights, March 8-10, 2010 in Bethesda, MD. The NIH Consensus Development Program generates evidence-based consensus statements addressing controversial issues important to healthcare providers, policymakers, patients, researchers, and the general public.

You can view the final panel statement and the archived webcast on the NIH Consensus Development Program's website.


A plenery session at the conference, Henci Goer's presentation, "The Gap Between Evidence and Practice".

Henci Goer is an award-winning medical writer and internationally known speaker, author of The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth and Obstetric Myths Versus Research Realities. She is a resident expert for the Lamaze Ask Henci Forum. She is also a regular guest blogger on Science and Sensibility.

In this presentation Henci presented routinely/frequently used procedures, drugs, tests, and restrictions that do not constitute evidence-based care.

Some of my notes from this presentation, definitely NOT everything that was presented:

Ineffective and Harmful Practices:
-elective induction and induction for suspected big baby
-supine positioning
-induction for ruptured membranes
-fundal pressure
-induction for post dates at less than or equal to 42 weeks
-median episiotomy
-instrumental vaginal delivery
-not allowing oral intake during labor
-administering narcotics
-epidurals (especially combined spinal epidural with narcotic)
-confinement to bed in labor
-active management of labor
-preset time limits for making progress/pushing
-routine IV

Notes Part 3 coming soon: Notes from Gail Tully's (spinningbabies.com) presentation, Breech Update for Parents, Dr. Poppy Daniels, OB/GYN presentation, The 3 Ps of VBAC: Pregnant Woman, Provider, Proviso: Navigating the Waters, and Pam England's presentation,
Gates of Cesarean Birth Story Healing

Pain in Labor, Fear and Coping

Many first time mothers and those who have never had an unmedicated birth often doubt their ability to handle labor. I think it is unrelated to your general ability to handle 'pain' as labor pain is a functional change in the body not a malfunction like a broken bone or cut.

At Your Cervix wrote a nice post about how to measure pain in labor and how Peggy Simkin rewrote it into a coping chart! Please read it! Below is Peggy Simkin's chart. Here is a link to her 3R's.

I do think that generally following the 6 Healthy Birth Practices written out by Lamaze helps minimize unneeded pain in labor.  

Thoughts on the purpose of pain in labor- 

http://www.lauriefremgen.com/articles/trustyourself.html

http://empoweredbirth.typepad.com/empowering_birth_blog/labor_pain/

Perceptions of labor pains in culturally diverse women- http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/465812_5

Sharing Notes from the ICAN 2011 Conference - Part 1

One of the things that I remember thinking, and hearing the first day of the conference is that it wasn’t really going to be “fun”. While it is true, that it wasn't really fun, it WAS amazing. The topics were interesting, intriguing and exciting. I learned lots of new things, met some great people who I have never met, but read their books or posts online.

The conference started with Dr. George Macones delivering the Keynote presentation, VBAC to the future: Trends in VBAC research.

Dr. Macones is the chairman of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University in St. Louis and a spokesman for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He was quoted in a recent article by The New York Times. And, here is ICAN’s blog about Dr. Macone’s quotes from the article.

Some of his main points (supported by several mentioned studies):
-Choosing better VBAC candidates, can we predict who will be successful?
-Altering Labor Management (rate of induction going up, max dose Pitocin, intra-partum monitoring)
-As oxytocin goes up, risk of uterine rupture goes up
-There is a lack of data about foley bulb safety with VBAC
-Avoid long inductions


One of the plenery sessions at the conference: “Practical Post-Partum Cesarean and Pelvic Scar Care for New Moms and Health Care Professionals. Excerpts from Ending Female Pain, Woman’s Manual, by Isa Herrera, MSPT, CSCS”, Speaker Isa Herrera

Isa Herrera is a women’s health physiotherapist. She owns and operates Renew Physical Therapy, a healing center in New York City. This presentation was so full of wonderful, useful information.

A couple useful websites:
Renew Physical Therapy
Renew Physical Therapy Blog - News You Can Use

Some of my notes from this presentation:
-Women are not getting the tools they need to fully recover from cesarean sections
-Covering of how cesarean sections are performed (abdominal muscles pushed apart, not cut. The fascia that covers the rectus abdominus is cut and moved.)
-Stressed that women who have had a cesarean section should find a PT who specializes in scar care and specifically women’s health physical therapy.
-Presentation of some of the exercises, techniques, massage methods that can be used to strengthen the core after surgery.
-Explained how to evaluate for diastasis. Here is a link to her blog explaining how to check for diastasis.

Notes Part 2 coming soon: Notes from Kristen Oganowski's presentation, "A Woman's Guide to VBAC: Advocacy and Empowerment in the Web 2.0 Era" and Henci Goer's presentation, "The Gap Between Evidence and Practice"

ICAN 2011 Conference, St. Louis Missouri, April 8-10

The ICAN 2011 Conference is this week! April 8-10 in St. Louis, Missouri. I (Dawn) am attending, along with Lisa Garcia, leader of ICAN of Montgomery County. Here is a link to the conference site: http://conference.ican-online.org/index.htm

I will be attending the Chapter Leader training as well as other sessions. It is my hope that I am able to bring back as much information as possible to share with you all!

Here are the sessions I am attending:
-A Woman's Guide to VBAC: Advocacy and Empowerment in the Web 2.0 Era with Kristen Oganowski

-The 3 Ps of VBAC: Pregnant Woman, Provider, Proviso: Navigating the Waters with Dr. Poppy Daniels

-When VBAC Doesn't Happen: Supporting the CBAC (cesarean birth after cesarean) Mother

This is on top of the other speakers that will be presenting to everyone:
-VBAC to the future: Trends in VBAC research, speaker Dr. George Macones

-"Practical Post-Partum Cesarean and Pelvic Scare Care for New Moms and Health Care Professionals. Excerpts from Ending Female Pain, Woman's Manual, by Isa Herrera, MSPT, CSCS", speaker Isa Herrera

-The Gap Between Evidence and Practice, speaker Henci Goer

-Breech Update for Parents, speaker Gail Tully

-Gates of Cesarean Birth Story Healing, speaker Pam England

Perhaps at our next meeting we can go over the highlights of the conference.

Links-a-Doddle

Woman planning her VBAC after 2 c-sections at
http://www.theunnecesarean.com/birth-stories/i-found-that-vbacs-are-so-possible.html

Restriction of Food and Drink in Labor from a Medical Anthropologist point of View
http://www.birthactivist.com/2010/01/restriction-of-food-and-drink-in-labor-from-a-medical-anthropologist%E2%80%99s-perspective/

Lilly's Homebirth- a Dad's Perspective
http://www.homebirth.net.au/2010/01/lillys-homebirth-dads-story.html

Book Review at 'Talk Birth' Blog : Dance of the Womb: The Essential Guide to Belly Dance for Pregnancy and Birth By Maha Al Musa
http://talkbirth.wordpress.com/2010/01/25/book-review-dance-of-the-womb/