Personal Narrative : Mother 's Helper

This essay demonstrates significant factors, a midwife and the women may face within Australian public hospitals. As a midwife the key skills are understanding of what supports and impacts the normal physiological process of labour and birth. This essay will discuss two influencing factors that have a negative effect on the normal progress of labour and birth. This will be seen, firstly by discussing the cultural and environmental impacts of labour and birth. Then, examining how the midwife may best support and facilitate the adverse effects of normal physiological process. This essay also discusses a positive labour and birth environment within the Australian standard model of care.

Providing an effective care and support to the patient and for their babies during labour

Birth Hands Doula Service is a full-service doula agency that is located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Birth Hands Doula Service serves the Piedmont area of North Carolina including Greensboro, Burlington, Hillsborough, Chapel Hill, and Durham. Their goal is to render a well rounded, woman-centered care throughout the entire pregnancy, birth, and early postpartum. This care constitutes education, advocacy, emotional, and physical support for the women, the parents, their families, and their desired support team. Their services include labor and birth support, birth plan consultation, birth partner support, recording the client’s birth story, blessingway or baby shower celebration, and postpartum support services. The doula of Birth Hands

Childbirth is one of the greatest privileges on the earth anyone could have and we, as women, should feel proud to be major contributors for it. Thus, a mother has to play a key role in aiding the healthcare workers to mitigate the health crisis associated with childbirth by performing her duties faithfully. One such associated health crisis is “Premature (preterm) birth” which occurs when the baby is born too early, before 37 weeks of gestational period (CDC, 2015). The rate of preterm birth ranges from 5% to 18% of babies born across 184 countries (WHO, 2015).

Elena Vogel is a birth doula and lactation consultant that is located in Los Angeles, California. Her birth doula services include 2-3 prenatal visits, prenatal binder, unlimited phone/email support, 24 hour on call availability, labor support at the time of the birth, assistance with initial breastfeeding, plus more. Elena Vogel also conducts 2-3 postpartum visits. Elena Vogel is a certified birth doula through DONA International. Since 2002, she has assisted more than 300 births at hospitals, homes, and birth-centers. Elena Vogel has become a certified lactation educator in 2005. Elena Vogel is also home birth midwife assistant. Thus, she has attended a myriad of home deliveries since 2005. In the spring of 2011, Elena Vogel then completed

This film, “More Business of Being Born, Episode 3: Explore your Options: Doulas, Birth Centers, and C-Sections,” was a spinoff of a movie that was made. This documentary goes further in depth than the movie and allows women to acquire an enhanced understanding of child birth. There are numerous women throughout this episode sharing their real life experiences. Ricki Lake, the executive producer, stated, “We are not experts because we are not doctors or midwives even. We are not telling people what to do, we are simply showing.” That is exactly what they ensure during this film.

For hundred of years, women have wrestled with their womanhood, bodies, and what it means to be a woman in our society. Being a woman comes with a wonderful and empowering responsibility--giving birth. What sets us aside from other countries is that the process and expectations of giving birth has changed in our society; coming from midwifery, as it has always been since the early times, to hospitals where it is now expected to give birth at. Midwifery was a common practice in delivering babies in

As of 2013, around 353,000 babies were born in one day, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Be Fruitful and Multiply). Delivering babies is very difficult and strenuous, luckily labor and delivery nurses are trained to help care for the mother during the process of welcoming her newborn into the world safely. Labor and delivery nurses play a very crucial role in helping the delivery of babies and bringing safety and peace to the mother. I am choosing to pursue a career as a labor and delivery nurse because they get to provide care to babies, they get paid well, and they get to assist in the delivery process.

The Labor Ladies is a full-service doula agency that is located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Their services and fees include birth doulas- $400-700, waterbirth tub manager- $180 - $280, childbirth education- $75 - $250, lactation consults- $60-80, postpartum care- $25/hour, and maternity and birth photography- $100 - $500. The Labor Ladies also offers mother's blessing events- $300 - $400 and cesarean doula care- $450. The Labor Ladies are comprised of followers of Jesus, three nurses, postpartum care providers, doulas-in-training, seven mothers, two bloggers, a lactation consultant, two homebirthers, and one fitness instructor. The co-owner of this doula agency, Meredith Tanner, CD(DONA) has undergone the DONA training through the Greensboro

A postpartum doula services are designed to be able to assist in the physical and emotional care of mothers and families in the daysand nights, weeks and months following the birth/adoption of a child. Postpartum doulas are professionals experienced in:

Next, a non-hospital birth usually has midwifery or Doula. Midwifery is a profession in which providers take care of pregnant women during her labor and birth and during the postpartum period. Assisting the mother with the child after it is born. According to “Human Sexuality: Diversity in Contemporary America,” midwives attends the majority of births. Midwives are qualified for routine deliveries and minor medical emergencies; often operating as part of a medical term. As Cara Muhlhahn, a certified nurse midwife stated in “Business of Being Born,” she would rather be in the home of the patient so she would feel comfortable. And most women who have midwives are comfortable because they are in the privacy of their own home giving birth to their child and they feel empowered instead of the powerless vibe in a hospital. A Doula, on the other hand, does not have to make clinical decisions. Doulas offer emotional support and manage pain using massage, acupressure, and birthing positions; making it easier for the mother to cope with her complications. According to “Mothering the Mother: How a Doula Can Help You Have a Shorter, Easier and Healthier Birth,” a Doula is a Greek word that literally means a woman who has experience that can help other women. Klaus Kennell and others who have researched the effects of the doula's presence during childbirth have come to define the term as a woman with experience in childbirth who will give the laboring mother emotional, physical and

In my opinion, many factors about continuous labor support work together to decrease the use of birthing interventions. I think it is the key that the doulas’ can focus solely on the mother and her needs throughout the entire birth. As stated in An Economic Model of the Benefits of Professional Doula Support in Wisconsin Births, “a doula is a woman who provides physical, emotional and informational support to the laboring mother throughout her entire labor” (Chapple, Gilliland, Li, Shier, & Wright, 2013). It is not feasible for medical professionals, such as the nurse, doctor or midwife, to be in the delivery room throughout the entire laboring and birthing process. Labor is not on a time schedule and the mother is not their only patient. The doula is able to provide guidance and positioning to enhance fetal descent and is able to give the constant support and encouragement to progress labor (Chapple, Gilliland, Li, Shier, & Wright, 2013). When the doula helps the laboring mother progress, there is a decreased need for interventions. The doula is also able to provide breathing techniques and comfort that can decrease the need for pain medication and thus decrease the likelihood of using an intervention such as an epidural. Through certification, doulas are knowledgeable about a variety of positions that they can recommend to laboring woman throughout the entire birthing process.

A doula is a professional that provides judgement free informative, emotional, and physical care to pregnant woman and their families through the pregnancy, birth, and postpartum time.

Critique of Borders et al.’s Study (2013) “Midwives’ Verbal Support of Nulliparous Women in Second-Stage Labor”

Providing continuous physical and emotional support during labour can reducing maternal fear, stress, and anxiety and protect physiological birth (Steen, 2012). Research shows that fear and anxiety during labour and birth can be detrimental to physiological birth. An environment that women feel unsafe in may stimulate a surge of neuro-hormones that can influence both fetal and maternal physiology, causing irregularity of contractions, fetal distress and subsequent medical inteverntions (Fahy & Parratt, 2006). Conversly, maintaining an environment where women feel safe, protected and supported can facilitate favourable physiological performance (Fahy & Parratt, 2006). Midwives can do this by giving women one-on-one continuous support and placing her at the centre of care throughout childbirth (Steen, 2012). As observed in practice, by constantly reassuring the woman about her progress, her baby’s health and addressing any of her concerns, the midwife can provide a calm and relaxing environment that is conducive to the labouring woman (Buckley, 2015; Steen, 2012). The midwife worked with the woman, encouraging her throughout labour and birth by telling her that she was doing extremely well. The midwife also breathed in-tune with the woman while giving her a back massage, inducing a sense of comfort. The atmosphere was calm and this contributed to the woman garnering confidence in her ability to avoid medical pain relief. Downe (2008) noted that the positive impact of