TV Producer Seeks January Mom for Birth Show
Dear midwives, doulas, and expecting mothers,
You may have received a previous email from me. Montané from BirthPartners.com has been so kind as to afford me the opportunity to reach you again.
My name is Zach Marion and I am producing a natural childbirth show for Discovery Health Network. The hour long special will feature three mothers having home births and airs during baby week in June.
We just wrapped on our first story in Kona, Hawaii where Kollette and her husband, Jason, gave birth on their organic coffee bean farm. Midwife, April Weaver, attended their birth. In February, my crew and I will be traveling to Salt Lake City Utah to follow another family who is erecting a birth teepee. However, our production schedule is open during the month of January.
We are looking for one more family to feature on the program. The focus here is home births with a unique angle. For example, home birth in the city might be a nice contrast to our other two stories. The baby must be due between the beginning of January and the middle of February. Mothers who appear on the show receive an appearance fee.
The crew arrives a week or two before the due date to shoot a back-story. We spend 3 or 4 days with the family doing interviews and capturing their day-to-day life. Then, we are on standby to document the birth.
We understand the effect we may have on a birth just by being there. Through our experience gained in capturing 34 births for the Discovery Health series, House of Babies, we know how to fade in to the background and become a fly on the wall.
Exposure has always been an issue for our moms and their partners. Network television does not allow nudity. Blurring is employed to keep content tasteful. I would be more than happy to send an episode of House of Babies on DVD to any mom so she understands.
This is a positive experience for all that are involved. As a producer, I have the unique opportunity to promote midwifery and home birth on a big stage. Help me take advantage of this position. Let’s put empowered mothers and inspiring birth plans on the show.
If you are a mother or know a mother that fits the above criteria, please contact me immediately. I am in the office 8am to 5pm CST on weekdays. I can be reached in the evenings and on weekends by cell phone.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you!
Zach Marion
zach@videoartsstudios.com
Cell: (218) 556-8966
Work: (701) 232-3393
TX: Birthing center reaches out for help
From the Brownsville Herald:
WESLACO - Holy Family Birth Center has been helping women have babies in a low-stress environment for 25 years, but now the center needs help so it doesn’t have to close its doors.
The center was founded in 1983 by Sister Angela Murdaugh, along with Sisters Mary Thompson, Damien Francois and Ann Wojtowicz.
The original grant for the center was given by the Meadows Foundation, under the umbrella of Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Brownsville.
The center grew to include six birthing suites, a clinic, a classroom, a chapel, medical storage rooms and housing for the staff, volunteers, students and visitors.
Nancy Sandrock, director of the center, is a certified nurse midwife.
She was asked to come to the center last year to keep it from closing because there had been no certified nurse midwives (registered nurses with extra training) for several months.
The donated buildings are located on land at 5819 N. FM 88 that belongs to the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.
But, despite its name, Holy Family only receives moral support from the diocese; the Roman Catholic Church cannot afford to fund the project, she said.
Although Holy Family is faith-based, the nuns who founded it are now either dead or retired, Sandrock said.
Today there is a shortage of nuns, so there is a paid staff, in addition to volunteers who help women who come to the center and their families, she said.
Having a baby at Holy Family is a different experience than at a hospital, where expectant mothers may be afraid and uncomfortable in a cold, clinical setting, Sandrock said.
Teaching woman to be assertive and to realize they have choices about the birthing experience is one of the center’s goals, she said.
Unlike at most hospitals, they have a choice of having the baby in a warm water bath, which is a very natural experience, or in a bed if they prefer, she said.
The babies are not taken away from the mother at birth and kept in another room for six hours or more, as is done in some hospitals, she said. The baby stays with the mother, she said.
Mothers receive instruction in breast-feeding and care of their newborn and may be attended by a doula, which is a woman who attends to the mother all through the process, she said.
But everything costs money and that is in short supply for the center, Sandrock said.
“We may have to close,” she said. “We take people, regardless of how much money they make. … If you call around town, (other facilities) want $1,000 to walk in the door and who has $1,000 sitting around?”
But, even at Holy Family, low-income families are required to fill out paperwork to apply for Medicaid or CHIP reimbursement because there are many expenses, including staff, supplies, utility bills, equipment and repairs, Sandrock said.
CHIP is the state-run Childrens Health Insurance Program.
Some families may not be eligible for Medicaid or CHIP funding, “but they have to make the effort to apply,” Sandrock said.
Some doctors, hospitals or clinics encourage low-income women to go to Holy Family for pre-natal care, she said.
If the family is not eligible for a program, they will be put on a payment plan, based on what they can afford, Sandrock said.
Holy Family Birth Center does much more than just help women give birth, Sandrock said. Education about childbirth, prenatal care and infant care are all part of the program.
Volunteers and students nurses are trained at the center, she said.
If there are problems with the pregnancy, the mother and child can be taken to Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco, she said.
Dr. Elizabeth Krishnan worked hard to get hospital admitting privileges for the her, said Sandrock, who has a master’s degree in addition to being a registered nurse with training as a midwife.
In addition to money, the center could use donations of baby clothing, baby supplies, packaged baby food, building materials or even gift cards from Home Depot, she said.
Her husband James Sandrock uses his carpentry skills and interest in recycling to make repairs, often with reclaimed building materials, she said.
James and some of the nurses boarded up the buildings before Hurricane Dolly and he has been making repairs since the storm, she said. He also helps maintain the center’s computers.
Your Birth on TV?
From an email I received:
My name is Zach Marion and I work at Video Arts Studios in Fargo, North Dakota. We produced the series House of Babies for the Discovery Health Network. Under the guidance of master midwife, Shari Daniels, at the Miami Maternity Center, the show follows couples during their pregnancy and ends with the delivery of their baby. It was very instrumental in raising awareness about non-clinical birthing practices on a national level.
Recently we have been approached to create a one-hour special on unique birthing practices worldwide. We are looking for families who would like to share their story on camera from pregnancy to delivery. Ideal candidates are expecting mothers due in or around early January who are planning to give birth outside of a clinic or birth center. This includes homebirths and beyond. The point of the show is to raise awareness about alternative birthing options with the help of a midwife in the US. Hopefully, the special will create a healthy dialogue among midwives, doctors, parents-to-be and the general public. Stories that are of particular interest are those that include interesting traditions during pregnancy and unique backdrops during delivery. For example, a Hindu family who want to deliver outside, or a family of hippies who are pursuing a homebirth in a tent.
As you can imagine, access is usually the greatest struggle. Families should be aware that our presence at the birth goes nearly unnoticed. We learned to be unobtrusive through experience gained while producing 26 episodes of House of Babies.
Do any clients spring to mind who might want to be a part of this project? I would greatly appreciate any and all contact leads. Feel free to contact me by phone with inquiries or information. I am available during weekdays between 8:00 and 5:00 CST. Thank you for your time.
- Zach Marion
Video Arts Studios
1440 4th Avenue North
Fargo, North Dakota 58102
(701) 232-3393
zach@videoartsstudios.com
IDAHO: Only Southeastern Birthing Center Opens in Rigby
From LocalNews8.com (video story posted on their website):
The very first birthing center in Southeastern Idaho will open its doors this Saturday in Rigby. Already women from as far away as Jackson Hole are booking the facility. Midwives at the center allow parents complete control over what kind of birth they want to have.
As soon as you walk into the Rigby Center you realize this isn’t just a facility where medical procedures take place, this is where miracles happen.
“They said we don’t shake hands we always hug in this room,” said Amy Hanson, recalling her first visit at the center. “They gave me a big hug. When we were driving away I literally got tears in my eyes, because I knew they were going to remember me.”
Four days ago Amy gave birth to a bouncing baby boy named Samuel, at the new center.
“It was a lot more peaceful,” said Amy’s husband, Daven. “Amy was much more at peace and I felt like she was supported in every way that she wasn’t the first time.”
Amy and Daven’s first son, Gabe, was born in a hospital but the couple found their desire to have a completely natural birth did not line up with protocol.
“Doctor’s are great at intervention and what to do when something goes wrong. They’re not great at having a totally natural birth,” said Amy. “That’s just not what happens in a hospital.”
To midwives non-intervention is what giving birth is all about. “We don’t have things that pop out of walls. We just don’t interfere in the natural process,” said the Hanson’s midwife, Michelle Bartlet.
To top it off the Hanson family saved thousands of dollars just because Samuel was born at the center. “The hospital was going to be around $11, 000,” said Amy. “The birthing center was $300, so the difference was huge.”
That is only facility fees. Amy and Daven estimate a total saving of approximately $9,000 or $10,000. “We are in no medical debt, we paid everything off,” said Amy.
After going through such a beautiful experience the couple said the money they saved was just an added bonus.
The Agape Center is the only birthing facility in Southeastern Idaho that meets the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative. The initiative was put together by National Birth Network whose mission is to promote a model for maternity care that will improve birth outcomes and drastically reduce costs.
The Birthing Center’s grand opening will be this Saturday…to find out more about the opening and the facility. Contact Michelle Bartlet at 208-681-6114.
At Your Cervix, another documentary
The documentary, At Your Cervix, enters U.S. medical and nursing schools and breaks the silence around the unethical ways in which medical and nursing students learn to perform pelvic exams. These practices—which include nursing students being required to perform exams on each other in front of faculty and medical students “practicing” on unconscious, unconsenting patients—lead directly to the reality that most women find pelvic exams to be humiliating and painful. The existence of these egregious practices are challenged in the film by highlighting an ethical and more effective way of teaching the pelvic exam that has existed for nearly 30 years: the work of the Gynecological Teaching Associates (GTA) of New York City, in which the “patient” herself is the teacher. Read more
Podcasts
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Podcast 1: Midwives
Podcast 2: Birth Places
Podcast 3: Thinking About Home Birth
Podcast 4: The Birth Kit
Podcast 5: Interview with Ricki Lake