Exhausted!
You may have noticed this site has gone a bit idle. Truth is between midwifery practice, my ongoing educational plans, my family commitments, and squeezing in real life social time, there is little time left to compose essays or even copy text to share here.
Until which time I can make a full-time contribution to the site, the plan is to let it stand as-is. If you or someone you know thinks this may be a good vehicle to talk midwifery, inquire within! 
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.
Send a letter and support midwives
Get your limited edition postage stamps promoting midwifery from Stamps.com! Follow this link to see the four different designs celebrating midwifery. Thanks to one of my favorite clients (hello Pamela!) for sending this to me.
Off Topic…
Some of you may have followed the links on the site to my practice website and learned that my husband was a member of the 1996 US Olympic Gymnastics Team. In our “spare” time (hahahaha!) we keep with what is going on in the sport and I support his efforts to provide behind the scenes access for the fans through his website, GymnastTV.com. Last weekend we interviewed almost all of the athletes participating in the 2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars. Visit Mihai’s website, subscribe to GymnastTV on iTunes and YouTube!
Of course participating on his blog and Podcast has fired me up– I will be getting to work on a fresh one of my own soon!
CALIFORNIA: Blogger returns ;)
I’ve had a couple of emails– thank you! — asking where I disappeared to and the answer is I’m swamped! Home birth in The OC is thriving! When I’m not up all night at births, I’m doing my best to catch up on sleep and visit with the rest of my clients who are in need of their prenatal and postpartum care. Oh and I have those four kids of my own who just started school this week and of course one helpful husband! I’m also in school taking a review biology course that didn’t transfer to the regionally accredited college level from my nationally accredited midwifery school. I enjoy the once-a-week class with 300 of my closest friends in a classroom that looks more like a small arena. There are a lot of familiar students from my previous classes in it, so it’s a fun social hour to boot.
Another reader asked if I was going to do any more Podcasts and the truth is, I’d love to but there are not enough hours in the day to get it done and for my husband to do the editing. If I do another one all of you will be the first to know about it!
My website statistics indicate many of you are burning up the search engines looking for feedback on Dr. Phil’s home birth show. I understand it has already been filmed and we’re waiting on the airdate.
The next most popular search is that of the of the two women in Florida who were retried for the death of Mara McGlade at her birth at home. Friday Linda and Tanya McGlade (Mara’s mother- and sister-in-law respectively) were found guilty a second time in their retrial for the practice of and attempted practice of unlicensed midwifery and face up to five years in prison. You can read various reports here: Yahoo search results.
As you might imagine from the messages I post on behalf of the Big Push for Midwives campaign that I am in favor of licensing Certified Professional Midwives. It’s a tragedy that Mara McGlade’s midwives (yes, they were midwives) were not educated on the basics of life-saving measures when it came to blood loss. It is certainly possible to pray for God’s assistance AND provide hemostatic medications at the same time!
Podcasts
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Or listen/watch each Podcast on demand:
Podcast 1: Midwives
Podcast 2: Birth Places
Podcast 3: Thinking About Home Birth
Podcast 4: The Birth Kit
Podcast 5: Interview with Ricki Lake