Birthing Experiences

My Birthing Experience

I am a mother of four daughters, so I have had four separate birthing experiences. I‘ll elaborate on my very fist pregnancy and birth experience.

For me and my husband we were overjoyed 27 years ago when we discovered we were having a baby. I knew I had to find an obstetrician so that the pregnancy could be tracked. We had no insurance then and didn’t make a lot of money as we worked in ministry. I enrolled at the nearby clinic that allowed for the sliding scale fee and was seen monthly. The staff was so nice and attentive. They made sure that I was given information to have a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby. My pregnancy, for the most part was BLISSFUL. I can say that because I had no morning sickness to speak of, or swelling or other aches and pains that went along with the blessed event. The only issue I had, was fighting hard to keep my iron count up. If I went in for examination and my iron was even one half point down, I would get scolded. So, I ate right and took my vitamins and iron pills. The Baby came two weeks after the projected due date along with a long, hard labor nearly 30 hours!

The attending physician at the hospital made certain that our baby girl was healthy and that I was doing fine after such a long laborious delivery…natural, without anesthesia or other medication! (No medication is crazy talk nowadays!) The delivery was in a room where it was given a home-like atmosphere, not at all clinical and sterile. Post partum depression, never heard of that! All was well with the world, my baby and I were healthy and happy. I do believe I may have been a little anxious being a new mom. To top it off, I lost all the weight gained rather quickly.

The pregnancy experience I believe, helps to shape the unborn child developmentally. My husband did his part by making sure I ate right, and got rest and great foot rubs and backrubs! All of that activity may have played an important part of a pleasant experience for me.

An Experience in Venezuela

I read about the experiences in Venezuela where many of the births at one time were done in the homes through midwifery. Now with modernization most births are performed in private clinics under the direction of a physician who will most likely give a caesarian-section. I came across an interesting story of a physician who turned midwife and fought to maintain the traditional practice of childbirth through midwifery at homes and to make that birthing process be legitimate and recognized . Please read further of this gentleman who was going against the establishment. Here in the US, a woman can have a choice to go to a hospital or give birth in her home with the help of a certified midwife who will make note of the birth and vitals of the newborn.

Insights gained form this information is that modernity is not necessarily better. The midwives offer wisdom to the expectant mothers and families. With the modern facility, traditions are thrown off, and the human experience as mentioned is the article is made to be more clinical than natural.



The Story of a Male Physician-Turned-Midwife
[April 2008]

My name is Fernando Molina, Family Physician, Certified Prenatal instructor and Midwife by heart. I am called “el Partero” in my hometown of Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, which has a population of approximately one million people.

Let me give you some idea of how women are giving birth in Venezuela. In 2006, 98% of births were attended by MDs, and 2% by traditional midwives in rural areas.

Births attended by midwives have been a dying infrastructure for the last 40 years. In Venezuela we hear about midwives mainly in the west Andean mountain region. In the East, where I live, there are a handful of traditional midwives, very old in age, with no new generation taking over their knowledge and wisdom. They feel very alienated by the medical establishment. We do not have any university that certifies midwives.

More numbers: In 2006, in private clinics, the c-section rate in private clinics was 80% and the vaginal birth rate was 20% (in the public hospitals it was 30% c-sections and 70% vaginal births). These figures are given by the Latin American network for the Humanization of Birth, who somehow monitor what is happening in Latin America.

Unfortunately, in Venezuela midwifery is not recognized in the infrastructure of perinatal care. For babies who are born outside hospitals or clinics (and are not taken to these premises afterwards, where mother and baby would be hospitalized as “infected”), in order to register the baby, the government has a network called the LOPNA (law for the protection of children and adolescents), where the few midwives who deliver babies have to take four witnesses to the birth and the signature of the “chief of the neighborhood” where the delivery took place. This paperwork is a hassle.

I have had the honor of delivering babies at home since 1983, with the birth of my own son. During the last 10 years, I have been dedicated exclusively to gentle homebirths, mostly waterbirths. Since I have an MD degree, I asked the Public Health and Sanitary Dept. to allow me to register “my babies” directly in the official department of newborn registration without the hassle implied in outside hospital births. They could not understand me and were very reluctant at first, so I had to hire a lawyer to help me in the matter. Finally we won the case. I became (with pride) “el Partero.”

This is my humble experience in Venezuela.

God Bless,

— Fernando Molina

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/international/Venezuela.asp