Why does the position of the head matter?

A teapot will show us why it matters that things fit. The lid won’t come off crooked, but will come off after rotating to the proper position. Its the same thing with some of our babies. They may not be able to slip through the pelvis -until they rotate to a better angle. Come visit […]

Empowering (Movie) Birth

I don’t follow the Hollywood stars but I have heard the name Rikki Lake. She’s put together a movie about birth in America. Her birth, her friend’s birth. She calls it The Business of Birth. Its reaching the tv generation and ends with a warning from Dr. Michel Odent on the importance of labor hormones. […]

Doulas as the key to continuous care

A mother told me this story. Her baby was a couple weeks old. The birth went well, but now a fever and redness on her breast worried her. She called her midwife who wasn’t clear about what it was. Whatever she told her to do may not have been enough, or soon enough, because the […]

The Inversion Worked

“Gail, “Thank you so much for your help and information. She began the inversion pose, and when she went in on Friday for the version, the baby had turned! YES!” This email note was from a local doula who was helping a pregnant woman who found out her baby was breech at 36 weeks gestation […]

The Tsunami of Technocratic Reproduction

The natural birthing community is feeling the oppressive weight of the technoreproductive tide that threatens to wash out all birth as nature designed it. I remember the Florida nurse that told me her hospital administrators told their doctors to get to a 50% cesarean rate and maintain it. Once there, the number will only rise. […]

The Elephant Birth

See the elephant tribe give birth. This elephant mother moves instinctively. Watch her legs. She isn’t trying to kick the baby. She is easing the stretching she feels in her hips and the weight she feels bearing down into her upper thighs. I may be heady to define why she moves this way, but I’ve […]

Marketing Birth

Hospitals spend millions to draw parents each year. What are we in the natural birth and home birth movement doing to make birth “as nature intended” attractive to parents? Today I attended a Writers’ Festival in my town’s city hall. That’d be Bloomington, Minnesota.Marketing You and Your Book was a panel discussion that lured me […]

Cord cutting

In the 1950s some cord cutting data was obtained. The recommendation to delay cord cutting was made. Sometimes it takes 50 years for a good idea to take. Here’s a current study that states the benefit again: Delay Cutting the Umbilical Cord, Research Suggests By Amanda GardnerHealthDay ReporterTuesday, March 20, 2007; 12:00 AM TUESDAY, March […]

Tough thoughts on caring for others while Doula-ing my elderly mom

I haven’t written for a while. Its been three weeks since my 82 year-old mom entered the VA hospital. (Getting great care, by the way!) My sister and I have been with her everyday. A couple of her dear friends have been by most days. Her lung had collapsed and she struggled with little air […]

Minnesota Doula Bill

Susan Lane, of the Childbirth Collective non profit doula group, reports that the 2007 version of the doula bill, bill 1296, has been accepted in the House of Representatives in the Minnesota Legislature.The Senate also has a version of the bill. The goal is to include doula care coverage by Minnesotan’s health maintenance organizations and […]

The Tipping Point of Birth?

The book, The Tipping Point, by Macolm Gladwell reports on how small ideas grow among the right combination of people grow to marketing miracles or tragic epidemics of harmful behavior. He dehttps://www.spinningbabies.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/sample3-1.pngs how some creative thinkers designed children’s educational shows to stick in the children’s head until they actually did offer an educational benefit. Can […]

Socialized medicine or socially engineered dis-ease?

I’ve been hearing that Universal Health care is a good thing for a long time. Certainly certain aspects of that would be wonderful. Like emergency care for people who now are left to suffer or die. Here in Minnesota we have an ethic of helping each other and giving to social agencies to help those […]