Over the years, Midwifery Today covers have featured some stunning birth art. It occurred to me today that it might be fun to put some of them together on one page, as kind of a graphic quilt celebrating birth and midwives.

So here is my page celebrating Midwifery Today!

Enjoy the art, then click on each cover to go to the Table of Contents and learn more about that issue!

Full disclosure: I’m the Marketing Director for Midwifery Today.

Here is a slide show I made of some of the most recent Midwifery Today covers.

And here is a list of back issues.

When: October 21, 2008. 7:30 pm
Where: Crazy Wisdom Bookstore & Tea Room, 114 S. Main St. Ann Arbor, Michigan
For more information: 734-665-2757 or rachel@crazywisdom.net

Come to this book signing to meet Mickey Sperlich MA, CPM and Julia Seng PhD CNM, authors of Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering, and Healing after Sexual Abuse.

Survivor Moms is a must-have book for anyone works with pregnant women. It includes excerpts from the heart-breaking stories of 81 women who have suffered and survived childhood sexual abuse. It also includes information from a wide range of professional sources that will help you learn to recognize and help women who have this problem.

Survivor Moms was published by Motherbaby Press, a division of Midwifery Today.

Full disclosure: I’m the Marketing Director at Midwifery Today.

When: September 23, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Where: Shaman Drum Bookshop, 311-315 South State St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104. 734-662-7407

Mickey Sperlich MA, CPM and Julia Seng PhD CNM will signing copies of their new book, Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering, and Healing after Sexual Abuse.

If you work with pregnant woman, Survivor Moms should be in your library. The book features excerpts from the stories of 81 women who have suffered and survived childhood sexual abuse, along with information from a wide range of professional sources about how adult women are affected by childhood maltreatment and sexual trauma. Included is an overview of diagnostic criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with illustrations of psychiatric terms with the women’s own words about PTSD.

Survivor Moms was published by Motherbaby Press, a division of Midwifery Today.

Full disclosure: I’m the Marketing Director at Midwifery Today.

When: October 17th, 2008
Where: Midwives Alliance of North America Conference, State Theatre, Traverse City, Michigan

Mickey Sperlich will be one of the authors featured at a book signing event at the 2008 Midwives Alliance of North America Conference. Mickey and Julia Seng are authors of Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering, and Healing after Sexual Abuse. This book was written to help break down the isolation pregnant women and their caregivers often feel–as though they were the only ones having to cope with these challenges. It includes excerpts from 81 women’s stories as well as information from a wide range of professional sources.

Survivor Moms is published by Motherbaby Press, a division of Midwifery Today.

Here is information about the MANA conference.

Full disclosure: I’m the Marketing Director at Midwifery Today.

When: October 7, 2008, 12:00 - 1:00 pm
Where: 2239 Lane Hall, 204 S. State St, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1290

Do you work with pregnant women? Do you know a woman who has been sexually abused? Then you need to attend this event to hear Mickey Sperlich and Julia Seng read from their recently published book, Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering, and Healing after Sexual Abuse.

Survivor Moms features excerpts from the stories of 81 women who have suffered and survived childhood sexual abuse, along with information from a wide range of professional sources about how adult women are affected by childhood maltreatment and sexual trauma. It was published by Motherbaby Press, a division of Midwifery Today.

This talk is part of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender’s Perspectives on Healing Series. and is co-sponsored by School of Social Work. For more information: (734)764-9537, or irwg@umich.edu

Full disclosure: I’m the Marketing Director at Midwifery Today.

When: August 14th, 2008
Where: Center for the Childbearing Year, 722 Brooks St, Ann Arbor, MI 48103
Presenters: Mickey Sperlich MA, CPM and Julia Seng PhD CNM

Attend this workshop for an overview of post traumatic stress, trauma and the evidence-based studies of the effects of sexual abuse on childbearing. You’ll learn about confidentiality and the importance of boundaries. You’ll also learn how maternity and mental health professionals can collaborate to facilitate healing and post-traumatic growth.

Onsite sales of the presenters new book, Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering, and Healing after Sexual Abuse will benefit the Doulas Care Program.

This workshop is part of a quarterly educational series “With Women.” It is approved for 1.5 nursing and doula CEUs. Fee $10; 1.5 Nursing and Doula CEUs approved; add $20 to fee for CEU processing; free to Doulas Care Volunteers. To register, call 734-332-8070 or doulascare@center4cby.com.

Survivor Moms is published by Motherbaby Press a division of Midwifery Today

Trauma from sexual abuse can have a profound effect on a woman during her childbearing years, disrupting pregnancy and influencing her ability to mother. Yet this connection is often ignored by the people in the best posttion to help: the woman’s midwife, doctor, doula, or counselor.

As part of an effort to get workers in various professions talking together about this common problem and working toward solutions, Midwifery Today is putting on a conference: “Hope and Healing—Collaborating to Bring Midwifery and Mental Health Care to Women Who Are Survivors of Sexual Abuse.” It will take place May 7-10, 2008 in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, and is open to anyone who cares about this topic, including abuse survivors and their supporters.

The conference will also offer a variety of courses on midwifery, such as Beginning Midwifery, Herb Workshop, Shoulder Dystocia and Prolonged Labor. For more information, please visit the Hope and Healing web page.

Full disclosure and personal note: I’m the Marketing Director at Midwifery Today and part of my reason for posting this is obviously to promote this conference. My other reason, far more important, is that I believe this is an important issue and that this conference is a good step in the right direction.

Cesarean section is major abdominal surgery. Like any major surgery, it can have major complications including hemorrhage, blood clots and serious infections of the uterus, kidneys, lungs, or other areas.

Despite this, about 3 women in 10 now give birth by having their bodies sliced into, rather than using the outlet that nature provided. Sometimes C-sections are necessary and life-saving, but often they’re done for reasons that have nothing to do with the health of mother or baby, such as scheduling the baby’s birth date at a time convenient for the mother or caregiver.

Childbirth Connection has an excellent area devoted to questions about cesarean section. Be sure to read the information about the safety and effectiveness of different birth choices. Among other things, you’ll learn about the physical and psychological effects of cesareans on mothers around the time of birth, the ongoing effects of cesareans on mothers, the effects of cesareans on babies and the effects of vaginal birth on mothers and babies.

For other resources, check out my Squidoo Lens: Just Say No to Cesarean Section.

Natural Pregnancy and Parenting: Our Innate Desire to Create Healthy and Happy Babies is a free 49-page e-book packed with information from a large variety of sources, all of which support a natural lifestyle.

The focus of the book is on proper nutrition, with sections covering nutrition from pre-pregnancy though lactation, nutrient deficiency, specialty foods, food to avoid, food synergy combinations and much more. Other topics discussed include morning sickness, miscarriage, child raising birth to 1 year, breast feeding, premature babies, schooling, disease and the role of fathers.

If you’re interested in having and raising your children in a natural way, you’ll want to read Natural Pregnancy and Parenting. You can read it on the web site or download the PDF version. Since links to the sources are included, you can use this book as the start of your own research into finding the lifestyle best for you and your family.

If you like to hear about empowering, positive births, you need to visit My Breech Birth.com. In addition to reading this story about the home birth of a footling breech baby girl, you can also buy the DVD of the birth.

I’m very pleased that the mother has decided to share her experience. It is so important for women who have had positive birth experiences like this one to let others know about it. And in this case, she’s telling the world that breech birth can be done—it can be done at home—it can be done at home without medication or episiotomy.

Way to go, girl!

The loss of a much-anticipated and already-loved child is a dreadful thing, bringing pain that grinds the heart and bares the soul.

Forever Our Angels, by Hannah Stone, is a a collection of personal essays written by men and women who have suffered this loss and who were willing to share their pain and devastation in order to help others.

This book has been endorsed by several obstetricians, including Dr. Bernard Gonik, Dr. Christiane Northrup and Dr. Steven Klein.

If you want to learn about facts kept hidden from us by the medical industry, you’ll want to read Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby in a Hospital. This book is the result of seven years of work by Jock Doubleday. It’s available only by tax-deductible donation (no minimum) from the California 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.

You may read excerpts from the 350-page eBook on the Spontaneous Creation web site. The eBook is fully searchable, and you have permission to copy substantial chunks (chapters) to send to your friends and associates.

Here’s a except from the chapter “You Want to Eat During Labor”

If you give birth in a hospital, you will probably be allowed to eat nothing but Jell-O cubes during labor. These Jell-O cubes will be provided by nurses who believe that Jell-O is food.

Although the majority of hospital personnel consider Jell-O to be food (a nonpoisonous ingestible substance), other nonpoisonous ingestible substances that actually are food, such as avocados, tomatoes, lettuce, tahini, apples, oranges, pears, etc., will be denied you. Thus you will find yourself spinning down the vortex of the following Catch 22 oxymorons: nourishing nonfood (Jell-O), nonnourishing food (vegetables, fruit, etc.), and noncaregiving caregivers (nonfood-providing, nourishment-withholding, nonnursing nurses).

The justification for the oxymoronic behavior of giving solely Jell-O to a laboring woman is simple and straightforward in the hospital mind. It is the belief that, because Jell-O turns quickly into liquid, you won’t be likely to choke on it and die if you throw up.

Will you, by the same reasoning, be allowed to put your veggie sandwich in a blender and press “liquefy”? Sorry. Against hospital policy. What is hospital policy? A conglomeration of beliefs the majority of which have withstood the test of time but not science. (For an insightful treatise on the anti-scientific, anti-common sense nature of the Western hospital, see Robert Mendelsohn’s book, Confessions of a Medical Heretic, especially his chapter, “The Temples of Doom.”)

In short, although there is no reasoning behind it, Jell-O is your predictable fate in the hospital maternity ward.

Interested? Click here to read the rest of the chapter.