The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS,
a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA
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I just had my mind expanded this morning by Laureen Hudson's hour long online session on how to use the internet to get a message out. Laureen's session “Creating an Online Presence," gave me a wealth of information in a short time and impressed me with how many people are out there who completely rely on the internet for their information. I needed that, and maybe you do, too. - Ina May Gaskin I just hung up the phone from doing the hour long session with
Laureen Hudson on “Creating an Online Presence”. Laureen’s know-how
and expertise were enough to wake up even the birth oldtimers like me and
Ina May to the many unused opportunities of the internet. Laureen’s
engaging and easygoing teaching style made even those scary (to me) terms
like “hypertext, streaming, wordpress, technorati, feedreader and trackback”
start to make sense. Her passion is to reach the generation of young
women who have not yet given birth BEFORE they fall into the black hole
of aggressive obstetrics. I came away from the class today with lots
of ways to improve my website and make it more modern, usable and interesting
for readers. This class will run again this coming Friday (August
22) and I heartily recommend it.
Cost: $35 per session Each session will be 60 minutes in length Creating An Online Presence
Search!
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I know what you mean about the lawsuits. Seems to me they (docs) want it both ways, patients who do what they are told and don't hold them accountable for making decisions for them.
I think there is a very good reason why the docs get sued and the midwives don't. Consider: the doctor tells you from the beginning that you must have all these tests, procedures, exams, etc. Why? To make sure the baby is OK. Well, that sounds reasonable. So Suzy Patient goes along with the doctor because she wants a healthy baby and he says if she does what he says everything will be great. Fine. So what happens when everything has been done according to the doctors preferences and the mother and father give up their choices to him and everything is NOT OK? Well, it seems to me that the logical one to sue is the one who made all the promises, right?
Now the midwives (especially the independent ones) don't make these kinds of promises. They are in a partnership with their clients where it is their duty to evaluate the mother and baby and make recommendations for treatment based on the idea that the parents will make wise decisions given the proper information. Since the parents now feel that they have had an active role in the decisions made about their care, they are less likely to sue if something goes wrong.
The bottom line is that there are no guarantees. Sometimes things go very wrong in even the best prepared and most healthy people. All of us who undertake to grow families must accept that on some level. But it isn't fair to treat parents as if they couldn't possibly make good decisions and then get mad at them when they blame you for the bad outcomes.
Doctors are not God and they never fail to remind us of this fact after
they have been held accountable for their actions. Before that, they know
everything! Right?
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