Know Your Midwife - Changing Birth on Earth

12/06/2025

Every so often, a group of paediatricians write and publish an article in a medical journal about the fact that some parents decline vitamin K for their newborn baby.

Generally, they express their concern and the overarching message is that these parents are making the ‘wrong’ decision, thus professionals need to use better tools to persuade them down the ‘right’ path.

Vitamin K is effective, they say.

And they’re right on that point.

If we gave it to every baby, they say, we would prevent almost all cases of vitamin K deficiency bleeding.

Right again.

I’ve read the same research that they have.

But the next bit of their argument is where they and I differ.

Because I’m all about parents having all of the information so they can make the decisions that are right for them.

Which includes not just the short-term benefits of interventions, but the wider picture.

That includes any medium and long-term consequences (which is very important when it comes to things like induction, and antibiotics for group B strep) and also the gaps in our knowledge.

In other words, the questions that we don’t have answers to.

This is a key issue with vitamin K, and also with Anti-D/RhoGAM.

Because when proponents of western medicine find something that works, they tend to want to just give it to everyone, and they stop asking questions.

This closes off the paths that might lead to better, more nuanced options.

The paths that might help us to target interventions better, rather than making blanket recommendations and then trying to coerce compliance from those who – rightly – have concerns about this approach.

If you’d like to understand the bigger picture on vitamin K, without coercion in either direction, see https://www.sarawickham.com/vk

There, you'll find links to my popular book on this topic, and also my information hub, which contains several free articles to help those wanting to understand the pros and cons.

I hope you’ll find it useful.

13/05/2025

29/12/2024

An obstetrician from the 1800’s decided your due date.
And VERY often babies are forced out of the womb before they’re ready based on his calculations.
The obsession with a gestation of 40 weeks leads to an increase in inductions, interventions, and surgical birth - all of which have physical and emotional/mental consequences for mother and baby.
But where did this guess date even come from?
The due date calculation we use today comes from an obstetrician named Franz Karl Naegele, who invented “Naegele’s Rule”. This calculation starts with the first day of your last menstrual period, goes back three months, then adds one year and 7 days. The result is a gestation of 280 days (40 weeks).
The 40 week date is an average, meaning that about 1/2 of people will give birth before that date, & 1/2 after. It probably wasn’t seen as a hard eviction date in the 1800’s.
But today we live in a fast-paced world that runs on schedules and money. And with the ability to “control” birth via induction and surgery, this 40 week average date often turns into the day when your baby will be forced from your body.
Here are my top 3 reasons why using this calculation as a hard eviction date is wrong...
1. Naegele’s Rule is based on a 28 day menstrual cycle. If you, like me, don’t ovulate at exactly day 14 of your cycle, this calculation won’t work for you. Most people don’t know when they ovulate, and this important fact is almost never taken into account when calculating a due date.
2. Our bodies are all different - we didn’t all get our periods at exactly age 11 years 6 months and 13 days, so why would our bodies all grow babies at exactly the same rate? To use a due date as an estimate of when a baby will arrive is one thing - to use it as an eviction notice is a completely different story.
3. Many factors determine whether you are likely to have a longer or shorter gestation - if you are between the ages of 19 and 34, having your first baby, or are white, you are statistically more likely to have a longer pregnancy.

- Reposted from

20/11/2024

If only women knew how registered homebirth midwives do not interfere in the birth space, everything is with consent, it’s a trusting relationship and if we need to transfer we always go with them to hold space in the hospital environment!

They check the baby's position and listen to the heartbeat, but they aren't qualified midwives. Parents say a "dangerous" new breed of birth worker has emerged to fill the gap for women wanting to birth outside hospital.

10/11/2024

https://square.link/u/bhMIKNQ7?src=sheet

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10/11/2024

https://linktr.ee/kellizak?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=4866692a-558c-41be-b1c8-f74415f35d2d

18/10/2024

23/04/2024

“Giving birth is priestess work; it requires a woman to pass through a painful and dangerous initiation in which she journeys to the threshold between worlds and risks her own life to help another soul cross over.”

~ Jalaja Bonheim, Ph.D.
www.jalajabonheim.com

Art by Claudy Doula Du Coeur
www.linktr.ee/claudy_douladucoeur