In Bloom Birth and Wellness

02/18/2024

My heart is so full and today was so bittersweet. I say farewell for now, but will see you again I hope soon!

01/26/2024

01/04/2024

I'm starting 2024 with an important reminder...

"The job of guideline and policy writers is merely to recommend that something be offered.

It is up to the recipients of any type of care to decide whether or not they want an intervention, and yet it is very clear that women are not always being given the information that will enable them to make an informed decision."

This applies to every aspect of maternity care and, in fact, to health care generally.

It’s something I talk about a lot in What’s Right For Me: making decisions in pregnancy and childbirth.

We’re not going to get away from the fact that systems, including systems of health and maternity care, need rules and pathways and guidelines based on population-level evidence in order to function.

If we didn’t have somewhere to start from, there would be chaos.

But those pathways and guidelines exist to tell professionals what to offer.

As an individual who is using that system, you don’t have to follow the recommendation or pathway or guideline if it’s not right for you.

Find details about my work, that book (along with my others on aspects of birth-related decision making) and hundreds of free articles at www.sarawickham.com/me

01/04/2024

There is risk in everything we do. Leaving your house and getting into a car is a risk we accept every day without thinking. But we have to stop allowing the fear language pushed into the birthing space to make us so very fearful of a beautiful process that doesn’t need intervention for most women. Dr. Sara Wickham says we need to change our language to Chance instead of risk. I agree that it changes the conversation help lessen the fear. What is the chance I may need to have a c-section? What is the chance my baby may need a NICU? Look at the real statistics and don’t allow biased language to make the decision for you.

Then we must realize when we allow ourselves to be pushed and coerced by fear into elective inductions, unnecessary cesareans, more testing, all the extra surveillance; we have often given up the ability to have a physiological labor and birth. Then the chances of your body or baby having more interventions increases quickly.

When I was pregnant and planning a vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), I had a friend ask me, “Why would you want to risk it?” It struck me as an odd question. Would she ask the same question if I had been planning a repeat c-section (RCS)? I think her question highlighted the mindset that most...

01/04/2024

10/21/2023

4 births in 4 days! I am tired, but so thrilled for these wonderful families!

10/19/2023

In a world where we rush around and try to fit too much in, a baby’s ‘due date’ has come to be seen by some people as a kind of appointment.

Statistically, only 5% of babies are born on their due date and many healthy babies are born after this.

I sometimes suggest that people plan to do something nice on their baby’s due date; there’s a really high chance that you’ll be free to do it!

But the important thing to remember is that, on the whole, our bodies and our babies’ bodies know what they’re doing.

If you’d like more information about due dates, induction or birth in general, see www.sarawickham.com/iol

Yes, feel free to repost. We just ask that you keep the original pic, words and credit intact and don’t put Sara’s words into your own branding 💜

10/07/2023

I love my vocation. Women are so powerful! I am awed and inspired everyday at the love, determination and spirit I get to encounter.

Birth is so beautiful, but Home Birth is something so special to behold.

Thank you for all those who have supported and trusted in me. I am deeply grateful. Love my mamas, Daddies and babies so very much.

10/03/2023

How can you tell if your contractions are from the baby turning, the uterus warming up, or are the contractions of labor?

Distinguishing between contractions that warm up the uterus or turn the baby before cervical dilating labor and labor contractions can be challenging. However, there are some characteristics that may help:

1. Frequency and Regularity:
Turning Contractions: These can be very regular. They often come in the daytime but may be at night. The baby is in a different position afterwards. Sometimes the baby engages with these contractions.
Warm-up Contractions: These contractions are usually irregular and do not come at regular intervals.
Labor Contractions: They come at regular intervals and become more frequent as time progresses. They last about 30 to 70 seconds each.

2. Intensity:
Turning Contractions: These might be mild but are often very strong. The pain may be in the top of the pelvis or back.
Warm-up Contractions: These are typically weak and may feel uncomfortable but usually not painful. They might get stronger at times but they don’t show a consistent pattern of increasing intensity.
Labor Contractions: Start off weak and gradually increase in intensity. They become stronger, longer, and more frequent as time goes on.

3. Change with Activity:
Turning Contractions: They can seem like labor and continue with changes of activity or slow down when lying down. The only way to know these from labor contractions is after they are over!
Warm-up Contractions: These contractions may subside or go away entirely with movement or changes in position.
Labor Contractions: Persist regardless of movement or changing positions. Walking or moving might even intensify them.

4. Location of Pain/Discomfort:
Turning Contractions: A sharp or grinding ache in the bones but not low in the pelvis, so much in the muscles except the back.
Warm-up Contractions: The discomfort is usually felt in the front.
Labor Contractions: Pain usually starts in the back and moves to the front.

5. Duration:
Turning Contractions: Can be 90 -120 seconds from the start or mimic labor contractions except they don’t often get more frequent.
Warm-up Contractions: : Can be short-lived or last for a couple of minutes.
Labor Contractions: Regularly increase in duration as well as intensity.

6. Other Signs:
Labor Contractions might be accompanied by other signs of labor such as:
The "bloody show" or a release of the mucus plug
A consistent, dull backache
A sensation of the baby moving downwards
Diarrhea
The water breaking (rupture of membranes)

It's crucial to remember that every one’s experience can be different. If there's ever any doubt, especially as the pregnancy approaches full term, it's always best to consult with your healthcare provider or midwife.

If contractions are regular and are growing in intensity and frequency, it might be time to call your midwife or head to the hospital or birthing center!

Did you experience either Warm-up contractions or, what Gail Tully calls “Turning Contractions”?

09/12/2023

What does it mean to walk as a Midwife?
Well first my love, you better grow thick skin. The purposeful propaganda that started centuries ago is still strong today. Walk in a room and say you are a home birth midwife and watch what happens. Projections, reflections, traumas, and ignorance. You will become a mirror. Remember to reflect back love and grace for you represent the thin veil between life and death. You will grow to know it well.
Being a midwife means gentle hands and whispered tones even when your heart is beating loudly in your ears and you haven't turned off your vigilance for hours/days. It's a full bladder, dehydrated mouth, and growling stomach that gets pushed aside because your presence means something.
Midwifery is stopping a hemorrhage that people don't even know is happening because youre smiling and cooing at the baby to keep up the oxytocin.It is sitting on a living room floor helping a baby cry while telling everyone, "Oh my goodness look how cute she is! Her color is getting so pink! Her heart is so strong." It is sometimes being the voice in the room that says, "I think you would benefit from an epidural." Then at the next birth you are nodding along as a woman cries she can't do it as you guide her to the tub because you know her baby is arriving soon. It is jumping for joy at that first latch and each ounce of baby weight gained.
It is knowing that these truths will be seen as sacrilegious to some and not "true" Midwifery. Then on the other side, you will have people shocked that you know how to take a blood pressure and amazed that you understand how to manage emergencies. You will not win over them all. You have to accept this.
It is knowing you are not God and you humbly submit to the understanding that you will never predict or control it all.
It is missing date nights and apologizing that you have to keep getting up to answer the phone. Saying no to activities you so desperately want to do but there is no cell service and a baby is arriving soon.
But mostly, its hearing the voice in your head saying after each moment with a mother, "If that is all I ever did, it is more than enough. This is what it means to work for the Divine"

09/06/2023

In our modern world, we’ve developed standards and pathways and guidelines which guide the health care that is offered in systems.

But the standard path won’t be the best way for everyone.

You might not think it’s the right one for you.

Don’t forget that standards and guidelines are created so that bureaucratic systems can run smoothly.

They are only an offer and it’s ok to say, ‘that’s not right for me’.

Find out more in my book, "What's Right For Me? Making decisions in pregnancy and childbirth."

For that and loads more birth-related information, see www.sarawickham.com/me

09/06/2023