More protection found in breastmilk!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/science/03milk.html?ref=health

Article on vaccines

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience

A brilliant article about vaccinations and the anti-vaccine movement.

ACOG (finally) recommends VBACs

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/health/22birth.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

Yes, I know, little love for my readers recently. What can I say, I'm in full Nesting mode and tiring myself out too much to come up with coherent sentences. So here's something for you. I promise, you're not forgotten!

Pitocin Not FDA approved for elective inductions

http://www.birthroutes.com/2010/05/pitocin-not-approved-by-the-fda-for-elective-or-nonmedical-inductions-.html

I have a feeling most doctors don't want their patients to know this.

Midwives can practice in New York State again

As of last Wednesday (June 30), the New York State assembly passed a law that midwives no longer need to have practice agreements with doctors in order to deliver babies. This was vehemently apposed by ACOG (surprise, surprise), but was the right thing to do. Where I live there aren't any formal relationships between the licensed midwives that I work with and any obs. And I don't think that there needs to be. If there is an emergency, a laboring woman will go to a hospital, having a formal agreement with an ob doesn't change this at all. Anyway, I'm thrilled for all of the woman who will now have better access to midwifery care in the state.

Here is an article that has a snippet about it: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/nyregion/02albany.html?scp=1&sq=midwives%20in%20new%20york&st=cse

Red Raspberry Leaf Tea

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_raspberry_leaf

I asked my midwife at my last appointment (last Thursday) about drinking Red Raspberry Leaf tea as I had heard about it on a natural childbirth board. Basically I was told it couldn't hurt. So last Sunday I stopped off at Whole Foods and bought three boxes, two Traditional Medicine brand and one Yogi Tea brand. The Traditional Medicine is just 100% RRL, the Yogi Tea has a bunch of other stuff in it, including mint. Right now, I'm liking the plain tea the best. It tastes almost like black tea, but without the caffeine. I usually drink it straight, but it's not bad with some honey, either. The benefits are that it's high in a bunch of vitamins (see Wiki site), and since I need to keep my fluids up, this is another way to do that. So I'm drinking a liter of tea, and trying to get in a liter of water, plus whatever milk I drink. I'm doing better some days than others. Anyway, I'll go ahead and recommend the tea, as I can't find any negatives to drinking it.

Back pain & Belly support

I've been wearing a belly support belt for about three weeks now. Unfortunately, it also irritates my skin because it attaches to itself with velcro, and it doesn't line up perfectly. So I have a couple of open sores on my belly now. I know, totally gross. So for the last two days I've been skipping the belt to give my poor skin a chance to heal. Now my back is killing me. So I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. And I'll also probably put the support belt back on because the sores don't hurt very much, but my back does. Oh, the things nobody warns you about when you get pregnant! However, since my back pain is caused because I carry 99% in my belly (ie: you cannot tell from behind that I'm pregnant), I cannot complain about that. Only about seven weeks to go. I can deal.