Pregnancy and Birth – Madison Ayers Writes

Women Are Being Coerced into Birth Control in Their Most Vulnerable Moments

“When Crystina Hughes, a thirty-five-year-old Black woman, went to the University of Alabama Birmingham Hospital to give birth, she wasn’t considering birth control.

Immediately after giving birth to her daughter, a doctor asked if she wanted to get an IUD inserted. After all, her cervix was already dilated. Hughes said no, but once her husband left for the neonatal ICU with their newborn, the doctor asked again: Could he insert an IUD?

In her vulnerability, Hughes assumed that it must be important to have the IUD inserted now, so she relented. Around six weeks postpartum, her milk dried up, and she had to have the IUD removed after her uterus prolapsed.”

Natural Womanhood Book Review: Real Food for Gestational Diabetes

“For many women who have gone through pregnancy, their experience with gestational diabetes (GD) begins and ends with the infamous glucose tolerance test, where they drink the sickly sweet “glucola” and get their blood glucose levels tested. But for the roughly one-in-ten pregnant woman who’s given a GD diagnosis, the process of tracking blood sugar and understanding how food affects insulin levels becomes a central part of her pregnancy.

Real Food for Gestational Diabetes is a short volume from dietician Lily Nichols that takes a new approach to controlling GD through diet and exercise. With a mountain of research supporting her, Nichols helps readers understand their gestational diabetes diagnoses by giving them the tools to take their pregnancy health into their own hands. In our Real Food for Gestational Diabetes book review, we share the strengths and limitations of Nichols’ book and our recommendation on whether to buy, borrow, or pass.”

Read more at Natural Womanhood.

Natural Womanhood Book Review: Real Food for Fertility

“Although Dietician Lily Nichols might be best known for her work on prenatal nutrition found in Real Food for Pregnancy, many of her readers sought her advice on how to best prepare before conception. Nichols teamed up with fertility awareness expert Lisa Hendrickson-Jack in order to author Real Food for Fertility, a new volume which distills everything you need to know about how diet and lifestyle impact fertility. In this Real Food for Fertility book review, I explain why this book is an all-encompassing guide to preparing your body for pregnancy, offering hope for any woman or couple looking to conceive in the near future.”

Read more at Natural Womanhood.

I’m being induced. Do I have options other than Pitocin?

“We separately covered reasons why you might have labor induced, ranging from being “overdue” to preeclampsia to poor fetal growth. Especially if induction wasn’t your original plan for how labor would start, you may dread being hooked up to an IV and fetal monitoring equipment, and fear needing an epidural to cope with the Pitocin-induced contractions. On that front, we have some good news: Pitocin isn’t your only option for labor induction, there are alternatives.

Here, we’ll cover a full-spectrum view of labor induction methods, from the least to most invasive. Know that when “D-Day” comes, you may experience multiple methods, layered together. Depending on your medical provider, you might begin with one intervention, then receive another in a scheduled window of time if labor isn’t progressing.”

Read more at Natural Womanhood.

Why be induced?

“Induction: a word that can incite strong feelings in either direction for pregnant women. Maybe you brought the topic up to your doctor, maybe she brought it up to you. The idea of being induced and meeting your baby sooner may sound exciting (not to mention the relief of not being pregnant anymore!). Or maybe you feel scared at the prospect of an induction replacing the natural birth you pictured yourself having. Let’s talk over the reasons you might be induced, plus a well-known research study called the ARRIVE trial about whether to induce a healthy pregnancy at 39 weeks.”

Read more at Natural Womanhood.

Should you eat and drink during labor?

“Was it really best for me to have little to no food for more than 48 hours of labor? Would labor (and the first few hours of my daughter’s life, earthside) have been easier if I had been steadily nourished with healthy foods? And, if so, what kinds of foods should I have eaten during labor?

Most pregnant women are aware that many hospitals have restrictions on eating and sometimes drinking during labor, but the reasons behind this can be confusing. In this article, I’ll explore why these rules exist in the first place, if they still make sense for our modern medical context, why we should be allowing women to eat during labor, and what kinds of foods are ideal.”

Read the rest of the article at Natural Womanhood.

What is a gentle C-section?

“In 2021, nearly one third (32.1%) of all births in the United States were via Cesarean section (C-section), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But a July 2021 Scientific American article by Ann Ledbetter noted that research shows C-section rates over 19% don’t lead to healthier moms and/or babies. With 19% as the ideal benchmark and 32% the reality, that translates to “about half a million unnecessary surgeries every year,” by Ledbetter’s estimate.

While the number of excess C-sections performed each year is startlingly high, and has negative implications for maternal mortality in the US and elsewhere, Ledbetter (and virtually everyone else) acknowledges that C-sections can be a life-saving procedure for some moms and babies. Still, as we’ll discuss today, not every C-section experience is created equal, and the “gentle C-section” option could have a lot to offer moms and babies for whom C-sections are necessary. In other words, pregnant women have good reason to think critically about their options should they need to receive this operation.”

Read the rest of this article at Natural Womanhood.

Positions to speed up labor, and can you really speed up labor?

“There comes a point in every woman’s pregnancy where she starts to really think about what labor will be like. That moment might come right after a positive pregnancy test or in the final days of her third trimester. Movies and TV shows may lead you to believe you’ll be rushing into the hospital after your water unexpectedly and dramatically breaks, screaming the whole way and barely making it in time to deliver your baby. But this is not the reality for most women, especially for first-timers. In fact, active labor can last between four to eight hours for first time moms! And this is after early labor, which can stretch well into the 24-hour range. Is there anything you can do to help speed up your labor? Here’s a guide on one of the best tools to help you meet your baby faster: maternal positioning and movement to facilitate the cardinal movements of labor. “

Read the rest of the article at Natural Womanhood.

Skin changes during pregnancy: What’s common and what merits a trip to your doctor?

“It’s no secret that pregnancy brings with it a whole host of physical changes—some of them unwelcome. During the nine months of pregnancy, a staggering 90% of women can expect to have “significant and complex” skin changes [1]. Some of these skin changes can be anticipated, like stretch marks and linea nigra, a dark line that runs from the belly button downward. However, there are some skin issues that go beyond the frustrating, like PUPPP, and can venture into being a health concern, like pemphigoid gestationis. Here’s a guide to skin changes during pregnancy—what’s common, what’s merely annoying, and what merits a trip to your doctor.”

Read the rest of the article at Natural Womanhood.