Archive for June, 2011
Pledge to Help “More Business of Being Born” DO MORE!
Business of Being Born Needs Your Support
Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake, creators of the groundbreaking film “The Business of Being Born” need your help in creating the next series of informative movies about birth! They are asking for donations – large and small – to help fund this exciting project.
This project will only be funded if at least $100,000 is pledged by Thursday Jul 14, 1:03pm EDT. Currently the project has $46,181 pledged already towards their goal.
From their website: “More Business of Being Born” is our new series of four films that deepens the conversation about childbirth options, supporting every woman’s right to empowerment and accurate information during the birth process. We’ve also completed a 28-minute Classroom Version of “The Business of Being Born” with a comprehensive study guide to reach younger women in University settings…We need a budget to promote and market these videos, to make sure that they reach as many expectant parents as possible. To acquire that budget, we need your help.”
The Business of Being Born, and the companion website and book My Best Birth, were instrumental in the birth choices and experiences of so many women and families. Thanks to the information and advocacy of this project, an immeasurable number of women were able to birth their babies with a sense of empowerment, options, and support. Ricki Lake writes more about this new project HERE.
Now it’s our turn to give back by GIVING!
Click HERE to read more about this project and to donate. Note that all levels of donations in increments above $5 receive a gift back!
**************Tell us: How did The Business of Being Born impact your life?******************
Groovy Guest Bloggers Wanted!
We Want YOU…
to be a guest blogger.
- Have personal experiences and wisdom about pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum to share?
- Want to publish your views on current topics and news related to the birth community?
- Have a burning desire to share your passion for women, babies, and birth with us?
- Please review the AZBN Guest Blogging Guidelines before submitting a post.
- You may also submit all of the information to Leigh Steele at leighasteele@gmail.com.
We are welcoming submissions for guest bloggers for this year. Please contact Leigh Steele at leighasteele@gmail.com for more information.
Possible topics could include stories, news, advice, pros/cons, science, history, cultural viewpoints, rituals, techniques, theories, personal wisdom on the following topics:
- Breastfeeding
- Midwifery
- Natural & Alternative Medicine
- Labor and Birth
- Birth Trauma
- Baby Loss and Remembrance
- Adoption
- Surrogacy
- Fertility
- Family Planning
- Pregnancy
- Children’s Activities & Toys
- Bottle Feeding & Formula
- Cultural Rituals around Pregnancy and Birth
- Community for Mothers
- Nutrition
- Upcoming Events & Classes
- Local Artists and Businesses
- Body Image
- Parenting
- Baby & Mama Sleep
- Marriage
- Informed Consent (Pregnancy, Labor & Birth)
- Doulas
- Childhood Development
- Pre & Perinatal Psychology
- Spirituality
- Poetry
- Birth Stories
- and more!
Call for Birth Stories!
Birth: In Your Words
The Arizona Birth Network is planning a printable Birth Connection e-newsletter with the theme of “Birth Stories”. We’d love to have YOUR story as part of our featured newsletter.
Whether you gave birth in a hospital, birth center, at home, or in the car 
, we want to hear your powerful story and share it with our beloved community.
Send your fully-edited story to Leigh at leighasteele@gmail.com.
- Submission deadline is July 6, 2011
- Please limit your story to 1,000 words or less.
- In some circumstances, if your story is longer and you have it posted publicly on a blog or website, we may be able to link to your complete story in our newsletter.
- Photos are welcome in jpeg format. We just ask that you limit your photo submission to two of your favorite photos.
- We may do some very gentle technical editing on your story; however, you would be provided a draft copy before it is published. The editing would not alter the overall content, voice, or style of your story.
- If we are not able to use your story in our e-newsletter due to space constraints, we kindly ask that your permission be granted for us to potentially share it on our blog.
The Importance of Birth Stories
Storytelling is an ancient means of processing experiences and learning from them. It is an interactive way to pass along information from one person to the next and involves a range of colorful emotions, voices, and perspectives. Our stories hold the power to define us. Our culture’s stories about birth reveal much about how we view the rite of passage known as Birth.
Most would agree that the classic “birth horror story” is the one most told and the one most repeated. What do we learn from these stories if we don’t ask the right questions, or listen carefully? Perhaps we can begin to shift the horror stories into stories of a “Hero’s Journey”** – not by changing the story, but by changing our awareness into more conscious and introspective views of women as active adventurers vs. passive participants.
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In this upcoming edition of our e-newsletter, we hope to create a safe place you to tell birth stories full of empowerment, courage, even trial and tribulation. This doesn’t mean that you can’t share traumatic birth stories. Instead, it means that your story and your heart will be held tenderly with the knowledge that no matter the place, setting, or outcome of your birth story you were a transformed and brave woman. Here, all stories matter.
So, we invite you to tell us about the journey you walked during labor and birth.
What is your story?
(**From “Birthing from Within”: New mothers need your help to counter the Western message and initiation of birth as a “victim’s journey” into birth as a “Hero’s journey”. Learn how you can guide new mothers from their perfect beginning place of innocence, show them to see the prey and the predator and teach them how to ‘hunt’, and how to cultivate the determination and courage of their inner Love Warrior. This kind of birth preparation leads to awakening the Mother-within.)
Tips for Sharing Your Birth Story
• Can you incorporate/identify some of the elements of “The Hero’s Journey” into your unique story (i.e. how you accepted/declined the journey, your challenges and trials, your triumphs, how you returned to the ordinary world with new insights)?
• What have others’ reactions to your birth story been?
• Has the view of your birth story morphed over time, or have your insights continued to reveal themselves?
Next Post
Birth in the News
Great news on the insurance front for Vermont families choosing home births!
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“On May 18, 2011, Governor Peter Shumlin signed a law into legislation that will require insurance companies to provide coverage for families choosing a homebirth with a midwife. New Hampshire, New York and New Mexico already have similar laws in place. As of 05/18/2010 the Midwives Alliance of North America, MANA, (http://mana.org/) reports that Medicaid reimbursement is available in AK, AZ, CA, FL, NH, NM, OR, SC, VT, WA. MANA also reports that the states AL, DC, IL, IN, IA, KY, MD, NC, PA, SD are strictly prohibited from a licensed midwife even attending a home birth.
“It’s not often that we can celebrate legislation that provides benefits to Vermonters at their very first breath, but this new law really does do that,” said Cassandra Gekas, VPIRG’s Health Care Advocate.
Home birth midwives in Vermont are required to be certified as a certified professional midwife (CPM) by the North American Registry of Midwives, earned a high school degree or its equivalent as a basis for entry into the study of midwifery and has agreed to practice according to the scope and standards of practice as required by rules adopted by the Vermont Midwifery Statutes.
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Tell us your insurance-related birth stories.
- Was your home birth covered?
- Did you have to fight to get it fully or partially covered?
- Did your insurance coverage – or lack of it – play into the setting in which you chose to give birth (hospital, birth center, home)?
