Just to let you all know I have been asked and am honored to speak at a panel discussion on breech delivery at the International Breech Conference in Ottawa, Canada on October 15-16th.
I think Ina May is also schedule to appear there. The full schedule of events can be found at the website below. Hope you will spread the word and please let me know if you or any of your colleagues plan to attend. I hope to share ideas about bringing back the option of selected breech delivery to America as the Canadian Ob/Gyn Society has recently endorsed. Would be great to see youthere, Stuart
Breech Conference http://www.breechbirth.ca/Conference.html
International Breech Conference
The Bronson Centre
Ottawa, Canada - October 15-16, 2009
Programme
Conference Registration
Pre-Conference Workshop
Evening Event: Birth, a play by Karen Brody
Sponsorships, Exhibitors
Visiting Ottawa
The International Breech Conference is a forum where birth professionals and parents alike can share their knowledge and experience with breech birth, creating a community which can work together towards breech delivery practices and protocols which respect the individual needs of each family and each birth.
PROGRAMME
NEWS!
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Marek Glezerman will be joining us from Tel Aviv. Dr. Glezerman published important early criticism of the Term Breech Trial and will be speaking from the perspective of a centre that participated in the contraversial TBT.
The programme features prominent doctors, midwives, and researchers from around the world, including Germany, Australia, the UK, and the United States, as well as speakers from Ottawa and across Canada. Topics range from varying techniques and protocols of breech delivery, to education of mothers and informed choice issues, to methods of assisting breech babies to turn to vertex.
click here to view the programme
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION DETAILS
Registration fees are on a sliding scale. Registering as an Obstetrician or Professional (a category including family doctors, nurses, midwives, naturopaths, chiropractors, and doulas) may include CME or CEU credits.
Click here to register for the International Breech Conference!
PRE-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP (PROFESSIONALS)
Doctors, Midwives, and Nurses may register separately for "A Day at the Breech", a hands-on workshop featuring Jane Evans, UK Midwife and internationally acknowledged expert in breech birth, as well as Dr. Frank Louwen and Dr. Anke Reitter of Frankfurt, Germany, whose work in the last five years delivering breeches with the mother in the upright position has eliminated the need for forceps rescues.
Registration is limited. To register or to get on the waiting list for A Day at the Breech, please send an email to breechbirth@gmail.com.
Contact us: breechbirth@gmail.com
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" Edmund Burke, 18th century Philospher.
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of it being right." Thomas Paine
"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Albert Camus
"Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose." Margaret Thatcher, March 14, 1977
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of it being right." Thomas Paine
"The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants." Albert Camus
"Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose." Margaret Thatcher, March 14, 1977
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” ― Upton Sinclair
Explaining the Cause
I am a practicing obstetrician who is a strong supporter of patients rights to informed consent and refusal. I believe a patient has the right to choose her own path given true and not skewed informed consent. Following that tenet, just as a woman should be able to choose to have an elective c/section she should be able to choose not to have one, as well. The American system of hospital based obstetric practice has been eroding those choices for women for quite some time. Due to concerns of economics, expediency and fears of litigation women are being coerced to make choices that may not be in their best interest.
I have had a long relationship collaborating with midwives and find the midwifery model of care to be evidenced based and successful. I was well trained at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the mid 80's to perform breech deliveries, twin deliveries, operative vaginal deliveries and VBACs, and despite evidence supporting their continued value, hospitals are "banning" these options. Organized medicine is also doing its best to restrict the availability of access to midwives.
Home birthing is not for everyone but informed choice is. Medical ethics dictates that doctors have a responsibility and a fiduciary duty to their patients to provide true, not skewed, informed consent and to respect patient autonomy in decision making. Countries with the best outcomes in birthing have collaboration between doctors and midwives. This is not what has been happening in the hospitals of America. Its time for a change and the return of common sense.
The midwifery model of care supports pregnancy as a normal function of the female body and gives a legitimate and reasonable alternative to the over-medicalized model of birth that dominates our culture. Through this blog I hope to do my part to illuminate what is wrong with our maternity care system and what is right with it. I do not expect all to agree and that is OK. We must all understand that given honest data it is not always reasonable to expect two people to come to the same conclusion. Our differences should be respected.
I have had a long relationship collaborating with midwives and find the midwifery model of care to be evidenced based and successful. I was well trained at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the mid 80's to perform breech deliveries, twin deliveries, operative vaginal deliveries and VBACs, and despite evidence supporting their continued value, hospitals are "banning" these options. Organized medicine is also doing its best to restrict the availability of access to midwives.
Home birthing is not for everyone but informed choice is. Medical ethics dictates that doctors have a responsibility and a fiduciary duty to their patients to provide true, not skewed, informed consent and to respect patient autonomy in decision making. Countries with the best outcomes in birthing have collaboration between doctors and midwives. This is not what has been happening in the hospitals of America. Its time for a change and the return of common sense.
The midwifery model of care supports pregnancy as a normal function of the female body and gives a legitimate and reasonable alternative to the over-medicalized model of birth that dominates our culture. Through this blog I hope to do my part to illuminate what is wrong with our maternity care system and what is right with it. I do not expect all to agree and that is OK. We must all understand that given honest data it is not always reasonable to expect two people to come to the same conclusion. Our differences should be respected.
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