The Orgasmic Birth Blog

August 1-7, 2010 is World Breastfeeding Week.  The brainchild of the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), this year’s theme is “Breastfeeding: Just Ten Steps!  The Baby Friendly Way.”

What are those ten steps? Twenty years ago, the Innocenti Declaration outlined a vision that every facility providing maternity services and care for newborn infants would:

1. Have a written breastfeeding policy that is routinely communicated to all health care staff.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the nation’s leading professional group of women’s care providers, changed its ten-year-old guidelines regarding Vaginal Births After Cesareans (VBACs) this week. The 1999 guidelines stated that VBAC should be only be provided in institutions where physicians were “immediately available” should an emergency occur.

If you loved the Orgasmic Birth movie, then you won’t want to miss the Orgasmic Birth book.  Acclaimed Orgasmic Birth filmmaker Debra Pascali-Bonaro has joined forces with renowned author and activist Elizabeth Davis to support women in attaining the most empowering and satisfying birth experience possible.

The newest version of the groundbreaking classic "Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom" by Christiane Northrup, M.D., is now available in bookstores across the United States.  "Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom" is an essential guide for how to truly flourish in a female body, not merely avoid disease.  In fact, the new "Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom" is an owner’s manual designed to teach you everything that can go right with your body.

This week you have an official reason to celebrate childbirth: it’s the International Week for Respecting Childbirth! Orgasmic Birth’s world premiere was during the 2008 International Week for Respecting Childbirth, so we know from personal experience that it’s a great excuse to talk to people about how we can make birth better for mothers and babies around the world.

Jordan Levinson is a graduate student, writer, musician, and aspiring doula. She is completing a Masters in Public Health at New York University with a focus on international community development and maternal mortality reduction. She lives in New York City and you can contact her at jord.levinson@gmail.com.  

Birth and sex are not separate events that happen nine months apart. Aspects of the same psycho-somatic-spiritual trance journey, they produce profound and connected altered states of consciousness. There's an integral relationship between the processes of birth, sexual arousal and orgasm—they share the same equipment and pathways (electro-chemical, neurobiological, energetic and more).

Two weeks ago, over 130 birth activists in New York lobbied in Albany for the passage of the Midwifery Modernization Act. What is this Act all about? As you may be aware, New York midwives (like midwives in 35 other states) are currently required to have a written practice agreement with a physician in order to practice. It is difficult for many midwives to find physicians who will sign one of these agreements. Many doctors believe that if they sign one, they will become liable for all of a midwife’s patients.

Why is it that when we talk about birth in the U.S., more of the conversation focuses on WHERE it takes place than on HOW it takes place? When I mention to people that I am a doula and an aspiring midwife, I find that they usually have strong opinions about the best location for birth--and assume that I have equally strong opinions.

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported this week that the U.S. Cesarean section delivery rate rose for the 12th year in a row in 2008, to 32.3% of all births. The World Health Organization has recommended since 1985 that C-section rates be maintained between 5% and 10% as this range carries the best overall maternal and infant outcomes. Additional research in the past 20 years supports WHO’s recommendation, finding that delivering more than 15% of mothers by C-section creates more health problems than it solves.