New Website, Facebook Page, and Twitter Account!

I bought a domain name for my doula services website, and I decided to do away with "Peaceful Waves Birth." The new website for my Yakima area doula services is:

www.birthspecialist.com

The new website which will also be the location of information on the schedule of my Hypnobabies classes, and updates for my Dancing For Birth™ classes, when I get them started. I also made an accompanying facebook page, which you can find at The Birth Specialist. I also finally joined Twitter. Unfortunately @BirthSpecialist was taken (by someone who apparently created the account, but never used it), so I just went with my first and last name: @BrittanyCromar. So, now you can like and follow me if you are on Facebook and Twitter!

Homebirth Midwifery Care Now More Accessible to Yakima Area Women

I hope my out-of-town readers will indulge my sharing some local news.

Homebirth is growing in popularity among pregnant women here in Yakima, Washington. In February 2010, KIMA news published a story about more Yakima women choosing to birth at home. Although no homebirth midwives reside in Yakima itself, the midwifery team of Kristin Eggleston, LM, CPM of Sunrise Midwifery in Prosser, and Lorri Carr, LM of Highland Midwife Birth Services in Goldendale travel to Yakima to attend homebirths. Dr. Virginia Frazer, ND, LM, of Blue Heron Naturopathic Care and Shannon Bennett, CPM, both located in Tri-cities, also attend homebirths in Yakima.

Although homebirth midwives come to women's homes for a few appointments and for the birth itself, it is more efficient for them to have women come to an office location for the majority of their prenatal visits. Until recently, Yakima women would have to travel 50 miles to the nearest homebirth midwife office for prenatal care visits with a licensed midwife. I am very excited to learn that Kristen Eggleston and Lorri Carr have recently started taking appointments one day a week (Friday) at the home of the Naturopathic Medicine and Accupuncture practice of Dr. Heidi Robel, ND, LAC, PC, located at 307 S. 12th Avenue Suite 11 (map) in downtown Yakima. This location will increase the accessibility of midwifery care for women seeking homebirth in Yakima. This may allow more women to use their services, and will make using those services more convenient for those who no longer have to travel.

2009 Washington State Cesarean Rates

The Unnecessarean posted the 2009 Washington State Cesarean Rates by Hospital today. The hospitals in my area are actually doing really well. Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital has the lowest rate on the list (not including hospitals that only had one or two births in the year because they don't have labor and delivery departments) at 16.8%, and Toppenish Community Hospital (where I had my son, even though it is farther way, for insurance reasons) is the second lowest, at 17.6%.. I mentioned a few reasons why I think the rates here are so good here in the comments. The factors that influence cesarean rates in hospitals are complex, and the cesarean rate is one measure of how well maternity care is doing in an area. Although the hospitals here are very good, this community can definitely use some improvement in options for childbirth education and birth location, since the hospitals pretty much have a monopoly on both right now. The data did not list the rates for homebirths or birth centers. It's not really fair to compare hospitals whose communities have very few out-of-hospital options to hospitals that have abundant ones--because having out-of-hospital options takes away some of the vaginal births from the hospital's stats. Higher c-section rates in hospitals were there are out-of-hospital births in the area is to be expected. If the data included out-of-hospital births in areas like Seattle, I think it is likely the overall rate for the state would have been lowerl.