Holistic Pregnancy Care

Pregnancy is an exciting time but also very stressful since most of the process is different each time!

first time moms are bombarded with endless options for birth and healthcare for themselves and their babies,

nutrition choices, to vaccinate or not, to breast feed or not... the list is endless, and it seems like each decision is paramount to the health of mom and baby. The options, while endless, don't always include doing nothing or little as possible as nature intended. Obviously, some interventions are important while others are not. Let me explain... since I went thru the process myself 22 years ago! Even the most well educated are lead down a medical and clinical path for birth that is not ideal for baby or mom. Unable to discern what is absolutely necessary and what can be avoided is a gray area especially thru blurred pregnancy vision with hormones swirling. Your first visit to OB is very humbling, even as a doctor in another specialty! feeling uninformed and vulnerable i listened to every instruction and believed that the Doctor knew more about me than i did! Advanced Maternal age, tipped uterus, dysplasia that required an oncology visit, a quart of orange sugar water forced on me while i suffered with hyperemesis (morning sickness all day for 7 months) amniocentesis required, several ultra sounds then a research study for chromosome abnormality, testing for chromosome abnormalities, several checks for diabetes, preeclampsia, fetal heart checks, prescription meds without a warning of severe debilitating constipation for entire pregnancy while taking... most of these could have been avoided and it was up to me!! i allowed all of these interventions and will never know the outcome of a natural or close to natural birth! Hindsight.... i know , I'm lucky that it all turned out ok but since we don't know if the natural birth would have been better, we keep intervening and the stats for USA birth mortality is low... last i checked we were in 38th place for mortality and we are spending the most money on health care and we have the most interventions medically...hmmmm where to start? This will be a long discussion, but it needs to be addressed and broken down into many pieces. The first focus will be reducing the number of interventions during pregnancy and during birth for a better outcome! The studies are out and the proof is in the statistics. We just need to rethink the way we look at birth and implement more holistic practices and reduce invasive procedures...Birth is a natural process and we need to embrace it and let nature take the wheel!