“Face of Birth” highlights the monumental importance of birthing and tells the stories of women who choose to birth at home, in hospital VBAC and in birthing centres. It presents vital information from the midwives, doctors and health professionals who support mothers and a medical system that works against them. The Face of Birth will be shown as part of the Choice! A Birth and Baby Film Festival on March 22, 2013 at 19:00 at St. Paul’s university. Learn more »
In the 1950s, Waterloo, ON midwife/nurse Elsie Cressman set up a leprosy clinic and helped deliver thousands of babies in Tanzania, Somalia, and Kenya. Elsie received the Order of Ontario for her advocacy of midwifery in Ontario. She died this past September. “Return to Africa” is an excellent documentary about her mission. Learn more »
In 2010, Dr. Greene founded the WhiteOut Now movement aimed at changing how babies are fed starting with their first bite of solid food. In 2012 he launched a worldwide campaign aimed at changing the practice of Immediate Cord Camping To Optimal Cord Clamping or TICC TOCC. He is the author of Feeding Baby Green, Raising Baby Green and, From First Kicks to First Steps.
About 30% of oxygen and white blood cells are contained outside of a baby’s body during birth. Immediate cord clamping practiced in Western medicine today deprives the baby from that oxygen, white blood cells, iron stores, and stem cells that they need. This practice is harmful. Birth attendants should wait to clamp the cord until this blood is pumped into the baby’s body and the cord stops pulsating. Learn more »
The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 to honour and support those “offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today”. It has become widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ and there are now 149 Laureates from 62 countries.
Ina May Gaskin, one of the leading midwives in United States, has received a Right Livelihood Award in 2011, and said the following in her inauguration speech:
“Most of us necessarily share an awareness of powerful forces that now threaten the continued existence of the profession of midwifery in many parts of the world. Rates of cesarean section are rising rapidly in most countries, far beyond the upper limits recommended by the World Health Organization. As cesarean rates increase, rates of maternal death and serious injury rise as well, and women’s fears of birth increase. At the same time, time-honored knowledge and skills begin to vanish. I have visited private hospitals in Brazil where the cesarean rate was 95%, because women (and their doctors) had become so afraid of the normal process of birth that the cesarean became the default.” Read more »
