2008 PA Cesarean Statistics are Now Available! (1 of 4)

In an early Christmas present, the PA Department of Health has released birth data for 2008, including cesarean statistics by hospital.

The cesarean rate in PA in 2008 rose just under 3% over 2007, going from 30.05% to 30.86%.  Most likely this will still keep us under the national average…but just barely.  The VBAC rate dropped from 13.8% to 13.3%.  

Looking more local to the Lehigh Valley, some of the results are very sobering.  Overall, the combined data for the 5 hospitals in the Lehigh Valley with maternity units saw their cesarean rate Continue Reading…

Rallies to Support Children as Visitors in Hospitals

As you may know, I’m involved on the leadership of EmPoWeReD Birth, an advocacy group for birth in Eastern PA. In that capacity, I am writing this note, and ask you to share it.

As you may have seen recently, Lehigh Valley area hospitals, along with many hospitals across the country, have made the decision to ban all children under the age of 18 from the hospital as “visitors.” This is a “temporary” ban for flu season, but as you probably know, the flu season extends until April or May, so we are looking at a ban that could easily last 6-7 months.

To be sure, we think it is a wise practice at ANY time for anyone who is exhibiting signs of the flu to avoid visiting a hospital as a visitor.

However, the EmPoWeReD Birth leadership is concerned about this ban Continue Reading…

Lehigh Valley Hospital Makes a Statement

Lehigh Valley Hospital has responded to the letter to the editor that was published in The Morning Call last week.   You can read it here.

I’d like to respond to a couple of the statements made in the letter. Continue Reading…

The Rally was Good!

Before the Rally

I’d like to thank all of the folks who gave of their precious Saturday morning to come out to the rally today!  If the Lehigh Valley Hospital security car showing up around noon was any indication, we did draw a bit of attention. 

  Continue Reading…

What is Midwifery?

A friend expecting her second baby this coming October recently lamented to me in an e-mail:

…most of the women who go to OBs do not know - or at least believe popular misconceptions - about what midwives do. Every woman would want midwifery care for herself and baby if they knew what it truly was…. All the women I know who used midwives were women who wanted individualized care and somebody to be there to support them through their whole birth experience. Somebody who knew them and who they trusted; rather than a practice where you rotate through providers and get whoever is on call. Some had natural births, some with epidurals, etc. but the most important aspect was that relationship and better care. (Jennifer Harper)

A Pioneer Midwife in Pennsylvania

As a childbirth educator and a doula, and most importantly as a mom of 5 children, I couldn’t help but Continue Reading…

A Poll About Birth at Lehigh Valley Hospital

I’m going to do a bit of an informal poll on births at Lehigh Valley Hospital. Here is what I would like from you…please tell me about births that you have DIRECT knowledge of at Lehigh Valley Hospital in 2007, 2008, and 2009. That is, either you were at the birth, or you were told about the birth by someone who was at the birth.

What I would like to have is the year of the birth, the first name and last initial of the mother (this is so that I can make sure I’m not counting the same birth more than once), what baby this was for the mother, whether the primary care provider was a midwife or OB, and whether the birth was cesarean or vaginal. So that would look like this:

2007 Donna B first OB cesarean
2007 Jan H first midwife vaginal
2008 Renee C first OB vaginal
2009 Lynn D. second OB vaginal

I’m hoping to collect data on at least 200 births (and have gotten info on 25 so far on Facebook)…so…can you help me?

Thank you!

May 21:  An update on the stats so far….I have data now on 52 births.

Overall cesarean rate: 36.5%
Midwife cesarean rate: 16.0%
OB cesarean rate: 55.6%

Half of this data is from midwife attended births…but The Midwives attended less than 3% of births at LVH in 2008…so you can expect that LVH’s cesarean rate is much closer to the OB cesarean rate than the “overall” rate.  I will note that I suspect that there might be a bias in the OB data in that women who have a cesarean birth for their first baby and then were seeing The Midwives for a planned VBAC might be highly represented in the data set…yet another reason for me to want data on a LOT of births.

Birthing women in the Lehigh Valley loose another option…

I just learned today that The Midwives and Associates are no longer going to be allowed to attend VBAC’s at Lehigh Valley Hospital.

There has not been a negative outcome with VBAC’s that they have attended…it’s just a decision that was made by “folks higher up.”  I have to wonder if this decision is just related to The Midwives, or if all VBAC’s are being forbidden at this hospital?

Either way, why am I not surprised?

I believe there may be one midwife attending VBAC out of St. Luke’s Bethlehem, but her offices are located in Stroudsburg, so many women find her to be geographically inaccessible.  She’s also not an option for women who have “Valley Preferred” insurance, which ONLY allows women to birth out of Lehigh Valley Hospital.

There are a few OB’s who attend VBAC at area hospitals, but for the woman who desires the midwifery model of care, it appears that the only option for her now is homebirth.

UPDATE on Friday, May 7:  I learned yesterday that saddly the midwives have lost ALL birthing priviledges at Lehigh Valley Hospital.  As women, we can not sit back and allow this to happen without a fight.  Please contact The Morning Call with your thoughts about this situation.  I will keep you updated on what you can do.  Thank you!