May 29, 2003

Birth in Israel

The five Israeli midwives in my current workshop group had very interesting stories to tell. They all work together in a big hospital in Tel Aviv where they have about 7,500 babies born each year. It is a public hospital, but all the prenatal care is undertaken by doctors, and the post natal care is carried out by nurses. The midwives are only involved for the births, and they will have had no contact with the women before they meet them in labour.

Some of their practices vary from those we are familiar with, as you would expect. Every hospital, and country, has its own approach to managing birth and it can be a surprise to discover that the procedures that one place identifies as “crucial” are considered unimportant in other institutions.

One such example is cutting the cord - in the hospital in Tel Aviv, the cord is never cut, even if it is very tightly around the baby’s neck. This was not news to the home birth midwives in the group, but was news to regular hospital midwives. The Israeli midwives also showed us a very interesting technique for opening up the sacroiliac joints when more space was needed in the pelvis - the woman lies on her side with her top leg lifted up at an angle, with her knee down and her ankle higher. This causes an internal rotation of the femur and also moves the sacroiliac joint. I am going to investigate this manoeuvre some more as it could be another very useful “trick” for difficult situations.

Although birth is very medicalised in Israel, as you would expect with so many doctors involved, these midwives are gradually making birth more woman friendly. They have introduced baths for easing pain, birth balls and bean bags and are trying to encourage mobility and upright birth positions. They are gradually winning the doctors over, but, as ever, this is a slow process.

Today we will explore a whole range of self-help ideas for labour and I look forward to learning more from these midwives.

Posted by andrea at May 29, 2003 04:53 PM

Comments

Hi Andrea!
I met you at the essential midwifery day in Solihull in June- don't be too disheartened - UK midwives are not totally complacent about regaining normality.
I was very interested in your posting re midwives in Tel Aviv who never cut nuchal cord. I am currently researching the practices of midwives locally in relation to management o nuhal cord and have identified that almost 30% of practitioners have changed their practice and do nort feel for cord routinely - much more than I anticipated despite the lack of empirical evidence available. Would you be able to put me in touch with anyone in Israel to find out more about their rationale for leaving nuchal cord intact?
Any pointers would really be appreciated as the literature is worse than sparse!
I really enjoyed the day that I spent at your workshop - Keep up your good work!

Regards
Jenny

Posted by: jenny edwins on July 5, 2003 08:13 AM

Comments

Hi
Please can you contact me in relation to your study as I am doing something similar to this for my PhD

Posted by: ElaineJefford on January 14, 2004 02:26 AM

Comments

You may find it interesting to visit the sites about poker card, casino no deposit, online casino casions, gambling cash, blackjack sites, roulette casions, gamble tip, internet casino web, slot machine odds, online casino bonus deposit, online gamble game, casino gambling strategies, casino game strategies, las vegas table, video poker casinos, roulette online card, slot rule, blackjack online deposit, blackjack betting 3d, poker 888, gambling 8888, blackjack tip, poker on net, casino casions, casino gaming, gambling no deposit. .

Posted by: blackjack on January 19, 2004 09:33 AM