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Alternative BirthFor her second pregnancy, Debra Wilson sought out a midwife rather than return to the hospital.Story by Kerana Todorov
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 Midwife Vanita Lott weighs Andrew Scott during a checkup, while mom Debra Wilson looks on. Lott helped Wilson give birth to Andrew Scott in her own home. |
Lake Wildwood resident Debra Wilson recently had a baby boy. At home.
When Wilson gave birth July 8 to her second child, Andrew Scott Wilson, her husband was at her side, along with two midwives.
"I felt very well cared for," said the 31-year-old nutritionist, one of a growing number of women in the United States who choose to give birth at home, according to the American College of Nurse-Midwives.
The delivery of her daughter at a hospital in Southern California in 1992 was a "horrid" experience, Wilson said.
"From the moment I walked into the hospital, I was attached to the bed," she said.
The medical interventions, she believed, prolonged her labor, and her daughter, now 7, suffered fetal distress and had to spend several days in intensive care.
When she became pregnant again last fall, Wilson, who works for the Nevada County Health Department, decided to avoid a similar experience.
She hired a midwife.
Midwives are trained professionals, either registered nurses or licensed under the California Medical Board, who use a more holistic approach to pregnancy and labor, according the the American College of Nurse-Midwives.
Their mission is to educate women about birth, pregnancy and motherhood, midwives say.
"I don't really need to go to a surgeon for a very normal process," said Wilson a few days before Andrew Scott was born.
The midwives
The midwife she chose, Marian Vanita Lott, is a certified nurse-midwife based in her home in Grass Valley. Lott has been a registered nurse since 1983 and started her midwifery practice a few months ago.
Elaine Taylor, a licensed midwife, helped Lott deliver Andrew Scott. Licensed midwives are not nurses, but have undergone training and are certified under the California Medical Board.
Lott, who also works as a part-time delivery room nurse at Auburn Faith Hospital, said she's helped three women give birth at home.
Unlike most of the 7,000 nurse-midwives in the United States–750 of whom work in California–Lott exclusively delivers babies at home.
The home is a saft alternative to a hospital for a healthy woman to have a child, Lott said.
Her main tast, she said, is to "keep things normal" and make sure the woman and the newborn are well.
If any complications arise, her client is immediately sent to the hospital, Lott said.
The key to a successful birth, Lott said, is to screen the women who want to give birth at home.
The clients need to be free of serious medical problems, including diabetes or cardiac and thyroid conditions, she said.
Most healthy women do not need Caesareans, narcotics, continuous fetal monitoring, spinal anesthesia and other medical interventions that they now routinely receive at the hospital, Lott said.
A different experience
 Big sister Ashley, 7, gazes at her new brother during a checkup two days after the birth. |
Wilson said a few days after Andrew Scott was born, that her second delivery was completely different from her first.
"It was much more relaxing," said Wilson, who spent the hours before the delivery relaxing in her living room, kitchen, the bedroom and in her Jacuzzi on the deck.
The water in the Jacuzzi made the pain much more manageable, Wilson said.
Lott and Taylor were there to answer all their questions, said Wilson and her husband, Scott, a 33-year-old medical radiography instructor at Yuba Community College.
At the hospital, they would have had to deal with different shifts of nurses throughout the labor, Scott said.
At first, Wilson said she wanted to have her child at the hospital under the care of another midwife, Martha Barbato Turner. But she had to change her plans last April when Barbato Turner was unable to find a second doctor who would sign as a supervising physician, as required by the hospital.
With the support of her family, and after talking to other women who had given birth at home, she decided to give birth at home.
Debra Wilson said she has no second thoughts about her decision.
"I felt that every need that I had was completely met," she said.
A growing field
Barbato Turner said the number of midwives has increased "by leaps and bounds."
About 400 registered nurses become certified in midwifery every year, according to information on the American College of Nurse-Midwives' official website.
There are now seven training programs in California, where certified nurse-midwifery has been practiced since 1960.
According the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 1989, nurse-midwives delivered about 120,000 babies, or 4 percent of the 4 million babies born alive in the United States, according to CDC spokeswoman Mary Kay Sones.
By 1995, nurse-midwives had assisted in 240,000–or 6 percent of all live births, Sones added.
Please call (530) 477-7333 for free information packet or video on the advantages of an In-Home Birth Center and a CNM.