Your Natural Birth

03/03/2026

People get mad when I say this, but here we go:
Hospitals create MORE birth emergencies than they prevent.

Not because doctors are evil… but because the system turns a normal biological process into a medical event the second you walk in the door and policies are focused on preventing them legally, not necessarily giving the most evidence based care.

Let’s talk about the #1 thing everyone thinks makes birth safer:
Continuous electronic fetal monitoring.

You know… the belts they strap on you that beep every time your baby moves?

Here’s the part nobody wants to hear:

👉 Continuous fetal monitoring increases interventions, NOT safety.
👉 It does NOT reduce cerebral palsy rates.
👉 It does NOT reduce stillbirth.
👉 It does NOT improve neonatal outcomes.

But it does increase:
• C-section rates
• Forceps/vacuum use
• “Fetal distress” diagnoses
• Unnecessary inductions
• Mom getting stuck in bed → cascade of interventions

And this isn’t crunchy opinion.
This is straight out of *decades* of data.

Studies show continuous monitoring has a significantly higher C-section rate with no decrease in adverse neonatal outcomes.

Translation?
We’re creating emergencies by looking for emergencies that aren’t there.

Once you’re strapped to the bed:
• you can’t move
• contractions hurt more
• labor stalls
• Pitocin gets started
• baby doesn’t like Pitocin
• monitors look “concerning”
• suddenly you’re “not progressing”
• and then… SURPRISE! “Emergency C-section.”

Tell me how that’s safer??

Birth works better when:
• you’re upright
• you’re not tethered to machines
• you’re not starved or dehydrated
• you can change positions
• you’re not pressured by the clock
• your hormones aren’t shut down by fear

But none of that fits inside a hospital protocol sheet.

So we pretend the medical emergency started in your body when it actually started from cascading protocols and interventions. 🫠

You want the truth?
Most “birth emergencies” in hospitals are iatrogenic… meaning created BY the system.

And every mom who’s lived both sides (hospital vs home birth) knows exactly what I mean. 🫶🏼

10/01/2026

URGENT CALL TO ACTION: Protect Traditional Midwifery and Birth Rights NOW!

Friends, families, birthworkers, and advocates – we've taken a major step forward!

Our Position Statement on State-Level Midwifery Regulations and the Need for Federal Protections (highlighted by Pennsylvania's SB 507) has been sent directly to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s office at HHS, along with key colleagues.

This is our chance to push for real change under the Make America Healthy Again initiative – safeguarding parental choice, religious freedoms, and access to safe home births for rural, Amish, Mennonite, and underserved communities amid worsening maternity care deserts.

But we can't stop here. We need YOUR help to amplify this nationwide!

READ the full Position Statement

SHARE it widely – forward to every supportive agency, business, family, friend, doula, midwife, or advocate you know. Post it in groups, email it to local organizations, and tag allies who can help spread the word.

SIGN the Organizational Endorsement Form (included below – copy, fill out, and endorse if you're representing a group, business, or as an individual advocate). We need endorsements from agencies, businesses, families, and communities to show massive support!

MAIL or EMAIL it BACK TODAY – Send completed forms to pmrccontact@gmail.com or mail to: The Pennsylvania Midwifery Relations Coalition, PO Box 19, Bartonsville, PA 18321.

This is a maternal health emergency – midwives are facing prosecution, families are losing options, and bills like SB 507 are criminalizing traditional care without our input. Let's flood HHS with endorsements to demand federal protections for unlicensed lay midwives, non-medical birth support, and parental autonomy. Act NOW – every signature counts toward restoring health freedom in America!





https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/15ZbDwe2F764wjqPlRdSMLkzWw0Ft5Yj_?usp=drive_link

(text from Cardinal Birth Midwifery Service)
You can also listen to Brooke Collier and Lauren Hall speak about this on the most recent episode of Holy Wild Birth (https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Gteh5ANiDjWANWIAouPyK?si=_kYZhvrXQWeTyooI4hkkvA)d

Holy Wild Birth · Episode

20/11/2025

Know the risks

The standard method for closing the uterus after cesarean delivery, used for over 50 years, may be causing a host of long-term health issues for millions of women.

According to Dr. Emmanuel Bujold and Dr. Roberto Romero, leaders in obstetrics and gynecology, current closure practices—where sutures join the uterine lining with surrounding muscle—fail to restore the uterus’s natural structure, leading to serious complications.

Their exhaustive review reveals the risks: abnormal placenta attachment affects up to 6% of women, uterine rupture up to 3%, and premature births up to 28%. Many suffer pelvic pain (up to 35%), excessive bleeding (up to 33%), and endometriosis or adenomyosis (up to 43%). Such complications are linked directly to the scarring produced by the conventional closure method.

Bujold and Romero propose a nuanced technique: suturing tissues only of the same type, carefully reconstructing the muscle layer while leaving the uterine lining untouched for natural regeneration. Although this new method takes 5–8 minutes—twice as long as the traditional approach—the additional blood loss is minimal and outweighed by better outcomes for future reproductive health.

With cesarean rates rising globally, especially in countries like Canada where 27% of births are by C-section, prioritizing meticulous uterine repair is a critical public health concern. This shift in surgical thinking may help millions experience safer subsequent pregnancies and better long-term well-being.

Follow Science Sphere for regular scientific updates

📄 RESEARCH PAPER

📌 Emmanuel Bujold et al, "Uterine closure after cesarean delivery: surgical principles, biological rationale, and clinical implications", American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology (2025)

07/11/2025

Finally telling the truth

Decades of research have shown that round-the-clock fetal monitoring does not reliably predict fetal distress, and experts say it leads to many unnecessary surgeries. But it’s still used in nearly every birth in the U.S. because of business and legal concerns, a New York Times investigation found. https://nyti.ms/3WF7yLx

01/10/2025

Wow

06/02/2025

"It's just what we do" isn't good enough when it comes to membrane sweeping in pregnancy.

Many women and families ask about membrane sweeping, which is often presented as an alternative to induction of labour.

And yet it's not an alternative to induction.

It is a FORM of induction.

Because we see so many questions about this, I have updated my blog post on this topic.

Learn what the evidence really says about this common procedure.

Read my blog post at https://www.sarawickham.com/articles-2/what-is-a-stretch-and-sweep/

10/12/2024

Many studies have challenged the idea of a fixed due date, with one researcher noting that this idea “stretches credulity.”

Gerald Wightman Lawson searched and analysed the medical literature relating to "variables on the length of pregnancy, the expected date of confinement, and prolonged pregnancy."

His research (like many other studies before) confirmed that:

"a number of factors were found to significantly influence the length of a pregnancy, including ethnicity, height, variations in the menstrual cycle, the timing of ovulation, parity and maternal weight." (Lawson 2020)

And for those who would like a bit more detail...

"The proposition that a pregnancy is 40 weeks or 280 days in duration is attributed to the German obstetrician Franz Naegele (1778–1851).

His rule adds nine months and seven days to the first day of the last menstrual period.

The expected date of confinement from this formula is approximately right in the majority of cases.

However, the idea that this rule can apply to every pregnant female – young or old, nulliparous or multigravida, Caucasian, Asian, African, or Indigenous – stretches credulity.

In addition, many women regard the 40‐week date as a deadline, which if crossed, may then place the baby under stress.

Forty weeks is such a simple, round, convenient figure that it has proved difficult to challenge, despite criticism.

Nonetheless, what might have been an appropriate formula in Germany in the 19th century deserves to be revisited in the 21st."

You can see the paper at https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ajo.13253

For loads more information about "due dates", other approaches and the options available towards the end of pregnancy, see my books on induction, or visit https://www.sarawickham.com/iol

09/12/2024

Did you know that, in the UK, the data which underpinned the recommendation that women should give birth in hospital instead of at home were interpreted incorrectly?

Statistician Marjorie Tew pointed that out, but it took years until a medical journal would print her article.

By that time (1985), hospital birth had been established as the norm.

I wrote about this in in my book, In Your Own Time.

Many studies continue to show that home birth is safe and leads to less intervention for women and babies.

Because so many people ask, "is home birth safe?" (and yes, it is), that's the name of our home birth information hub.

It offers links to all of my info on this topic and an overview of the most recent studies in this area.

So have a look at our information hub, it's at www.sarawickham.com/research-updates/is_home_birth_safe/

And yes, please feel free to share/repost this pic with our text and credit intact.

21/11/2024

Be educated

02/11/2024

Welcome to midwifery 😝

Patience and space is what most mothers need…our bodies were made to birth.

25/09/2024