Last time the New York Times reported on home birth it was in the “Home & Garden” section. Here’s another story, about the rise in birth video viewership on YouTube, in “Fashion & Style.” (Sigh. When will physiological birth get a page in the “Health” section??) Most of the thousands of birth videos are shot at home — as of today there are 10,900 results to the search terms “home birth” — because taping is rarely permitted in hospitals. It’s mindblowing to think that 30, 40 years ago, women didn’t have access to books or even photographs showing the normal birth process. Now you can spend a whole afternoon birth-surfing.

Here’s a favorite. Here’s encouragement for those carrying multiples. Here’s one of several women singing in labor. And check out this absolutely gorgeous birth shown in a Spanish ad for a bed! And look, a brand new video about midwives and health reform — perhaps the birth of a movement?

ADDENDUM: “The Birth of Amerlyn Grace” — a beautiful, intimate slide show shot in black and white by Austin photographer Lyndsay Stradtner.

Consumer Reports named this true/false quiz, “Matertnity Care, Beware.” Take it here. CR writes, “Despite growing evidence of harm, many obstetricians and maternity hospitals still overuse high-tech procedures that can mean poorer outcomes for baby and Mom.” Also, check out their October ‘08 report, “Back to Basics for Safer Childbirth.”

You know that pregnancy guide, the one that practically has its own aisle in the big bookstores? The one that’s been on the New York Times best seller list for-ever (391 weeks)?

Well, it’s off! The Times Book Review wonders if the birth rate is falling along with the economy, but this author wonders if women aren’t skipping past the What To Expect display and buying books that give them more info and less of a talking to, books like… Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (Ina May Gaskin), The Big Book of Birth (Erica Lyon), The Complete Book of Pregnancy and Childbirth (Sheila Kitzinger), Birthing From Within (Pam England), From the Hips (Rebecca Odes and Ceridwen Morris), Our Bodies Ourselves: Pregnancy and Birth, and maybe even Pushed?

In their weekly “Her Body” column, Newsweek veterans Barbara Kantrowitz and Pat Wingert break down the who-what-where of childbirth options in the U.S.: in the hospital with an obstetrician, probably in the hospital with a certified nurse midwife, or at home or in a birth center with a certified professional midwife. They call this “delivery debate” increasingly “fraught.” “Between the controversy over elective cesarean sections and the debate about home births, it can be especially confusing these days for women trying to decide how and where to have their babies — and who will help them deliver.” The piece is brief but balanced and informative.

Intentionally breaking the bag of waters (called Artificial Rupture of the Membranes, or AROM, as pictured left) has been a feature of standard maternity care for decades. It is often the first intervention recommended to women once they arrive at the hospital in labor, partly because it was always thought to help speed things along. Not so, say researchers at Cochrane, who conduct what are called “systematic reviews” of the available literature on a subject. As the New York Times reports today, Cochrane surveyed 14 trials involving about 5,000 women and “found little evidence for any benefits.” Dr. Rebecca Smyth, lead author of the study, told the Times: “We advise women whose labors are progressing normally to request their waters be left intact.”

Here’s a “due date” calculator worth endorsing. It gives you what it calls a “safe range” for the baby to be born, and explains why thinking in terms of a due date isn’t very helpful — or healthy:

A due date does not mean there is only one safe day for your baby to be born. It is meant to establish a range of time that your baby is mature and safe to be born. Because modern obstetrics narrows this to a specific day, unnecessary interventions, like inducing labor, come into practice.

Indeed, a baby is considered “term” (or fully cooked) between 38 and 42 weeks gestation. The due date is simply the estimate of 40 weeks (the midpoint in that 4 week stretch). So if we think of being “due” as a period of time rather than a specific date, then a woman is not “overdue” once the due date has passed — she has just simply reached the halfway mark in her due month!

The calculator is courtesy of the new web site Mothers Naturally (mothersnaturally.org), which was launched by the Midwives Alliance of North America. If you’re looking to give birth with minimal intervention and maximum support, you’ll find great information and resources at this site.

Childbirth is a political issue, and the left-leaning news portal Alternet.org is highlighting the lack of choices U.S. women have in how, where, and with whom they give birth. In a sweeping article published yesterday, authors Manda Aufochs Gillespie and Mariya Strauss give a great overview of U.S. maternity care (and link up to Pushedbirth.com, among other online resources). The two also have some sharp insights into why there hasn’t been more of a consumer demand for different care. The “But it won’t happen to me” myth pervades, they argue, and gives women a false sense of security in their provider. But we also can’t underestimate how the health care system mediates our perception of what’s safe, of what’s normal, say the authors.

Since medical insurers often won’t cover midwives and birth outside the hospital, many women never consider either as valid options, and therefore accept high levels of medical intervention as necessary. “For most women, the fact that hospitals have virtually cornered the market on childbirth and maternity care means that birth itself can assume the form of a medical problem rather than a normal human process. And, since most mothers are giving birth in a hospital room surrounded by highly trained doctors and sophisticated medical instruments, a low-risk, unmedicated labor can rapidly convert into a complex surgical case.” Read the article.

The UK’s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) released new childbirth guidelines this week that call for more normal births, and more “control” for women in how and where they give birth. Some highlights:

• Women should have continuous labor support from a midwife.
• Interventions such as amniotomy (instrumentally breaking the bag of waters), synthetic oxytocin, and continuous electronic fetal monitoring should not be administered routinely.
• Movement should be encouraged throughout labor and women should adopt whatever positions they find “most comfortable.”
• Laboring in the water is recommended for pain relief; women should be fully informed of the risks and benefits of epidural anesthesia before choosing it.
• Women should be “discouraged” from lying flat or reclining during the pushing stage and should be “encouraged to adopt any other position.”
• Women should have the choice of where to give birth — home, hospital, or midwifery-led clinic.

NICE provides evidence-based, cost-effective guidance for the UK’s National Health Service. Click here for a great summary of the new guidelines, or check out the full report.

A great, quick read courtesy of CNN. Really quickly: induce only when medically necessary, labor at home until 3 centimeters dilated, choose your provider wisely, ask questions, and get a doula.

Two quibbles: “medically necessary induction” is left undefined, but many reasons called “medical” are in fact unsupported by the evidence, such as being overdue, or carrying a baby thought to be large. Quibble #2: women are advised to labor at home until they are in “active labor,” which involves more than just centimeters (and how are you supposed to know how much you’ve dilated until somebody checks?). Active labor generally means contractions that are less than five minutes apart, lasting about 60 seconds, and demanding your attention.