I caught that line from an overheard snippet of House M.D. recently. Someone told House to get consent before a procedure. He sarcastically replied something to the effect: Start getting consent for procedures and soon they’ll be asking for informed consent.
Well there is a new tool in the informed consent workshop. Released this week, the Milbank Report: Evidence-Based Maternity Care Report has the US abuzz. Consumer Reports even released a report on the findings. One of the quotes I love in the Milbank report’s executive survey is “The many beneficial, underused practices around the time of birth include continuous labor support, numerous measures that increase comfort and facilitate labor progress, nonsupine positions for giving birth, delayed cord clamping, and early mother-baby skin-to-skin contact.” Humph. Nonsupine positions, delayed cord clamping, and immediate skin-to-skin are usually the most difficult concessions to get in hospital births I attend. There is always some reason why it can’t be done.
The sum-up of the findings seems to be hire a family practice physician or midwife to attend your birth, hire a doula, and know which processes are evidence-based. Not sure how to discern evidence-based practices? I usually go first to the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Inexplicable Ways 
Did you see the season one episode of House in which a mom comes in and tells him she’s not vaccinating, but is breastfeeding, and he tells her that “yummy mummy” only protects a baby for 6 months? That’s not all he said. They also painted the mom as someone who was ONLY not vaxing because she didn’t want the pharmaceutical companies to rip her off. I know they are portraying House as a jerk, but unfortunately a lot Americans get the bulk of their information off prime-time TV and probably took those words to heart.
Hey, call me, we are wondering if you are coming up for LEAF this weekend!!!
Ack! LEAF! We thought perhaps you weren’t going or found new sidekicks since we hadn’t heard anything in a while. Oh…have weekend plans…can we change them? I’ll talk with Scott.
Is there cell phone reception? I’m on birth watch.
Consider that double birth watch…lol…this baby is destined to make an early entrance…
Emily–don’t you dare have a baby before we even have a prenatal visit!!