I’ve had a wonderful streak of unmedicated hospital births lately. Strong mamas and papas who were prepared and thoughtful about their births.
I learn so much from each birth. My latest birth was unusual–days of prodromal labor, slow progression with intense contractions. We were laboring at home when Dr. Polo Shirt (you’ve read about him before here and here) stopped by the house to see how we were doing! What a great encouragement to this family for their doctor to step onto their turf, validate their progress, and then leave them to their privacy to continue laboring.
[Let me interject here: if you are pregnant, live in the area, and are planning a hospital birth, you will not find care like this anywhere else. I won’t promise you’ll get a house call, but I do promise you’ll be surprised by the personal care you’ll receive. I’ve seen many doctors in the delivery room. Trust me.]
I won’t go into all the details of this birth but I’ll sum up with: beautiful baby, happy mama, and proud papa.
I’ve also loved that all my recent births have involved immediate skin-to-skin contact with babies left on mama’s chest for at least the first hour. That sounds like such a reasonable request but sometimes it is so difficult to get in the hospital setting.
Now I’m lounging beach-front at Hilton Head. Lazing the days away for a little while. And I must turn off the ‘puter to take my tot swimming!
Inexplicable Ways 
The more I hear about this Dr. the more intrigued I am. I’m considering a Hospital delivery next time mainly for insurance reasons and I would love to have a pro-natural birth Dr. He honestly sounds too good to believe.
I was wondering if Dr. Stafford was “Dr. Polo Shirt.” He sounds like a prince, and I just found out he is in-network even with our lame-o state insurance 🙂
I don’t know that he is pro-natural birth. I’m not sure he’s pro any sort of birth. But he is pro patient choice. And that is the difference. I think he understands and remembers whose birth it is.
Just like he is pro-vaccine but takes non-vaxers in his practice without much ado. How do I know he is pro-vaccine? He posted his views on mothering.com!!
That sounds like quite a birth. 😉
Well, she was quite a mama!
I love what I’ve seen of Dr. Polo Shirt also and would highly recommend him. I was blessed to attend the first birth you blogged about as a doula apprentice with him and was amazed! In my doula training, I’ve been received different ways by physicians and midwives, some of which were not so good. I will say however, that my main concern is how they treat the LABORING MAMA and he treated both me and the Moms with lots of respect and validation. HATS OFF TO DR. POLO SHIRT!!
Way cool! Some extremely valid points! I appreciate you penning this post plus
the rest of the site is really good.