The countdown to baby continues for Noelle and Zach. Since my last post, they have:
- found out they are having a boy!
- interviewed a natural birth-friendly doctor and interviewed a midwife
- finalized which country they will raise this wee one in
- decided on their birth location and care provider
- signed up for a childbirth class
After much prayer, Noelle and Zach have chosen to birth at home with a midwife. It would have been an easy choice if their insurance would cover any part of it. It doesn’t. But their insurance offers fantastic hospital coverage–they would have very little out-of-pocket expense. For a young couple preparing to quit their jobs and trust entirely on financial support for their ministry, it was a big deal to choose a homebirth.
Let me interject here that the new healthcare plan–and, no, I will not offer an opinion!–will require insurance to cover certified professional midwives at birth centers. This change is wonderful but it reveals a common misunderstanding about birth centers. The birth center is not different in terms of equipment and training than a home. The homebirth midwife brings the same supplies and equipment as she uses at a birth center. For the plan to cover one and not the other simply because of the setting seems silly to me.
And…the wee baby boy will grow up (drum roll) in Cambodia. His parents have spent time there before and are excited to return. Noelle will once again be working with children who are victims of sex trafficking. Zach will be working with an unreached people group.
Now here is a question for my readers. If you lived in a country with only cold water for washing clothes, which cloth diapers would you choose and how would you wash them? Would you use bleach to kill bacteria? Something else? And this is a place in which bacteria can be ugly.
Inexplicable Ways 
I think I would go with prefolds. Is boiling the water in a pot or kettle an option? If not, I’d probably use bleach and lots of time in the sun to kill bacteria.
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How about some sturdy broad leaves?
Or fashion a belt to hold a bucket under the kid’s rear end.
Just some thoughts from the childless…
I would use prefolds and lots of bleach too!I think I have a couple of wraps left I could send down for her.
I would think that they should just follow what the locals do in terms of diaper care and my guess is it would be along the EC route.
Prefolds, with occasional bleaching. I have a lot of faith in the sun and it’s germ killing abilities.
Rachel, perhaps when you adopt that Haitian baby, she should be potty-trained already…
The local Cambodian babies don’t wear diapers. They have a hole cut out in their pants. I’m not sure how early they start ec or if they formally use it at all. I’ll have to ask when we arrive. It wasn’t uncommon to see moms holding babies with wet shirts. I definitely saw a lot of toddlers squatting on the sidewalk.
I’m so happy for them. We were in a similar situation (insurance refusing to cover a homebirth) and it was so, SO worth the out-of-pocket cost. How wonderful that they’re figuring this out for their first baby. Sure wish we had!
I got really excited when I read that the healthcare bill was going to cover CPM’s and then really sad when I processed that it would only be for birth centers. How dumb! I don’t want to give birth in a birth center! Why don’t they consult a professional when making these sorts of decisions?