Six Healthy Birth Practices

For anyone interested in learning about healthy childbirth, Lamaze International’s Six Healthy Birth Practices are a fantastic resource.  If you are pregnant, finding a maternity care provider who supports the practices (not all do!) is a great step forward on the path toward a healthy, satisfying birth.

Two outstanding birth blogs — Science and Sensibility and Giving Birth With Confidence, both affiliated with Lamaze — recently hosted a series of wonderful blog carnivals, one for each of the Six Healthy Birth Practices.

(For those not familiar, a blog carnival is the blogosphere equivalent of a special issue of a magazine: the carnival host solicits entries on a particular subject; bloggers in the field submit their best and most relevant blog posts for consideration; and the carnival host collects, edits, annotates, and publishes links to the posts, creating an excellent round-up of the most cutting-edge information on the subject at hand.)

The blog posts selected for the Six Healthy Birth Practices blog carnivals are thought-provoking, fascinating, and well-informed.  Reading them can be addictive — and will introduce you to many of the best pregnancy, birth, and mothering blogs out there!

Here, I’ve collected links to Lamaze International’s articles and videos on the Six Healthy Birth Practices (the Lamaze website itself can be somewhat of a maze to navigate), as well as links to all six of the blog carnivals, all in one place!

Explore, watch, read, and revisit at your leisure.  I hope you find this collection of links helpful!

Six Healthy Birth Practices: Introduction

Healthy Birth Practice 1:
Let Labor Begin On Its Own

::  Practice 1 overview and evidence-based article from Lamaze
::  Blog Carnival 1

Healthy Birth Practice 2:
Walk, Move Around, And Change Positions Throughout Labor

::  Practice 2 overview and evidence-based article from Lamaze
::  Blog Carnival 2

Healthy Birth Practice 3:
Bring A Friend, Loved One, or Doula For Continuous Support

::  Practice 3 overview and evidence-based article from Lamaze
::  Blog Carnival 3

One great way to find a doula near you is doulamatch.net, a site that allows you to search for a doula by your due date and location, and that provides informative doula profiles and client testimonials, too!  You can also search for doulas at DONA International, the non-profit organization that is the gold standard in doula training.

Healthy Birth Practice 4:
Avoid Interventions That Are Not Medically Necessary

::  Practice 4 overview and evidence-based article from Lamaze
::  Blog Carnival 4

Healthy Birth Practice 5:
Avoid Giving Birth On Your Back And Follow Your Body’s Urges To Push

::  Practice 5 overview and evidence-based article from Lamaze
::  Blog Carnival 5

Healthy Birth Practice 6:
Keep Mother And Baby Together – It’s Best For Mother, Baby, and Breastfeeding

::  Practice 6 overview and evidence-based article from Lamaze
::  Blog Carnival 6