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Henci Goer, Founder
Henci’s life’s work has been analyzing and synthesizing obstetric research in order to give pregnant women and birth professionals access to what constitutes safe, effective care. Over the last three decades, Henci has been a prolific writer, authoring numerous consumer education pamphlets and articles for trade, consumer, and academic periodicals. She has also written three books – two for birth professionals and the third for expecting mothers.
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Recent Blog Posts
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Non-Medical Factors Drive the Decision to Perform Cesareans
A Newsweek article points to a systematic review (a study of studies) finding that doctors perform cesareans in the belief that it will protect them from being sued, but that isn’t the half of what the review found. The review revealed host of other non-medical factors as well. Let’s take a look. The reviewers searched the […]
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2017 U.S. Birth Statistics Head in the Wrong Direction
According to provisional U.S. data for 2017, after four years of inching downward from 32.9% in 2013 to 31.9% in 2016, the overall cesarean rate rose by a tenth of a percentage point to 32.0% in 2017. The pain (pun intended) wasn’t distributed evenly. The rate in white women was unchanged at 30.9% but rose […]
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Helpful Lamaze Blog Post on Obstetric Violence
“What Is Obstetric Violence and What if it Happens to You?” posted in Lamaze International’s “Giving Birth with Confidence,” defines obstetric violence, lays out women’s rights in childbirth, and advises women on what they can do if they experience obstetric violence, both in terms of taking action against perpetrators and healing from its effects. Kudos […]
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ACOG’s New Postpartum Care Guidelines: The Devil Is in the Details
Connecting the Dots does a nice job of summarizing the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologist’s new postpartum care guidelines, which call for much more comprehensive postpartum care to reduce maternal morbidity and mortality. I’ll give ACOG credit for the concept, but this is still the same old ACOG we know and criticize. ACOG proposes […]
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New Study Challenges the Validity of Routine Induction before 42 Weeks
For those of you struggling with the news sweeping the internet that a trial has definitively established that women should be routinely induced at 39 weeks, a new study offers push back. (FYI: I deconstructed the ARRIVE trial and its hidden assumptions for Science & Sensibility.) A large, well-conducted study takes a fresh look at […]
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Is a “Healthy Baby” the Only “Important Thing”?
In this month’s issue of Birth, investigators examine the relationship between mode of delivery, negative feelings, and whether negative feelings have more substantive effects than the feelings alone. Most studies of the connection between perception of the birth experience and mode of delivery are small, qualitative studies with no adjustments for potential confounding factors. This […]
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First Ever Systematic Review Evaluating Long-Term Benefits Vs. Harms of Cesarean Delivery
Recent years have seen publication of a series of large database analyses comparing outcomes of vaginal birth with cesarean delivery. They have provided sufficient data for reviewers to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of long-term outcomes. The first of its kind, let’s see how they did it and what they found. The Setup Reviewers […]
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Medical-Model Labor Management Fails Head-to-Head Comparison with Physiologic Care
The winter issue of Birth includes a study that provides proof positive that physiologic care is superior to medical management. The study reports the results of Strong Start, a program providing care at American Association of Birth Centers free-standing birth centers to Medicaid beneficiaries. Let’s look at the numbers. Overall, 3136 women participated, of whom […]
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Abuse Happens to Women in Labor Rooms Too
While tales of abuse and harassment of women are exploding in the news and social media, there is one arena in which disrespect, bullying, and, yes, even physical and sexual assault are all too common, but silence is near complete. “Who’s in control when you’re giving birth?” pulls back the curtain on the mistreatment of […]
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Epidural Pushing Position: Out of the Fire into the Frying Pan
“One of the most influential biases in the acquisition of evidence is choice of the question, and the best evidence in answer to the wrong question is useless.” Menticoglou & Hall 2002 Making the rounds on the internet is a new study finding that lying down during the pushing phase of labor results in more […]