Where’s the Physiology?
Hi, Spinning Babies® Community. I was excited about the collaboration of Gloria Esegbono, OB, and Joy Palmer, Midwife, on a hashtag that also speaks to us: #WheresThePhysiology.
Dr. Gloria says, “The common catchphrase today is ‘Where’s the Evidence?’, not just for obstetricians but for midwives. I’m going to tell you today, there is no evidence. I hope you understand it’s just physiological common sense. We don’t need a big RCT (Randomized Control Trial, a research approach that chooses some people to do the intervention and some not to and then compares outcomes) to tell us this is the right thing to do for mothers and babies. Okay? So let’s change the hashtag from #WherestheEvidence to #WheresthePhysiology and that’s where we really begin to improve our practice.”
I met Gloria Esegbono in Brazil recently and stars began to glitter in my eyes. She is a birth hero that is deep in the doing. We were sitting in the speaker’s lounge at the huge Siaparto conference in São Paulo at the invitation of the visionary Ana Cris Duarte. Both of us were pouring over our slideshows for upcoming presentations. Tammy Ryan was in the room with me, my Approved Trainer who began the Spinning Babies® Approved Trainers program at Spinning Babies® with a wish to take physiological birth skills to Kenya and Nigeria where she helplessly held a woman dying in her arms. There is a promise here, in meeting Gloria, a hope, that we need a dedicated administrative assistant level volunteer or group to release the potential between Art of Birth and Spinning Babies… I’m opening to that.
Life amusingly contains the paradox. For example, I’m put in mind of another birth hero who is upholding the Evidence-base in childbirth. We also love Rebecca Dekker, PhD and RN who seeks to offer the evidence tools to uplift birth care standards and respect in provider care for birthing families. She has a tremendous reach and personally invited me to speak at her conference. Unfortunately, due to travel, I missed her email and she filled the spot. I’m just grateful to know she was thinking of me, who began a movement with no evidence and yet nurses and midwives in the hospitals around the world choose to move Spinning Babies into their own standard of care through their grassroots application of our approach.
Rebecca “believe[s] in putting the evidence back in the hands of the people who need it the most: birthing people and their and families.” She sifts through the studies and interprets it for the physiological best approach supported by research and reports on it at Evidence Based Birth®.
Dr. Gloria Esegbono is a London obstetrician with a far-reaching vision of physiological birth in action. She’s partnered with Febromed, a birth equipment company, and The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, of which is a “fellow” in the United Kingdom. They paid for a presentation she and midwife, Joy Palmer, presented on Advances in Birth Positions.
Together they put two important points together for us in their work. With an open mind, we can support the truth upheld in both perspectives. Both are moving our work forward.
Thanks for reading here at Spinning Babies. Please share our emails/posts, please share your stories! You move me forward!
Sincerely,
Gail Tully
Enjoy this post? You also might like:
- Cesarean Rates Call for Beyond Border Solutions
- The Evidence Base
- Birthkeeper: Penny Simkin
- Birth Positions – Monthly Update
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