© copyright April, 2008– used with permission

Brandy Puskas is a nursing student who spent a day "shadowing" Beth Overton, CPM during one of her prenatal days. This was an assignment for her Anatomy and Physiology class and this is the report she turned in. The client's names have been changed to protect their privacy.

The following is a log of my afternoon spent with Beth Overton, CPM. The name of her practice is “Gentle Beginnings” and her office is located behind her home. The office is very cozy with several chairs with fluffy pillows and the rooms are painted in warm colors. The actual “examination” portion of her office also consists of warm colors and a cozy daybed where the patients lie down to be examined. It makes for a very comfortable, non invasive setting. There are pictures on the walls of babies that she has delivered and gifts made from moms that she has helped deliver.

Her days are pretty slow going, and very relaxed for the most part. She allows each of her patients one full hour of her time. Beth gets to know most of the mothers pretty well; two out of the three patients we saw on this particular day had already delivered a baby previously with her.

I attended an interesting birth recently as a doula. The hospital worked very hard to be family-friendly and to allow mom informed consent/refusal and I was thankful for that. About 30 minutes after birth, they wanted to take the baby, weigh him, measure, etc. Baby hadn't begun breastfeeding yet, and I told them that the parents wanted to use AAP's current guidelines on that and keep the baby with them. "What?" "You know. The American Academy of Pediatrics' *current* guidelines... The one that says the baby shouldn't be removed from mom until the end of first feeding or for two hours, whichever comes last." The head nurse and the OB had the same response: 3 quick blinks with an otherwise blank expression. They looked at each other as though to say, "Do you know what the current guidelines say?" Then, the OB said firmly that it was *usual* for most hospitals to weigh the baby at this point and that they usually did that at that time, too. "We *need* a birth weight!" I responded, "I know it's usually done that way in hospitals, however, the parents wish to follow the *current* (stressing that word again) AAP guidelines in this." The OB said something I didn't catch and left the room. He returned about 5 minutes later and said, "Leave the baby with mom."