Nurse midwife Angy Nixon hugged her way around a recent meeting of home-birth advocates and moms. She admired the healthy babies held by their beaming mothers and exclaimed over how much they'd changed since she last saw them at their birth.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Nurse midwife Angy Nixon hugged her way around a recent meeting of home-birth advocates and moms. She admired the healthy babies held by their beaming mothers and exclaimed over how much they'd changed since she last saw them at their birth.
She shares an intimate bond with these women, who trusted her with their pregnancies and the deliveries of their babies, most of them in their own homes. Since 2003, Nixon's midwifery practice has been mostly home deliveries. She spent her first five years as a midwife delivering babies in a birth center.
"Women choose home births for a variety of reasons," she said, listing the reasons in no particular order. "Some want to save money. They expect the birth to be normal and are not afraid. They appreciate the privacy of their own homes. They control who's in the room."
Midwives also deliver in hospitals, but Nixon, who is a certified nurse midwife, prefers a home delivery unless hospitalization is medically necessary. She's delivered about 600 babies, 100 of them home deliveries. About 10 percent to 15 percent of her patients transfer to a hospital for delivery, most often because their labor is not progressing. Only one of her patients has had a Caesarean.
She enjoyed her work at WomenCare Birth Center in Teays Valley and follows most of its strict guidelines in her practice. She left there, however, because she enjoyed the personal relationship she develops with an expectant couple as she sees them throughout the pregnancy and delivery. The birth center employs numerous midwives and patients see whoever is on call.
Nixon, who lives in Scott Depot, makes her own rules. For example, the birth center will not accept patients who have had Caesarean deliveries, but Nixon will work with viable candidates, such as Trebor Sutler.
The number of Caesarean deliveries in the U.S. is on the rise, and West Virginia has the fifth-highest rate of Caesarean deliveries. In 1996, 21 percent of deliveries were Caesarean compared to 31 percent in 2006, according to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. West Virginia's rate in 2007 was 35 percent. The World Health Organization recommends a 5 percent to 15 percent Caesarean rate.
"Women need to understand the tradeoffs of surgical birth," Nixon said. "They risk future childbearing, infection, surgical mistakes and will have two times as much blood loss. It also impairs breastfeeding.
"This is my opinion, but it's also hard to recover from the sadness and disappointment that a woman might feel from not succeeding with a vaginal birth, if that's what she wanted."
At the home birth meeting, women, several wearing T-shirts proclaiming their support of natural deliveries after Caesareans, added to Nixon's comments.
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Nurse midwife Angy Nixon hugged her way around a recent meeting of home-birth advocates and moms. She admired the healthy babies held by their beaming mothers and exclaimed over how much they'd changed since she last saw them at their birth.
She shares an intimate bond with these women, who trusted her with their pregnancies and the deliveries of their babies, most of them in their own homes. Since 2003, Nixon's midwifery practice has been mostly home deliveries. She spent her first five years as a midwife delivering babies in a birth center.
"Women choose home births for a variety of reasons," she said, listing the reasons in no particular order. "Some want to save money. They expect the birth to be normal and are not afraid. They appreciate the privacy of their own homes. They control who's in the room."
Midwives also deliver in hospitals, but Nixon, who is a certified nurse midwife, prefers a home delivery unless hospitalization is medically necessary. She's delivered about 600 babies, 100 of them home deliveries. About 10 percent to 15 percent of her patients transfer to a hospital for delivery, most often because their labor is not progressing. Only one of her patients has had a Caesarean.
She enjoyed her work at WomenCare Birth Center in Teays Valley and follows most of its strict guidelines in her practice. She left there, however, because she enjoyed the personal relationship she develops with an expectant couple as she sees them throughout the pregnancy and delivery. The birth center employs numerous midwives and patients see whoever is on call.
Nixon, who lives in Scott Depot, makes her own rules. For example, the birth center will not accept patients who have had Caesarean deliveries, but Nixon will work with viable candidates, such as Trebor Sutler.
The number of Caesarean deliveries in the U.S. is on the rise, and West Virginia has the fifth-highest rate of Caesarean deliveries. In 1996, 21 percent of deliveries were Caesarean compared to 31 percent in 2006, according to the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. West Virginia's rate in 2007 was 35 percent. The World Health Organization recommends a 5 percent to 15 percent Caesarean rate.
"Women need to understand the tradeoffs of surgical birth," Nixon said. "They risk future childbearing, infection, surgical mistakes and will have two times as much blood loss. It also impairs breastfeeding.
"This is my opinion, but it's also hard to recover from the sadness and disappointment that a woman might feel from not succeeding with a vaginal birth, if that's what she wanted."
At the home birth meeting, women, several wearing T-shirts proclaiming their support of natural deliveries after Caesareans, added to Nixon's comments.
"They [Nixon and her assistant] were so in tune with my needs," said Sutler, who delivered her fourth child in a water birth at home. "I was treated like a person. They took such great care of me."
Angie Sweeney of Charleston, whose own mother had her at home, delivered her first child in the hospital and the second at home. Pregnant again, Sweeney has Nixon on call.
"The experience was vastly different. It was so much better at home," Sweeney said. "When I was in the hospital, the nurse kept pulling my husband aside and telling him I should have an epidural. At home, he could focus on me, not battle with the nurse."
Nixon, 41, carefully considers a mother and baby's health before agreeing to attend the pregnancy. A three-page list of risk factors details women who are at risk and should deliver in the hospital. She disqualifies women with active infectious diseases, some blood disorders, organ diseases, insulin-dependent diabetes and many other medical issues.
"My guideline is to not accept a smoker," she said. "I won't take someone who is actively adding risk to the pregnancy."
Women who labor in their own home have the freedom to do whatever feels right to them, as long as Nixon approves. They rely on Nixon's tips for pain relief, napping when they can or relaxing in a warm tub of water or a shower. "Hydrotherapy is my number-one pain reliever during labor," she said.
She encourages women to move around as long as possible before they give in to hard labor. Always on call, Nixon naps when she can, also. Birth can take a long time.
"This is my dream job. You can't do this unless you love it," said Nixon, who has no children. "I couldn't do this if I had children."
For more information on West Virginia midwives, visit www.friendsofmidwives.org. Reach Angy Nixon at www.anmidwife.com.
Reach Julie Robinson at jul...@wvgazette.com or 304-348-1230.
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