Category: Uncategorized

WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HAVING A BABY A one-page guide by Vicki Elson, MA, CCE, www.birth-media.com Think of a time when you amazed yourself. A time when you did something you didn’t think you could do.  Did you… …climb a hill? move out? graduate? stand up for yourself? survive troubles? Now, think…

I keep trying to condense the most useful ideas into bite-size chunks for you.  Since this topic is the heart of childbirth education and labor support, I think about this a lot.  Below, there’s a little blog post.  I also made a one-page guide that covers what I consider to be the most essential things…

This was my very first blog. It’s an adaptation of an article I submitted to a new radical childbirth publication called SQUAT. I love the name! What do you think? Am I a radical? Are you? Or are we just working toward something sensible and equitable? Some mamas get way too much intervention in childbirth, and…

This is from back in 1997. It’s the article I wrote for Special Delivery, the newsletter of ALACE (Association of Labor Assistants and Childbirth Educators) just as I was finishing my thesis on this topic. Now the birth/media project is available as a DVD called LABORING UNDER AN ILLUSION: MASS MEDIA CHILDBIRTH VS. THE REAL…

A Super Useful Tool For Labor And Life by Vicki Elson, MA, CCE, CD  www. birth-media.com  Feel free to copy this.   This is useful when you’re pregnant, every single time you think about labor and birth. It’s also useful, pregnant or not, at the dentist, on stage, during an argument, when you crave tobacco/sugar/heroin,…

It’s called “Childbirth in American Movies and Television: Patterns of Portrayal and Audience Impact,” May 1997.And you can read it at: http://www.archive.org/stream/childbirthinamer00elso#page/n27/mode/2up

Well, that was pretty surreal. There I was, with a mom laboring beautifully by spontaneously dancing her baby down through her pelvis, when the birth scene from “Men in Black” came on the TV. A lot of people watch TV during labor at the hospital where I volunteer. I think that labor itself is more…

Getting Born: Babies Are Not Passive Passengers By Vicki Elson, MA, CCE, CD  www.birth-media.com Feel free to copy this. I remember my firstborn kicking me in the diaphragm as her head was coming out — exactly like a swimmer pushing off the side of the pool with her feet. A baby is an active swimmer…

In my film, “Laboring Under An Illusion: Mass Media Childbirth vs. The Real Thing,” I made fun of those silly TV shows where babies get born in cars. Then it happened to me.   Dear Estrella Luz,   You were born in an unusual way!   Your mom’s water broke late one night, so I…

I didn’t know that tears could fall out of eyes three at a time. One from the center and one from each side, times two eyes, is six tears falling. Falling on the formica table, falling on the prison-issue denim jacket, falling on the orange pants worn by those awaiting sentencing, falling on the long graceful…