Miles for Midwives helps raise awareness for prenatal and postnatal care in New York.
Every year we are fortunate enough to participate in some great events through some of our amazing friends. This year we ran the Miles for Midwives 2018 5k run in Prospect Park, a fantastic event that is also child friendly. Miles for Midwives is a professional organization that supports midwifery and midwives in New York. Their mission is to help raise awareness to important issues surrounding birth, prenatal and postnatal care. Last year Miles for Midwives raised $35,000 for their organization through their fundraising.
What is a midwife you ask? Midwives are “independent practitioners that provide healthcare — maternity, gynecologic, reproductive, contraceptive and primary healthcare — to women from adolescence through post menopause, and to infants up to 28 days of age”. Midwives can help you make healthy choices for birth and after-care, working with your health care team.
Why focus on women’s health and Prenatal/Postnatal Care?
The United States has the unfortunate position of being one of the worst countries for infant and mother mortality, especially for minorities, despite the United States being one of the wealthiest countries in the world. If you would like more information on that subject, check out this NPR article that is fully linked to research.
Female complaints, such as chronic fatigue often often go untreated due to not being taken seriously, and women are often subject to longer wait times than men, therefore medical professions that focus on women’s health are incredibly important. That is not to say women are not getting great care because there are a number of resources women can use throughout their lives to improve their chances of getting what they need when they need it. Midwives are just one of the resources. It is, however, important to always remember that a mother may not be getting great care, and that keeping alert for signs of both mental and physical distress are essential as part of a health care team.
Our care-team often work with pregnant women and women in their fourth trimester (what is the fourth trimester?) One of the most important jobs a massage therapist can fill is to spot potential problems and refer people to the right kind of health care. Consequently, we thought we would take some time to provide a little reader information on some of the potential problems and health care concerns that our care-team often intercepts.
Pre-baby we often focus on pain and stress management in our office but during intake we ask for a full health history. Headaches, swollen limbs, faintness, over-fatigue, and numbness and tingling can all be signs that you need a referral out, and your massage therapist should be happy to give you one. Over the course of my career I have referred a number of patients out for similar reasons, only to learn later that we were able to intervene early in an issue, which avoided a more serious problem later.
I am currently pregnant, so I understand how confusing some of the symptoms can be! Many of the warning signs are also symptoms of pregnancy!
Additionally, given pregnant woman sometimes have changed their lifestyle, it is extremely important that mothers know there are resource available to them. Letting a mum to be know there is help available to them can be invaluable; they just need to know to look in the right place.
As massage therapists, when we sit down with someone and spend an hour with them facilitating a restful state, we have the luxury of time that medical professionals often don’t have so we can often direct women to resources that they need, such as lactation consultants, doulas, midwifes, and pelvic PT’s. Additionally, we can help a woman understand that it is okay to take an hour a day to seek help with us or another practitioner to help with their stress management.
After the baby is born, it is especially important to continue with self-care. Many women simply do not know help is available for them, mostly because women do not talk about the problems they are having. In fact, after birth 1 in 10 mothers continue to experience pelvic pain after the 3 month mark and after their first vaginal birth, 21% of women may experience incontinence.
Massage therapists who do a quality intake and know the statistics can help steer women to great referrals when they come in for unresolved pain issues or complications.
What can you do to help?
Continue the conversation on women’s health and participate in great events like the Midwives for Miles next year!
Body Mechanics Orthopedic Massage, Prenatal and Postnatal Care
1 W. 34th St, #204
NY, NY, 10001