Predictors of maternal responsiveness.

Purpose: To explore maternal responsiveness in the first 2 to 4 months after delivery and to evaluate potential predictors of maternal responsiveness, including infant feeding, maternal characteristics, and demographic factors such as age, socioeconomic status, and educational level.

Design And Methods: A cross-sectional survey design was used to assess the variables of maternal responsiveness, feeding patterns, and maternal characteristics in a convenience sample of 177 mothers in the first 2 to 4 months after delivery. The 60-item self-report instrument included scales to measure maternal responsiveness, self-esteem, and satisfaction with life as well as infant feeding questions and sociodemographic items.

Advancing normal birth: organizations, goals, and research.

In this column, the support for advancing normal birth is summarized, based on a comparison of the goals of Healthy People 2010, Lamaze International, the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, and the midwifery model of care. Research abstracts are presented to provide evidence that the midwifery model of care safely and economically advances normal birth. Rates of intervention experienced, as reported in the Listening to Mothers survey, are compared to the forms of care recommended by the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.

The power of perceptions of childbearing.

Documenting women's perceptions of childbearing experiences can help other pregnant women with their own birth decisions.

The need for birth stories on perinatal pain.

Perinatal pain can be experienced by both mothers and infants. In this column, the author encourages readers to view an article by Gayle Page featured in this issue of the journal. Page's article shows the importance of protecting infants from unnecessary pain.

Will birth attendants need to promote high-tech intervention to afford malpractice insurance?

In this column, the author examines the trends of the midwifery model of care versus nonmedically indicated cesarean births and their effect on malpractice insurance rates. Childbirth educators are encouraged to support a health-care system that promotes normal birth.

Overcoming isolation of the new mother.

Isolation is a frequently mentioned and long-remembered issue for new mothers in a North American culture. Perinatal educators can play a role in helping new parents build support systems that are designed to diminish the experience of postpartum and new-parent isolation.

Perinatal experiences: the association of stress, childbearing, breastfeeding, and early mothering.

The support of women and their families through childbirth, breastfeeding, and early parenting experiences are often treated as separate areas of maternity care. In fact, growing evidence, as cited in this article, links their intertwined impact on the health of mothers, infants, and their families.

Childbirth education in a world of challenges.

In this column, the author considers the impact of widespread crises and global tensions on pregnancy and early parenting. Childbirth educators can help alleviate the impact of societal stress on expectant families.

Decision latitude in childbirth.

Decision latitude in the workplace and a mother's perception of control in the labor of childbirth are highly related concepts. Both concepts have been shown to be important to the health and development of laboring humans.

Post-ecstatic birth syndrome.

In this column, the author suggests the use of positive terminology as a way to influence the dominant viewpoint of childbirth towards the midwifery model of care.

Dancing with the one who "brung" you into perinatal education.

The childbirth education movement began with creating a cultural shift to foster understanding that women should have choice in their birth. It has moved to the perinatal education movement with recognition that there are many teachable perinatal moments.