Programs
The key to shifting social and institutional paradigms is education. Chicago Community Midwives is dedicated to disseminating evidence-based information to the people who need it most: mothers and the professionals who are entrusted with their well-being. Through innovative programs connecting to mothers, to birth professionals and to the public at large, CCM aims to elevate dialogue about birth issues and plant seeds of ideas that germinate in powerful policy change that directly impacts and improves the health of women and children.
Chicago Community Midwives Professional Education Series offers unique, innovative and rare educational opportunities to birth professionals free from corporate talking points and profit motive, based on evidence and human outcomes: not what’s best for corporate bottom lines but what’s best for mothers and babies.
Homebirth Coffeehouse programs connect one on one to mothers. Free, open forums offer mothers the opportunity to connect with individual birth professionals, ask questions freely and informally and receive the latest evidence based information from experts in the field of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. Studies have found that mothers learn very effectively in group settings, listening to and observing other mothers, discussing and experiencing discussion. Chicago Community Midwives’ program was created from sociological and psychological research about women’s communication patterns and social patterns in motherhood. CCM uses this knowledge effectively and efficiently, educating mothers, powerfully, concretely impacting individual lives of mothers and their babies.
Media outreach programs level the playing field in the public discourse about birth issues. Fed a steady diet of “advertorial” style news pieces from corporations that profit from institutionalized birth and formula feeding, the general public has begun to confuse fact with advertising talking points. Mothers and babies suffer when the general public believes that c-sections are safe and desirable, that formula is as good as breastmilk, that hospital birth managed by physicians is safer than undisturbed out of hospital birth with midwives. Chicago Community Midwives seeks to infuse diversity and evidence-based information about midwives, out of hospital birth and breastfeeding into the public sphere. Changing minds changes policy. Changing birth policy means improved health and well-being of mothers and babies.
Fostering ICAN programs directly addresses the crisis of unnecessary cesarean section surgery. C-section increases maternal mortality and infant mortality and has long-term negative consequences for mother and baby. Yet, the c-section rate continues to rise and labor and delivery wards in hosptials are the profit engines for hospital corporations. ICAN, the Internationl Cesarean Action Network, is a mother to mother support and information network designed to disseminate facts and evidence about cesarean section and VBAC- vaginal birth after cesarean. ICAN also supports mothers who have undergone c-sections, helping women heal and empowering women to take control of their own healthcare.
International
Cesarean
Awareness
Network
of Chicago
In America today, cesarean rates are fast approaching 30%, yet many of those performed are medically unnecessary. Women are often shocked or surprised at their cesarean experience and wish to avoid a repeat surgery with their next baby. Studies show that at least 75% of women who attempt Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) can succeed. Yet, today, in our country, only 10% actually do.
The International Cesarean Awareness Network, Inc. is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve maternal-child health by preventing unnecessary cesareans through education, providing support for cesarean recovery, and promoting Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC).
Regular meetings are hosted at Sweet Pea’s Studio
every 2nd Sunday of the month at 7:00pm. All are welcome!
Sweet Pea’s Studio, 3717 Ravenswood, Suite 213, Chicago, IL 60613
For more information contact: Julie - (847) 256-5756
Or Email: icanofchicago@yahoo.com
Online Forum: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/ICANofChicago/
All interested parties are encouraged to attend.
While child care is not available at this meeting, nursing infants are welcome.