One Laptop Per Nugget...

I recently attended PyCon in Dallas, Texas. The first keynote at the conference was Ivan Krstic who spoke about the One Laptop Per Child or OLPC project. They have chosen Python as the platform development language and imagine kids all over the world who get these devices will be able to push a button on the laptop that will bring up the source code for everything from the filesystem to the user interface -- all will be written in Python.

The second keynote speaker was Adele Goldberg who talked about the state of technology in education. Her premise was to figure out how to use technology in education outside of school first. She mentioned a lack of high quality educational software but I didn't get a chance to flag her down to see if she knew about the research at CMU with the cognitive tutor.

So, I may be getting the keynotes mixed up, but one of the underlying themes of these two talks was obviously how technology can be useful in education. Taking the OLPC example, the idea is that students will be able to not only see something but also begin to understand what it takes to make it work. You wouldn't just learn about what a circle is, but how to write out instructions for creating one to achieve a much fuller understanding of how it works.

Just some thoughts to keep in mind when nugget starts to get older. I remember at a young age my father sitting me down to teach me about fractions. The demonstration of a physical pie that I could move and manipulate proved an effective means.

So, by what age do you think I'll have nugget programming a computer?

Nugget Kung Fu

One of the most exciting things to happen when there's a baby pushing all your organs out of the way is when you can actually start to feel the little thing kicking around, both on the inside and out.

Starting in mid-January, I sort of had a sense of where the baby was and thought I felt it sloshing around in there, but it was hard to distinguish it from other bodily processes (i.e. gas, digestion, etc.)

By the time January was ending, I was better at guessing when it was the baby and when it was those other processes.

THEN, on February 16, Nugget made an unmistakable first kick (or punch?) while I was attempting to write some of my lectures. I was lying sideways on the couch with the laptop and my elbow was on my belly and I felt it both inside and outside. I'd have to say that it's pretty much the coolest thing ever! Needless to say, I didn't get much else done that day waiting for it to happen again!

Now, it seems that Nugget kicks when it's time to eat, a few minutes after I stop eating, and any time I'm sitting still for a while (particularly during boring meetings, right before bed and right when I wake up).

One of these days we'll have to make a video of my belly when Nugget kicks - because you can actually see the little kicks!

Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM's) vs. OB-GYN MD's

Why a midwife you ask? There are a number of reasons.

1.) OB-GYN MD's are trained surgeons. They're trained to cut and intervene and basically play God. They're fabulous to have if something goes wrong, but in natural circumstances, they're less likely to go with the flow in terms of the normal range of variations, which can actually hurt rather than help the mother and baby during labor and birth.

Certified Nurse Midwives on the other hand, are experts in natural childbirth and non-invasive techniques for dealing with minor complications. They understand that each woman is different and they know when a variation is a complication and when it's not.

2.) Personal Attention! The midwife model of care is one that focuses on spending time with each patient and in my experience with various midwives and md's on both coasts, the exams performed by midwives are much more thorough and leave me being a much more informed patient.

3.) CNM's promote natural childbirth unless it is absolutely necessary to have some sort of intervention and ALWAYS try the most natural interventions before resorting to medical interventions (provided there is no emergency of course).

4.) In studies examining low-risk women, CNM's use fewer medical resources in that they have MUCH lower C-section rates, MUCH lower labor augmentation/induction rates, lower rates of episiotomy and natural tearing, lower rates of pain medication usage, and the babies they catch have equal or higher APGAR scores to those of the OB's.

Avoiding the medicalization of birth is generally better for both the mother and the baby in terms of recovery and being prepared and alert in the outside world. For more on the reasons for avoiding all the medicalization see the "Why Natural Birth" post.

5.) In most European countries, and in many traditional cultural, mid-wives handle the majority of births (since most are low-risk), and success rates are equal or better to those in the US where we medicalize the birth process by putting surgeons in charge of even low-risk women.

So given the research, the health of both Nugget and myself, and my own experiences with both types of practitioners thus far, we ultimately chose a CNM to catch Nugget. Not everyone will make that choice, as some people want the pain killers and feel more comfortable with a doctor, but we feel strongly that our choice was the right one for us and our baby and the research supports our decision as well.

Prenatal Care Switch

When we first found out I was pregnant, we had one hell of a time trying to find the right prenatal care provider with our HMO (I really wanted a midwife - Why? Click here). I miss the PPO we had in Boston! However, prenatal care is really important so to get started right away, we went with an OB in Livermore who had a reputation for being the go-to guy for natural childbirth in our area. And we learned that there weren't any independent birthing centers within a 50 mile radius, which was a total bummer so unless we wanted a home birth, a hospital was the only option (I'd LOVE to do a home birth, and I'm a good candidate for one, but we're too far from ANY hospital if something were to go wrong quickly). And it seemed in our first search that the midwives around only did home births and weren't covered by insurance.

So, the OB was horrible. He rushed through exams and had absolutely no bedside manner. He practically grunted answers when I asked questions! I was not comfortable with him at all, even though he claimed to have the lowest intervention rates in the hospital. But, being a full time brand new professor, I really didn't have time to do anything about it.

Finally, after a 2 minute office visit in early January, when I had a breather between semesters. I found a midwife who works in a hospital in Berkeley that also staffs additional back-up midwives and seems a lot more amenable to natural birthing than the hospital closer to us. And, after meeting her and seeing her credentials, she's a much better choice for us and for little nugget. She has a relationship with high-risk OBs, who serve as her "backup", which means that I'm actually in better care if something goes wrong than if I had gone with a regular OB. And, in addition to her being a certified nurse midwife (CNM), she's also a nurse practitioner, so she can prescribe medication if necessary.

So, we made the switch midstream, and despite my disappointment about having to birth in a hospital rather than a birth center, we seemed to find an alternative that I can live with, with a care provider who genuinely shares our value of having a natural, unmedicated birth.

Behind the Scenes Second Look...

A second look at little nugget taken Feb 1, 2007 at 20 weeks. We're halfway there!



More Pictures

No, you can't see the sex of the baby in the pictures and No, we don't currently know either. Although we do have a sealed envelope in case we want to know at some point. No, I will not send you the envelope just because YOU want to know. If we don't know, no one knows!