Yep, California sometimes seems to have it all. The beach, the mountains, the redwood forests, the desert, Burning Man, the Sierras, and lots of cool funky people. But did you know that there are also some very awesome things about giving birth in California?
Does your state have some bragging rights as well? Tell me about the awesomeness that is your state, in the comments below. <3
- California has a ridiculous number of Baby Friendly Hospitals. Aren't all hospitals baby friendly? Well, sure, maybe the nurses and the docs are friendly to the babies born there, but to be designated a Baby Friendly Hospital, the hospital must meet 10 specific and sometimes hard to meet, criteria. These criteria include training all staff in breastfeeding support, practicing rooming-in, and not giving out free samples of formula. Pretty awesome, right? So the golden state having 61 hospitals that are Certified Baby Friendly is a really big deal. To get some perspective on how big of a deal it really is, the state with the next highest number of Baby Friendly Hospitals in Conneticut. And they have 8. Wow.
- Families have choices in who their care provider is, and where they give birth. It can get kinda confusing, but did you know that there is more than one kind of midwife? If you are in California, you can either choose to see a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM), or a California Licensed Midwife (LM). To add to the potential confusion, there are also Certified Midwives (CM), and Certified Professional Midwives (CPM). This nifty table sums up a few of the different midwives. Is your head spinning yet? The thing is, not all of these types of midwives are recognized as legal care providers in all states. And worse still, some states won't legally allow home births with any kind of midwife! But California wins the bad ass award again. In Cali, CNM's and LM's are legally allowed to attend homebirths, and although CPM's aren't recognized in California (only LM's) are, CPM's aren't considered illegal, like they are in 22 states. So yay for a marvelous multitude of midwives, and yay for home births being legal! What a concept!).
- Our hospitals and birth centers promote rooming in. This one comes as no surprise, since we have such a high number of Baby Friendly Hospitals. Have you heard of rooming in before? This is the novel concept that after a baby is born, the best place for him or her is in the room with his/her mama. Hence, nurseries at many hospitals are not the crowded crying rooms they used to be. This seems pretty obvious to me, but California is only one of 11 states who routinely advocate rooming in for more than 23 hours.
- You are more likely to breastfeed, and to keep it up for at least 6 months. California's breastfeeding rates rank way higher than the national average, yay! Nationwide, 76.5% of mothers have ever breastfed, while 91.6& of Californian mothers have ever breastfed. Anyone else seeing a correlation with our number of Baby Friendly Hospitals? Yep, I think so. Our breastfeeding rate when baby is 6 months is also higher than the national average. Nationwide, 49.0% of mothers are breastfeeding at 6 months, while 71.3% of Californian mothers are breastfeeding at 6 months.
Does your state have some bragging rights as well? Tell me about the awesomeness that is your state, in the comments below. <3