True confession:  In the beginning of my practice with home births I felt
the need to document such things as baby's feeding and elimination, despite
not being there to record events myself, which is really half the point of
home births-- parents taking responsibility for their birth and their baby.
But I devised a chart for recording what I felt to be important events the
first post partum days, and requested that mothers fill in the blanks so
that when I came to visit I could see whether there were any problem areas.
Just reading the above paragraph now makes me laugh.  I didn't think it was
so amusing the first few times when even at the third home visit, there was
nothing written except 'tired' in the space for 'mother's general condition'
on the first day.  Sometimes the whole chart would vanish in the chaos of
new baby-itis, and mother would be more distressed about finding the papers
for my sake than about whether the baby was getting enough food, or she was
bleeding excessively (especially as baby was, and she wasn't, in all cases).
Now I advise them to have paper available to write down anything at all they
might like to remember from the very special first week with the new baby.
If they do so, it rarely coincides with the kind of data we like to record
in hospital charts, and it seldom needs to be shown to me.
For the record, I trust myself and the parents now, to notice when something
is amiss, and I do my own documentation which meets my needs so I can leave
them to the business of parenting.
Whew, it was good to get that off my chest!
Rachel Myr
editor, midwife, IBCLC
Kristiansand, Norway

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