I really had to take a deep breath when I decided to write about this. I don’t want to unduly frighten any­one and I want par­ents to know that I feel their frus­tra­tion. It’s so darn hard to be a par­ent these days. And this week was a doozy for some of you.

As many of you know, last week Abbott Labs, mak­ers of Sim­i­lac infant for­mula issued a vol­un­tary recall of some of their pow­dered prod­uct. The FDA then responded with a press release (view FDA press release). There were more than 5 mil­lion cans of for­mula in this lat­est recall. That’s right — it’s not the first and I wish I could say it will be the last. Past recalls have included every major man­u­fac­turer of infant for­mula, not just Abbott. This time the recall made the national news, but they don’t always. We here at Colum­bia Cen­ter posted the recall to the front page of our web­site imme­di­ately, along with infor­ma­tion on how to find out if you had any of the recalled prod­uct. (more…)

Mary Maech­tle, RN, passed away unex­pect­edly on Sat­ur­day, Sep­tem­ber 25, 2010. Mary worked at Colum­bia Cen­ter since 2007. Prior to that, she worked at Colum­bia St. Mary’s Ozau­kee Birthing Cen­ter since 1995. Mary’s love for pro­vid­ing com­pas­sion­ate care to her patients, her team­work and pos­i­tive spirit will be deeply missed. Mary is sur­vived by her hus­band, Robert, son, Jacob, and many other rel­a­tives and friends. Please remem­ber the Maech­tle fam­ily in your prayers. (more…)

Last Fri­day news came to my fam­ily that some­one spe­cial to us had sud­denly died the night before. He was ener­getic, healthy and inspir­ing — and he was far too young. It left us all in that crazy place that grief takes us — where we have to think about the big­ger issues and to put day-to-day issues into per­spec­tive. And most peo­ple don’t like doing that. AT. ALL. It’s not one of my favorite places to be, but I talk about birth and begin­nings all the time here so it’s about time I men­tion a cou­ple of things about the other end of the cir­cle of life. (more…)

Last night I watched the rerun of the sea­son finale of “Glee.” Yes, we are gleeks at my house and I missed the finale the first time around. One of the char­ac­ters gave birth in last night’s episode, to the music of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhap­sody.” I love that song but never before asso­ci­ated it with birth. Tonight I think I get it: the the­atri­cal­ity … the inten­sity … the soar­ing feel­ing … the sweet ending.

The other day I was talk­ing with a new mom. She was still on her high after giv­ing birth two days before. Her eyes sparkled as she described push­ing her baby into the world. She was proud — and rightly so. Her hus­band was in awe of what she had done and she was prac­ti­cally glow­ing. Her amaze­ment at her own strength reminded me of why I do what I do.

Birth is dra­matic. (more…)