Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 22 - June 3, 2021
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This Issue
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Professionals.......................7
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Huber’s Hiccups..................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals............................. 2,4,6
Pets........................................8
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Thank You EMS for Caring for
Our South Bay Communities
During EMS Week 2021, the team at Centinela Hospital Medical Center took the time to thank all of their EMTs, Paramedics and first responders who dedicate their time to our community and the wider
Los Angeles County. Their service and sacrifice doesn’t go unnoticed, and Centinela Hospital is so grateful for the partnership and support, especially this last year during the COVID-19 pandemic. There
is no true way to express the gratitude but as a token of their appreciation, the ED nurses delivered care packages to their EMS partners. Thank you for going beyond the call of duty each day. Photo
courtesy Centinela Hospital Medical Center.
Katie Hamilton Helps Deliver
Babies at Home During Covid
By Kiersten Vannest
There were over 100,000 births in LA County
during the pandemic. Hospitals became filled
with Covid patients, stay-at-home orders were
implemented, and we didn’t quite know how
the disease was spreading or if babies and
mothers were more vulnerable. So what happened
Katie Hamilton is a medically and professionally licensed midwife
serving El Segundo and the South Bay.
a little “tighter.” All of these procedures can
lead to associated medical issues that aren’t
typically present with natural childbirth.
With the options to walk around, eat, and
move at home, mothers may give birth as
mammals might normally, says Hamilton.
With the lights dim, the option of a birth tub,
and a caring and supportive team around her,
mothers can let labor take its natural course
with the help of trained professionals.
In her time, though she’s been there for the
highs of having a baby, she’s also been present
for the lows. She’s helped many mothers go
through complications, stillbirths, and miscarriages.
She explains that there are a lot of
tears sometimes and that her goal is to keep
everyone as calm and supported as possible.
As for the benefits of home birth, Hamilton
says she sees healthy relationships, positive selfimage,
and low postpartum depression, which
she says trickles into our community. Asked
how she’s able to keep going back to such a
physically and emotionally demanding job,
Hamilton says this: “It sounds cheesy, but I do
believe that peace on earth begins at birth.” •
with all the quarantine babies?
Katie Hamilton, a midwife serving the South
Bay area, will tell you that she saw a massive
influx of home births. “Every midwife [was]
slammed,” says Hamilton, “I would have five,
six phone calls a day right at the peak of Covid.”
On top of requests for home birth assistance,
Hamilton is always on call for questions and
phone calls for her clients, and she checks
in with them throughout their pregnancy and
after birth. All in all, Hamilton’s schedule is
constantly full of new clients and their babies,
especially over the last year. If that weren’t
enough, Hamilton just had a baby of her last
year. So on top of assisting South Bay moms
in their homes, she’s raising her little one.
Despite the workload, Hamilton knew she
wanted to be a midwife since she was fifteen.
Originally born in England, Hamilton was an
only child until her mother got pregnant in her
new marriage. Helping her mother through the
pregnancy and birth journey piqued her interest
in midwifery, and with the birth of her first
child, Hamilton pursued a degree in midwifery.
After some mentoring by other midwives and
working in a birth center in Utah, Hamilton
has delivered hundreds of babies and has run
the gamut of pregnancy complications. She
knows what to look for and how to handle
the birthing process in a safe and calm way.
What is the difference between a midwife,
a doula, and a doctor? A doula is a trained
professional, but not a medical professional,
who aides and assists emotionally and physically
during and after the pregnancy. Midwives
have medical training and can provide services
like antibiotics, sutures, and emergency care.
Doctors are trained with a full medical degree
and can provide more complicated services
with the resources of a hospital.
Hamilton has close relationships with South
Bay hospitals and medical centers and has assisted
births in a hospital many times. If an emergency
arises that requires more than she can administer
at home, she refers her patients to the nearest
hospital to undergo more complex medical
treatment. But, says Hamilton, this is rare.
“If you’re healthy and your pregnancy is
deemed low-risk, midwifery is a very reasonable
if not safer option in the United States
today.” She says she sees excellent outcomes
with healthy, low-risk mothers who choose
to give birth at home. Currently, compared to
other first-world countries, the United States
has the highest maternal mortality rate. For
black women, that rate is more than two times
as high in America. This is often because of
a lack of woman-centered birthing processes.
“Labor just tends to be a lot more smooth
and straightforward when it’s women-centered
and not being managed like it’s a medical
problem,” she says. Hamilton explains that
while she has good relationships with doctors
and hospitals, the typical birth procedure in a
hospital is slightly counterintuitive to the natural
birthing process for an otherwise healthy
labor. Labor inducing is common in hospitals
that want to shorten the length of the birth, as
well as epidurals, and the lights are kept on
full brightness the entire time. At her time in
hospitals, she’s heard men joke of “husband
stitches,” which is adding an extra stitch or two
if the woman tears during birth to make her