baby giovanna

Hi Doctor Mussalli,

I finally got the chance to upload some pictures of baby Giovanna. Thank you so much for all your help and taking such good care of me.

P

rebecca paige

Rebecca Paige was born at 11 AM on the dot on March 29, 2009.

Even though she was two days early her arrival was much anticipated and the labor and delivery went amazingly well thanks to both Dr. Worth and Dr. Mussalli who were both participants in her labor and delivery. We have nothing but great things to say about our experience with the doctors and with the entire staff at St. Vincents!

We look forward to working with everyone again in a few years for Number 2!

J, J & R

shea maxwell -- born with the help of forceps

“Push, push, push, push, push, push, push”, I don’t think I will ever get the sound of Dr. Worth’s directive during the delivery of my daughter out of my head. It sounds obvious and simple and like anyone could say it, but that’s not the case, just the same as any Doctor could not have given me the wonderful and unique birth experience that Dr. Worth and Dr. Mussalli did.

I was lucky to have a very easy pregnancy. I had the usual aches, pains and heartburn but otherwise really enjoyed being pregnant which I contribute large in part to the relaxed and experienced guidance of my doctors. They gently insisted that I enjoy this time, appreciate what my body was doing and respect the changes it was going through. It was their willingness to watch and listen to what my baby and I needed that allowed me to do the same.

As a first time mom, I had no idea what to expect from labor and delivery. Needless to say, it completely rocked my world. No amount of reading, classes or videos could have prepared me for the experience. That said, it was an incredible relief knowing that the people helping me make decisions that day were clearly working in my best interest and not those of the hospital, their personal schedules or even their own comfort level.

I checked in to St. Vincent’s at around 12pm on April 1st after my labor progressed rather quickly. A few hours earlier, I had decided to go home after being monitored to carry out the rest of early labor in the comfort of my own home but found that impossible when my contractions picked up in time and intensity. I quickly came to the conclusion that I needed help managing the pain and Dr. Mussalli ordered an epidural for me. Once it kicked in, they let me sleep for a few hours to regain my strength. At 5pm, they woke me up and I started pushing. The baby’s head was visible right away and it looked like our little girl would be out in no time. But three hours later, still no baby.

Dr. Worth never left the room in those three hours and encouraged me to try pushing on my side and in a squatting position but unfortunately, still no baby. It was at 8 that she introduced the idea of using forceps. At first I was hesitant but I was also so exhausted, I just didn’t have it in me to keep pushing much longer. She talked me through the process but didn’t insist and in the end, I felt like she allowed me to make the decision to use the forceps. Once we finally agreed it was the way to go, Dr. Worth and the tireless nurses, resident and intern that had been holding my legs for the past three hours readied themselves for the procedure and our little girl, Shea Maxwell, was born within minutes.

Miraculously, Dr. Worth was able to carry out a forceps delivery without having to do an episiotomy and the only evidence of birth was a small internal tear that was repaired before my husband returned to the room with our daughter, all cleaned and bundled up and ready to be adored.

From my first visit as a pregnant patient when Dr. Worth walked in to the room exclaiming “this is so exciting” to the morning after I gave birth when they both visited me in my hospital room, Dr. Mussalli claiming to have been jipped because he didn’t get to deliver my baby, I felt they were invested in me, my pregnancy and the delivery of my beautiful baby girl.

the universe had it’s own agenda

Hey world!

I had my baby! His name is Joshua and he was born on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 12:04 pm in Greenwich Village, NYC at St. Vincent’s hospital via cesarean. Little dude was breech and we did EVERYTHING to try coercing him in to turning but no, he had his own plans.

We were planning on a home birth but when you have a breech situation that’s not really a great way to go. So, I had to suck it up and go do the thing I feared most about this pregnancy; getting cut open and having the baby just taken out. After trying everything to get him to turn including inversions, frozen peas on my lower ribs, talking to him, visualization, etc., I went in for an external version with Dr. Mussalli. He tried for at least a half hour to turn my boy but Joshua kept ducking and diving and eventually won the wrestling match. Dr. Mussalli then said we needed to go schedule the cesarean for the following Wednesday. What a trip! The night before the external version we’d had our birthing tub delivered, thinking that it would work out. It’s really weird to know the time and date that your baby will be born! Usually you’re waiting around for the labor to begin.

As I was recovering from the version, I spoke with Dr. Worth on the phone about the cesarean, which she would be performing. Then she stopped in to meet me at the hospital, which made me feel a lot more comfortable right away.

I was actually looking forward to the rite of passage that comes with the natural birth process. I’d read up on it for 8 months and really done my homework, only to have a spinal block in the operating room and be totally numb from the torso down when he was brought in to the world. Ah, well. Everyone kept saying,” You’ll forget about the actual birth when you have that beautiful little baby in your arms.” I heard that so many times that it actually started to annoy me. I wanted the experience of giving birth and after seeing Ricki Lake’s movie,” The business of being born” I really wanted a homebirth.

Before I went in for the cesarean, I felt like I’d gone through my fears and disappointments about the change in our birthing plans. My husband Ben was with me the whole time and he wore my majorly mojo-filled birthing necklace that I planned on wearing, as they don’t let you wear any jewelry during surgery. The necklace is a long and heavy piece containing 23 different friends beads, trinkets and charms that they’d given to me for the necklace, sending their support for a safe passage. Well, all the mojo worked! It was a weird experience having a cesarean, but honestly all the staff members at St. Vincent’s were really cool and very personable. I felt I could connect with all of them which made a weird, sterile situation much more tolerable.

We stayed in a private room in the hospital for three days so that Ben could be with me the whole time. All of the nurses were really helpful with teaching me how to breast-feed. Our room was on the ninth floor overlooking Manhattan, the Hudson River, and Jersey. The three days I spent in the hospital were pretty painful with the stitches and staples in my lower abdomen but I was on a pretty high dose of Motrin that whole time. One part that sucked was that both Ben and I had the flu at the time, and with it an awful cough. Every time I coughed it hurt a lot! Luckily there’s cough syrup that’s safe for breast-feeding so, at two in the morning after we were home for a day, Ben went out and got it for us.

By Saturday we got to go home but there was a possibility that they wanted to keep Joshua for a few days because he had a high Bilirubin count, indicating jaundice. We had to take him back to the lab and the pediatrician the following Monday and Wednesday to have that checked and you can imagine how much fun it was traveling with a newborn after having a cesarean. Thankfully, his count went down by the second appointment to the pediatrician. It was so good to be back home. I was so grateful for our nice home and a quiet environment.

At the time of this writing, Joshua is seven and a half weeks old! Time is really flying by. I can now go back to yoga, which I did yesterday for the first time (you’re supposed to heal for six weeks first).

After hearing stories from women who had their babies around the same time as me, I don’t think having a cesarean was really all that bad. Sure, it’s not what I would have chosen but there are positives like, I never went in to labor, I didn’t go through labor, I’m not stretched out down there at all, I’ve actually healed up rather quickly, and Joshua’s head was never cone shaped- he has a cute, round head.

Now, I do know there are aspects of a natural birth that I wish he and I would have gotten to experience; the first being him going through the birth canal. There is the stretching and squeezing of the baby that awakens their nervous system and lengthens their bodies that we didn’t get to do. Also, there are hormones that are released in the mother during the delivery that make her naturally protective of her baby. I’m super protective so, that happened even without the natural delivery.

So, in conclusion, I’m very grateful that we’re at a point in time where cesarean is a safe option if you need to do it that way. We are both healthy and that is what’s important, just like everyone said. I don’t feel cheated out of my birth experience because I feel like this WAS my birth experience. For whatever reason, the universe had it’s own agenda.

J, mother of Joshua

4/20/09 Brooklyn, NY

dr mussalli can almost always coax the baby to turn

Dear Dr. Mussalli,

Thank you for your hard work, expertise, and communication throughout the external cephalic version process. We're so grateful you were able to guide our little guy into position and help prepare him for his entry! Thank you.

Sincerely, T & D

our beautiful miracle hailey

After two years of trying my husband and I found out that we were pregnant and were very excited and cautious at the same time. Our fertility clinic recommended Dr. Jaqueline Worth and our pregnancy journey with Village Obstetrics was very stress free even with the multiple scares that we had.

On March 21st after two previous trips to the birthing center, I was finally in labor. We did not really have a birthing plan but we definitely knew that we wanted to avoid a c-section at all costs.

Dr. Mussalli and Dr. Worth are wonderful and very careful, as even with a 19-hour labor, a baby that was in a face-up position our baby was delivered vaginally with the assistance of forceps at 2:02pm on March 22nd.

We would like to thank the wonderful staff at Village Obstetrics and the nurses at St. Vincent's Hospital for their assistance throughout this entire process.

drs mussalli & worth interviewed about low c-section rate at village obstetrics

CBS News HealthWatch 4/9/09: Giving Birth Without A C-Section Reporting
Dr. Holly Phillips NEW YORK (CBS) ―

More than 30 percent of American babies are born via C-section.

In many cases, the procedure is medically necessary and planned well in advance. But for women hoping to avoid an unplanned C-section, one group of doctors is helping them meet their needs.

"I was in a lot of pain," Kate Sunbury said. "Breast-feeding was very difficult, because the baby would kind of glide across the scar."

Sunbury delivered her first little girl by C-section, but when it came time to deliver her second, she hoped to avoid surgery.

"A lot of people forget a C-section is major surgery," Sunbury says. "It was really hard for me."

Sunbury sought out the doctors at St. Vincent's Village Obstetrics, who pride themselves on an extremely low C-section rate and aim to return to a more natural birth process.

"We rarely induce labor, we listen closely to our patients in terms of what they want in their birth plans, and we let them go through labor on their own," St. Vincent's Dr. Jaqueline Worth says.

"They were very unhurried with me," Sunbury says. "It was about 48 hours, but we did it."

Between 1996 and 2006, C-section rates increased 46 percent.

Now, however, a growing number of women are expressing a desire to get back to birth the natural way, and for them, communication with their doctor is the key.

"One of the best compliments we've received is somebody telling us, 'you know doctor, I feel like I don't even need my birth plan anymore'," Dr. George Mussalli, of St. Vincent's, says. "And that really is true, because they feel well-respected and well-communicated with."

Dr. Worth says that – if the labor requires it – she used pain medication, inducing agents, or any surgical care necessary. However, she aims for the lowest level of intervention possible.

"Nature is what it is," Dr. Worth says. 'You work with the patient, and you make decisions together."

"I never felt like myself or the baby were in any danger," Sunbury says. "They monitored the baby, and me."

Sunbury is grateful that both of her children were delivered safely, but says her non-surgical birth was something special.

"You know, I felt like the experience for all of us was really a bonding kind of moment," Sunbury says.

In any practice, it is not possible to avoid all unplanned C-sections.

Reasons for performing C-sections include problems with the placenta or umbilical cord, if the baby shows signs of distress, or if the baby is too large to be delivered vaginally.

Open communication with your doctor is most important for a good birth experience

oliver

Hi Dr. Worth and Dr. Mussalli,

I cannot believe it has been almost 6 months since you so amazingly delivered my son, Oliver! I consider him the honorary 1st baby delivered at Village Obstetrics rather than the last at ELJ :-) He is happy and healthy and we are all doing great!

I received a letter about the new birthing center at St. Vincent's and had to write to tell you how excited I am! Your website looks fantastic and I'm so happy that your practice is thriving. It's excellent to know that when the time comes to expand my family, I have somewhere familiar to go for the best care available. Thank you for the wonderful care you provide to your patients every day.

Warmest Regards,

M