The Other Side of the Glass

Part One was officially released June 2013 in digital distribution format. To purchase to to www.theothersideoftheglass.com If you were a donor and want to download your copy send an email to theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com.

The trailer

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

What does is mean to "Trust Birth?'

From Homebirthdebate.blogspot.com

What does it mean to "trust birth"?

Looking at homebirth websites and natural childbirth websites, I have come across this phrase many times. What, exactly, does it mean? Does it mean trust birth to go right every time? Why would anyone do that since we know that childbirth is and has always been one of the leading killers of young women and babies? Does it mean ignore pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, obstructed labor, etc? Does it mean trust the human body to always work perfectly? How could that be, since we are all well aware that it doesn't work perfectly in many different circumstances and for many reasons. Why do natural childbirth advocates say "trust birth" and not "trust pregnancy"? Is that because of the high natural miscarriage rate (approximately 20%)? If you can't "trust" pregnancy, why can you "trust" birth? What is it about birth that it deserves to be "trusted" more than any other bodily function?

Amy:
"Why do natural childbirth advocates say "trust birth" and not "trust pregnancy?"

Safe Baby Partners:
It's semantics, my friend, and this is just word wrangling going on here.

Birth is the physiological period of development from preconception through the earliest hours, days, and weeks of the human being's life. It includes conception, gestation/pregnancy, labor, birth, reattachment, postpartum and infancy -- the continuum continues forward from the development of the sperm and the egg with the parents by five months gestation. It is a never-ending continuum of physiological development. At some point another soul enters the union of these two -- where is the scientific study to PROVE this? I don't know. We just all know it.

We know our breath, our heart beat, our respiration, and our digestion all exist and continue -- science tells us of this. We "trust life" to do these processes. We know that the zygote begins to divide from one cell into an extraordinary differentiation of systems, body parts, tissues and functions to create another human being -a physiological human being who is physical home to a spiritual being. If all of that can happen within a woman's body why should she not; no, why would she not trust the process of the being she built to know when and how to leave her body to become an independent being? How could she not trust her body to do know how to do this with and for her baby?

"Trust conception." "Trust Gestation." "Trust Labor." "Trust Birth." Could be said, "Trust Life" or "Trust Breath" or "Trust Your Body" or "Trust Physiology."

But, Medicine says trust them,trust fear, trust machines, trust strangers, trust technology, and trust drugs --- to do what has happened on this planet for millions of years?

Physicians, of all people, can't trust physiology and biology? Isn't that a major issue in every specialty of medicine?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Trust Birth is the same as trust life. Which we do whether we have a child in a hospital or home. I have had two hospital births. One was easy and mostly pain free with a wonderful midwife and the other well I'm still trying to get over it. Even the Dr. wasn't sure he could save me. All the medical help in the hospital they had and it was still not in thier hands. Let's face it there are many times Dr's do all they can do and still something happens. I've had good midwives and I've had ones that well I'll just will be kind and leave it at that. I've had good kind caring gentle Dr's and I have had one that wanted to use a KMart bag to do an gyn exam b/c she didn't have a non latex glove and wouldn't send out for one. The point is Dr's are human and they make mistakes too! It isn't all in the science of it. I believe in science and I don't believe everything I hear that someone did a study on. There are pros and cons to everything. Who can say one way is the only way. You can't not and be honest. You can't say all hospital births go well either. Mistakes happens there too. I started out the second time with a homebirth and something inside of me said nope go to the hospital. So I trusted birth I trusted my inner knowing. This isn't religion here it is something we all have. Animals trust it b/c that is all they have. We forget sometimes that we have it. Why would any Dr. think that they have the power to make a person live or die. They don't they do all they know how and the rest is up to Nature. No one can know 100% of the time that the homebirth that didn't make it would have made it in a hospital. They might have and they might have not. I believe that no one dies early we all go at the exact moment we are suppose to and not a second sooner. Science does prove that. Why would anyone get upset with Trust Birth. Dr's trust it all the time they have to trust the body and trust their intuition and trust life. When they can't do anything they have to trust that whatever happens was meant to be. Drugs aren't always the answer (drug companies want you to believe it) and being drug free might not always be the answer either. Why can't we just know that there is a balance. Maybe the balance is to let everyone choose what is best for themselves. That is a new concept ! Freedom of choice. No one has to bash anyone. No one way is the Right way. Everyone and everything has a purpose here. If you want to get into science then get into it enough to know that most all disease is caused by the mind. Why would placebo's work?? Trust Birth - humans are the only species on the planet that don't trust Birth. Trust life well every time you drive a car you do and every time you eat out you do. Every time you take a breath you DO! I trusted Birth!and I still knew I needed to go to the hospital. Because I needed to.! I am not against hospital births. What I am saying is trust your innate intuition. Let everyone have that same choice.

"Soft is the heart of a child. Do not harden it."

A public awareness reminder that things that happen behind the scenes, out of our sight, aren't always as rosy as we might think them to be. Perhaps its a restaurant cook who accidentally drops your burger on the floor before placing it on the bun and serving it to you. Here it's an overworked apathetic (pathetic) nurse giving my newborn daughter her first bath. Please comment and rate this video, so as to insure that it is viewed as widely as possible, perhaps to prevent other such abuse. -- The mother who posted this YouTube. How NOT to wash a baby on YouTube Are you going to try to tell me that "babies don't remember?" There is no difference to this baby's experience and the imprinting of her nervous system/brain and one that is held and cleaned by the mother or father either at the hospital or at home? By the way, this is probably NOT the baby's first bath. The nurse is ungloved. Medical staff protocol is that they can't handle a baby ungloved until is has been bathed (scrubbed if you've seen it) because the baby is a BIO-HAZARD -- for them. Never mind that the bio-hazard IS the baby's first line of defense against hospital germs.

Missouri Senator Louden Speaks

Finally, A Birth Film for Fathers

Part One of the "The Other Side of the Glass: Finally, A Birth Film for and about Men" was released June, 2013.

Through presentation of the current research and stories of fathers, the routine use of interventions are questioned. How we protect and support the physiological need of the human newborn attachment sequence is the foundation for creating safe birth wherever birth happens.

Based on knowing that babies are sentient beings and the experience of birth is remembered in the body, mind, and soul, fathers are asked to research for themselves what is best for their partner and baby and to prepare to protect their baby.

The film is designed for midwives, doulas, and couples, particularly fathers to work with their caregivers. Doctors and nurses in the medical environment are asked to "be kind" to the laboring, birthing baby, and newborn. They are called to be accountable for doing what science has been so clear about for decades. The mother-baby relationship is core for life. Doctors and nurses and hospital caregivers and administrators are asked to create protocols that protect the mother-baby relationship.

Men are asked to join together to address the vagaries of the medical system that harm their partner, baby and self in the process of the most defining moments of their lives. Men are asked to begin to challenge the system BEFORE they even conceive babies as there is no way to be assured of being able to protect his loved ones once they are in the medical machine, the war zone, on the conveyor belt -- some of the ways that men describe their journey into fatherhood in the medicine culture.

Donors can email theothersideoftheglassfilm@gmail.com to get a digital copy.
Buy the film at www.theothersideoftheglass.com.

The film focuses on the male baby, his journey from the womb to the world and reveals healing and integrating the mother, father, and baby's wounded birth experience. The film is about the restoring of our families, society, and world through birthing loved, protected, and nurtured males (and females, of course). It's about empowering males to support the females to birth humanity safely, lovingly, and consciously.

Finally, a birth film for fathers.

What People Are Saying About the FIlm

Well, I finally had a chance to check out the trailer and .. wow! It's nice that they're acknowledging the father has more than just cursory rights (of course mom's rights are rarely acknowledged either) and it's great that they're bringing out the impact of the experience on the newborn, but I'm really impressed that they're not shying away from the political side.

They are rightly calling what happens in every American maternity unit, every day, by its rightful name - abuse. Abuse of the newborn, abuse of the parents and their rights, abuse of the supposedly sacrosanct ethical principal of patient autonomy and the medico-legal doctrine of informed consent, which has been long ago discarded in all but name. I love it!

In the immortal words of the "shrub", "bring it on!" This film needs to be shown and if I can help facilitate or promote it, let me know.

Father in Asheville, NC


OMG'ess, I just saw the trailer and am in tears. This is so needed. I watch over and over and over as fathers get swallowed in the fear of hospitals birth practice. I need a tool like this to help fathers see how very vital it is for them to protect their partner and baby. I am torn apart every time I see a father stand back and chew his knuckle while his wife is essentially assaulted or his baby is left to lie there screaming.
Please send me more info!!!!
Carrie Hankins
CD(DONA), CCCE, Aspiring Midwife
720-936-3609


Thanks for sharing this. It was very touching to me. I thought of my brother-in-law standing on the other side of the glass when my sister had to have a C-section with her first child because the doctor was missing his golf date. I'll never forget his pacing back and forth and my realizing that he was already a father, even though he hadn't been allowed to be with his son yet.

Margaret, Columbia, MO

In case you don't find me here

Soon, I'll be back to heavy-duty editing and it will be quiet here again. I keep thinking this blog is winding down, and then it revives. It is so important to me.

I wish I'd kept a blog of my journey with this film this past 10 months. It's been amazing.

I have a new blog address for the film, and will keep a journal of simple reporting of the journey for the rest of the film.


www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com


I'll be heading east this week to meet with a group of men. I plan to post pictures and clips on the film blog.

I'll keep up here when I can -- when I learn something juicy, outrageous, or inspiring related to making birth safer for the birthing baby.

Review of the film

Most of us were born surrounded by people who had no clue about how aware and feeling we were. This trailer triggers a lot of emotions for people if they have not considered the baby's needs and were not considered as a baby. Most of us born in the US were not. The final film will include detailed and profound information about the science-based, cutting-edge therapies for healing birth trauma.

The full film will have the interviews of a wider spectrum of professionals and fathers, and will include a third birth, at home, where the caregivers do a necessary intervention, suctioning, while being conscious of the baby.

The final version will feature OBs, RNs, CNMs, LM, CPM, Doulas, childbirth educators, pre and perinatal psychologists and trauma healing therapists, physiologists, neurologists, speech therapists and lots and lots of fathers -- will hopefully be done in early 2009.

The final version will include the science needed to advocated for delayed cord clamping, and the science that shows when a baby needs to be suctioned and addresses other interventions. Experts in conscious parenting will teach how to be present with a sentient newborn in a conscious, gentle way -- especially when administering life-saving techniques.

The goal is to keep the baby in the mother's arms so that the baby gets all of his or her placental blood and to avoid unnecessary, violating, and abusive touch and interactions. When we do that, whether at home or hospital, with doctor or midwife, the birth is safe for the father. The "trick" for birthing men and women is how to make it happen in the hospital.

Birth Trauma Healing

Ani DeFranco Speaks About Her Homebirth

"Self-Evident" by Ani DeFranco

Patrick Houser at www.Fatherstobe.org

Colin speaks out about interventions at birth

Dolphins