Giving Birth with Confidence

"It's difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
-- Upton Sinclair

I have started a counter blog, http://www.hospitalbirthdebate.blogspot.com/ to provide an opportunity to have a reasonable counter debate with Dr. Amy about what is safe for the laboring and birthing baby. She would not allow the link to be posted on her site, however. Many people are banned from Dr. Amy's blog and the ones who remain are just engaged in a futile fighting.

My goal is to build bridges between medicine/technology and midwifery/physiological birth based on WHAT IS SAFE FOR THE LABORING AND BIRTHING BABY?

I have studied prenatal and birth imprinting for seven years. I did the Castellino Prenatal and Birth Therapy training and I do this modality of birth trauma healing. In the pre and perinatal psych and trauma healing field we know that the baby is affected by everything that happens in the birthing environment and it is imprinted on the brain. We know that conception through infancy is the foundational time of the mother-infant relationship and what happens here will impact every other relationship. Labor and birth are not excluded.

There is much research to collaborate this and to demand that the mainstream obstetrics and psychology look at what they do and have done for generations without scientific foundation. We are creating warriors in hospital birth. Not even in violence and addiction studies in the mainstream is the use of drugs and interventions during labor and birth even considered as contributing.

I was banned five times from Dr. Amy's blog after posting relevant research and links to the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health (http://www.birthpsychology.com/) and leaders in the field who show that the birth experience is critical for the human being.

I asked Dr. Amy in May on Dr. Crippen's blog and again on hers for the research that shows that ANY of the drugs ever used in obstetrics (ether, scopalamine, Demerol, cyotec, narcotics, etc) were ever shown to be safe for the LABORING and BIRTHING baby's BRAIN and hormonal system. She can't - none of the drugs ever used were ever shown to be safe BEFORE USING, and historically usage is stopped only after excessive consequence and loss of life -- just like too many new drugs on the market today for adults.

Research on the use of epidural narcotics compare DIFFERENT NARCOTICS and the effects on women and babies to see which is the least damaging. The literature before 1992 (way before the explosion we now have of epidural use) clearly showed the physiological issues of using narcotics. And, yet it is still promoted as safe and now even called "normal".

NO LONG TERM studies have ever been done to show there are no long term effects and that it does not contribute to drug addiction later in life. There is much research in fetal programming, cellular biology, brain studies, infant mental health to indicate the need to stop what is being done to the laboring and birthing brain as routine. WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE IS THIS!?!?

Women and their babies have been one long non-consenting, uninformed research population. Where is the research that shows that NARCOTICS are safe for the laboring and birthing baby? We DO know the effects of narcotics on the adult brain and emotions, and we know that use of narcotics has a high risk of addiction, evidenced by the increasing narcotic drug addiction in this country. Yet, it is scientifically sound for a woman to give birth "under the influence" of narcotics? Is not labor and birth an aspect of "parenting?"

WHERE is the research to DISPROVE this hypothesis:
1) Drugs and violating interventions at birth contribute to violence and addiction, poor motivation, poor impulse control, defiance, etc. It's NOT TRUE? Do we really know this? Who is going to do such studies and/or fund it? Obstetrics? ACOG? Drug companies? Universities controlled by funding by both??? Not likely.

I have asked Dr. Amy to provide us the research that shows that babies are NOT affected by drugs and interventions. Every obstetrician who is promoting the safety of induction drugs and narcotic epidural anesthesia and surgerical birth as safe and NOT AFFECTING the BABY, ought to have such research at their finger tips. It doesn't exist. She did just recently mention that cyotec was approved for use in laboring women, but has yet to post one actual citing of a research study --- for all of us to read. I do recall an OB list a few years ago where doctors shared experiences and "recipes" of finding the right dosage and how to deal with the complications. Cytotec was in pill form and they originally used quarters of the pill. The learned from each other ON WOMEN and sweet NEWBORNS in their practice without scientific studies to show it was safe BEFORE USING is and making it protocol. Because they can.

Babies are the victims here.

Meanwhile, a live birth and "baby seemed ok" to assess affects of drug use at birth is ANTECDOTAL and just plain BAD SCIENCE. I have challenged Dr. Amy to look at the development of the APGAR by Virginia Agar in the forties. It was developed because of the serious infant and maternal death rates and other consequences of ether use for the mother and baby. First, I can't find any documentation that the APGAR was ever normed or scaled to evaluate and access healthy, non-drugged babies. Second, it is used today to access babies born with totally different drugs and surgical birth. Third, when women and babies were dying, why wasn’t ether stopped altogether? fourth, who was and is regulating such care of women and babies? Who was and is regulating such care of women and babies? THIS form of scientific experimenting on non-consenting, non-informed women and babies continues today with the study of different narcotics to see which is least damaging when clearly the science fifteen years ago indicated it harms the baby. Why were there never longitudinal, foundational, mental and physical health studies done with babies born under ether or any other drugs or cesarean birth or forceps? Why are we allowing this abhorent disregard and treatment of women and babies to continue??

Towards this ABSENCE of SCIENTIFIC STUDY of the impact of induction, epidural, interventions, hospital environment, and surgical birth, I have challenged Dr. Amy to consider how it is that the proliferating brain studies can show us the infant brain is permanently altered by stress and abuse, but which she adamently insists that the drugs and interventions and surgical birth do not affect the laboring and birthing baby? Because medicine/obstetrics "say so" without the studies?? THE BURDEN OF PROOF for what they continue to do and claim as safe and normal is on the medical profession.

I have asked Dr. Amy to consider the fetal programming field that clearly shows that the gestating baby is being programmed during gestation so that we know the environment and emotional and physical well being of the mother is critical. She removed those links.

We know that babies learn music, math, and language in the womb. We know the gestating baby has had ten months of language at birth and this language is preverbal and stored in the early brain. We know that it is the foundation for mental constructs as the neocortex develops.

We know the baby is fully interacting with mother, sound, light, and motion prenatally. We know that in the first moments of life outside the womb, a baby is immediately interacting with and negotiating the environment (fists clenched, pushing people and interventions away, jumping and screaming when given shots, or looking for and responding to mother's voice, squinting at lights, etc.).

Homebirthers and caregivers know the profound capability of the newborn to engage with the new environment. It is logical and scientific that the baby has emotions and reactions and memories associated with being induced, laboring "under the influence" of drugs, and experiencing stress and violation. We know scientifically and logically that the human baby's brain and body does not somehow become a blank, blob during labor and birth so that the experience of interventions, noise, strangers, lights, drugs, mother's fear and powerlessness are not remembered.

We know now that every single second, every single emotion by everyone in the room, every single experience is RECORDED in the billon of neurons in the laboring and birthing brain. We know that when we talk of where birth is safe, the discussion must include the issues of the baby's sentience, awareness, and how to use MEDICALLY necessary interventions with consciousness and compassion for the birthing brain.

THE BURDEN OF PROOF for what they continue to do and claim as safe and normal is on the medical profession.

Please check out the http://www.hospitalbirthdebate.blogspot.com/. And, also check out my other blog, http://www.safebabyresolution.blogspot.com/ about a project I am working on for the state of Hawaii. We invite supporters of Aware, Safe, and Gentle Conception, Gestation, Labor and Birth, and Infancy to join to create a national movement of creating consistent protocols for birth.

Thank you.
Janel Martin-Miranda