This article is related to the previous postings by Dr. Vind -- energy experiments and intentions. Here, he refers to the mind field -- that energetic aspect of the self. We are known in science to be energetc beings as well as physical beings. Our hormones as established in our early environment are critical to our functioning throughout the lifetime. (Odent, Nathanielsz, Wirth, Lipton).
The Science Within TDPTP - SEVERE STRESS
by Gerald Vind, PhD
www.pnri.net
www.TransformingDragons.com
An expectant mother’s negative emotional experiences can do a great deal of harm to her physical health by producing a surge of corticosteroids, catecholamines, and C-reactive protein. This compromises her health, and it influences the developmental patterns in her fetus.
Severe prenatal and childhood stress are indicated as being foundational in virtually all autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, and irritable bowel syndrome.
Prenatal experiences of severe stress imprint patterns that predispose us, in later life, to more stress. Many people seem to be stuck in recurring patterns of very stressful life experiences. The science of Prenatal Re-Imprinting (www.pnri.net) tells us why. We create a reality field to cause our adrenal glands to produce "juices" (corticosteroids and catecholamines) to feed our dragons.
Adrenal glands are two triangular shaped organs that form a cap on top of each of our two kidneys. They contain very specialized cells that are primarily responsible for regulating our stress response. Catecholamines produce general physiological changes that prepare the body for a fight or flight response. Extremely high levels of catecholamine can produce a catecholamine toxicity.
The catecholamines epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine are produced in the adrenal medula and also in postganglonic nerve fibers of the autonomic nervous system; together they regulate the heart rate, blood pressure, and they (especially epinephrine) prepares us in various ways to fight or to flee.
When adrenal glands are highly active in responding to stress they produce an excessive amount of epinephrine (adrenaline). Circulating in our blood, adrenaline is eventually metabolized into two metabolites.
One of these metabolites is adrenochrome, and it can induce significant psychoactive effects that some researchers classify as hallucinogenic. These effects include: euphoria, confusion, loss of concentration, and a changed train of thought. Some lives appear filled with confusion and lack of concentration that result from stress-induced adrenochrome hallucinations.
Epinephrine is produced by conversion of norepinephrine, and so severe stress reduces the levels of norepinephrine in the mother, and signals the conversion of norepinephrine in her fetus into epinephrinin. (See article on Neural Circuits in TD NL #2) Thus, the developing fetal brain is depleted of the stuff needed to assure proper development of neural circuits, and at the same time this imprints a configuration of chatacholamine-fed dragons.
In later life, there is a prenatal pattern imprinted that motivates toward relationships and events that will stimulate the same prenatal pattern of chatacholamine "juices" (complete with adrenochrome hallucinations) in order to feed the dragons.
Techniques for re-patterning such negative foundations have been shown to respond to several therapeutic techniques, in particular to Prenatal Re-Imprinting (PNRI). However, as was noted in the last TD newsletter, severe maternal stress can significantly alter neural pathways and damage a developing fetal brain.
You can safely use Transforming Dragons to treat yourself, no matter how serious your mental/emotional problems. However, if there is serious organic brain damage, then it is recommended that your work be under the care of a health care professional. If there is some question about PNRI or Transforming Dragons call 800-473-1227 and ask for a free initial phone session. Be sure to leave your name and phone number.
Tell him Janel sent you.
ljm
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
On Holiday for Several Days
I am heading to St Louis to pick up my grandsons for two days ...... only fun and games for me.
Midwives to the rescue in Sub Sahara Africa
It just so happens I spoke at length yesterday with Sudy Storm, DEM, from Global Midwives in Ashland, Oregon. Check out this site, http://www.globalmidwives.org/news_job_openings.php (new site coming soon) to read about their five year program to train midwives in Sierra Leone.
I am so glad I had this conversation before reading about the UN plan to circumcise heterosexual men in sub-Sahara, Africa to prevent HIV. This is a group that needs our support. We can DO SOMETHING. We can support groups like Global Midwives with gifts of time, talent, or treasure. MONEY.
The clinic where this midwifery team is working is a four hour walk to the river, a boat ride across the river, and then IF there is a vehicle available it is a nineteen mile drive on rough roads to the nearest hospital. Hospital birth is not a possibility. Traditional Birth Attendants (TBA) are now being trained in midwifery skills to attend births in their community. Women WALK FOUR HOURS to attend prenatal and childbirth classes.
The group was there in December and is returning in June. Sudy's voice exuded love as she spoke of the women and she can't wait to get back there. She reminded me of a book I read about trusting in God's will for us -- the author said people are afraid to give their will over to God for fear they'll be sent to some remote place, but that God doesn't send us to Africa until God gives us the Love for Africans in our heart. Those of us for whom the travel is not our calling -- we can still be called to support those who do go.
The Global Midwives are working closely with the Ministry of Health to create sustainability. There are only 65 doctors in the country. Doctors and hospitals can not be the answer for them. Previous non-profits have come and built many hospitals but there are not supplies, stafff, or money for upkeep of buildings. Even in the US, doctors do not want to live in and practice in rural areas. It sickens me -- the disparity between our standard of living and those in third world countries. Rather than spending billions of dollars in Iraq or in 30%+ cesarean section rate here in the US, why are we not doing something to contribute to world poverty and to decreasing the maternal and infant mortality rates in these countries?
George Bush vetoed the legislation in 2006 (no money? or no will?) asking the US for help. the Child and Newborn Act (HR 4222) asked for a new funds and a comphrensive Us strategy for improving newborn, child, and maternal health. HA!! What a HOOT! The US leading the strategy to lower maternal and infant maternal loss? When other industrialized countries are better than the US. Maybe the US could give the money to LATVIA to develop the strategy. http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/
05/08/mothers.index/index.html. So, while the idea of the US leadership vetoing this is maddening, it is also heartening. The US answer would be to build surgerical suites with no ability or economy to support our way of birth. The Gates Foundation says we could save 700,000 lives by spending one billion dollars to make the improvements to lower maternal and infant mortality rates in ONE African country --- WITHOUT building ONE hospital. We know how to do it here and we know how to do it there.
The Save the Children report, which analyzed data from governments, research institutions and international agencies, found higher newborn death rates among U.S. minorities and disadvantaged groups. For African-Americans, the mortality rate is nearly double that of the United States as a whole, with 9.3 deaths per 1,000 births.
It's criminal negligence against women and children that the US continues upon this path of not resolving mortality rates for women here and around the world.
Sudy says that their project is meeting number four and five of the Child and Newborn Act. YOU GO, GIRLS..... what can you do to support them?
The Gates Foundation funded the SAVE THE CHILDREN to invest in improving maternal and infant mortality in the world based on the UN Millenium Development Goals:
For most children in the developing world, the most dangerous day of their lives is their birthday. (Amy Tuteur uses that line all the time to promote her agenda that midwives and homebirth is not safe. It is so arrogant to do so refering to American birth where the mortality rates are higher than industrialized nations where midwives are respected. For children in third world countries who have neither midwives or medical supplies and physicans, this is very true. It is because of nutrition, sanitation, and infection that women and babies die. It is selfish and ignorant for physicians in this country to undermine midwifery care and to ignore the plight of millions of women and babies while they manipulate (induce), drug, and chop the babies from American women. Where is the compassion for our own women and children? When obstetrics finds that perhaps then they can contribute to a more harmonious world. )
Of more than 10 million children under the age of 5 who die each year, about 1 in 5—an estimated 2 million babies—die within the first 24 hours of life, according to the seventh annual State of the World’s Mothers report issued today by Save the Children, a global independent humanitarian organisation. According to the report, an additional 1 million babies die during days 2 through 7. A total of 4 million babies die during the first month of life.
“The first hours, days and weeks of a baby’s life are critical. Yet, only a tiny minority of babies in poor countries receive proper heath care during this highly vulnerable period,” said Save the Children Australia CEO, Margaret Douglas, in issuing the report. “The most simple health measures taken for granted in Australia can mean the difference between life and death for these babies. Low-cost interventions such as immunising women against tetanus and providing a skilled attendant at birth could reduce newborn deaths by as much as 70 percent if provided universally.”
The report notes that most newborn deaths are the result of preventable or treatable causes such as infections, complications at birth and low birth weight.
“Newborn deaths are one of the world’s most neglected heath problems,” said Ms. Douglas. “While there has been significant progress in reducing deaths among children under age 5 over the past decade, we have made little progress in reducing mortality rates for babies during the first month of life. In fact, newborn deaths are so common in many parts of the developing world that parents put off naming their babies until they are a week to 3 months old.”
http://www.savethechildren.org
.au/australia/publications/mothers_report/mothers_report.html
More about Sierra Leone, Africa
http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Africa/SierraLeone.asp
Heterosexual Men to Undergo Circ to Prevent HIV
Yep, that's right -- RECOMMENDED by the UN health agencies. UNbelievable. This is one of those things that actually shocks me -- I feel the anger rise up and then where to go with it? So, collapse back to the place of numb anger for the decisions that are made for political reason but that profoundly, irreversibly violate and harm others . .. this time men and young boys. All I can do in this moment is my sardonic reporting. L
ook at this child's tortured face -- he will never be the same. He is being brutalized .. . to prevent HIV in a country where children are soldiers in civil wars. I have to go cry. Full article with my comments in red. Meanwhile, also in the news today -- the UN Peacekeeping trip to Sierra Leone:
Sierra Leone: UN Peacebuilding Commission Ends Maiden Field Trip With New Insights
The first-ever field mission from the new United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, set up to prevent countries emerging from civil war and other conflicts from slipping back into bloodshed, has returned from Sierra Leone with a clearer idea of the challenges now facing the once strife-torn state, the delegation leader said today.
The full story about circumscizing heterosexual males to prevent HIV:
GENEVA -
U.N. health agencies recommended Wednesday that heterosexual men undergo circumcision because of "compelling" evidence that it can reduce their chances of contracting HIV' ;
I am so curious -- how many of these decision-makers are circumcised and if not, will they be? Did this child give "informed consent"? Did his parents? We can't spank a child without state involvement, but government can do this? This makes me nuts!
But World Health Organization' name experts said men need to be aware that circumcision is only partial protection against the virus and must be used with other measures.
It would be important to know what the other measures are -- my trust would be down.
"We must be clear," said Catherine Hankins of UNAIDS. "Male circumcision does not provide complete protection against HIV."
Reaaaally? Got it. Clear as day. I think we have learned what it is that causes HIV. And, so, is it worth what other issues it will create? Oh, say .. like, anger and volence?
Studies suggest 5.7 million new cases of HIV infection and 3 million deaths over 20 years could be prevented by male circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa, the agencies said.
Hmmm ... sorry, to be the realist, but so, where will these men live and work and care for the children they father who will die at an alarming rate?
The Bill Gates Foundation says that 1 billion, yep, that's ONE billion dollars spent in one African country to improve the health and environmental conditions to improve maternal and infant mortality rates could save 700,000 lives. WITHOUT BUILDING ONE HOSPITAL. Today, the cost of the war in Iraq is 413 billion.
Still, men and women who consider male circumcision as an HIV preventive method need to continue using other forms of protection such as male and female condoms, abstinence, delaying the start of sexual activity and reducing the number of sexual partners, she said.
Hmmm. Really?
Otherwise, they could develop a false sense of security and engage in high-risk behaviors that could undermine the partial protection provided by male circumcision, the agencies said.
Ah, ha ... would this be part of the "experiment"?
Men also should be warned that they are at a higher risk of being infected with HIV if they resume sex before their wound has healed. Likewise an HIV-positive man can more easily pass on the disease to his partner if the wound is still unhealed.
The recommendations were based on a meeting earlier this month in Montreux, Switzerland, where experts discussed three trials — in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa — that produced "strong evidence" of the risk reduction resulting from heterosexual male circumcision.
Riight... I bet the men will just line up at the door based on that proof. I wonder if they have a "choice" about it.
"Based on the evidence presented, which was considered to be compelling, experts attending the consultation recommended that male circumcision now be recognized as an additional important intervention to reduce the risk of heterosexually acquired HIV infection in men," a joint statement said.
The agencies said much depends on the situation in a given country, and little general benefit will result in countries where the HIV epidemic is concentrated among sex workers, injecting drug users or men who have sex with men.
This is where it is epidemic, but it will be good for everyone. Ok..... the ole "if it helps one (too bad for the thousands it hurts)".
The public health impact is likely to be most rapid where there is a high rate of HIV infection among men having sex with women.
"It was therefore recommended that countries with high prevalence, generalized heterosexual HIV epidemics that currently have low rates of male circumcision consider urgently scaling up access to male circumcision services," the agencies said.
More study is needed to determine whether male circumcision will cut the transmission of HIV to women.
God, help us!
More study also is required to find out whether male circumcision will reduce HIV infection in homosexual intercourse, it said, but it said promoting circumcision of HIV-positive men was not recommended.
"The recommendations represent a significant step forward in HIV prevention," said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of WHO's HIV/ AIDS' AIDS department. "Countries with high rates of heterosexual HIV infection and low rates of male circumcision now have an additional intervention which can reduce the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men."
Increasing male circumcision in areas where it the procedure is rare will result in immediate benefit to the men circumcised, but it will take years before there will be an impact on the epidemic.
"Immediate benefit ... it will be years before there will be an impact on the epidemic." We'll see what happens in other areas of living.
Although the rate of circumcision varies considerably from country to country, globally an estimated 665 million men, or 30 percent of men in the world, are circumcised, the statement said.
The agencies said the risks involved in male circumcision are generally low, but can be serious if the operation is performed in unhygienic settings by poorly trained, ill-equipped health workers.
Ah, say, like in Africa?
Priority should be given to providing circumcision to age groups at highest risk of acquiring HIV because it will have the most immediate impact on the disease. But, it said, circumcising younger males also will have a public health impact over the longer term.
It gave no estimate how much providing the service would cost, but said more money would be needed, but that donors should regard it as "an important, evidence-based intervention."
NO estimate for the cost!?!? WHO is deciding this and WHO the h*** is paying for this? WHO's F**king agenda is this?!? Well, I am sure it must be much more cost effective as well as science-based -- these things always are, you know. And, of course, if it saves one person ....
Call me a cynic ... but is the US involved and is there oil in Africa? Seems more like an effort to create a new havoc, and oops, so many died of infection, and now the violence and rape have gone up.
Does hearing and reading news like this make anyone else boil? Such moments of disbelief and dispair as what is happening to others.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070328/ap_on_he_me/
un_aids_circumcision
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
ZERO
The average child hears "no" or "don't" 40,000-50,000 times before the age of five. This works out to about 30-40 times a day from birth on. When I heard this information while I was carrying my first child Tiger, it upset me. It seemed there was entirely too much negativity being passed on to children from day one and the concurrent effect on their lives in hearing so many "no's" and "don't's". I resolved to find another way to communicate and to pass on clear language skills to my yet to be born child.
-- Paradise Star Newland, Dolphin Researcher, Domestic Harmony Inititative and Safe Baby Resolution, Hawaii.
More about energy and intention, brain neuro chemicals and development -- because we connect and co-create our world, and we affect others around us. This is extraordinarily important whenever any of us interacts with a woman who is "with child", and a laboring and birthing baby and woman.
The word "pregnant" is such a clinical word. "With child" says it all. How we treat a mother and her baby in utero or ever is imporant to making birth safe. A child who is well cared for, nutured, in a harmonic, peaceful world from gestation on will be just that -- caring, nurturing, hamonious, peaceful.
I co-wrote the Safe Baby Resolution being heard in the Hawaii Legislature with my colleague there, Star Paradise Newland. Star sculpted it -- and, I learned this is far different from "editing." Recently, I began to incorporate her teaching of using the word, ZERO rather than "no", "not", "don't", "can't", etc. Read about using ZERO to change the ENERGY of your thoughts and feelings.
From her article, "What Zero Means to Me, Star says,
Specific neurochemicals are generated when we think, hear or speak words. When words feel good then they stimulate the production of feel good (yummy) neurochemicals. It makes sense that when we say words that generate yummy neurochemicals we feel better. As we feel better then we perceive our life and the world in a better way, which in turn helps us create more yummy neurochemicals which helps us create/perceive a better world view and so on.
Changing our use of language can influence our life profoundly. As it does then our world changes profoundly, experientially and actually. Together even a few committed people can influence the world deeply by using this conscious approach to their language. There is a kind of ripple effect because of the harmonics involved in expressing our higher consciousness intentionally.
This is because everything entrains to the highest frequency - ultimately. The zero point being the intersection of light and love is a very high frequency.
Because the outer world is a reflection of our inner world then by stilling ourselves and going to the zero point we influence the world's state. Going to this zero state resonates with the zero state of what surrounds us as it is a higher, more stable vibration as well as fundamental to all life. It is like this is ground zero, where it all springs from. Love. Light. Coming into manifestation.
The concept of going to a zero state as an intention to bestill myself came to me recently. When something comes up that can fluster or really upset me I tell myself to go to zero. It is like resetting an innate mechanism that restores internal silence, reconnects with the inner unity, and allows me to stay centered in the moment as well as in the center of my being. This center is the interface between my soul and its expression through me in my life, in this world, this moment.
http://www.planetpuna.com/siriusa/zero.htm
Using zero in language and every day life Star explains Language Sculpting:
Language Sculpting
- A Living Technology
Years ago in a meditation the information came that I would create a new style of language that was holographic in essence. It has taken this time to play with it, explore it, share it, and watch it grow. Out here in Puna, Hawai'I where Madame Pele's lava flows to the ocean and I continue my dolphin researches, a number of my ohana (kin circle or pod) play with this concept of 'sculpting new realities' through the conscious use of language. We play with it like a game and it is highly satisfying and Fun! to catch ourselves mid-word and do what is called a 'sculpt' as we see and feel what we would like to consciously choose next.
Intention activates our will. When we say, "I intend to maintain a good relationship with my children", we can create a feeling picture that is a clear thought form and empower it with our will. We can see/create the picture that accompanies it. WE are sculpting that reality by cutting away anything superfluous.
This is the essence of language sculpting and how it came to be called. The image comes from the jade carvers of old, who would sit for up to several years with the jade and when the perfect form was revealed they would carve. Intricate pieces, taking years to complete would result in only one teaspoon of jade dust being left at the end.Language sculpting is more immediate than that. Although it is like the sculpting of old in that in a piece of writing or in our own thoughtforms, we might have only to remove or sculpt a few words to reveal the perfect reality we wish to create.
Sculpting is about unifying realities within ourselves by reconciling opposites, duality thinking to complements or whole thinking. We feel much better when we can reconcile two highly divergent aspects within ourselves into a united self.
It is a meta-technology in that whatever you are doing, in what ever language, language sculpting can enhance it.If you do counseling, law, teaching, passing on language skills to children, sales, coaching, creative thinking, writing, or life, sculpting yourself would improve communications and results substantially.
If you want to create wellbeing or greater soundness in yourself or others it is very effective. As we think so shall it be. Better to say, "I wish my head felt better", than "My headache is killing me.
http://www.planetpuna.com/siriusa/LanguageSculpting.htm
Everything a woman feels, thinks, and experiences becomes part of her experience. Anyone, doctor or midwife, friend or mother-in-law, must take care to know their own intentions, energetic patterns, and feelings when they engage with a mother. Doctors, nurses, and midwives can learn to sculpt their language and to remove the negative worlds from their vocabular when caring for laboring and birthing baby and mom.
-- Paradise Star Newland, Dolphin Researcher, Domestic Harmony Inititative and Safe Baby Resolution, Hawaii.
More about energy and intention, brain neuro chemicals and development -- because we connect and co-create our world, and we affect others around us. This is extraordinarily important whenever any of us interacts with a woman who is "with child", and a laboring and birthing baby and woman.
The word "pregnant" is such a clinical word. "With child" says it all. How we treat a mother and her baby in utero or ever is imporant to making birth safe. A child who is well cared for, nutured, in a harmonic, peaceful world from gestation on will be just that -- caring, nurturing, hamonious, peaceful.
I co-wrote the Safe Baby Resolution being heard in the Hawaii Legislature with my colleague there, Star Paradise Newland. Star sculpted it -- and, I learned this is far different from "editing." Recently, I began to incorporate her teaching of using the word, ZERO rather than "no", "not", "don't", "can't", etc. Read about using ZERO to change the ENERGY of your thoughts and feelings.
From her article, "What Zero Means to Me, Star says,
Specific neurochemicals are generated when we think, hear or speak words. When words feel good then they stimulate the production of feel good (yummy) neurochemicals. It makes sense that when we say words that generate yummy neurochemicals we feel better. As we feel better then we perceive our life and the world in a better way, which in turn helps us create more yummy neurochemicals which helps us create/perceive a better world view and so on.
Changing our use of language can influence our life profoundly. As it does then our world changes profoundly, experientially and actually. Together even a few committed people can influence the world deeply by using this conscious approach to their language. There is a kind of ripple effect because of the harmonics involved in expressing our higher consciousness intentionally.
This is because everything entrains to the highest frequency - ultimately. The zero point being the intersection of light and love is a very high frequency.
Because the outer world is a reflection of our inner world then by stilling ourselves and going to the zero point we influence the world's state. Going to this zero state resonates with the zero state of what surrounds us as it is a higher, more stable vibration as well as fundamental to all life. It is like this is ground zero, where it all springs from. Love. Light. Coming into manifestation.
The concept of going to a zero state as an intention to bestill myself came to me recently. When something comes up that can fluster or really upset me I tell myself to go to zero. It is like resetting an innate mechanism that restores internal silence, reconnects with the inner unity, and allows me to stay centered in the moment as well as in the center of my being. This center is the interface between my soul and its expression through me in my life, in this world, this moment.
http://www.planetpuna.com/siriusa/zero.htm
Using zero in language and every day life Star explains Language Sculpting:
Language Sculpting
- A Living Technology
Years ago in a meditation the information came that I would create a new style of language that was holographic in essence. It has taken this time to play with it, explore it, share it, and watch it grow. Out here in Puna, Hawai'I where Madame Pele's lava flows to the ocean and I continue my dolphin researches, a number of my ohana (kin circle or pod) play with this concept of 'sculpting new realities' through the conscious use of language. We play with it like a game and it is highly satisfying and Fun! to catch ourselves mid-word and do what is called a 'sculpt' as we see and feel what we would like to consciously choose next.
Intention activates our will. When we say, "I intend to maintain a good relationship with my children", we can create a feeling picture that is a clear thought form and empower it with our will. We can see/create the picture that accompanies it. WE are sculpting that reality by cutting away anything superfluous.
This is the essence of language sculpting and how it came to be called. The image comes from the jade carvers of old, who would sit for up to several years with the jade and when the perfect form was revealed they would carve. Intricate pieces, taking years to complete would result in only one teaspoon of jade dust being left at the end.Language sculpting is more immediate than that. Although it is like the sculpting of old in that in a piece of writing or in our own thoughtforms, we might have only to remove or sculpt a few words to reveal the perfect reality we wish to create.
Sculpting is about unifying realities within ourselves by reconciling opposites, duality thinking to complements or whole thinking. We feel much better when we can reconcile two highly divergent aspects within ourselves into a united self.
It is a meta-technology in that whatever you are doing, in what ever language, language sculpting can enhance it.If you do counseling, law, teaching, passing on language skills to children, sales, coaching, creative thinking, writing, or life, sculpting yourself would improve communications and results substantially.
If you want to create wellbeing or greater soundness in yourself or others it is very effective. As we think so shall it be. Better to say, "I wish my head felt better", than "My headache is killing me.
http://www.planetpuna.com/siriusa/LanguageSculpting.htm
Everything a woman feels, thinks, and experiences becomes part of her experience. Anyone, doctor or midwife, friend or mother-in-law, must take care to know their own intentions, energetic patterns, and feelings when they engage with a mother. Doctors, nurses, and midwives can learn to sculpt their language and to remove the negative worlds from their vocabular when caring for laboring and birthing baby and mom.
Update on 4 Year-Old Killed by Drugs for Bi-Polar Disorder
This has to do with Making Birth Safe in the US because it is one more story to illustrate that we have a society where:
Michael and Carolyn Riley pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges Tuesday and were ordered to remain in custody without bail.
The Rileys' applications for Supplemental Security Income for their daughter, Rebecca, were twice rejected after government doctors examined her and found no evidence to back the parents' claims of bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton said.
Rebecca was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom on Dec. 13. A medical examiner said she died of a lethal combination of prescription drugs, including a fatal dose of Clonidine, which she had been taking for ADHD.
The Rileys' attorneys blame the girl's death on her psychiatrist.
"The medicines that a totally irresponsible doctor gave her killed her — not the parents," said John Darrell, Michael Riley's lawyer.
Girl's death raises troubling questions in child psychiatry
Message Board: Should a child as young as Rebecca be medicated for psychiatric conditions? Share your views on the troubling questions raised by this case.
Kifuji agreed to stop practicing medicine until the state Board of Registration in Medicine completes an investigation. Her attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., has said she did nothing wrong and did not overprescribe medication for Rebecca. He declined to comment Tuesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17818455/from/ET/
- Medicine is science-based is a myth and a fallacy. The parents are blaming the psychiatrist for the diagnosis and for prescribing the meds. Medicine is an art as much as science. There is no reall way to diagnose most of the "disorders" that have mysteriously appeared in the last decades. They tend to be disorders for which there is a drug to address some physical sysmptoms and then a disorder is named. This relates to making birth safe because this is the same science community and protocols used by practitioners of medicine to justify what they do and what they give to women and babies in labor and birth. ADHD, bi-polar, depression, even Infant Colic and Crohn's Disease do not have a medical basis or understanding for their origins, but are people are medicated for the symptoms.
- there is zero focus and action on the touted belief that "children are our most valuable resource." How something will affect a child -- for life-- is zero the focus from conception, gestation, labor and birth and continuing throughtout childhood.
- there is zero value in this society of the importance of baby's rights and of bringing a baby into a family where she or he will wanted, loved, cared for, and protected. Adults rights prevail over children's and Medicine is God.
Parents accused of drugging child for money
Prosecutor says they made up girl's symptoms to get government benefits
AP
Rebecca Riley, 4, died Dec. 13, 2006, in Hull, Mass. Rebecca's parents, Michael and Carolyn Riley, are accused in the drug-poisoning death.
View related photos
Updated: 1 hour, 38 minutes ago
Michael and Carolyn Riley pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges Tuesday and were ordered to remain in custody without bail.
The Rileys' applications for Supplemental Security Income for their daughter, Rebecca, were twice rejected after government doctors examined her and found no evidence to back the parents' claims of bipolar disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, Assistant District Attorney Frank Middleton said.
Rebecca was found dead on the floor of her parents' bedroom on Dec. 13. A medical examiner said she died of a lethal combination of prescription drugs, including a fatal dose of Clonidine, which she had been taking for ADHD.
The Rileys' attorneys blame the girl's death on her psychiatrist.
"The medicines that a totally irresponsible doctor gave her killed her — not the parents," said John Darrell, Michael Riley's lawyer.
Girl's death raises troubling questions in child psychiatry
Message Board: Should a child as young as Rebecca be medicated for psychiatric conditions? Share your views on the troubling questions raised by this case.
Kifuji agreed to stop practicing medicine until the state Board of Registration in Medicine completes an investigation. Her attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., has said she did nothing wrong and did not overprescribe medication for Rebecca. He declined to comment Tuesday.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17818455/from/ET/
Sunday, March 25, 2007
"Baby Cry"
I am so mesmerized by the Frapr map on this blog and I have been so excited to see new states and countries appear. I call out to my daughter -- "I got an Africa!!" or "Got Paris!! or "Woo hooo, got Japan!" and she rolls her eyes (we have only computer online so all she wants is her turn.) Now, just as the map was filling up and I'd be saying, "Oaaah, c'mon Idaho, I need an Idaho," or "C'mon, Germany", some are disappearing. It's great spring weather here and the windows are open --- my neighbors probably think I am playing the longest game ever of some new version of Monopoly and wish I'll win soon. It's doesn't look likely. "Oh, mama, Paris is gone!" "What happened to Alaska?" Alaska was the first to go, and then Phoenix, then the Kansas visitors, and then Egypt, and Turkey, and China, and a couple in UK. "Dang! Where are all the Californias?" I can't figure out why they are disappearing. Even my friend Peg's has disappeared and she is still here and she didn't remove it.
So, I am being a "baby cry" about it. Waaaaauhuhwaaaauhuhwaaaa uuhuhh waaaaaaaaaaaaah.
When GI Joe was about twelve and someone was being a whiner he would call them a "baby cry." It was more of an observation and acknowledgement than a judgement initially.
His little sister, "Pooh" (as he called her) fussing about wanting something -- "What a baby cry." He did grow to enjoy her tearful reaction a little too much as she got older. Four year olds don't want to be referred to as a baby! Nor, do most adults when they are whining and crying.
His friend complaining about losing the neighborhood hoop contest -- "What a baby cry."
Me fussing about my lunch I ordered at a restaurant -- "Ohahh, what a baby cry." Me fussing about my food is typical -- it's funny to them now. They expect it. I am a good cook, know what I want, and I am paying good money for a dinner, so I want it to be my way. Even if it's cheap I want it to be my way. Do you KNOW how hard it is to get a meatless taco at Taco Bell -- with just the right amount of beans that aren't too dry or too runny?
As I studied pre and perinatal psychology and trauma healing I began to appreciate this GI Joe phrase more -- he has many. A "baby cry" for a toddler, child, teen, or adult is the expression of a very early experience and wounding. It is when we didn't get a need met and we just kept trying and it has become a way of our being and functioning in the world. These also become seen as "bad" or "dysfunctional" or "naughty" (unless you are in UK and it's a term of endearment) behavior in our society. "He's a sore loser." "She's a picky eater." "She's a complainer." "He's a procrastinator."
Everyone of us has done this and we have seen it over and over with our friends, colleagues, and loved ones. It's what makes life and relationships so confusing --- you say or do something that seems pretty harmless and maybe even straight forward and simple. The other person overreacts, totally from what seems to be "left field" for you or completely misses or distorts your intention (or what you think in your neocortex is your intention - we all behave through the perceptions of our baby brain -- Limbic system. Our "inner baby".) The other is more in an emotional body reaction and verbally spewing what seems really unrelated, or is just unable to even articulate what they are feeling. This is a preverbal experience in an adult body. "Baby Cries."
In the Castellino work we learn that physical or emotional pain is "the baby crying". These weird reactions and tantrums people have are their inner baby brain running through their neocortex, learned brain. In the eighties we had the emergence of the concept of the "inner child" and we learned that as adults we had the responsibility to re-parent our wounded child in order to find happiness , harmony, and relationships. It was prominent in the field of drug addiction treatment as the drug addiction is only a symptom of deeper issues. John Bradshaw was an effective author and training. After studying the work of William Emerson, (http://www.emersonbirthrx.com/ and his work in the roots of violence and addiction and healing cord and cesarean I rented video of Bradshaw's PBS presentations. (http://www.creativegrowth.com/johnbio.ht). It was amazing how he and his work already spoke to the conception, prenatal, birth, and early infancy needs of the child. I mean, really, is it logical that if a drunk couple conceives a baby that that person might also have problems with alcohol?
Sooooo, why does it matter to me if my pins on my map are disappearing?? I dunnooooooo, ahhwwwaaa. That's preverbal! I know the energy of it has to do with my primal period and early infancy. So, when something comes up for me, I know it is mine to work. I know that my birth -- drugs to slow and augment, mother supine with saddleblock, tired and frustrated doctor, cord 2-1/2 times, broken clavicle, forceps, immediate cord clamp, separation from my mother -- has led me to my passion to make birth aware, safe, and gentle for every baby. I didn't have my biological impulse for birth and it wasn't aware, gentle, or safe. I didn't get my way. I know that every baby needs to share his or her experience of her birth and have those most important to her acknowledge her. This is where our need for acknowledge comes from. As you know, our need for acknowledgement can get us into very emotional and sometimes pathological situations -- at work, and with friends and loved ones. Birth is both a struggle for the baby and has moment of joy and triumph. I want everyone in the world to know about the new research that supports what the field of pre and perinatal psych is saying. My baby who was so hurt and whose pain was so unacknowledged wants every baby to have a gentle, aware birth. My inner baby wants everyone in the world to know.
An amazing obstetrician, Eva Grundberg, MD, from Venezuela spoke at the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health in LA in February. One of the many, many gems was the idea that the breast fed baby, the baby fed on demand, will know trust and believe in prosperity. When the baby cries for the breast and it is right there, the baby will know in HER BODY AND BRAIN that whatever she needs is there. She is not learning struggle and sacrifice -- she is learning trust and available, the secret to prosperity in life. Babies breastfed on demand will not have to have the movie The Secret to have prosperity.
I and my first two children were breastfed but with the conventional thinking of the time that is JUST now being acknowledged as wrong --- that babies SHOULD only be fed every THREE to 4 hours. Now we know they must be fed on demand. As a breastfed baby, I know, want, and trust the "good stuff" (breastfeeding and all that it is) AND fed on a forced schedule, I often have to cry and fuss for awhile before I get it. One of the most significant learnings from the healing work is the concept of honoring our birth as we are healing the violations and disruptions. It also creates our life long journey. Mine sure reflects my early experience. Anyone who enters into the energy of understanding who there are from their primal period learns extraordinary information to shift their lives. It's zero about me ever being like the person who is born at home, in water, unclamped cord, only known and trusted caregivers, and only in my mother's arms and at her breast for three straight days. It's about me accepting me and living in my body.
The adult me knows now that I need to care for and protect my "inner baby" and my adult self is able to find the resources. I managed to do the html code to get the map on there -- I can learn what is going on and how to fix it. I don't have to cry, yell at my dog or daughter, or hit my computer. And, a joy and a resource (that we look for in the birth experience) is that I know that all of us around the world with the passion for making birth aware, gentle, and safe, we are coming together.
So, I am being a "baby cry" about it. Waaaaauhuhwaaaauhuhwaaaa uuhuhh waaaaaaaaaaaaah.
When GI Joe was about twelve and someone was being a whiner he would call them a "baby cry." It was more of an observation and acknowledgement than a judgement initially.
His little sister, "Pooh" (as he called her) fussing about wanting something -- "What a baby cry." He did grow to enjoy her tearful reaction a little too much as she got older. Four year olds don't want to be referred to as a baby! Nor, do most adults when they are whining and crying.
His friend complaining about losing the neighborhood hoop contest -- "What a baby cry."
Me fussing about my lunch I ordered at a restaurant -- "Ohahh, what a baby cry." Me fussing about my food is typical -- it's funny to them now. They expect it. I am a good cook, know what I want, and I am paying good money for a dinner, so I want it to be my way. Even if it's cheap I want it to be my way. Do you KNOW how hard it is to get a meatless taco at Taco Bell -- with just the right amount of beans that aren't too dry or too runny?
As I studied pre and perinatal psychology and trauma healing I began to appreciate this GI Joe phrase more -- he has many. A "baby cry" for a toddler, child, teen, or adult is the expression of a very early experience and wounding. It is when we didn't get a need met and we just kept trying and it has become a way of our being and functioning in the world. These also become seen as "bad" or "dysfunctional" or "naughty" (unless you are in UK and it's a term of endearment) behavior in our society. "He's a sore loser." "She's a picky eater." "She's a complainer." "He's a procrastinator."
Everyone of us has done this and we have seen it over and over with our friends, colleagues, and loved ones. It's what makes life and relationships so confusing --- you say or do something that seems pretty harmless and maybe even straight forward and simple. The other person overreacts, totally from what seems to be "left field" for you or completely misses or distorts your intention (or what you think in your neocortex is your intention - we all behave through the perceptions of our baby brain -- Limbic system. Our "inner baby".) The other is more in an emotional body reaction and verbally spewing what seems really unrelated, or is just unable to even articulate what they are feeling. This is a preverbal experience in an adult body. "Baby Cries."
In the Castellino work we learn that physical or emotional pain is "the baby crying". These weird reactions and tantrums people have are their inner baby brain running through their neocortex, learned brain. In the eighties we had the emergence of the concept of the "inner child" and we learned that as adults we had the responsibility to re-parent our wounded child in order to find happiness , harmony, and relationships. It was prominent in the field of drug addiction treatment as the drug addiction is only a symptom of deeper issues. John Bradshaw was an effective author and training. After studying the work of William Emerson, (http://www.emersonbirthrx.com/ and his work in the roots of violence and addiction and healing cord and cesarean I rented video of Bradshaw's PBS presentations. (http://www.creativegrowth.com/johnbio.ht). It was amazing how he and his work already spoke to the conception, prenatal, birth, and early infancy needs of the child. I mean, really, is it logical that if a drunk couple conceives a baby that that person might also have problems with alcohol?
Sooooo, why does it matter to me if my pins on my map are disappearing?? I dunnooooooo, ahhwwwaaa. That's preverbal! I know the energy of it has to do with my primal period and early infancy. So, when something comes up for me, I know it is mine to work. I know that my birth -- drugs to slow and augment, mother supine with saddleblock, tired and frustrated doctor, cord 2-1/2 times, broken clavicle, forceps, immediate cord clamp, separation from my mother -- has led me to my passion to make birth aware, safe, and gentle for every baby. I didn't have my biological impulse for birth and it wasn't aware, gentle, or safe. I didn't get my way. I know that every baby needs to share his or her experience of her birth and have those most important to her acknowledge her. This is where our need for acknowledge comes from. As you know, our need for acknowledgement can get us into very emotional and sometimes pathological situations -- at work, and with friends and loved ones. Birth is both a struggle for the baby and has moment of joy and triumph. I want everyone in the world to know about the new research that supports what the field of pre and perinatal psych is saying. My baby who was so hurt and whose pain was so unacknowledged wants every baby to have a gentle, aware birth. My inner baby wants everyone in the world to know.
An amazing obstetrician, Eva Grundberg, MD, from Venezuela spoke at the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health in LA in February. One of the many, many gems was the idea that the breast fed baby, the baby fed on demand, will know trust and believe in prosperity. When the baby cries for the breast and it is right there, the baby will know in HER BODY AND BRAIN that whatever she needs is there. She is not learning struggle and sacrifice -- she is learning trust and available, the secret to prosperity in life. Babies breastfed on demand will not have to have the movie The Secret to have prosperity.
I and my first two children were breastfed but with the conventional thinking of the time that is JUST now being acknowledged as wrong --- that babies SHOULD only be fed every THREE to 4 hours. Now we know they must be fed on demand. As a breastfed baby, I know, want, and trust the "good stuff" (breastfeeding and all that it is) AND fed on a forced schedule, I often have to cry and fuss for awhile before I get it. One of the most significant learnings from the healing work is the concept of honoring our birth as we are healing the violations and disruptions. It also creates our life long journey. Mine sure reflects my early experience. Anyone who enters into the energy of understanding who there are from their primal period learns extraordinary information to shift their lives. It's zero about me ever being like the person who is born at home, in water, unclamped cord, only known and trusted caregivers, and only in my mother's arms and at her breast for three straight days. It's about me accepting me and living in my body.
The adult me knows now that I need to care for and protect my "inner baby" and my adult self is able to find the resources. I managed to do the html code to get the map on there -- I can learn what is going on and how to fix it. I don't have to cry, yell at my dog or daughter, or hit my computer. And, a joy and a resource (that we look for in the birth experience) is that I know that all of us around the world with the passion for making birth aware, gentle, and safe, we are coming together.
Cord Clamping
“Another thing very injurious to the child, is the tying and cutting of the navel string too soon; which should always be left till the child has not only repeatedly breathed but till all pulsation in the cord ceases. As otherwise the child is much weaker than it ought to be, a portion of the blood being left in the placenta, which ought to have been in the child.”
Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, 1801
The average American hospital birth goes like this:
The woman is on her back with legs up. The baby's labor has been induced so that mother is likely on narcotic pain medications (epidural). Often medical caregiver has one leg and the husband or doula has been instructed to be at her other leg to push her bent legs up to her chest as she pushes. The doctor and nurses loudly instruct her when to start and stop pushing. As the baby's head emerges, the body has not yet turned as it will do so as the birth proceeds. The head is often grasped by the caregiver to begin pulling on the baby. On the push that makes the head fully out, the OB will manually rotate the head to have better visual and physical access to the baby's mother to begin suctioning. THIS process is the FIRST INJURY to the baby's head, shoulders, and hips and the foundation for many, many, many medical and chiropractic visits throughout the lifetime. Shortly the baby is born into the gloved hands of a physician and immediately a nurse begins to roughly dry off the baby with stiff hospital quality towels. With astounding skills of orchestration, the physician is clamping the baby's umbilical cord and very shortly it is cut. THIS is the most DAMAGING action a human being can do to another, a newborn baby.
Sometimes the baby is held up for the mother to see -- a swift movement from position of exiting the womb to upright in bright lights and noisy room. Occasionally, the nurse will allow the mother to have her baby up to her face for an early peek of her baby. Most often, the baby is then whisked away to the hospital cart for interventions such as increased resuscitation measures, continued scrubbing, shots, weighing, and measuring. THIS is the MOST DETRIMENTAL thing another human being can to do a mother and newborn.
What does the majority of American baby get?
Induction of baby's labor (disruption of baby's physiological need)
Drugs
Mother in supine position (making her pelvic outlet up to 30% smaller)
Coached pushing
Rough first touch by a stranger
Early cord clamping
Harsh, violating resuscitation
Separation from the mama
Today I want to focus on Resuscitation
The cord is meant to pulse in order to move placental blood to the baby. This blood is important for the baby to have now. Early cord clamping results in a disruption to the lungs, the heart, the liver, and the brain -- and every other system of the baby. When left intact the cord will pulse (move) the placental blood to the baby. This is very rich blood that is meant to support the baby during the transition from water to air breathing. The blood enters the lungs and begins to filled the collapsed alveoli sacs and to push the the amniotic fluid from the lungs so the baby can take first breath without fluids in the lungs. This often takes minutes to complete during which time the newborn is "breathing" through the umbilical cord. When the lungs are ready -- blood enriched, fluid removed -- the baby takes his or her first breath of air. Medical caregivers initiate panicked maneuvers immediately to get the baby breathing with zero regard for the need for the intact cord to pump the enriched placental blood.
Perhaps cesarean born children have lifelong problems with breathing because their lungs never cleared the fluids. Compression of the chest during vaginal birth prepares the lungs for expelling fluids and cesarean born child do not experience this and their cords are clamped immediately because of the need to close the mother's incision. It seems possible that there might be away to keep the cord intact and remove the placenta attached -- if there were a will to do so. Either way, cesarean birth is quite inherently dangerous to both mother and baby and clearly, is the cause of many lifelong physical and medical issues. I will refrain from launching into the emotional and psychological experience of the mother and baby during this.
Dr. George Morley, an obstetrician, is dedicated to the need to stop the early cord clamping that is happening routinely. I met Dr. Morley in April, 2005, at the Future of Birth conference in Columbia, MO. He stole the show and a new break out was created for him to continue. Most of us have had disrupted birth and our transition to air breathing was very violated. Spiritually, in every religion, there is reference to breath as our connection to our Maker, God, or whatever name to which one refers. Our human search for connection with our Divinity and to God, I believe, is found in the breathe. Our struggle and seeming inability as humans, I believe is related to birth and our early cord cutting experience -- that coincides with harsh, rough handling by medical caregivers and separation from our mother, the safe God(des) we have known in our journey from a spiritual world to this physical body sustained only by her. In modern life how could our mother be anything less than the most important person in our life from whom we are challenged to separate and at the same time so mysteriously drawn to stay so connected with?
From Dr. Morley's amazing site: http://www.cordclamp.com/Why%20Do%20Babies%20Cr1.htm
Although the pulmonary vessels are fully developed in the fetus, only a tiny amount of blood (about 5% of cardiac output) flows through them due to intense vasoconstriction of the pulmonary arterioles. The nutritive blood supply to the lungs is from the bronchial arteries that arise from the aorta. The collapsed alveoli (air sacs) are filled with amniotic fluid.
Oxygenated blood is red, de-oxygenated blood is blue, and at the moment of birth, a normal newborn is circulating a mixture of blue and red blood. The color (lips and tongue) of a healthy newborn at birth is a pinkish purple; the child has been this color for nine months and normal placental function (cord pulsating) will maintain this color until the lungs function.
When the lungs are functioning, the umbilical vessels close, the ductus venosis closes, the hepatic portal vein is open, the foramen ovale closes, the heart is two sided, the cardiac output from the right ventricle (blue blood) goes through the lungs and is oxygenated, the left ventricular output (red blood) goes through the body, the ductus arteriosus closes, the pulmonary arterioles are open, the alveoli are full of air and the child turns from purple to pink. All of this complicated process is coordinated and controlled by the child’s reflexes; it usually happens within three or four minutes of birth. What makes it happen?
All babies are born soaking wet, and on meeting the atmosphere, the skin cools; this triggers two reflexes:
1. The cold crying reflex – cold, wet diapers produce the same result, crying.
2. The cold pressor reflex – cold skin raises blood pressure.
In order to cry, the child must first take a deep breath, and an inspiratory “gasp” is often the first sign, triggered by cold, that a child is going to cry or breathe. Contraction of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles increase thoracic volume and create negative intra-thoracic pressure. Once air is in the lungs, another reflex is triggered that relaxes the pulmonary arterioles; this causes an enormous increase in pulmonary blood flow.
The cold pressor reflex increases the blood pressure in the aorta, and this may be sufficient to reverse blood flow through the ductus arteriosus causing more blood to flow through the lungs.
The cord is also cooling, and the cord is a well-designed self-refrigerator. It has no skin and blubber to keep it warm like the child. It contains only the cord vessels surrounded by a watery gel, Wharton’s jelly, covered by a single layer of cells, the amnion. Water evaporation cools it rapidly, causing the vessels to constrict; this further helps to raise systemic blood pressure and to reverse ductus arteriosus flow.
At the same time, a large transfusion of placental blood is being forced into the child by gravity and/or by uterine contraction, greatly increasing cardiac output and pulmonary blood flow. The net result of these changes is a large amount of blood flowing into the left atrium from the lungs, which raises left atrial pressure and closes the foramen ovale – the heart changes from one-sided to two-sided. The lungs are now oxygenating blood that is pumped round the body by the left ventricle – the child turns pink.
I believe how babies are treated in their birth coming into this world is CRIMINAL CHILD ABUSE by medical caregivers from beginning to end -- labor to leaving the hospital. I believe the message in the experience of leaving the mother's safe womb and coming into this world message is "Welcome to the cold, cruel world, kid." The handling by strangers who are hurried and disregardful of the sacred baby and the early cord clamping causes a horrific violation of the baby physically and spiritually and leads to the separation from the mother which is a tragic scar in the mother-baby relationship.
The medical caregiver (doctor or nurse) has only to pass educational and licensing requirements. They are not checked out like I have to be to work with children --- fingerprints, background check. One does not know who is caring for her and her baby in the medical system. It is rampant with drug addiction and people with serious personal problems just like in every profession and walk of life. Medical caregivers are self-overseeing of what happens in medicine and the focus is self-preservation. There is no standard of medical care for pregnant and laboring and birthing women and babies. There is no standard for even reporting medical treatment and mortality -- it is reported that infant and maternal mortality is severely under reported. The foxes are allowed to manipulate and create the illusion of what happens to the hens who disappear.
Steve Harris, MD - arrogantly BOASTS about law enforcement looking the other way: "Without enforcement, there is no law. Without law, there is no crime. These are elementary principles. Get an adult to explain them to you."http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/
msg/28866f3384801ae9.
Just this week I found another writer, Dr. Todd Gastaldo, (above reference) who has also been writing about this as child abuse. He has written about how "Medical associations/societies fail to protect "pregnant" women and the "newborn" citizens." I have have written much about the need for malpractice reform to include the poor, non-science based protocols and treatment of women and babies, and the need to somehow come together to create a way for the obstetric medical system to stop what they are doing without an all-out litigation war.
And, perhaps what it would take is the onslaught of litigation based on the REAL transgressions in obstetric care. Dr. Todd Gastaldo suggests "Pardons in Advance" would be fair for medical malpractice. (Google his name or visit http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/1897.) However this would be addressed, the other concern I have long contemplated is how for doctors, nurses, and consumers to go beyond that to the actual forgiveness for co-creating it. One has to remember that doctors and nurses are themselves so brainwashed and indoctrinated that they have also allowed their own children to be birthed in this violating system -- without knowing it is violating. The American society is the walking numb from decades and decades of birthing under the influence of narcotics. We are the proverbial tale of the frog sitting helpless in the boiling pot of water. http://www.boilingfrog.ca/why.html
Over one hundred plus years of increasing medical technology and the decreased mortality rates from the forties to the fifties -- because of antibiotics, sanitation, and nutrition, more than saddleblocks , forceps and surgery which are more the reason it has NOT continued to decline like in countries where natural birth with midwives is the standard. Most of us did not feel the heat getting hotter and hotter. Unbelievably to me, is that even now, the average person, not even the medical caregiver THINKS, FEELS, SEES, or PROCESSES what is going on, what they are participating in, and promoting. It is mind-boggling to me to hear NURSES forcing the medically, ethically, and morally CONTRA-INDICATED treatment of a baby. Today nurses really, truly believe that they MUST roughly, harshly scrub the newborn within seconds of his or her entrance to STIMULATE them to breathe. They have never seen a placenta pulse for thirty minutes as the MOTHER'S BODY cares for her struggling newborn --- JUST LIKE IT DID FOR TEN PREVIOUS MONTHS. A baby with a low APGAR has that score most likely BECAUSE of some aspect of the BIRTH experience. He NEEDS his mother's body to regulate him.
From one of my readers in London:
I'm in the UK so things are a little different here. The majority of women are cared for by a midwife, and if there are medical circumstances that might permit the need for an OB, then the midwife refers the woman to an OB [this is in the context of a hospital birth, not birthing centres/home birth etc] I remember watching US birth shows, and was pretty shocked about how intervention friendly it was out there for circumstances that didn't need it. Is it about money? The way doctors are taught out there? I haven't watched Pregnant in America yet, but I'm hoping that'll answer some questions. Not only that, but in some programmes I saw, the staff were so disrespectful, I'm amazed they allowed it to air [2 residents doing a ventouse delivery, one saying, "What's that, that's weird!" while staring at the pushing woman's vulva. I honestly had no words at the time, my jaw just dropped]
Something very serious is happening to us in America -- that we allow our babies to be so man- and woman-handled by medical caregivers. I have said this before -- modern obstetric birth is creating warriors. The focus is now on peace and ending this war --- Peace IS the absence of WAR. We can't seem to have "peace" without having the war. As a society we need to focus on creating HARMONY in our homes, our lives, and with the birthing of our children -- not starting wars. Harmony is more of a state of being, not an absence of war and conflict either within or throughout the world. Such simple things in birth, such as letting the cord complete pulsing really could change the world.... one baby at a time.
IMAGINE the world we could create if every baby:
Erasmus Darwin, Zoonomia, 1801
The average American hospital birth goes like this:
The woman is on her back with legs up. The baby's labor has been induced so that mother is likely on narcotic pain medications (epidural). Often medical caregiver has one leg and the husband or doula has been instructed to be at her other leg to push her bent legs up to her chest as she pushes. The doctor and nurses loudly instruct her when to start and stop pushing. As the baby's head emerges, the body has not yet turned as it will do so as the birth proceeds. The head is often grasped by the caregiver to begin pulling on the baby. On the push that makes the head fully out, the OB will manually rotate the head to have better visual and physical access to the baby's mother to begin suctioning. THIS process is the FIRST INJURY to the baby's head, shoulders, and hips and the foundation for many, many, many medical and chiropractic visits throughout the lifetime. Shortly the baby is born into the gloved hands of a physician and immediately a nurse begins to roughly dry off the baby with stiff hospital quality towels. With astounding skills of orchestration, the physician is clamping the baby's umbilical cord and very shortly it is cut. THIS is the most DAMAGING action a human being can do to another, a newborn baby.
Sometimes the baby is held up for the mother to see -- a swift movement from position of exiting the womb to upright in bright lights and noisy room. Occasionally, the nurse will allow the mother to have her baby up to her face for an early peek of her baby. Most often, the baby is then whisked away to the hospital cart for interventions such as increased resuscitation measures, continued scrubbing, shots, weighing, and measuring. THIS is the MOST DETRIMENTAL thing another human being can to do a mother and newborn.
What does the majority of American baby get?
Induction of baby's labor (disruption of baby's physiological need)
Drugs
Mother in supine position (making her pelvic outlet up to 30% smaller)
Coached pushing
Rough first touch by a stranger
Early cord clamping
Harsh, violating resuscitation
Separation from the mama
Today I want to focus on Resuscitation
The cord is meant to pulse in order to move placental blood to the baby. This blood is important for the baby to have now. Early cord clamping results in a disruption to the lungs, the heart, the liver, and the brain -- and every other system of the baby. When left intact the cord will pulse (move) the placental blood to the baby. This is very rich blood that is meant to support the baby during the transition from water to air breathing. The blood enters the lungs and begins to filled the collapsed alveoli sacs and to push the the amniotic fluid from the lungs so the baby can take first breath without fluids in the lungs. This often takes minutes to complete during which time the newborn is "breathing" through the umbilical cord. When the lungs are ready -- blood enriched, fluid removed -- the baby takes his or her first breath of air. Medical caregivers initiate panicked maneuvers immediately to get the baby breathing with zero regard for the need for the intact cord to pump the enriched placental blood.
Perhaps cesarean born children have lifelong problems with breathing because their lungs never cleared the fluids. Compression of the chest during vaginal birth prepares the lungs for expelling fluids and cesarean born child do not experience this and their cords are clamped immediately because of the need to close the mother's incision. It seems possible that there might be away to keep the cord intact and remove the placenta attached -- if there were a will to do so. Either way, cesarean birth is quite inherently dangerous to both mother and baby and clearly, is the cause of many lifelong physical and medical issues. I will refrain from launching into the emotional and psychological experience of the mother and baby during this.
Dr. George Morley, an obstetrician, is dedicated to the need to stop the early cord clamping that is happening routinely. I met Dr. Morley in April, 2005, at the Future of Birth conference in Columbia, MO. He stole the show and a new break out was created for him to continue. Most of us have had disrupted birth and our transition to air breathing was very violated. Spiritually, in every religion, there is reference to breath as our connection to our Maker, God, or whatever name to which one refers. Our human search for connection with our Divinity and to God, I believe, is found in the breathe. Our struggle and seeming inability as humans, I believe is related to birth and our early cord cutting experience -- that coincides with harsh, rough handling by medical caregivers and separation from our mother, the safe God(des) we have known in our journey from a spiritual world to this physical body sustained only by her. In modern life how could our mother be anything less than the most important person in our life from whom we are challenged to separate and at the same time so mysteriously drawn to stay so connected with?
From Dr. Morley's amazing site: http://www.cordclamp.com/Why%20Do%20Babies%20Cr1.htm
Although the pulmonary vessels are fully developed in the fetus, only a tiny amount of blood (about 5% of cardiac output) flows through them due to intense vasoconstriction of the pulmonary arterioles. The nutritive blood supply to the lungs is from the bronchial arteries that arise from the aorta. The collapsed alveoli (air sacs) are filled with amniotic fluid.
Oxygenated blood is red, de-oxygenated blood is blue, and at the moment of birth, a normal newborn is circulating a mixture of blue and red blood. The color (lips and tongue) of a healthy newborn at birth is a pinkish purple; the child has been this color for nine months and normal placental function (cord pulsating) will maintain this color until the lungs function.
When the lungs are functioning, the umbilical vessels close, the ductus venosis closes, the hepatic portal vein is open, the foramen ovale closes, the heart is two sided, the cardiac output from the right ventricle (blue blood) goes through the lungs and is oxygenated, the left ventricular output (red blood) goes through the body, the ductus arteriosus closes, the pulmonary arterioles are open, the alveoli are full of air and the child turns from purple to pink. All of this complicated process is coordinated and controlled by the child’s reflexes; it usually happens within three or four minutes of birth. What makes it happen?
All babies are born soaking wet, and on meeting the atmosphere, the skin cools; this triggers two reflexes:
1. The cold crying reflex – cold, wet diapers produce the same result, crying.
2. The cold pressor reflex – cold skin raises blood pressure.
In order to cry, the child must first take a deep breath, and an inspiratory “gasp” is often the first sign, triggered by cold, that a child is going to cry or breathe. Contraction of the diaphragm and intercostal muscles increase thoracic volume and create negative intra-thoracic pressure. Once air is in the lungs, another reflex is triggered that relaxes the pulmonary arterioles; this causes an enormous increase in pulmonary blood flow.
The cold pressor reflex increases the blood pressure in the aorta, and this may be sufficient to reverse blood flow through the ductus arteriosus causing more blood to flow through the lungs.
The cord is also cooling, and the cord is a well-designed self-refrigerator. It has no skin and blubber to keep it warm like the child. It contains only the cord vessels surrounded by a watery gel, Wharton’s jelly, covered by a single layer of cells, the amnion. Water evaporation cools it rapidly, causing the vessels to constrict; this further helps to raise systemic blood pressure and to reverse ductus arteriosus flow.
At the same time, a large transfusion of placental blood is being forced into the child by gravity and/or by uterine contraction, greatly increasing cardiac output and pulmonary blood flow. The net result of these changes is a large amount of blood flowing into the left atrium from the lungs, which raises left atrial pressure and closes the foramen ovale – the heart changes from one-sided to two-sided. The lungs are now oxygenating blood that is pumped round the body by the left ventricle – the child turns pink.
I believe how babies are treated in their birth coming into this world is CRIMINAL CHILD ABUSE by medical caregivers from beginning to end -- labor to leaving the hospital. I believe the message in the experience of leaving the mother's safe womb and coming into this world message is "Welcome to the cold, cruel world, kid." The handling by strangers who are hurried and disregardful of the sacred baby and the early cord clamping causes a horrific violation of the baby physically and spiritually and leads to the separation from the mother which is a tragic scar in the mother-baby relationship.
The medical caregiver (doctor or nurse) has only to pass educational and licensing requirements. They are not checked out like I have to be to work with children --- fingerprints, background check. One does not know who is caring for her and her baby in the medical system. It is rampant with drug addiction and people with serious personal problems just like in every profession and walk of life. Medical caregivers are self-overseeing of what happens in medicine and the focus is self-preservation. There is no standard of medical care for pregnant and laboring and birthing women and babies. There is no standard for even reporting medical treatment and mortality -- it is reported that infant and maternal mortality is severely under reported. The foxes are allowed to manipulate and create the illusion of what happens to the hens who disappear.
Steve Harris, MD - arrogantly BOASTS about law enforcement looking the other way: "Without enforcement, there is no law. Without law, there is no crime. These are elementary principles. Get an adult to explain them to you."http://groups.google.com/group/misc.kids.pregnancy/
msg/28866f3384801ae9.
Just this week I found another writer, Dr. Todd Gastaldo, (above reference) who has also been writing about this as child abuse. He has written about how "Medical associations/societies fail to protect "pregnant" women and the "newborn" citizens." I have have written much about the need for malpractice reform to include the poor, non-science based protocols and treatment of women and babies, and the need to somehow come together to create a way for the obstetric medical system to stop what they are doing without an all-out litigation war.
And, perhaps what it would take is the onslaught of litigation based on the REAL transgressions in obstetric care. Dr. Todd Gastaldo suggests "Pardons in Advance" would be fair for medical malpractice. (Google his name or visit http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/1897.) However this would be addressed, the other concern I have long contemplated is how for doctors, nurses, and consumers to go beyond that to the actual forgiveness for co-creating it. One has to remember that doctors and nurses are themselves so brainwashed and indoctrinated that they have also allowed their own children to be birthed in this violating system -- without knowing it is violating. The American society is the walking numb from decades and decades of birthing under the influence of narcotics. We are the proverbial tale of the frog sitting helpless in the boiling pot of water. http://www.boilingfrog.ca/why.html
Over one hundred plus years of increasing medical technology and the decreased mortality rates from the forties to the fifties -- because of antibiotics, sanitation, and nutrition, more than saddleblocks , forceps and surgery which are more the reason it has NOT continued to decline like in countries where natural birth with midwives is the standard. Most of us did not feel the heat getting hotter and hotter. Unbelievably to me, is that even now, the average person, not even the medical caregiver THINKS, FEELS, SEES, or PROCESSES what is going on, what they are participating in, and promoting. It is mind-boggling to me to hear NURSES forcing the medically, ethically, and morally CONTRA-INDICATED treatment of a baby. Today nurses really, truly believe that they MUST roughly, harshly scrub the newborn within seconds of his or her entrance to STIMULATE them to breathe. They have never seen a placenta pulse for thirty minutes as the MOTHER'S BODY cares for her struggling newborn --- JUST LIKE IT DID FOR TEN PREVIOUS MONTHS. A baby with a low APGAR has that score most likely BECAUSE of some aspect of the BIRTH experience. He NEEDS his mother's body to regulate him.
From one of my readers in London:
I'm in the UK so things are a little different here. The majority of women are cared for by a midwife, and if there are medical circumstances that might permit the need for an OB, then the midwife refers the woman to an OB [this is in the context of a hospital birth, not birthing centres/home birth etc] I remember watching US birth shows, and was pretty shocked about how intervention friendly it was out there for circumstances that didn't need it. Is it about money? The way doctors are taught out there? I haven't watched Pregnant in America yet, but I'm hoping that'll answer some questions. Not only that, but in some programmes I saw, the staff were so disrespectful, I'm amazed they allowed it to air [2 residents doing a ventouse delivery, one saying, "What's that, that's weird!" while staring at the pushing woman's vulva. I honestly had no words at the time, my jaw just dropped]
Something very serious is happening to us in America -- that we allow our babies to be so man- and woman-handled by medical caregivers. I have said this before -- modern obstetric birth is creating warriors. The focus is now on peace and ending this war --- Peace IS the absence of WAR. We can't seem to have "peace" without having the war. As a society we need to focus on creating HARMONY in our homes, our lives, and with the birthing of our children -- not starting wars. Harmony is more of a state of being, not an absence of war and conflict either within or throughout the world. Such simple things in birth, such as letting the cord complete pulsing really could change the world.... one baby at a time.
IMAGINE the world we could create if every baby:
- is conceived wanted and welcomed at conception by two loving adults who are physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially prepared to be parents
- has complete nutrition and a toxin-free womb in order to build a healthy, fully functioning brain and body
- felt safe and protected by parents, and without stress throughout pregnancy and birth
- was connected with and nurtured by parents throughout pregnancy, at birth, and beyond
- has his or her own biologically programmed impulse and timing for birth while in continued relationship with the mother and safety of the father
- completes the biologically programmed “self-attachment” sequence of coming to the breast in his or her own timing – resting in the arms of the mother and father, without interventions
Oh, what a wonderful world it could be .......... and it can only happen by reforming obstetric medical care to give the power and control back to birthing women, by legalizing midwifery in a REFORM that includes a national STANDAR OF CARE in maternal and newborn care.
We need to create LAWS based on physiology and science to be enforced in the care of women and newborns.
More on Intentions and Energy Research
that supports a scientific foundation for energy healing modalities and the power of the human being to heal the self and others -- without drugs and intervention. You won't read in the mainstream, peer-reviewed, Pharm financed research that our highly paid medical caregivers read.
LIVING THE FIELD E-NEWS BULLETIN
No. 49: 23rd March 2007
THE LITTLE LEAF THAT GLOWED
Dear Friends,
I PROMISED THAT I WOULD TELL YOU about our first Intention Experiment pilot study (using delegates from our London conference sending intention to University of Arizona). But I’ll have to give you the bare bones of the study — for this reason. The results are so sensational that we are going to publish them in a scientific journal, and the way these journals go, you’re not allowed to publish all the data (such as pictures) anywhere else first.
Here is the results of the first-ever group intention long distance double-blinded biophoton experiment — at least what I’m allowed to tell you. Mark Boccuzzi, one of the scientific team at Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson, headed by the noted psychologist and consciousness researcher Dr. Gary E. Schwartz, carried out the lab work. He selected two carefully selected and prepared leaves from the same flourishing geranium plant with similar biophoton emissions.
Mark chose two geranium leaves, matching them for similar biophoton release, then prepared them with 16 holes / injuries in a 4 x 4 grid — a process that can take two or more hours. Both leaves were placed under web cams. Then Mark stood by. Meanwhile in London, our audience of 400 —who’d come from countries around the world — selected which leaf to send intention to. Our intention was to make the leaf ‘glow and glow’ – that is, to increase its biophoton emissions.
We chose ‘glowing’ because we were just looking for an effect – any effect — and we thought this would be easiest to imagine.
One of our delegates, chosen at random, flipped a coin to determine which leaf would be displayed to the audience and sent intention to (head -leaf 1; tails - leaf 2) . The audience member flipped heads and so instructed our audiovisual technician to display leaf 1. Now, remember, the scientific team did not know which leaf we chose. The one that was not displayed to the audience was to act as the control.
We telephoned Dr. Schwartz, who told Melinda Connor (a member of his scientific team who stood in for him at the conference) to remind the audience that they were making scientific history.
A giant image of our leaf appeared on the screen. I then instructed the audience to ‘power up’, using some of the methods noted in chapter 13 of The Intention Experiment. Then I asked them to think to themselves an intention for the leaf to ‘glow and glow’ — to produce increased biophoton light.
Their task was to keep up this intention for 10 minutes, while music played (a Reiki chant called Choku Rei by Jonathan Goldman).
Dr. Schwartz picks up the story here: ‘After the ten minute intention period, the leaves were placed in the light-tight biophoton imaging system (a super-cooled digital CCD camera system) and photographed for two hours. The results of the glowing intention were so strong that they could readily seen in the digital biophoton images; in addition, the increased biophoton effect was highly statistically significant.
‘For a first experiment of this kind,’ he continues, ‘the results could not be more encouraging, and they inspire us to continue this research.’
In fact, he says, ‘the results from this exploratory experiment are currently being prepared for scientific publication. The authors are Gary Schwartz, Mark Boccuzzi, Melinda Connor, and Lynne McTaggart.’
Warm wishes,
Lynne McTaggart
LIVING THE FIELD E-NEWS BULLETIN
No. 49: 23rd March 2007
THE LITTLE LEAF THAT GLOWED
Dear Friends,
I PROMISED THAT I WOULD TELL YOU about our first Intention Experiment pilot study (using delegates from our London conference sending intention to University of Arizona). But I’ll have to give you the bare bones of the study — for this reason. The results are so sensational that we are going to publish them in a scientific journal, and the way these journals go, you’re not allowed to publish all the data (such as pictures) anywhere else first.
Here is the results of the first-ever group intention long distance double-blinded biophoton experiment — at least what I’m allowed to tell you. Mark Boccuzzi, one of the scientific team at Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health at the University of Arizona in Tucson, headed by the noted psychologist and consciousness researcher Dr. Gary E. Schwartz, carried out the lab work. He selected two carefully selected and prepared leaves from the same flourishing geranium plant with similar biophoton emissions.
Mark chose two geranium leaves, matching them for similar biophoton release, then prepared them with 16 holes / injuries in a 4 x 4 grid — a process that can take two or more hours. Both leaves were placed under web cams. Then Mark stood by. Meanwhile in London, our audience of 400 —who’d come from countries around the world — selected which leaf to send intention to. Our intention was to make the leaf ‘glow and glow’ – that is, to increase its biophoton emissions.
We chose ‘glowing’ because we were just looking for an effect – any effect — and we thought this would be easiest to imagine.
One of our delegates, chosen at random, flipped a coin to determine which leaf would be displayed to the audience and sent intention to (head -leaf 1; tails - leaf 2) . The audience member flipped heads and so instructed our audiovisual technician to display leaf 1. Now, remember, the scientific team did not know which leaf we chose. The one that was not displayed to the audience was to act as the control.
We telephoned Dr. Schwartz, who told Melinda Connor (a member of his scientific team who stood in for him at the conference) to remind the audience that they were making scientific history.
A giant image of our leaf appeared on the screen. I then instructed the audience to ‘power up’, using some of the methods noted in chapter 13 of The Intention Experiment. Then I asked them to think to themselves an intention for the leaf to ‘glow and glow’ — to produce increased biophoton light.
Their task was to keep up this intention for 10 minutes, while music played (a Reiki chant called Choku Rei by Jonathan Goldman).
Dr. Schwartz picks up the story here: ‘After the ten minute intention period, the leaves were placed in the light-tight biophoton imaging system (a super-cooled digital CCD camera system) and photographed for two hours. The results of the glowing intention were so strong that they could readily seen in the digital biophoton images; in addition, the increased biophoton effect was highly statistically significant.
‘For a first experiment of this kind,’ he continues, ‘the results could not be more encouraging, and they inspire us to continue this research.’
In fact, he says, ‘the results from this exploratory experiment are currently being prepared for scientific publication. The authors are Gary Schwartz, Mark Boccuzzi, Melinda Connor, and Lynne McTaggart.’
Warm wishes,
Lynne McTaggart
Friday, March 23, 2007
Four year old Girl dies of overdose
This is a tragic, but predictable story. A four year-old diagnosed at two and a half with bi-polar disorder (as were her two older sibling), is lethally overdosed by her parents.
Ok, I am sorry, but this calls for the f word. What the "F"!?
I have never said this on this blog, but I was getting to it. (Not the F word, but this point). I believe, and it is my professional opinion, that a child should never, ever be evaluated and medicated BEFORE the parent is evaluated and medicated. Years of working in the system lead me to believe this and the training in pre and perinatal psych and birth trauma healing confirmed it.
It is absurd that a two and a half year old is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder -- she couldn't even fully converse yet. And, her older brother and sister had also been diagnosed and were medicated. WHO is crazier here? The parents or the physicians who prescribed this. WHAT is happening to the consciousness and ethics and to the ART of medicine and healing that is so usurped by Big Pharm and money? This is child abuse! Next post -- I am so tired of it.
Why is our society allowing, by default, the conceiving of human lives to be lived this way? And, why is society allowing this incidious drug virus to take us all down? A child should not be medicated because the parents are mentally ill. Why are parents with two "bi-polar children" allowed to continue to procreate? What kind of life did this child have? STOP IT. Damn. What about a child's rights to a quality, safe LIFE. TO LIVE?!
Gems from my work:
Children take on what parents don't deal with and the child(ren) has NO choice but to ACT it out. To live the parent's mental illness.
Children live the secrets of the ancestors. (Think about it.)
A child can only get as well as the parents. After one leaves home one then has the job and responsibility to heal their lives on their own terms. It ain't easy -- it's a lifetime of work when one has been parented by (unhealthy, mentally ill, alcoholic, violent) people.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17758170/from/ET/
Well, this just popped my happy goulash bubble. And, how amazingly appropriate is my post earlier today about our bi-polor society and what mothers and babies and children need.
Ok, I am sorry, but this calls for the f word. What the "F"!?
I have never said this on this blog, but I was getting to it. (Not the F word, but this point). I believe, and it is my professional opinion, that a child should never, ever be evaluated and medicated BEFORE the parent is evaluated and medicated. Years of working in the system lead me to believe this and the training in pre and perinatal psych and birth trauma healing confirmed it.
It is absurd that a two and a half year old is diagnosed with bi-polar disorder -- she couldn't even fully converse yet. And, her older brother and sister had also been diagnosed and were medicated. WHO is crazier here? The parents or the physicians who prescribed this. WHAT is happening to the consciousness and ethics and to the ART of medicine and healing that is so usurped by Big Pharm and money? This is child abuse! Next post -- I am so tired of it.
Why is our society allowing, by default, the conceiving of human lives to be lived this way? And, why is society allowing this incidious drug virus to take us all down? A child should not be medicated because the parents are mentally ill. Why are parents with two "bi-polar children" allowed to continue to procreate? What kind of life did this child have? STOP IT. Damn. What about a child's rights to a quality, safe LIFE. TO LIVE?!
Gems from my work:
Children take on what parents don't deal with and the child(ren) has NO choice but to ACT it out. To live the parent's mental illness.
Children live the secrets of the ancestors. (Think about it.)
A child can only get as well as the parents. After one leaves home one then has the job and responsibility to heal their lives on their own terms. It ain't easy -- it's a lifetime of work when one has been parented by (unhealthy, mentally ill, alcoholic, violent) people.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17758170/from/ET/
Well, this just popped my happy goulash bubble. And, how amazingly appropriate is my post earlier today about our bi-polor society and what mothers and babies and children need.
Hungarian Goulash Experiment
I am in a GI Joe mood this week, can you tell? He peeks out from every post this week just like in one of our favorite books, Where is Waldo. Oh, my -- that reminds me of a fun gift I did for him a few years ago. I took a Waldo character and inserted him into the picture here of soldier's praying. So fun.Hmmm. Guess you had to be there.
Anyway, I am happy to report that my dehydrating Hungarian Goulash (Gulyas means stew) experiment was highly successful -- with my first attempt. I tried some -- I had to! to make sure it worked -- wink, wink -- and it amazingly made a tasty broth just like fresh. Oh, mama, he is gonna be so surprised. Now I am off to Bass Pro to find a gadget to boil water in/with case he's not near electricity. And, then it's in the mail tomorrow.
My aeronautic engineer uncle tells me -- the anti-war one -- that every war creates advancement in technology and new ideas. Dehydrated Hungarian Goulash. Uh-huh.
Excerpt from Japanese Book on Prenatal Parenting
Parenting Begins From a Baby's Time in the Womb:
What We Know About Prenatal Memories
Original Japanese edition "Onaka No Nakakara Hajimeru Kososdate"
by Akira Ikegawa, MD, PhD., Ikegawa OB/GYN Clinic Director
Translated by Seika Marie Smith
pages 69-71 with commentary by Baby Keeper!
Love Nourishes a sense of independenceThe most important thing you can do to nurture your child's independence is to give him a strong sense of security, and the best way to do this is by developing a close relationship. There is nothing difficult about the basics of parenting: it simply begins with a hug.
When the mother embraces her child warmly, the child stops needing to cling to her. They feel reassured when they know they are being accepted just the way the are , and will feel confident enough to test their abilities in the outside world if they know they can always return to the security of their mother no matter what happens.
However, if the child had minimal communication with his mother and has no real sense of being protected, all his energies will be devoted to trying to acquire this sense of security, and there will be none left to use in new adventures.
There is new research by Porges, Schore and others (http://www.trauma-pages.org/) looking at the effects of early violence that show us that the earliest environment and parenting create important brain connections. The brains of the non-abused children/adults differ from those who were abused. Their perceptions of the world and what and who they draw into their world will be a reflection of their earliest care. (Odent, Wirth, Nathanielsz, Lipton, Emerson, Castellino).
If your child comes to you, give him a hug. If he feels scared or sad, just give him a hug. I would like to stress how important it is for mothers to remember these basics.
This seems so easy and so simple, doesn't it? The basics -- the simple pleasures of life and parenting get gobbled up the stress of making a living. Who is available to hug most babies and children? Substitute caregivers, beginning with childcare and continuing through childhood? One of the things I loved about homeschooling my daughter and having the summers off with the older ones when they were growing up is having quality time, and LOTS of it. I begrudgingly and sadly relinquished my children over to childcare and kindergarten, BUT, I was in college, thinking of greater days ahead. I was going to be a big deal and change the world! And, I never liked being away from my child for any reason. I had to work with my first child. I was an aide to a clinical psychologist at a VA hospital. It was a great job that didn't require an education but inspired me to one. I took a camping trip when my older son was about five months old -- less than 1/2 hour away. We got the tent set up. Looked around and each other and realized it was a mistake. We dismantled the tent and went home, much to the dismay of Aunt Linda as I was seen as an "overprotective parent" by not letting everyone hold my baby. Breastfeeding moms always hog their babies, you know.
I am still mad to this day that many, many nights were spent with this son, fighting with this Wild Man to get his homework done. So many nights I hated myself for my reactions to our frustration to finish one more stupid paper of math problems. What did they do all day? I learned in homeschooling it takes about two hours a day to accomplish what they do all day at school. Homework in elementary school, after sitting and working all day? Why? Seeds of "work-aholism" -- all of the "isms" for which we have so many treatments? It's torture for a hyperactive child to sit all day and be quiet... or ... does it and going hugless all day create hyperactivity? I feel like our lives were intruded upon and something beyond my control (because I bought into the status quo) robbed us. He spent all day being chastised and challenged to be quiet. Zero hugs for him or any of our children at school when they feel stressed, sad, scared, lonely, or even happy.
Our children spend the majority of their lives with non-parent, non-relative caregivers who are not LEGALLY allowed to hug and touch a child. I am not dis'in' teachers now, but the fact is our children spend their days with people who may or may not even like them, and who certainly don't hold our beliefs and how we want our child treated. And, how could teachers begin to meet the mulitple needs of multiple children? Why do we expect our children to thrive and spend all day without quality attention, touch, eye contact? Activity and things are substituted. Videos, candy, gold stars, and stickers -- tokens meant to "promote self-esteem" but how many hugs a day does any one child get?
Why are American women so happy to relinquish their bodies and their children to the establishment, beginning with birth and continuing through childhood, while we work to "have it all"? In the name of women's rights? Currently there is a resurgence of the political, somewhat feminist led, effort to improve the conditions for working mothers. Moms Rising, supported by Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, is making a lot of news. http://www.momsrising.com/. The Moms Rising campaign does not even mention birth, and so the mother's experience of giving birth, lying down and drugged is not part of the dialog of concerns for women -- even with media blaring about the increased cesarean rates and prematurity and US standing in infant mortality, about school violence, drug addiction, etc.
How a woman gives birth and how this experience affects a woman personally and in relationship to her child is not addressed in the MOMS Rising or in feminist theory. In fact, in the "feminist" efforts that are typically career, work, and child care focused, the concept of mother-baby attachment is attacked. It is done so vehemently by feminist writers attacking the scientific validity and a new dynamic is building -- a battle between natural birthers, stay-at-home, baby-wearing mamas and the professional, career woman who chooses induction or planned cesarean for personal scheduling reasons (CEO's, physicians, movie stars). Their newborn child is more likely to be cared by others beginning very early. These two opposite ends of the spectrum represent a truly small number of women. (Breastfeeding, thankfully, is spanning the spectrum). Many of us fall somewhere in between but we are bombarded with the expectations of the two extremes. No where along the spectrum is THE BABY and the baby's needs seen as primary. "Children our are greatest resource" is a great but hollow sentiment when one looks at what does the human being, a baby, a child, really need from those who bring him or her into the world and then sees how children really are treated.
Many, many, many infants are now in the care of others. Caring, compassionate people, of course, but they are not with a person who loves them. I was pregnant with GI Joe when I began to watch T. Barry Brazelton, MD on a cable show. He was so amazing with the babies -- I saw how present he was with the babies and with the mothers. I saw how present the babies were with him. One day he said something that changed me as a woman -- struggling with being the mother I wanted and to pursue my work as I wanted. I was beginning my MA program in June after my son's March birth. He said one day, that every baby needs to be in the care of someone who is ga-ga in love with that baby. I felt the truth of it in my body.
Truly, only a mother or father or grandparent is ga-ga in love with the baby. You know the love I am talking about -- the feeling of "I am wanna gobble you up" that comes from such intense feelings of connection that you feel you just can't be "one with" enough with the baby. You want to feel them inside you again. I made a choice to have him only with me or his father. I earned my MA in two years, part-time and in the evenings while his father a professional career person also sacrificed to be with him when I wasn't. It requires sacrifices, but what else better is there to sacrifice for? Looking back, which do I regret more -- not being a big-time career woman or not having enough time with my older children? Do I regret the size of my retirement fund or the idea of house payments til I die, or zero world-wide travel at my leisure? Sure, (anything can happen) but how could driving a Beemer instead of Hyundai or a Honda bring more happiness than the smile of my child, feeling my child in my arms and seeing his glowing eyes, or feeling the soft warmth of his cheek pressed against mine? Or watching her perform in her drama, or relay, or recital? Or, the moment etched in my heart -- homeschooling her in second grade and teaching her read, the feeling of this moment watching her read, and we were sitting side by side, each holding a side of the book and her left had resting on my bare leg. "I am teaching my baby to read." What a feeling and moment it was.
I had lunch with a friend who was the custodial parent for his daughter, now in her twenties. He is an accomplished singer and has jammed with many well-known musicians. He said his real pride and accomplishment is in raising her. We were lamenting those years of raising our young children and both feel sadness (and anger) at watching the treatment of children. We both have urges to exclaim to young parents to cherish every moment with your child, because the moment will be gone, never to be returned. Nature always has a way of healing -- parenting mistakes and regrets make for great grandparents, I understand. I have come to believe that women "can have it all, just not at the same time. (or a man who co-parents as a priority). I truly don't know any woman who is happy with her decision to focus on work and attainment of credentials, belongings, and status and at the end of life will wish she's worked more and spent less time with her children.
When a baby starts to learn how to move around by himself, he will only crawl alongside his mom at first. this is the first step to separating form the precious mother and moving independently. Even when he finally begins to walk, he will sometimes check to make sure his mother is in view, and will not stray very far away.
When he's a little bigger and capable of slightly more distance, he will soon come running back to get a hug from time to time. This is his way of affirming his sense of security and making sure he is being watched over.
Please hug your child tightly at these times. Your child may immediately feel reassured and attempt to run off happily again, but instead of releasing him immediately, hold him tightly for a brief moment more, perhaps until our child even has to tell you, "That's enough!" If you release him straight away, your child may think, "Oh, she has already let go," and feel ever so slight disappointed.
Or, I would suggest, possibly much more than "slightly disappointed." In observing a mother-child dyad I can see their attachment dynamic and it is a reflection of the baby's birth and the experience she or he had in coming to the mother from the womb. For example, a woman birthing by cesarean will have her arms tied down. Her baby is taken by strangers and very roughly handled -- to stimulate breathing because the umbilical cord is cut immediately and blood necessary for physiological breathing is left in the placenta. There is much fear in this experience for the baby. Biologically, the impulse and need is to be with the mother. The struggle for intimacy has begun. The choreography is in place. Their experience can be observed in day to day life.
This child may toddle over to the mother as if to need her and then as mother does or tries to reach to him, he jerks away, falls down, cries, and/or moves away. Or, if she doesn't respond and this makes baby push harder, or hit her. Does this relationship just magically begin in toddlerhood? No, that is unreasonable and illogical. The conception and gestation periods, and come together with the process of labor and birth to create a template. As early as the first hours of life, the baby may not be able to respond to the mother in the way her heart and head expect, and nor can she because of pain and drugs, disappointment and guilt. The newborn and mother who were separated begin to "act out" their experience and perceptions over and over until it becomes an unconscious dance.
When the child is experiencing something fearful or that triggers that early, preverbal memory -- going with a stranger, being left by the mother -- the baby reaches for the mother, but can't connect and can't say, "This FEELS just like ....". The mother may want to connect with her child, but other emotions arise (trauma emotions) and she can not physically respond the way her head wants to. She needs to go to work. She doesn't connect and say goodbye with her WHOLE heart. She does so with a broken, wounded heart. These cycle into repeating experiences of "come here, go away" dynamics. So, the "fussy" or "crying" or "belligerent" two year old who is scared may come to the mother and attempt to connect. He may refuse to look at her, say goodbye or to come to her. He may wail at her from across the room, or lash out at her. WE are taught in traditional medical and psychological training that these are not abnormal, even though our maternal feelings say otherwise.
The toddler is the child, the non-neocortex thinker and is expected to understand and respond. Meanwhile, the adult mother is wrought with emotion she tends to stuff, hide, and deny -- mostly to herself. The child behaves in the best way a two year knows how to do, based on his collective earlier experiences. A mother, the adult, does not understand why this is happening to her and her baby. Those in the business of caring for children don't know and rarely ever attribute it to early attachment issues. Feminists abhor it. Women refuse to believe that the epidural or csection had anything to do with it --- especially if she chose it for her reasons and needs. Her rights. She is also "in her stuff" and frustrations of daily life will respond out of stress in REACTION to the child's behavior. This triggers further emotions from the child. This is their dance. Later in life, we find "partners" who know our dance routine -- even if it feels miserable and our neocortex thinking brain wants the social model.
Eventually, every child will leave home of their own free will. Your children are only under your care for a brief and limited time in life. In a way, "parenting" can be summed up as the gradual process for a mother and child that have become very close.
For a mother in the throes of parenting, the days go by in a blur of rushed activity. There are no doubt many times when she wishes with a sigh that her children would grow up quickly and be able to take care of themselves. However, it is inevitable that children will leave home one day, and when that happens there will be no reverting to those former days spent inseparable with their mother.
Being able to press your cheek against the tender softness of your baby's is a special privilege reserved just for the parents/moms. No matter how hard parenting can seem at times, there will no doubt come a day when you nostalgically reflect upon this period as one of the best of your life. Enjoy and savor this precious time while it lasts.
Oh, mamas, am I here to tell you how true that is. One of my most joyful sensate experiences is to hug one of my children, and cheek to cheek to breathe in the smell of him or her. Oh, mama --- the last time I saw and hugged my GI Joe before he went off to officer training (expecting to see him before he deployed, but sadly, did not), we had that moment that the author speaks of. Hold him tightly for maybe one more brief moment or even until he says enough. I held him until he let go with one more breathe of taking him in and making eye contact with him before separation. THIS is SO what every mother and baby need at birth -- to feel and smell each other and to make eye contact before ANYONE interrupts them.
There is more to a close relationship than just physical hugging. Mothers need to hug their children with their whole heart.
Their WHOLE heart ... and, I wonder, how can a woman freely do that when her own heart has been broken -- by her own mother-daughter relationship, by a less than whole childhood, by wounding of her body and soul in birthing the baby. Our society has a responsibility to honor the HEART of a woman and honor that women are Life Givers, and that to believe and honor that is zero being anti-women's rights or anti-feminist. It is a woman who builds the baby and from whom whose body the baby comes -- that is nature and the way it is. To honor that as perhaps one of the most important contributions she makes zero negates her as a chemist, lawyer, engineer, nurse, teacher, artist, or cook or whatever she might do in the world. Life-giver, nurturer, professional, breadwinner, etc -- these are the parts of the self, part of her WHOLE that only she can connect. To do so, she needs safety, support, nurturance as a woman and a mother -- from her society.
It takes practice to be able to listen attentively to what your child wants to say. Small children don't have a big enough vocabulary, and may find it hard to adequately express themselves. Don't interrupt him or rush to finish his sentences for him, but take the time to listen carefully and embrace him with your heart.
THIS, is one of the key elements of prenatal and birth healing where a primary goal is to heal the breaks in the attachment process at birth.
page 69-71
This booklet is available from Sunmark Publishing, Inc., 2-16-11, Takadanobaba, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 169-0075 Japan. Tel: 81-3-5272-3157, fax: 81-3-5272-3117. Email: rights@sunmark.co.jp. http://wwww.sunmark.cojp/eng/
Thursday, March 22, 2007
An OB blogger is on a tear again ....
and banning people who attempt to have a real dialogue and debate about maternal childbirth care.
In November, I was banned five times from certain non-practicing OB's blog and now she is continuing to ban anyone who challenges her -- anyone with evidence to confront her is ridiculed and banned. She has left a wake of injured women -- those who attempt to share their own positive birth experiences with a midwife and at home are ridiculed and told, "It's simply not true; there is no scientific evidence to prove it." It is time for women and doctors to come together to create healthy, safe birth for women and babies. The science is clear that there needs to be a system that gives the responsiblity for birth to women and that supports-- no, insists on healthy, low risk women to either birth without drugs, interventions, or disruptions in the hospital environment or to birth at home with access to medical care.
Midwife, Maribeth has recently been banned and here is what she wanted to post in response to an attack on her previous post, a quality study that shows that midwifery care is safer for women and babies.
From the research that she posted: The cesarean section rate was 13% among women in the midwife group versus 34% in the physician group, a difference that also was not explained by health status alone. (The rates were 5.6% and 15.6% respectively after excluding women with preexisting chronic medical conditions.)
THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH to show that CESAREAN birth is safe and there is plenty to show that it is emotionally, physiologically, financially, and spiritually detrimental to the mother and baby. It is known to have serious respiratory, heart, and ear issues for the baby, as well as serious separation and attachment issues, all of which persist throughout the lifetime. It's 'bout time the OB's started showing care for the health of women and babies and led the way in creating safer, evidence-based hospital care, and providing homebirth women with respectful, caring, and quality medical care WHEN they need it. It's about time legislators intervened in money and peer-driven medical machine called maternal care. Why is that pregnant women, the consumers, must fight for what is right, logical, ethical, and scientific?
Maribeth:
And you still haven't answered the only question which continues to interest me, and that is why, on a personal level, homebirth/natural childbirth is SUCH an issue to you, why it makes you feel so angry and defensive and why you want to see it deconstructed and defeated. The answer to this question is at the very root of this blog. I beg you Amy to answer the question, and better yet, honestly. Saying that you're trying to provide information isn't good enough, because of course you could be dedicating your life to educating women about the risks of, say, episiotomies. (Which might offer you some emotional absolution for past wrongs). But why this issue? Frankly, why do you care what women do with their own vaginas?
In response to a negative response to:
Pilot Study Suggests Midwifery Care is Optimal for Moderate-Risk Women
Cragin L, Kennedy HP. (2006)
Linking obstetric and midwifery practice with optimal outcomes.
Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing, 35(6), 779-85. [Abstract]
Summary: This study compared the pregnancy, birth and postpartum care practices and outcomes experienced by 196 moderate-risk women receiving nurse midwifery care with those of 179 similar women receiving physician care in the same hospital-based faculty practice. Each woman was assigned an "Optimality Index - US" score, calculated from 40 variables measuring optimal health status, care practices and outcomes. A companion "Perinatal Background Index" (PBI) score that captured demographic and health history was also assigned. Together, the two scores provide a valid measure of the process and outcomes of care within the context of the clinical situation of the individual woman.Women in the midwife group had significantly higher optimality scores than women in the physician group (79% versus 70%). While some of this difference was attributable to differences in baseline medical risks (as measured by significant differences in PBI score), statistical analysis revealed that the provider type (i.e. midwife or physician) was twice as predictive of optimality scores. The cesarean section rate was 13% among women in the midwife group versus 34% in the physician group, a difference that also was not explained by health status alone. (The rates were 5.6% and 15.6% respectively after excluding women with preexisting chronic medical conditions.) In various statistical analyses, only type of provider accurately predicted cesarean rates in the two groups.Women in the midwife group were more likely to drink or eat (95% versus 80%), maintain mobility in labor (68% versus 28%), and use non-pharmacologic methods of pain relief (88% versus 51%). Epidural use was lower in the midwife group (31% versus 51%), as was use of any pharmacologic pain relief methods (64% versus 82%).
Significance for Normal Birth: Traditional measures of maternity care outcomes have focused on morbidity and mortality indicators. This approach has several drawbacks. In the United States morbidity and mortality are fortunately rare, so studies assessing these outcomes must be large in order to demonstrate significant differences. Furthermore, these "negative" indicators are poor measures of the effectiveness of care that is intended to promote "positive" outcomes like health and wellness in population experiencing a physiologically normal process.
The Optimality Index - US has emerged as an important new tool for measuring maternity care to capture both the process and outcomes of different styles of practice. In this and other studies, midwifery care has been associated with high optimality, demonstrating appropriate use of interventions and good outcomes given the individual women's clinical situations. Midwives are often assumed to care for only low-risk women but many midwives also care for women at moderate or high risk. This study finds that midwifery may be optimal for moderate risk population by promoting good outcomes with less reliance on technological and surgical intervention and a greater attention to the care practices that support normal birth.
Baby Keeper says:
NOW, let's look at what drugs, technology, and surgical interventions do to the baby!! It's the BABY's birth --- and the baby gets to live with the consequences for his or her life.
Baby Keeper: One who Keeps the Baby as the focus of the soul's journey of birthing into this world.
In November, I was banned five times from certain non-practicing OB's blog and now she is continuing to ban anyone who challenges her -- anyone with evidence to confront her is ridiculed and banned. She has left a wake of injured women -- those who attempt to share their own positive birth experiences with a midwife and at home are ridiculed and told, "It's simply not true; there is no scientific evidence to prove it." It is time for women and doctors to come together to create healthy, safe birth for women and babies. The science is clear that there needs to be a system that gives the responsiblity for birth to women and that supports-- no, insists on healthy, low risk women to either birth without drugs, interventions, or disruptions in the hospital environment or to birth at home with access to medical care.
Midwife, Maribeth has recently been banned and here is what she wanted to post in response to an attack on her previous post, a quality study that shows that midwifery care is safer for women and babies.
From the research that she posted: The cesarean section rate was 13% among women in the midwife group versus 34% in the physician group, a difference that also was not explained by health status alone. (The rates were 5.6% and 15.6% respectively after excluding women with preexisting chronic medical conditions.)
THERE IS NO SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH to show that CESAREAN birth is safe and there is plenty to show that it is emotionally, physiologically, financially, and spiritually detrimental to the mother and baby. It is known to have serious respiratory, heart, and ear issues for the baby, as well as serious separation and attachment issues, all of which persist throughout the lifetime. It's 'bout time the OB's started showing care for the health of women and babies and led the way in creating safer, evidence-based hospital care, and providing homebirth women with respectful, caring, and quality medical care WHEN they need it. It's about time legislators intervened in money and peer-driven medical machine called maternal care. Why is that pregnant women, the consumers, must fight for what is right, logical, ethical, and scientific?
Maribeth:
And you still haven't answered the only question which continues to interest me, and that is why, on a personal level, homebirth/natural childbirth is SUCH an issue to you, why it makes you feel so angry and defensive and why you want to see it deconstructed and defeated. The answer to this question is at the very root of this blog. I beg you Amy to answer the question, and better yet, honestly. Saying that you're trying to provide information isn't good enough, because of course you could be dedicating your life to educating women about the risks of, say, episiotomies. (Which might offer you some emotional absolution for past wrongs). But why this issue? Frankly, why do you care what women do with their own vaginas?
In response to a negative response to:
Pilot Study Suggests Midwifery Care is Optimal for Moderate-Risk Women
Cragin L, Kennedy HP. (2006)
Linking obstetric and midwifery practice with optimal outcomes.
Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing, 35(6), 779-85. [Abstract]
Summary: This study compared the pregnancy, birth and postpartum care practices and outcomes experienced by 196 moderate-risk women receiving nurse midwifery care with those of 179 similar women receiving physician care in the same hospital-based faculty practice. Each woman was assigned an "Optimality Index - US" score, calculated from 40 variables measuring optimal health status, care practices and outcomes. A companion "Perinatal Background Index" (PBI) score that captured demographic and health history was also assigned. Together, the two scores provide a valid measure of the process and outcomes of care within the context of the clinical situation of the individual woman.Women in the midwife group had significantly higher optimality scores than women in the physician group (79% versus 70%). While some of this difference was attributable to differences in baseline medical risks (as measured by significant differences in PBI score), statistical analysis revealed that the provider type (i.e. midwife or physician) was twice as predictive of optimality scores. The cesarean section rate was 13% among women in the midwife group versus 34% in the physician group, a difference that also was not explained by health status alone. (The rates were 5.6% and 15.6% respectively after excluding women with preexisting chronic medical conditions.) In various statistical analyses, only type of provider accurately predicted cesarean rates in the two groups.Women in the midwife group were more likely to drink or eat (95% versus 80%), maintain mobility in labor (68% versus 28%), and use non-pharmacologic methods of pain relief (88% versus 51%). Epidural use was lower in the midwife group (31% versus 51%), as was use of any pharmacologic pain relief methods (64% versus 82%).
Significance for Normal Birth: Traditional measures of maternity care outcomes have focused on morbidity and mortality indicators. This approach has several drawbacks. In the United States morbidity and mortality are fortunately rare, so studies assessing these outcomes must be large in order to demonstrate significant differences. Furthermore, these "negative" indicators are poor measures of the effectiveness of care that is intended to promote "positive" outcomes like health and wellness in population experiencing a physiologically normal process.
The Optimality Index - US has emerged as an important new tool for measuring maternity care to capture both the process and outcomes of different styles of practice. In this and other studies, midwifery care has been associated with high optimality, demonstrating appropriate use of interventions and good outcomes given the individual women's clinical situations. Midwives are often assumed to care for only low-risk women but many midwives also care for women at moderate or high risk. This study finds that midwifery may be optimal for moderate risk population by promoting good outcomes with less reliance on technological and surgical intervention and a greater attention to the care practices that support normal birth.
Baby Keeper says:
NOW, let's look at what drugs, technology, and surgical interventions do to the baby!! It's the BABY's birth --- and the baby gets to live with the consequences for his or her life.
Baby Keeper: One who Keeps the Baby as the focus of the soul's journey of birthing into this world.
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