The Other Side of the Glass

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

The trailer

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Ancedotal story about epidural disappears

An interesting post appeared and then disappeared on another blog today. Hmmmm. It was very much of interest to me as I just posted about CNM in Canada being certified to administer epidural. Have I mentioned lately that epidural anesthesia has never been shown to be SAFE for the birthing baby's brain? Nor, for the mother? In fact, it's been shown over and over and over to be detrimental physically to the mother and baby. Logical and science tell us it is detrimental emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually to the baby and in particular, in the mother-baby relationship.

Here's the post that later got removed by the doctor on her blog.

It's from an online acquaintance whose wife gave birth on Monday:

Water breaks Sunday at 11:55. We go to hospital at 2:30am. Contractions get bad about 2 pm. The give her an epidural. Babies heart rate drops, they get it going by shoving their hand up and tickling babies head. 1 hr later babies heart rate goes into the low 60s, should be 120-150. The can't get it to stay up. Rush in for emergency C-Section.


I get scrubbed up, go in sit on the stool beside her, she's crying, she's scared. They start cutting, she says it feel wrong (she's numb from the shoulders down from the epidural). They cut some more...the epidural didn't freeze her inside. She's screaming (blood curtling scream) in pain, then it gets even worse, she's sobbing now (too much pain to scream as they cut and dig through her abdomen). By the time the anesthesioligist gives her more drugs it's been 5 minutes and the baby is out, they're starting to put her back together.


Baby is fine, has a slice on her cheek from the scalpel and a cut in her head.

THERE'S THAT LINE THAT I HAVE POINTED OUT IN BIRTH STORIES TO RESEARCH!! "Baby is fine" --- and goes on "slice on her cheek and cut in her head." Are people really so clueless about the experience of the fully present and FEELING baby? The baby is a real person -- they feel pain even more acutely than we do. We have developed coping skills for pain. Lord o' mercy. The human baby who has never felt anything but soft touch and comfort is gripped by an adult hand and pushed and pulled and is sliced and diced during the most significant experience of her life -- that could be gentle and quiet and loving -- and "baby is fine?" #($&#(* ($#(*&&_@*#&!!! Once you REALLY get how fully sentient a baby is that phrase will make your blood boil too. AND, this -- "Women are only numb from the waist" and "baby doesn't remember." Sure. Everyone in the room is NUMB. The effect never wears off on a cellular level. Mother and baby are IMPAIRED --- JUST LIKE ANYONE ON NARCOTICS IS IMPAIRED. SIMPLE TRUTH.

They say they think the babies cord was being crushed...we find out later from a student nurse they gave her too much epidural (shoulders down should have been waist down) and that's what caused the heart problems.  

JANEL: LABORING AND BIRTH WOMEN AND BABIES ARE UNINFORMED, NON-CONSENTING SUBJECTS IN ONE LONG RESEARCH PROJECT. 

They then forget to give her a morphine shot 3 times, and then have to verify she's supposed to get it after being told in front of us. So no pain drugs for 4hrs...today they stop giving her pain medication at 8am without telling her (she's taking other pills so doesn't know they've stopped). 7pm the pain starts hard. Their excuse "you didn't ask for more".


Do I have statistics on how often this sort of thing happens? No. Do I care what the frequency is? No. If it happens to even one woman, it's one damn time too many. This woman will be traumatized, possibly for life, because she consented to an intervention which is, according to Amy, harmless.


THE WOMAN WILL BE TRAUMATIZED FOR LIFE? WHAT ABOUT THE BABY??? THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS FOREVER TRAUMATIZED --- and unless they engage in a therapeutic process to specifically deal with the BABY'S perceptions and needs they will have a relationship that will directly reflect this experience. Baby and mother were BOTH UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF NARCOTICS when the most basic, fundamental experience that defines their relationship took place. It doesn't just happen so dramatically to one dyad--- it happens every day, in 80% of all US births. It's about the MOTHER'S 'right to pain relief" and "maternal satisfaction" propaganda by the medical establishment that women fall prey to. It's keeps women numb, compliant, and coming back to the medicals for most of their mothering years. It leads statistically to csection and the only winner there is the physician and his Queen (the hospital -- doctors are the "worker bees" that bring in the honey).

How long are women (and their partners) going to swallow this BS -- and continue to put themselves and their babies in harms way? (Ever wonder where this meconium type statement came from? Swallowing feces when someone else is doing or saying something outrageous?)

10 comments:

Housefairy said...

I shudder.
I have 3 friends now who felt the entire c-section, by the way.

This one is just indescribable.

Housefairy said...

I shudder.
I have 3 friends now who felt the entire c-section, by the way.

This one is just indescribable.

Anonymous said...

Great blog! As for the deleted anecdote, I can see why she wouldn't want the story on her blog - it doesn't fit with her ludicrous, baseless claim of home births being more dangerous than hospital births. I've gone from being frustrated by her blog to being grateful that her blog exists, if only because it inadvertently makes the case for home birth, as long as people read the comments.

Anonymous said...

"Baby is fine" --- and goes on "slice on her cheek and cut in her head." Are people really so clueless about the experience of the fully present and FEELING baby? The baby is a real person -- they feel pain even more acutely than we do. We have developed coping skills"
'

Thank you Baby Keeper! The above sentence just really hit home to me.I've had 2 homebirths and feel like the luckiest woman in the world that I "get it", ya know? My heart goes out to that little baby and her mama.

Blasphemous Homemaker said...

My epidural also went bad and led to a c-section. The epidural got my lungs. It was the scariest feeling, and no one cared, no one listened when I said I couldn't breathe, no one offered any comfort or an explanation. Myson's heart rate plummeted to 55 and the doctor said he couldn't guarantee my baby wouldn't end up brain damaged. but since I couldn't breathe, I really wasn't in aposition to decide one way or the other.

Baby Keeper said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Baby Keeper said...

Alisaterry:
Thank you for sharing. I am very sorry that you and your baby had a such a frightening experience. I hope you are both doing well.

This is a good time for me to re-post resources for processing the experience.
www.infantparenthealing.com
www.beba.org
www.myrnamartin.com
www.emersonbirth.com

We all know that the mother and father in such a situation will need to tell their story over and over. That's how we humans TRY to deal with trauma but talk doesn't work so well to change it. What doesn't happen is that the baby gets to tell his story and be heard. So often, not even mother and father are truly heard -- you know, at that level of when someone FEELS our pain and acknowledges it. That is the level at which talk begins to help, but it still has to come from the body with a modality such as EFT (www.emofree.com), craniosacral, or massage, etc.

Most often when we do feel that someone really hears and "gets it" -- how we felt -- it is felt in the quiet connection, with deep eye contact and touch, without a lot of words, and the one sharing their pain "knows" the other understands and feels it. Rarely, do people know how to do this regarding the birth experience. And, rarely is an obstetrician or nurse available to even try to process it. And, not all midwives know this skill either.

We all know when someone gets our pain --- we are connected via our eyes and our felt sense in the body. Birth experiences are very ignored in general, but especially for the baby. What a baby needs -- whether four days or forty years --is that "FELT SENSE" in their body that the other (best if mother and father) "get it" -- how it was for him or her, the baby. And, I am talking about the joys and the fears and pains.

It is hard for a mother and father to do this with their baby when they are not getting it from the world and each other. However, a mother can hold her baby, and tell her story, recognizing that the baby will be physically and vocally responding to share his or her story. We need accurate reflection from our parents regarding our birth. "That must have been so terrifying for you" (when I was screaming, scared, when your heart rate dropped and then everything was a rush.) "I was scared. We can get past this together. I want to hear your story." And, then listen to the cries. Apologize. "I am so sorry I didn't know how it was for you." or "I will never let a stranger give you a shot when you are not ready to receive it." "I was so angry that I didn't get to hold you and they took you away." "I didn't know I had the right to bathe you myself, or wait for your cord to stop pulsing before it was cut."

On my website is a great story by a mother whose son had heart surgery. She does a great job of conveying how the therapy works.
http://www.itsthebabysbirth.com/praise/testimonial-e.htm. There is a lot on this site for mother's with questions, guilt, shame, and fear about what happened. I truly believe until we acknowledge that there are techniques -- very simple and efficient ones!!--- for healing the experience, people will continue to ignore the fact that the baby is fully present and affected for life. So, this is another opportunity and reminder for me to include this info for women who may be feeling very remorseful about their choices and experiences. My story about my daughter's induction and epidural and our healing is there. I know the process personally for healing the choices I made that harmed my baby, and the anger of being mislead by obstetrics. I have experienced releasing the drugs from my system, healing the pain in my back, healing my daughter's experience and how it was part of our relationship and her with her dad. I have participated in releasing the epidural drugs from the body of young babies and seen miracles, such as a fourteen month old girl rolling like a quadrapalegic crawling within days of her session. The effects of the drug stay with the mother and the baby.

Finally, I want to say, that every baby's birth needs to be honored, no matter what happened. Part of personality is established at birth. Our survival skills are established. Babies who experienced difficult and traumatic births who THEN HEAL with their parents are some of the most amazing humans I know. It IS the baby's birth. When we honor the baby's birth we are acknowledging the human on a very deep level, in the brain, the preverbal emotional brain. When we talk negatively about the baby's birth the baby "takes it personally" because our earliest part of our brain, the part on line during the last trimester, labor, birth, and first year of life, the Limbic system, is a critical part of who we are. It is preverbal and exists in emotions and feelings. It is very important when telling OUR perception and perspective of our baby's birth that we acknowledge(within us and verbally to our baby) that our baby's perspective is different. Not wrong. Her birth is not bad or traumatic or wrong. It's her birth. We need to remember baby is listening to us, and needing us to hear his or her story. OUR adult mother or father experience is NOT the baby's experience. The baby has her own and then hears over and over and over for years sometimes the parent's version, the parent's fears, angers, joys (not necessarily shared by the baby). One can heal a lot just by acknowledging this with their baby, and then listening to the cries and body language.

When I work with a baby and parents, as they tell their story, the newborn, infant, toddler, children acts out their story. A newborn will get into the position she or he was in when the mother is telling her perspective of the birth experience. In that very place mother and baby can share and hear each other and have the opportunity to have a difference experience. It heals the breaks in their relationship.

Women no longer then have to deny the experience they had in order to get through life. Neither does the baby.

So much more to share .....

Anonymous said...

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

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

Missouri Senator Louden Speaks

Finally, A Birth Film for Fathers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally, a birth film for fathers.

What People Are Saying About the FIlm

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

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

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

Father in Asheville, NC


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


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

Margaret, Columbia, MO

In case you don't find me here

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

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

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


www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com


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

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

Review of the film

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

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

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

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

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

Birth Trauma Healing

Ani DeFranco Speaks About Her Homebirth

"Self-Evident" by Ani DeFranco

Patrick Houser at www.Fatherstobe.org

Colin speaks out about interventions at birth

Dolphins