Senator Loudon: Language inserted to protect babies
Springfield New Leader
I supported tort reform and sponsored medical malpractice insurance reform so obstetricians would not leave Missouri because of high insurance costs. This and my desire to see babies born safely to Missouri families prompted my insertion of the midwifery and Down syndrome language into House Bill 818, recently signed by the Governor.
My wife and I prefer hospital births but find it shocking that Missouri is the only state where midwifery is a felony. I had strong majorities in the House and Senate for my bill ensuring licensure restrictions on midwifery. When one senator up for re-election filibustered at the behest of one lobbyist, thwarting the voice of the Legislature, we employed the constitutional measure allowed exactly for this purpose.
Over 90 percent of babies with Down syndrome are aborted, yet in January, ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) mandated its members suggest a Down syndrome test to all pregnant women. Columnist George Will called this a "search and destroy mission," which "borders on eugenics." Lobbyists obstructed my efforts to change these provisions.
Savvy lobbyists know it is easy to kill a bill. You only need to buy one senator's filibuster. This is an abuse of the process. So, when trying to create a new freedom in the face of that filibuster, there are few choices. You can compromise. We did that. You can negotiate with fellow Senators. We did that. In the end, when there is no dialogue from the other side, constitutionally there is one option, which we exercised.
I inserted language in HB 818 to counter their "search and destroy" mission against babies with Down syndrome, and to de-felonize midwifery. It seems inconsistent that ACOG would attack the midwifery language but not the Down syndrome language, while attempting to strip both from the same bill.
All of the outrage is based on about 30 women delivering babies in a birthing clinic or home, to 1-3% of families at the most (based on other states' data). Why should we let ACOG hold the monopoly in Missouri? They have failed to prove their case with raw data, so they have resorted to fear mongering. Seeing through this, senators voted overwhelmingly (21-11) for midwifery, despite lobbyist rhetoric.
Now, Missouri women, not the state, decide where to deliver their babies. Mothers carrying babies with Down syndrome will have full information (high false-positive rates, resources available, adoption) before making critical choices.
My hope was that de-felonizing midwifery would bring ACOG lobbyists to the table to create a law that works for both sides. ACOG prefers to make midwifery a felony again.
Instead of civil debate, the medical groups have chosen the uncivil course of filing a lawsuit which the taxpayers will have to defend.
In a perfect world, one senator would not serve a narrow special interest and block the will of 21 and another Senator would not resort to maneuvering around him in pursuit of freedom. Until the.
This is also personal to me. Our baby, Robert, hospital birthed by an OB, would not be here but for the pre-natal suggestion of a midwifery advocate regarding an undiagnosed clotting disorder that caused three prior miscarriages. We also adopted a precious little boy with Down syndrome, Samuel, and we are passionate about his right to be alive. I think all Missourians should have the access I had. ACOG's lawsuit may block that.
Published Saturday, July 14, 2007
http://www.news-leader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/articleAID=/20070714/OPINIONS02/707140325/1006/OPINIONS
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
A tearful day
I responded to a dear friend who wrote kinds words of support today. She lost her beautiful daughter four years ago.
Thanks, Sista.
I know you get it. Over time I came to articulate that it is sort of like when a family has a baby in NICU or a child missing. We know where they are and fear the worst and then the element of how wrong it is and our child is doing it, participating in it. His soul has a mission and I totally support that. I am in awe of him sometimes and the shared journey of ours. I saw him come in at conception and he was so dear and cherished. So awesome. So much anguish is from the time of his early teens when Mario was so brutal to me and I was "hiding" it and our relationship, from the ga-ga begining to the abuse, harmed Joe. FORGIVENSESS ... knowing HE chose ME for whatever his purpose. He is a loved, cherished, and cared for being. I am curious about WHO he will be when he returns. How will he be and his thinking ... what will he be led to do? WHAT is HIS role in this? Looking back at his articulations as a child becoming a man, he was so about the world changes. The Warrior Soul.... the GENTLE warrior ... clearly, Mario (soul level) was part of Joe's plan.
The hard part is like when you were with Rachel in ICU ... the waiting for the prognosis ... that part is part of this. WHAT, when, how .. will he be ok? Survive .. keep limbs, vision, brain? We he live his life like so many VN vets? Last year this time I wrote him a "love letter" when I realized he was going AWOL on me --- I am, had to be, as I am sure you considered, inspite of your premonition, of the possibility of caring for a disabled child for the rest of life.
It's also a bit like parents who know their child is abducted or a runaway (as Joe chose this) -- the "just can't get to him or stop anything or protect him" part of it. If only all of these people in between me and him --- from the Guard Family Assistance people who have direct contact with the redeployment who can have direct contact with him or his commander to the Alaska television journalist who was embedded in Joe's unit and SAW him, to my senators, to congress, to the Pres --- would do something. It's like sitting in NICU day after day and NO ONE seems to see or notice that I am unable to function wholey. I can't (Couldn't) take care of my basic needs.
I think often of the mother of the young woman who disappeared in Aruba last year. She was a maniac to some in her vicious vigilance. I totally get it --- I FEEL it on the inside. A mother does not stop her innate, physiological response to her child in danger. I imagine my eighty year old grandmother still feeling this way about her sixty year old son. I think of the next forty years (I plan to be at least ninety when I finish up my own mission here). I think of Joe being in the military for the next tweny years. Will this SCREAM -- the physiological response stuck in my gut -- EVER stop? How does the mother of that young woman or the parents of the two US soldiers MIA ever breathe? Or, the families of the men and women who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq .. or anywhere for any reason?
I haven't cried for about three weeks. Yesterday and today I am teary. I sent a birthday package that had come back, and a new one with ten dozen cookies. Enroute to the PO I heard Diane Reams on the radio speaking with soldiers sharing their experiences. I sat listening in the parking lot to a very articulate man in the same rank as my son. He spoke of his experiences of going into Iraqi homes and terrorizing them, ah, I mean interrogating them. How do people hear believe that all of the terror is out there and directed at poor little ole us who have seventy percent of the world's resources? I wondered how is my son't experience of the the war affecting him? The boy conceived and raised by a rabblerousing, grassroots, anti-stupid rules naturalist hippie and a conscientious objector in VN gone to prison for five months instead of going to war -- who came to admire Colin Powell as his hero-- WHO will he be when he comes home?
I imagine he'll come home and like others in his generation to whom this world now belongs, fallen in on them, will have fix this mess. My imagination and hope that sustains me some days is that he will come home to the next phase of the unfolding of his soul's journey - MY HERO, who will know in his soul and his bones (because of genetics and upbrinign) how to go about creating peace and equality in the world. I am so proud of him.
Tears are falling now. I would give anything to hear my son's voice, see his face, and nuzzle in his neck taking his scent into every cell of me.
Thanks, Sista.
I know you get it. Over time I came to articulate that it is sort of like when a family has a baby in NICU or a child missing. We know where they are and fear the worst and then the element of how wrong it is and our child is doing it, participating in it. His soul has a mission and I totally support that. I am in awe of him sometimes and the shared journey of ours. I saw him come in at conception and he was so dear and cherished. So awesome. So much anguish is from the time of his early teens when Mario was so brutal to me and I was "hiding" it and our relationship, from the ga-ga begining to the abuse, harmed Joe. FORGIVENSESS ... knowing HE chose ME for whatever his purpose. He is a loved, cherished, and cared for being. I am curious about WHO he will be when he returns. How will he be and his thinking ... what will he be led to do? WHAT is HIS role in this? Looking back at his articulations as a child becoming a man, he was so about the world changes. The Warrior Soul.... the GENTLE warrior ... clearly, Mario (soul level) was part of Joe's plan.
The hard part is like when you were with Rachel in ICU ... the waiting for the prognosis ... that part is part of this. WHAT, when, how .. will he be ok? Survive .. keep limbs, vision, brain? We he live his life like so many VN vets? Last year this time I wrote him a "love letter" when I realized he was going AWOL on me --- I am, had to be, as I am sure you considered, inspite of your premonition, of the possibility of caring for a disabled child for the rest of life.
It's also a bit like parents who know their child is abducted or a runaway (as Joe chose this) -- the "just can't get to him or stop anything or protect him" part of it. If only all of these people in between me and him --- from the Guard Family Assistance people who have direct contact with the redeployment who can have direct contact with him or his commander to the Alaska television journalist who was embedded in Joe's unit and SAW him, to my senators, to congress, to the Pres --- would do something. It's like sitting in NICU day after day and NO ONE seems to see or notice that I am unable to function wholey. I can't (Couldn't) take care of my basic needs.
I think often of the mother of the young woman who disappeared in Aruba last year. She was a maniac to some in her vicious vigilance. I totally get it --- I FEEL it on the inside. A mother does not stop her innate, physiological response to her child in danger. I imagine my eighty year old grandmother still feeling this way about her sixty year old son. I think of the next forty years (I plan to be at least ninety when I finish up my own mission here). I think of Joe being in the military for the next tweny years. Will this SCREAM -- the physiological response stuck in my gut -- EVER stop? How does the mother of that young woman or the parents of the two US soldiers MIA ever breathe? Or, the families of the men and women who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq .. or anywhere for any reason?
I haven't cried for about three weeks. Yesterday and today I am teary. I sent a birthday package that had come back, and a new one with ten dozen cookies. Enroute to the PO I heard Diane Reams on the radio speaking with soldiers sharing their experiences. I sat listening in the parking lot to a very articulate man in the same rank as my son. He spoke of his experiences of going into Iraqi homes and terrorizing them, ah, I mean interrogating them. How do people hear believe that all of the terror is out there and directed at poor little ole us who have seventy percent of the world's resources? I wondered how is my son't experience of the the war affecting him? The boy conceived and raised by a rabblerousing, grassroots, anti-stupid rules naturalist hippie and a conscientious objector in VN gone to prison for five months instead of going to war -- who came to admire Colin Powell as his hero-- WHO will he be when he comes home?
I imagine he'll come home and like others in his generation to whom this world now belongs, fallen in on them, will have fix this mess. My imagination and hope that sustains me some days is that he will come home to the next phase of the unfolding of his soul's journey - MY HERO, who will know in his soul and his bones (because of genetics and upbrinign) how to go about creating peace and equality in the world. I am so proud of him.
Tears are falling now. I would give anything to hear my son's voice, see his face, and nuzzle in his neck taking his scent into every cell of me.
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Homebirth Attended by Amish midwife
I attended a birth on July 4th. You guessed it; of course, it was a homebirth. I s'posed that the baby might be one of the very few babies born on the holiday during 2007. Most of the babies due anywhere near were induced in order to have the holiday free. Imagine what havoc the Wednesday holiday created for obstetricians --- getting births in on Monday and Tuesday. I bet that was tricky. Do you suppose that they just induced the week before to make sure the weekend was free as well? You can go to your local hospital website and track births. I started doing that two years ago when my cousin's son had a baby in St Louis, MO. My mother couldn't pull up the picture and I was helping her. DAMN!!! I noticed immediately no babies on the 4th and a spike in the days before. I got to looking and DAMN! again! BIG drop in the numbers of birth on Saturday and Sunday and every holiday. *#($(& $(&#(* (*#&(*. Makes me angry to think about how obstetricians are given free license to do whatever they want even when the science shows the danger and consequences to women and babies (induction, then the needed epidural ANESTHESIA, and then surgical births they lead to.) I wonder how NICU census numbers range near holidays.
ANYWAY, back to sweeter things ..... the homebirth I attended. Baby number four. Second homebirth. The first two were cesarean births. (I could get into that, but will save it.) The midwife for the birth was an Amish midwife who was two hours away. I was seventy some miles. The baby was "over due" and not much happening. The mother woke in labor about 6:30 am and she called me by 7. I headed out about 8 ish to drive the 78 mile trip. I arrived about eight minutes before the baby was born at 9:30 am, and the midwife was about four minutes behind me.
No one answered the door and I crept in quietly, whispering, "Haaalllooo." Grandma stuck her head out of the bathroom and said, "We're in transition!" I was unwrapping video camera cords as I approached. I looked in and thought, "Ah, you are way past transition." Baby's head was crowning. Grandma said, in a panic now, "Have you been to a birth before?" I was there to video the birth for my documentary AND to support the baby and mom to have minimal disruptions and to do the self-attachment sequence. She said, "I don't know if this is normal -- I have never seen it from this end." (She did two homebirths too.) I noticed that it was only the dad sitting on the side of the tub supporting the mother, and the grandma. No midwife. A flushed and relieved and now-panick feeling Grandmother moved aside for me to "take over." I was still fumbling with the camera cord and my camera battery seemed uncharged. The father said the electricity had gone out. As I put the camera aside, I said to the grandmother, "It is, (normal). She's crowning." To the mother I said, "You're doing great. I see baby's head. " To Grandma I asked, "Do you have gloves?" My fleeting thought was a plan to support the mother to catch her own baby and to get ready to activate a transport. I was grateful I'd taken neonatal resuscitation certification with Karen Strange in January and had just reviewed it. Country birth. Amish midwife. Seemed like a good thing to do. I was more grateful it wasn't necessary.
In that couple of minutes, between the crowning head contraction and the next one that pushed baby out, while I was thinkin' 'bout what to do about no gloves (and blood and fecal matter), the midwife arrived. She walked into the bathroom, pulling on her gloves. I moved to the side by grandma who had moved aside for me. The midwife leaned down between us and the tub (like we were playing Twister -- bathrooms aren't made for five people and one birthing a baby) and she caught the baby. Easily. Peacefully. Gently. It could not have been orchestrated more perfectly and beautifully if we'd tried it. Minutes, literally. If I had stopped along the way to go to the bathroom, or if I'd gotten behind a slow vehicle, or if I'd hit the lights wrong going through town, or stopped to talk with my friend when I dropped off something to her, I would have missed it. Three hours of labor were basically transition. I left about six hours later and I went to my fourth of July party.
That night my father was transported two hours by ambulance from the rural area in other direction to Columbia. Rural Missourians have next to zero options for ANY kind of medical care, birth to elderly. Today I finally got to have a long talk with the happy, rested mama. I told her (I'd been awed by this thought) that her baby is the least traumatized human being I have ever seen. She was so well cared for in the first hours of her life, and in a quiet environment where no one hurt her. She did cry and cry for twenty minutes, and I believe it was about the pressure on her head. Going fast is very painful for the baby.
She had not one sonogram, or vaginal check, or monitoring between contractions. No shots, no scrubbing or bath. Weighing done at one hour just before the midwife left . Otherwise, baby in mama, daddy, or Grandma's arms, and mine briefly in the first minutes of her life. Only people the mother trusts and chose. I held her briefly during the first moments of her life while the mother repositioned herself on her knees, then to support self-attachment, and to carry her to the other room where mother wanted to sit after two hours. Baby's head was not constantly poked and prodded as in a birth I attended recently at home where baby was monitored in between every contraction. So disrupted. Why? Because the doctor has to document and protect herself. Not from the parents necessarily, but from the system that will go after her should anything happen. The mother held the baby while she was still on her knees, holding her, talking to her, touching her .... what she wanted that she'd missed in the first births. She held the baby below the level of the placenta -- just as Dr. Morley says is optimal (http://www.cordclamp.com/). When the cord was cut it was white -- indicating transfer of blood and cessation of pulsing. The midwife was holding the baby. The father softly said, "Give her to me" and the midwife did immediately. It was SO BEAUTIFUL --- SO the way it is supposed to be. Isabella is HIS daughter. It's his home, and mama is his wife. There was zero resistance from the midwife. She trusted the woman's body to care for the baby during labor and birth, and she trusts a father to care for his baby in the first minutes of life. There is nothing like seeing this.
Later when the electricity was back on I got video of him cleaning the bathroom and working in the kitchen. It was amazing to watch -- he was instinctual. While mama and baby cuddled, touched, and nursed he would go do caretaking chores --- getting the laundry started, making food. He was circle around and check on his baby and wife. It was like watching the male of an animal species caring for his baby and partner.
Welcome to the world, little one, little Isabella. She is so cute. She did self attach by the way. She did it her way and in her timing, of course. Self-attachment is so awesome to watch. The baby at the previous birth I videotapped also got to self-attach. I stopped the midwife from interfering -- the baby was crying and struggling, as they do and are supposed to. Baby and mother, just like in labor and birth, interacting together. It's ok for the baby to struggle with soft, gentle guidance and support from mother -- to attach at her breast. Welcome, Phoenix. Sweet, amazing baby.
So cool. SO COOL.
ANYWAY, back to sweeter things ..... the homebirth I attended. Baby number four. Second homebirth. The first two were cesarean births. (I could get into that, but will save it.) The midwife for the birth was an Amish midwife who was two hours away. I was seventy some miles. The baby was "over due" and not much happening. The mother woke in labor about 6:30 am and she called me by 7. I headed out about 8 ish to drive the 78 mile trip. I arrived about eight minutes before the baby was born at 9:30 am, and the midwife was about four minutes behind me.
No one answered the door and I crept in quietly, whispering, "Haaalllooo." Grandma stuck her head out of the bathroom and said, "We're in transition!" I was unwrapping video camera cords as I approached. I looked in and thought, "Ah, you are way past transition." Baby's head was crowning. Grandma said, in a panic now, "Have you been to a birth before?" I was there to video the birth for my documentary AND to support the baby and mom to have minimal disruptions and to do the self-attachment sequence. She said, "I don't know if this is normal -- I have never seen it from this end." (She did two homebirths too.) I noticed that it was only the dad sitting on the side of the tub supporting the mother, and the grandma. No midwife. A flushed and relieved and now-panick feeling Grandmother moved aside for me to "take over." I was still fumbling with the camera cord and my camera battery seemed uncharged. The father said the electricity had gone out. As I put the camera aside, I said to the grandmother, "It is, (normal). She's crowning." To the mother I said, "You're doing great. I see baby's head. " To Grandma I asked, "Do you have gloves?" My fleeting thought was a plan to support the mother to catch her own baby and to get ready to activate a transport. I was grateful I'd taken neonatal resuscitation certification with Karen Strange in January and had just reviewed it. Country birth. Amish midwife. Seemed like a good thing to do. I was more grateful it wasn't necessary.
In that couple of minutes, between the crowning head contraction and the next one that pushed baby out, while I was thinkin' 'bout what to do about no gloves (and blood and fecal matter), the midwife arrived. She walked into the bathroom, pulling on her gloves. I moved to the side by grandma who had moved aside for me. The midwife leaned down between us and the tub (like we were playing Twister -- bathrooms aren't made for five people and one birthing a baby) and she caught the baby. Easily. Peacefully. Gently. It could not have been orchestrated more perfectly and beautifully if we'd tried it. Minutes, literally. If I had stopped along the way to go to the bathroom, or if I'd gotten behind a slow vehicle, or if I'd hit the lights wrong going through town, or stopped to talk with my friend when I dropped off something to her, I would have missed it. Three hours of labor were basically transition. I left about six hours later and I went to my fourth of July party.
That night my father was transported two hours by ambulance from the rural area in other direction to Columbia. Rural Missourians have next to zero options for ANY kind of medical care, birth to elderly. Today I finally got to have a long talk with the happy, rested mama. I told her (I'd been awed by this thought) that her baby is the least traumatized human being I have ever seen. She was so well cared for in the first hours of her life, and in a quiet environment where no one hurt her. She did cry and cry for twenty minutes, and I believe it was about the pressure on her head. Going fast is very painful for the baby.
She had not one sonogram, or vaginal check, or monitoring between contractions. No shots, no scrubbing or bath. Weighing done at one hour just before the midwife left . Otherwise, baby in mama, daddy, or Grandma's arms, and mine briefly in the first minutes of her life. Only people the mother trusts and chose. I held her briefly during the first moments of her life while the mother repositioned herself on her knees, then to support self-attachment, and to carry her to the other room where mother wanted to sit after two hours. Baby's head was not constantly poked and prodded as in a birth I attended recently at home where baby was monitored in between every contraction. So disrupted. Why? Because the doctor has to document and protect herself. Not from the parents necessarily, but from the system that will go after her should anything happen. The mother held the baby while she was still on her knees, holding her, talking to her, touching her .... what she wanted that she'd missed in the first births. She held the baby below the level of the placenta -- just as Dr. Morley says is optimal (http://www.cordclamp.com/). When the cord was cut it was white -- indicating transfer of blood and cessation of pulsing. The midwife was holding the baby. The father softly said, "Give her to me" and the midwife did immediately. It was SO BEAUTIFUL --- SO the way it is supposed to be. Isabella is HIS daughter. It's his home, and mama is his wife. There was zero resistance from the midwife. She trusted the woman's body to care for the baby during labor and birth, and she trusts a father to care for his baby in the first minutes of life. There is nothing like seeing this.
Later when the electricity was back on I got video of him cleaning the bathroom and working in the kitchen. It was amazing to watch -- he was instinctual. While mama and baby cuddled, touched, and nursed he would go do caretaking chores --- getting the laundry started, making food. He was circle around and check on his baby and wife. It was like watching the male of an animal species caring for his baby and partner.
Welcome to the world, little one, little Isabella. She is so cute. She did self attach by the way. She did it her way and in her timing, of course. Self-attachment is so awesome to watch. The baby at the previous birth I videotapped also got to self-attach. I stopped the midwife from interfering -- the baby was crying and struggling, as they do and are supposed to. Baby and mother, just like in labor and birth, interacting together. It's ok for the baby to struggle with soft, gentle guidance and support from mother -- to attach at her breast. Welcome, Phoenix. Sweet, amazing baby.
So cool. SO COOL.
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