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

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Babies faces -- we wash them too much, and with chemicals

I love this letter I get from this fellow and am posting it in full.

I was reminded of my teenage years when I decided to wash my face multiple times a day to improve my skin. My complection was clear and I got many compliments on it but decided I wanted it even better. My skin broke out! and so I went back to my routine of soap and water morning and night -- if I remembered. My grandmother had given me cod liver oil to take for my skin --- she knew. I have never used a lot of cremes and makeup and didn't blow dry my hair. My younger sister who did looks older than me. I always wondered about that.

I am also reminded of another natural way that we mamas have for washing our baby's faces, especially in a pinch when nothing is available -- our saliva. My older daughter absolutely hated that as she got older. She will be thirty in November and so this was waaaaaaaay before the days of "wet ones".

By the way, I know a brilliant, mother Earth mama who used old receiving blankets and made her own "wet ones" with natural indredients. I scratch my head and say, "Wow, and a wet washcloth used to do the job just fine, and it was Earth friendly too." We just keep evolving into such "civilized" beings -- and, but, what is the cost to the planet?

I suppose that for eons now, since women have been giving birth, that they knew all of the ways that they could use their body to care for their babes. I wonder what women did when water was not immediately available? Don't we all still do that sometimes? Babies were rescusitated by mouth. Women today can't even imagine it -- we're so evolved. It seems so gross to me now, but did women clean up burps by mouth and what about the other end? Sorry ... but, I do think about such things. How did women do it? Is there a reason that breast milk poop is not offensive?

So ... here's the letter.
LJMM
Babykeeper

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The Good Life Letter
9th September 2007

Dear janel,
Did you know that WE may be increasing the cases of eczema in British society…

…because we wash our babies too often?

Bless poor Mums and Dads these days. Terrified by scary ‘EVIL GERMS’ adverts into scrubbing their tots to oblivion in boiling water every night.

But it could be true….

The number of kids suffering from skin conditions like eczema has doubled in a generation. A scary 35% of babies suffer from sore, flaking and itchy skin.

Around 25 ago this figure was 17%.

This is not as widely reported as it should be. But it’s a growing theory. Even the bloke off This Morning – Dr Chris Steele – claims that these sorts of stats could owe much to the over-washing of babies.The reason?

Well, a child’s skin is delicate, and the skin needs time to strengthen of its own volition. So it’s no surprise that over-cleaning is going to cause damage.

Especially with modern soaps and lotions.And it’s not only children….Over 5% of adults in the UK now have eczema, which involves red, dry, itchy skin… lumps, blisters and weeping sores.

Many experts believe a lot of it is down to our crazed dependence on the artificial cleaning agents, solvents, detergents, oils and other gunk.

Again, this wouldn’t surprise me at all.

But before you run screaming for cover at another Collins outburst…. I don’t want to get into a rant about the perils and pitfalls of modern living… not today at least.

I want to offer your a few specific, NATURAL ways to help avoid – and ease – skin problems like eczema.
Because as sufferers will already know, the side-effects of conventional drugs can be worse than eczema itself.Steroids can cause muscle wasting, weight gain, osteoporosis, poor immune system, ulcers, high blood pressure and glaucoma.

And while antihistamine drugs can reduce inflammation, they can also make you drowsy.They key for a long term solution is to find natural ways to correct your body’s metabolism so that it tackles the root of the problem.

In short, let’s see if you can help give your body the tools it needs to clear up the problem for itself.
3 supplements to help fight the symptoms of eczema

First up. Try out supplements of essential fatty acids. They are said to bring you relief of eczema symptoms.
For instance, a study in Denmark showed a 58% success rate in treating patients with fish oil supplements over a 4 month period.

Even better, eat oily fish like mackerel as part of your diet. They’re packed with Omega-3 and also vitamin D, which is good for the skin.

Upping your weekly fish quota is not such a struggle to do either… (unless the slightest whiff of mackerel causes you to erupt into the nearest wheelie bin.)

I recommend smoked mackerel and scrambled eggs for breakfast 3 times a week. Absolutely delicious.

Fish oils can also reduce levels of leukotriene B4, an inflammatory substance that has been linked to eczema.
In one trial I’ve seen reported, the results were amazing. In the test group, 73% of eczema sufferers who were given fish oil saw improvement after just 12 weeks.

There’s also Zinc….

It helps make the enzymes involved in your fatty acid metabolism. And it helps your stomach produce hydrochloric acid.

Oysters contain more zinc per serving than any other food, but red meat and poultry are good sources too.
Or, if you’re vegetarian, pumpkin seeds are the most concentrated source of zinc outside meat products.
Also try dairy products, beans and lentils, yeast, nuts, seeds and wholegrain cereals.

A useful FREE resource for you

If you have a serious skin problem here’s a non-profit organisation for you to turn to.

They’re called the Skin Care Campaign, an umbrella organisation for British people with skin diseases. It’s a subsidiary of the National Eczema Society, a registered charity.

Write to this address:
Hill HouseHighgate HillLondon N19 5NA

Or check out their FREE website:
http://www.skincarecampaign.org/

In my opinion, the only problem with sites like these is that they tend to offer only conventional medicinal treatments. I’d much prefer to see a whole range of treatments offered..

For people who’ve been failed by the treatments they’ve tried already, where’s the lifeline?

That said they do give you support, champion your cause and a network to rely on, which is a good thing in my opinion.

And offering you information on alternatives, so you can be empowered to make you own choices is what services like The Good Life Letter are here for.

Or, you can try great handbooks like this… which I love.

No, this isn’t for eczema, but another skin condition I’ve had a tonne of email about recently…

Hope for psoraisis sufferers

If you or your loved ones have psoriasis, here’s a great handbook. It shows you all the conventional treatments… AND the alternative options, too. What causes psoriasis and a range of tips to help treat the symptoms Revealed!



  • The factors that increase your risk, including stress and worry
  • Lifestyle changes that can help including food and drink you should avoid.
  • Possible serious complications that could put your at risk
  • The low-down on new medicines your doctor may prescribe
  • Natural homeopathic remedies that really work
  • The key ingredient in the Eskimo diet that keeps them psoriasis-free
  • An effective, little known treatment that has helped thousands
  • Helpful addresses for psoriasis sufferers

You’ll also learn from actual case histories of psoriasis sufferers and how they treated their agonisingsymptoms and now successfully keep psoriasis at bay.

Go and take a look at it here:
www.psoriasisbook.co.uk/index.php?pac=GLL97

I hope some of this helps you. I’ll keep looking out for more resources, research and natural remedies

Yours as ever,
Ray Collins

The Good Life Letter

"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