More Truth About Cesaran Deliveries -- From the Baby's Perspective

I like to post comments I recieve on previous posts. "The Truth About Cesarean Deliveries (C-Sections) was a post by Heather a year ago.

Leavinglascrunchy has left a new comment on your post "The Truth About Cesarean Deliveries (C-Sections)":

While I agree with you that there are many risks involved in having a csection, there are also very valid reasons for having a csection. Each mom has to weigh in the risks of having a csection against the risks of waiting or not having one. I went into labor with my son early due to placental abruption. My son went into distress when I was about 8 cm dilated and they had to get him out quickly. In my case, I think the risks of doing nothing outweighed the risks of having a csection. Of course, I don't think that all csections are medically necessary but I think that doctors and patients can work together to decide when the benefits of having a csection outweigh the risks involved.

Of course, this is one of the few true emergencies and reasons for a cesarean delivery. I don't know anyone who debates that.

This is another opportunity for me to point out the main purpose of this blog --- to bring awareness to the needs and human rights of the human baby. EVEN when cesarean birth is done for medically necessary reasons, it is disruptive to the baby on the physiological, psychological, emotional, and spiritual levels. I know this will make many a woman rise up in anger to defend her child. That's a natural and normal, and desirable response. It still remains a fact that is logical, emotional, and scientific -- that the baby, child, or adult born by cesarean was disrupted and wounded. Disruption is a wounding. It has consequences. Long term consequences. Only one hundred years from now with the magnitude of that be known as common sense. People will look back and shake their heads at what humanity was doing to their newborn.

The baby born by cesarean doesn't get the lung compression needed to physiologically expel fluid and become an air breathing being. And, if the cesarean was done without labor, the baby didn't get the necessary compression of the scull and brain. Of course, vaginal birth is challenging; apparently, it was meant to be. However, it was not meant to be as challenging as it is made to be in modern hospitals. Every mammal is born this way. Pitocin induced labor is brutal and likely to be damaging to the baby, but undrugged birth is unlikely to be brutal.

It is a miracle that women are able to give birth at all when one considers the conditions that every other mammal requires and seeks out. A mama cat will typically not give birth even around her trusted humans. Women in hospitals give birth under the most dire, invasive conditions.

During a cesarean birth the baby is pulled through an opening that is not larger than the cervical opening -- partly to minimize damage to the mother's uterus and to minimize her scar. That is very important these days and it is part of the "maternal choice" movement that feigns feminism and women's rights. A woman has "a right" to choose to labor "under the influence" of narcotics and to expose her birthing baby to Fentanyl, a very dangerous synthetic opiod. It is used to counter the effects of the "caine" family drugs used.

Often forceps are used with ceserean birth -- see Anna Nicole Smith's video. An obstetrician who is foremost a surgeon, pulls the baby through very quickly with whatever body part presents ... arm, hip, shoulder, head. OR, she/he reaches in and moves the baby. Talk about pain and intrusion. This is baby's FIRST TOUCH. It imprints a message in the brain about touch, this world, people and lots of things. The mainstream research in multiple fields, including prenatal life and postnatal period tells us that the laboring and birthing baby's brain is as astute and experience and development is as critical as before and after birth. The brain is taking it in.

Many major universities have research lab and experts who are researching the prenatal period and how the prenate learns and interacts with the environment and how this IS the WAY in which the baby's brain is developed. Other major universities have infant labs that study the first hours to weeks to months of life and how the newborn human is aware and learning. It is ILlogical then that this society continues to promote that the human laboring and birthing human baby is not also engaging with the environment and making decisions, responding, and imprinting on a PRE-verbal and NON-verbal level of development.

So, every single word said, feeling felt, action taken by ANYONE in the environment of the laboring and birthing mother and baby is felt by both and their systems will react and respond, learn and grow, or survive and protect. The baby feels what the mother feels as well as what she or he himself feels. We know this about the prenatal baby and we know this about the newborn.
Physiologically, the baby is experiencing separation from the mother and will in a short but profoundly critical time of development, become a separate physiological being. Everything done during labor and birth has a physiological, emotional, psychological, and spiritual impact on the baby.

The separation from the mother and the placenta is a profound change for the baby. During cesarean birth the baby's cord is cut immediately and the baby will begin life outside the womb with up to 50% loss of blood volume. The cesarean born child has two major disruptions of a process designed by nature to ensure a healthy being. BECAUSE of the lack of compression on the chest and BECAUSE of the extreme blood loss, the baby must be forced to breath with fluid still in the lungs. It is well-known that cesarean born children have breathing and asthma issues, yet cesarean is still promoted as "safe" and even more desirable by many, especially doctors, emissaries of the medical and pharmaceutical systems.

While fluid in the lungs and minus their blood intended to start their lungs to breath air, cesarean born babies have to be stimulated to breath. In any other situation, this treatment of a newborn would be seen as at least painful, if not abusive by observers. I attended a surgical birth where the baby's skin on his chest was rubbed off by the neonatal doctor and this baby was doing well for a surgical birth.

During this process, separated from his or her mother, the baby is surrounded by masked and gloved strangers who are doing something that is violating and abusive. It is. It doesn't matter to the baby in that moment if it is for life saving reasons. It doesn't matter to the baby in that moment if the medical person is a nice, caring person. All one really has to do is try to imagine if the very same thing happened to them, right now, as an adult. Most of us would FREAK out about it ... and we would cry and rage about it trying to get someone to understand, until our friends and families would just send us to the counselor or the doctor for some drugs to calm us.

What the baby needs NO MATTER WHY THE BIRTH WAS CESAREAN is someone, ESPECIALLY the MOTHER and father to GET IT. The BABY needs the adults who brought him or her in to this world to understand that they EXPERIENCED their birth and it is now a part of their brain programming. They see, feel, and experience the world differently. They need the mother to deal with her own loss, disappointment, anger, violation, etc. that all leads to mother's guilt. Ironcially, mother's guilt also leads her to not be able to see how the situation impacted her. She is usually just left to believe that she should be happy and thankful that she had an alive baby.

Embracing the good and the bad ... the trauma and the joy ... acknowledging what happened, processing what happened is what allows whatever happened ... at birth or anytime in life ... is what facilitates healing and integration. Babies are not allowed this. So wherever birth is, with whomever birth is, and whatever happens, babies just need to be acknowledged and seen. Every time the mother or father tells the child's birth story and the REAL experience has never been shared by the baby and heard by the parents, the baby (whatever age) within is silenced.

We have profound new techniques and therapies to facilitate healing of our earliest woundings (i.e., unwanted at conception, stress and diet during gestation, trauma and separation at birth).

www.birthpsychology.com
www.bepe.info
www.myrnamartin.net
www.beba.org
www.wondrousbeginnings.com
www.healyourearlyimprints.com/
www.pnri.net
www.transformingdragons.com
www.emersonbirthrx.com
www.castellinotraining.com

Struck me as funny

One in four Americans is affected by mental health issues each year. Become a mental health counselor and start making a difference.


I saw this on a website for a counseling program today and it really cracked me up. Is the presumption that one of those three mentally healthy people withOUT mental health issues should and will become a counselor? Oh, my gut hurts from laughin'.  Now, is that likely? Wouldn't they be more likely to become a doctor, lawyer, or a judge? Or, is it an invitation for that one with mental health issues to turn that mental issue into something more profitable and engaging? Figure themselves out AND make a livin' at the same time. Recreating their dysfunctional relationships over and over when they don't figure it out? Cool.

I have a Master's in Counseling and I think that entitles me to make fun. I admit I was online looking for an online program to pick up some classes for licensure.

Ever think about what leads people to their life's work? Even psychologists know that people trying to figure themselves and their own lives out go into psychology (my undergrad degree is in psych!) One of my professors, a clinical psychologist, said she got her BS in Psychology. BS stood for Bull Shit. Then she got her MS -- More Shit, and finally she earned her PhD -- Piled Higher and Deeper. Pretty funny, eh?

Why do you do what you do? Do you think it has to do with your earliest prenatal experiences and how you were born? Or did you just start to experience the world, learn, and "remember" when you were three?  Does it have to do with your innate talents? Pre-conception plans? Early childhood? Or, was it by chance? Did you choose it? Why does a person decide to become a caseworker in the state system? Is there a reason they want to "save all the abused children" but yet end up harming so many families? What about police? Pharmacists? Chefs? Midwives? Nurses? I heard in Counseling that nurses make good Co-dependents (high number married to addicts). Have you ever wondered if someone who is rabidly against abortion just might be someone who survived an abortion attempt? Or, if someone who was abused, neglected, and abandoned s/he might become a state case worker?

And, why do you suppose a person spends four years in college, four more in medical school, and then four more in obstetric residency (aka as Hell) only to be tired, in debt, and disillusioned? Do they do it all because they love women and babies? And, "they love women" can be interpreted several ways, now can't it? Do they just want the best for women and babies, for them to never have pain, and for them to be safe and have a sacred experience? Some believe obstetricians are misogynistic. Some believe they are control freaks. It is part of the training. Some believe they are more interested in power and money than a baby and woman's body, mind, and soul.

So, I was just wondering ... it's that psych and counseling training, darn it; if a woman and a man go to the hospital for the birth of their baby and there is a nurse and a doctor ... which one is the ONE OUT OF FOUR WITH mental health issues?

If a woman goes to court regarding her child and she has a lawyer, there is a caseworker, another lawyer, and a judge, which one is ONE with mental health issues?

Is it a coincidence that it always happens to be the disempowered woman with the baby/child?

Is mental health like pregnancy and potty training? A caseworker told my friend that it was impossible that her handicapped grandson was partially potty trained before the state took him. The older gent said there is no such thing as "partially potty trained." She told me that he said, "It's like being pregnant. Either you are pregnant or you aren't pregnant. Either he is potty trained or he isn't."  Obviously, he's never done either - pregnancy or potty training a child. One out of four, eh?

Hmmmmm.....

YIKES!

Doulas, Obstetricians, and Whistle Blowers

I read a couple of posts on BOLD Thoughts, Birth the Play Blog
and I posted a response.

The BOLD blogger wrote about a NY Times article trashing Doulas and about a showing of the "Business of Birth" at Cornell and how one obstetrician set the tone for a negative discussion, but a labor and delivery nurse was a "whistleblower." I wove my responses to both into one post ...about the baby in all of us:

Your posts on Doulas and the two comments raise real concerns. For every baby there is a story and observers will interpret it according to their beliefs and needs. The baby's story goes untold, unacknowledged, unprocessed, and unintegrated.

The story here illustrates a common situation --- the birth women wish for is unattainable in the hospital and most women who prepare for and expect an empowered, natural or whatever birth in the hospital, are profoundly disappointed in their experience after they have prepared for the ultimate birth experience. It has women from the different perspectives at each other's throats.

Women are in the process of reclaiming their power through birth -- and the experience is rarely as was idolized. The truth is that the empowerment comes from embracing was is, what happened, and resolving and integrating the experience ... whatever it is that one co-created. It involves also embracing that the birth is the baby's birth into this world. It is not the mother's birth. She had her birth. This is another soul's journey into this physical world through her. It is her experience of birthing her baby, but it is the baby who will have to live with the choices and consequences of every single moment provided by the mother and her caregivers. The baby and the mother will forever live with the relationship dynamics of birth and attachment that happen during birth.

The human baby is a sentient being who is experiencing birth and that the experience is imprinted into the soul, body, and brain of the human. It is illogical that a society of people would promote that prenatal development is critical, but that the labor and birth is not -- so that well-educated, well-intended professionals can do whatever it is that they happen to believe is right, all based on their own science and research.

With that said, my observation is that many doulas are well-intentioned and good-hearted people who are hardly in the work for the money. They have a burning desire to help other women have the birth they desire, and their unacknowledged fire comes from the need to heal the birth they did or didn't have. This is a huge issue in the doula profession. Doulas (like nurses and doctors), like doctors and nurses, are not aware of their own experiences of their own birth, and they have usually not processed and healed their experiences of giving birth. Witnessing the manipulation and brutality, an LD nurse is a rare one if she can stay aware and receptive to the real needs of a laboring woman. Ninety percent of the current population was born in a hospital. Since the thirties that has involved excessive drugs and inappropriate positions and brutal treatment. Generations of denying this has profoundly numbed the majority of people, so that they will smile and coo at a baby who is being brutalized with an intervention, such as bulbing and scrubbing to stimulate, both of which are shown to be not only ineffective but disruptive. Some of add to that unduly emotionally and spiritually traumatizing.

Regardless of the role of the person at the birth, they bring to that space and time their own unresolved birth trauma. People at the birth are actively trying to heal their own trauma. Women don't get to choose the majority of the people who will actually be in their space during birth. The most important event of their baby's life so far, and it is left to fate and is a cacophony of strangers crap into which a newborn enters.

It is not surprising that doulas are not regulated --- there is no standard of care in obstetrics in the US. Obstetricians are self-regulated. There is no oversight of what obstetrics do. Most drugs that they use freely are off label use, but promoted as safe under the guise of "maternal choice" until the social tide promotes the myth as well. I.e, induction and epidural anesthesia.

A woman can go through multiple shifts during a labor and birth and every nurse will enact her version of is supposedly scientific. It is mostly based on her personal preferences, that particular hospital's policies often formed around previous lawsuits and prevention of lawsuits, and the attending physician's quirks, needs, and preferences. The power over patients is so profound as to totally disempower a man who was prepared and educated. A man will know remember that this baby is HIS baby and that he say no and he can hold his baby.

Enter the doula into the mix. Everyone has their agenda and baggage .... doctors have an agenda to manage and control stress, time, and litigation. Doulas have the agenda to support a woman ... often to support her to do that which is the mother is not even prepared to do or truly aware of.

Bottom line, there is a profound black out in our society about what is best for the human being who is coming into this world. It is the baby's birth into this world.

It will surely come to pass that obstetrics will use credentialing and licensure as a means of controlling doulas, and they will fight, like the nurses and midwives.

It's the human baby that will continue to get hurt in this fighting and warring environment.

We are in a collective denial about the impact of labor and birth on the human and it allows atrocities to be done to babies. Until we embrace the truth that the human baby is aware, sentient, engaging, developing and learning being in the womb AND during labor and birth, the war will continue.

I agree that nurses see and know what is happening, and they are key people and need to speak out. But they are trained to think a certain way and it will be a rare person who will is willing and able to be a whistle blower and is able to pay the price. Squeaky wheels and whistle blowers will most likely still be lone voices and suffer ongoing consequences such as loss of jobs and livelihood until the masses begin to unnumb and wake up. As we incite and insight women/nurses to be whistle blowers we are not ready to support their process and their losses that result. One may want to blow the whistle loud and shrill, but can rarely continue to make a living. I was a whistle blower nine years ago and the losses have been great. All I have left is my ongoing mission to bring attention to the fact that the newborn human baby is conscious and aware and has rights.

My baby was born thirty-three years ago today

That makes him thirty-four years and nine months old.

I called him this morning to wish him happy birthday. However ... I have to say that I have been disillusioned with this cultural concept of celebrating one's life on the anniversary of one's birth.

Traditionally, so I am told, the survival of the first year of life was something to celebrate; hence, now it is the modern version of one's BIRTHDAY and false way, an archaic way of counting time. On our birthday it is ANNIVERSARY of our birth. But it doesn't accurately count how much time we have lived in a human body.

I developed this line of thought as I was celebrating big anniversaries -- first, my fortieth, and then my fiftieth anniversary of my arrival to this planet (birth from the womb) and while studying the fetal life and psychology. We know now that the gestational period is the beginning time of life, a critical time in development, as is the experience of labor and birth and first moments living outside the womb.

My friend was turning fifty almost exactly a year before me. Trying to console her, I pointed out that, in fact, she was celebrating the COMPLETING or ending of her fiftieth year, not the beginning. For some strange reason, I pointed out, (totally serious and straight-faced, because I both think about these such things, AND, I wanted to console her), we don't count the first year, (or the nine and a half months in the womb. Nine now that they induce routinely). Sooo, I happily shared with her that technically, she was celebrating the completion of her 50th year and the beginning of her fifty-first year. I concluded that, "Hey, you've been fifty all year, so why worry about it now? Let's have some fun." No, it didn't work for her like it worked for me, even when I pointed out, I was the one actually turning fifty, (starting my fiftieth year as I would be "turning 49" in a few weeks). I was actually turning 50! at the end of my forty-ninth year.

It didn't comfort my friend at all, but I found completing my fortieth and then my fiftieth years to be quite fun and a celebration. (My 30th was another story, as the said birthday boy was old enough to go to Junior High and I only freak out about his age!) A few days before my "49th Birthday", my daughter and I rode AMTRAK from Chicago to Disney Land, with stops in Philadelphia and Washington, D.D. (homeschooling is so awesome!). So, the completion of my 49th year and beginning of my 5oth year happened in Washington, DC. What fun we had. I don't even remember what I did on my "50th Birthday", the completion of my 50th year.

Ok, so my point, other than to till the ground for thinking about seeing that life of the human begins at even before conception? I was just reading some Birth to 3, zero to 3 literature and thinking about my son and his son who is about 144 days old, according to the ticker on his mama's blog. When he emerges from his mama's womb in late August -- all sweet, slippery, and wonderful, kicking, wide-eyed and turning his head when his mom or dad speaks, and smacking his lips and ready to crawl to his mama's breast, baby Jackson will be ten months old. He will be IN his tenth month of human development. So, why does we (we, as not as me, but as in this supposed intelligent, scientific society) say he is zero? Why will his time on this earth and his age go back to ZERO when he emerges from his first earthly home, his mama's womb? How is it logical or scientific to disregard the period of conception and gestation in development?

In reality, my son was nine months old when he was born from my womb on April 8th, 1975 so technically, he is completing his 33rd year; and, if we add the nine months I knew him in my womb (an amazing little being who was alive and kicking and responding to me, making me drink milk when I never liked it before) then he is actually 34 years and nine months old today. Judging from his reaction to my exclamation this morning, "Wow, you are gettin' old," maybe I shouldn't tell him?

What are we really celebrating on the day of the anniversary of our birth or our loved one's birth? Society doesn't even honor the event as significant for emotional, psychological, spiritual, or physical development; forget seeing birth as a sacred event in this medico-techno world.
What is up with this human culture that is supposedly so smart? That we wait for eighteen months of our babies' lives to pass before we say, "Oooooone." (How could I convey a duh tone?) Only the youth can get this and also be happy to be one year older already, like age matters anyway.

We need to see and celebrate our day of birth differently ... not as simply a marker of age transition but an honoring of our baby's presence. Today, when my son said birthdays aren't that big of a deal when you get older, I told him again how blessed I am to be his mother and how happy I am that he is my son. "I always have been," I said. He softly said, "I know, mom." How much greater thing is there than to be loved and wanted by the people who brought us into this world? Doesn't every human being deserve this?

Shouldn't we straighten this mess about Birth Days and Birthdays, and the disregard for the importance of wanted babies AND in calculating our ages which results in IGNORING the first 18 months of our lives and our babies' lives? How did we get so darned confused?? How did we come to dismiss the most foundational, critical, important nine months and first year of our lives as not counting? It's not logical to say the baby is alive and growing and developing in the womb and then dismiss prenatal development as not important enough to even count. It has lead us humans to dismiss the importance of gestation, and the labor and birth as critical experiences in development. God, we are collectively stupid about really important things, like human fetal and consciousness development. Turn on your television, if you still have one, and look at the consequence of doing so.