I like to share comments on older posts that won't show up here on the homepage. Today I received one commenting on a petition I posted in June of 2008.
Mommato6 has left a new comment on your post "Keep Home Birth Legal Petition":
To sign that would be utterly stupid! Babies do die in Homebirth and it is most of the time, preventable.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. It is, however, not substantiated by statistics.
Of course you've heard that the US has the worst infant (and maternal) mortality rates in the industrialized world. Who hasn't? It's even in the mainstream news and concern. The US has the greatest access to technology and medical care, but the worst rates of mortality. Why isn't the US medical establishment itself looking into why this is? Instead, ACOG comes out with stopping midwifery as one of it's two prime efforts this year. Is ACOG and the medical establishement invested in doing what is necessary to create the best outcomes? It does not appear so. Is their agenda about what is truly about women's bodies and souls? Or babies bodies and souls? It does not appear so.
THE POINT of this blog is to point out that NEITHER homebirth nor hospital birth are safeEST until they WORK TOGETHER to provide the best care possible for women and babies, FOR THE BABY in particular!!
In countries where midwifery and homebirth is PART OF THE MATERNAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM, and not controlled by obstetricians and drug companies, MORE BABIES LIVE. This is because the legal and public will is that women have availablity of homebirth WITH ALL the access to medical care IF NEEDED.
The blocking and controllng of midwifery by the medical establishment in the US is taking it's toll on women and babies. UNNECESSARILY, and it is criminal what they are getting by with. Women are seeking to have a safer birth outside of the hospital and going to extreme lengths to do so. THE PROBLEM is that most of society is not looking at the MISUSE of medical technology and drug use in birth (and all specialites). The root of the problem is that this society (the leader of the world) has little regard for the sacredness of birth. Society had little regard that this is a SOUL, a being, being born, and she or he will be impacted for his or her entire life by his or her experience of birth. I'd even go so far as to wonder if medical birth is not Biblically supported.
Originally, the use of drugs at birth were condemned and part of the women's movement was to get the right to use drugs during labor. The Pope had to say it was ok. The leader of the women's movement died during birth using Twilight Sleep.
We today are living the legacy of decisions such as this. The experiment could have gone quite differently had women/midwives not been hung and burned for their spiritual and midwifery gifts in order for male dominated medicine to take over ... if women had not had to rise up in this country and fight like men to just to get their God-given right to liberty and freedom and prosperity ... if we were not controlled by religious men and dogma ... if birth and motherhood were honored as the core, roots of harmony and family. Our world would be different today.
But finally, today, again because of very strong and brave and outspoken women in America, a woman can go within and claim her femininity and all that it means ... she can claim her body as her own, and she can claim her motherhood as her own. She can claim motherhood as a worthy path. It is between her and that soul, coming into her body, and the father how they choose to bring forth that life ... on their terms, in their home, or in a drugged stupor, overexposed, managed on someone else's time table, protecting some doctor or nurse or hospital's assETS or protecting her baby's soul and brain from unnecessary stress, trauma, noise, agendas, germs, time tables, sacrificing her baby's cord blood for someone's agenda and schedule.
Hospital birth doesn't have to be so violent!! The gifts of medical care givers can be used to support a different kind of birth. They can learn from the midwifery model of care, just as the midwives, historically, have benefited from the medical knowledge, and antibiotics. A baby has a right, A RIGHT, to come into this world from the spiritual world, in a loving, safe, nurturing, aware way and to be treated like a human being. It's more likely to happen in a homebirth and very unlikely to happen at the hospital. Perhaps, there are moments in the hospital. At the homebirth the baby is more likely to be regarded as a fully sentient human. THIS is the what makes birth safe FOR THE BABY. The blatant disregard of the baby by the majority of medical staff that allows for horrific treatment of the baby, which DOES NOT HAVE TO BE!, is what makes birth UNSAFE.
A skilled practitioner who has regard for the sanctity of birth and this baby, a soul, and who has supportive medical backup makes homebirth the safest place to birth on the planet. I am in association with a birth center in MO where a Family Practice doctor backs the midwives in the practice. Prior to the legalization of midwifery this year, she attended every birth with the midwife. I don't know if that continues to be the practice since it no longer legally required, but I know her well and I know if a woman wants her there, she would be. And, she doesn't pop in just in time to catch the baby and collect her payment. She is there from the moment the mother and father want her there and until mother and baby are established. Two hours or two days, the doctor and the midwife are there. They are not caring for others or running back and forth between office and hospital, or home and hospital, or church and hospital, or football game and hospital, or child's Christmas pageant and hospital. (MY ex is an OB). The midwife is there, nurturing and observing. Surprise events are rare ... it is the homebirth doctor and midwife who has been monitoring and observing, not a nurse or someone across town. Nurses monitor a woman and relay the info to the doctor who shows up when birth is imminent.
That is utterly stupid.
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
Friday, December 12, 2008
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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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
