AWAKE UP!! It's the BABY's birth!

This story by an OB-GYN shows how even DOCTORS who want to do differently don't have "control over" what happens to mama-baby in the hospital birthing event.

Labor and Deliverance: Disassociation

laboranddeliverance.blogspot.com

 
Let me repeat this word: disassociation.  It contains lots of syllables so I am woefully unprepared to pronounce it using my half working tongue.  Disassociation, as in one thing being no longer associated with the another.  And so it is with a mother and her genitals.  It seems odd enough that practitioners pull a sheet over your knees in an attempt to emotionally wall you off from a pap, but it is bizarre that the same is done with all the drapes for a vaginal delivery.  Are we really creating a sterile environment or are we disassociating your brain from your delivery?  "I'll just work down here little momma, you breath up there and it'll all be jes fine."   Whatever.  If the patient wanted the wall wouldn't it be better to give her the sheet for her head?

and after telling what is sadly a "typical" (but far from normal) American birth in the surgical suite,

Dad went over to take photos and, despite the mom's asking, nursery gave zero response about how her child was doing nor made any attempt to bring her over.  I am not always liked but I am infrequently misunderstood.  I take up enough space and am annoying enough that I am hard to ignore.  So imagine my surprise that my third attempt to get the nursery peoples' attention from about seven feet away was ignored.  Raising voice to a level that actually shut everyone up, one nurse actually turned to me and I requested the infant be at least shown to her mother.  This was refused as the child did not have her "bands" on yet.  I pointed out that it was probably impossible to confuse or lose the child in the OR and I would take full responsibility if this happened in the six floor tile space that separated this three hundred pound nurse from the mother's head.  She refused and I left the OR while the surgeon repaired skin and the mother as yet had still not seen her child.   Having again earned my title of being "difficult" I left feeling shunned. A tech in the hall asked what was wrong.   I muttered "disassociation."

I hate this job sometimes.

This story in the context of a system that is disassociated from the people it serves is so right on. And, it illustrates for me the need for people to further wake up, out of our collective dissociative disorder, or the "collective black out" I call it, that I propose IS a direct and cyclic result of birthing disassociated for generations.  It is the result of meddling in, and making birth a masculine, medical event (business) rather than the sacred entrance of a Soul on to the Mother Earth, through the mother, through the physical mother (egg) and the father (whether sperm donor or present father).  The typical, modern mother, father, and the caregivers, even midwives and doulas, are disassociated about their own birth experience.

Let me repeat this, from the first paragraph above: 

Disassociation, as in one thing being no longer associated with the another.  And so it is with a mother and her genitals. 

Disassociated from her genitals. Aaaaand, what else? What is missing in this otherwise spot-on connection, or shall I say, ASSOCIATION with how two things, woman and genitals are disassociated at birth?  Anyone know?? What is missing here? Here's a clue! It's a WHO.  A few years ago I heard about a Family Feud question, "Name who you see in the delivery room."  I took my camera out, with my very pregnant radio show co-host, and on the street and in stores, we asked the question: "Name who you see in the delivery room?" Yep, the pregnant mama asked the question. No one got the WHO, even with a very ripe pregnant belly in front of them.  Do you know now? A BABY!! YAY!! Ding, ding, ding! Yes, the birth is the BABY's experience of coming into being.

These people and this response, sadly, are the typical. We each been born and programmed by a systematic, socially engrained and accepted disassociation of the mother from her body and the baby, and separation of the father from the process for going on a hundred years. Multiple generations. (By the way, I do not believe that back in the day, fathers were just kept busy "boiling water" and had nothing to do at birth but be the bumbling idiot. I think they played a significant role in providing safety and comfort, and yeah, that might have included critical things like keeping the livestock alive and keeping the place warm, like when my mother and her twin were born at home in the middle of January in rural Iowa, before "global warming" when it could be three feet of accumulated snow and -0 for weeks at a time. A home births I observe the father (post-birth) like the father lion walking the perimeter of the baby and mama, checking in, working - laundry and cooking, feeding the mother - checking in. Circling, circling. He protects the space for the mama-baby to attach and bond.)

Let's get back to that, the BABY, whose birth it is.

Consider here, before you read the story, that there is no time in human development of the fetus, baby, and infant that is not specific and critical for THAT developmental time. We know how - from brain research - the laboring and birthing baby's brain is ONLINE and that the Limbic system, "seat of emotion" is being developed. It's being imprinted. We can see then how birth does DEFINE the human. The part of the brain that IS in critical development is emotional, sensory, and NON-verbal and THE major task is ATTACHMENT. The brain/baby WILL attach to what is happening in the environment from last trimester through infancy. But, at birth the brain/baby WILL attach to whoever it s/he sees and the sensation and emotions s/he experiences.  It MUST be the mother who is the lifelong connection.  We can see too, in this description this OB provides in his story, how it is that children today, up to half born by cesarean, most likely as in this story, have ADDH, sensory processing, and other issues including asthma (related to lungs not being compressed during vaginal birth).

We must wake up individually, as a natural birth movement, and then as a culture to the truth of whose birth it is and how that baby is programmed for life.  The baby (we, all of us) are in a monumental developmental process at birth. There are specific stages in the birth, according to Raymond Castellino, Birth Trauma Therapy founder, from "the baby's perspective."  This is known to us birth trauma healers, but unknown to general population and sadly, unknown to doctors, midwives, nurses, and doulas.  And, these medically trained people have the power to tell people what we know is untrue.  That it doesn't matter to the baby.  We know that the baby is aware, sentient, feeling, experiencing baby.

Many well known researchers have put together the very profound and meticulous brain research and understanding of the early brain to show how this is true.  But the journey of the medical caregivers who were not taught to know this is extra challenging. Each one must heal one's own birth; and the experience of giving birth as a woman or witnessing the birth as the father. And then, the most challenging; a medical or midwifery or Doula caregiver must come to the understanding and forgiveness of what one did working in a dissassociated environment. One must acknowledge and forgive oneself for all the humans hurt while they thought they were doing the best and safest thing. This may be the largest challenge.

Imagine for a moment, as you finish this post, a well-stated observation by an OB-GYN, how the collective energy and DISSASSOCIATION of people in the room impact the mother and father (big time if there). How does this impact the baby, whose birth it is?

The fourth stage of birth from the baby's perspective is Completion (birth) and the baby moves into the Integration stage (post birth). EVERYTHING that is happening is IMPRINTING the baby's nervous system/brain. Informing the baby THIS is what the world is like. This is what people are like. This what medical people are like. They are in charge of life. They are God..

Consider, for just a minute, what might be this baby's experience ... for his or her lifetime, since we know not that imprinting is scientifically true. Birth creates a template for how the human being will be in relationship with self, mother, father, others, the world. How will this mama-baby and father get OUT of the experience? What makes this so hard is that we have been trained in the model of "normative abuse".  When we consider that baby; we immediately are overwhelmed with our early brain emotions that are sensory and non-verbal. We feel powerless, angry, abandoned, and we feel pain and panic. The feelings of our sweet little baby self that we have learned over the decades, via the social messages and our thinking brain, very elaborate ways to override those emotions.  And THEN, we have a flood of emotions related to our own babies and giving birth to them, bringing them into the world.

Most of us alive were seriously violated and harmed and sent home by the abusers (very nice, highly trained and professional people) and expected to "get over it". Well, our culture is not getting over it.  Separation of the mama-baby at this most vital, profound and defining experience of life, meant to be about love, intimacy, and connection -- attachment -- IS the core experience for life.  The disruption of it is the root of all dysfunctions, diseases, and disorders of humanity.

I wonder if the author of this great post has considered this as well; and considered his own birth and his feelings about his own children's births.  I wonder what he would do if he got - in his body, in his soul, in his nervous system - how impacted that mother and baby and father were and will be for their lifetime. I wonder if he, as a caregiver, coming out of dissassociation to realize the impact of even the smallest of interventions done even slightly disassociated would understand the absolute vital need of every single birth, where ever and with whom ever, requires support for the mama and baby and father to process it, release the trauma, and create a new energetic relationship. Unless they receive very specific trauma work to support them to integrate ALL the happened -- the good (love and joy), the bad, and the ugly -- people are the walking disassociated.

I absolutely love this guy who is so conscientious of the mother and baby; and, who appears to be worn down by trying to do right in the hospital. Exhaustion is a sign we are in the wrong place and using up too much energy to get through the day. I lived that working in systems purported to "help families".  So much abuse and wrong-doing all around me. This is why people leave these professions from social work to teaching to nursing and even doctoring. Unfortunately, doctors have too much financially at stake "to just leave and do something else." I really want to support doctors to "get the baby" and I really want to support MEN to engage with them to create a NEW model of birth that is the blending of the natural and the medical knowing to support that when there is a true problem.

When one gets, truly gets, that this is the baby's birth into this world and every second matters;  every every smell, sight, sound, and sensation; and every thought and emotion of others in the room matters. They matter to the baby and loved ones - for the lifetime. When one gets that, one can not do it anymore.  One can not even put a hat on a baby, let alone routinely cut the cord prematurely separating mama-baby, and bulbing a baby with a useless tool that only harms.

One cannot participate in it anymore. One cannot watch it anymore. If the OB-GYN got how impacted that mama-baby's attachment and life long relationship will be and how it will ripple out in to the world (to be the root cause of literally everything our culture tries to get rid of) he would FURTHER WAKE UP and truly disassociate. Sadly, one has to be dissociated to continue to work in an environment, a systematized practice, that harms humanity at the core, one baby and one baby-mama, and baby-mama-daddy at a time. If he fully woke up he would be a raging father lion. He would do a Super Hero move on that nurse and take that baby and give baby to the mama, like a physician father describes in my film. He would at least momentarily KNOW within him that he should call 911, the Child Abuse Hotline .. that this IS CHILD ABUSE ... but he would be silenced by the collective disassociation of a culture that fights for peace, ignoring the root cause. But he would know, this is where violence starts.

It's time to wake up and to rise up and for men in particular, outside of this system, to demand the change and lead the change of a new paradigm. More to come on that .... that "what's next" when the film is out. TWO things: We have to stop the harming and and we have to help those who have been harmed to heal. That is ALL of us, but especially doctors and nurses who were trained to believe it was ok, and even best.

Would you agree, after reading this story, that this mama-baby need an option other than to go home and forget about it, be happy you and your baby are live and "fine" ... because birth is so inherently dangerous and life threatening? Don't they, didn't we all, doesn't every single mama-baby need  immediate and long term support to process and recover from that experience? Even the best homebirth (perceived by midwives and doctors whose lives and families are on the line for any outcome that in hospital is ignored) need to be processed and integrated.

I will list below colleagues who provide the leading edge care of healing birth trauma, supporting a family to heal and integrate what happened.

The Other Side of the Glass

What if men had had any idea of what was happening to their loved ones?

Infant Mortality

From Homebirthdebate.blogspot.com, December, 4, 2006

Dr. Amy:

The fact that death in childbirth is no longer very common is due to the spectacular success of modern obstetrics. Unfortunately, obstetrics is so successful that people actually do not understand what birth is nature is really like.

Safe Baby Partner:

Does she mean "what birth IN nature is really like?" As in kitties, bunnies, puppies, calves, and foals being born?

Why is the mortality rate United States better in 2006 than it was in 1806 or 1956?

Nineteen fifty-six and seven were the highest years for infant and maternal mortality. My mother's fear of losing me during birth in 1956 was because she had known several babies who died. What did babies die from in 1956? Historically, it is well known that the sanitation and discovery of penicillin contributed greatly. In 1960 when my sister was born she and my mother were infected with staph and my brother and father became infected. The hospital was shut down.

Choose well, your legacy, Dr. Susan Blank -- American Academy of Pediatrics task force on Circumcision

From INTACT AMERICA:

The AAP is actively considering whether they should recommend circumcision.

Make sure they hear our side of the debate!

Send a message to Susan Blank, chair of the circumcision task force, today.

"Very compelling."

That's how Susan Blank – who chairs the American Academy of Pediatricians' task force on circumcision – described studies of adult males in sub-Saharan Africa that suggest circumcision reduces the risk of HIV transmission.

Well, here's what we think is very compelling: circumcising babies is wrong – ethically, morally, and medically. It's shocking to think Dr. Blank and her task force are considering policy recommendations for baby boys in the United States based on misconstrued data from controversial African studies.

Send a message directly to Dr. Blank today and urge the AAP task force not to recommend circumcision. http://org2.democracyinaction.org/o/5922/t/6483/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=2318

Here's my letter:

Dear Dr. Susan Blank and American Academy of Pediatrics,

The human baby feels and remembers everything that he or she experiences in the womb, in labor and at birth, and in the first seconds, minutes, and hours of life. The prenate feels, tastes, hears, and responds to the environment - via the mother. The human being is in a continuum of NEVER-ending brain development from conception forward, and the primal period is the foundation for the rest of life.

It is logical and scientific that during the birth process the newborn brain is not somehow miraculously selective, thus being capable of "turning off" during time in the hospital with medical caregivers and interventions. There is no mechanism that allows that -- so that medical people can do whatever they wish to a baby. The human newborn is not capable of "de-selecting" the violations of medical caregivers on his personhood. The science is clear: Your own science tells us "what fires wires" so we know the birthing and newborn brain "wires what fires" and learns, even more so outside the womb than she or he did prenatally. The newborn baby is an aware, feeling being - a fully sentient being - and the brain IS "on" while in your hands in your institution. We/You can no longer say: "the baby won't remember" and "the baby won't feel it". Circumcision is just one of the medical interventions experienced by newborns in your hands.

Circumcision is the worst human rights violation of mankind, done by mankind to mankind, wherever it is inflicted upon on a non-consenting uninformed baby, child, or third world country. The American Academy of Pediatrics is being called upon to protect and defend our babies, and to be protectors of the human rights of newborns in our society. As a society we will look back on this action against males, and we we see how it is the primary cause of violence of all kinds, but especially against women and children. We will see how "we" plundered the world's people because of it. People will wonder how we could have been so barbaric at this point in history in our human evolution. Your name will be there, Dr. Susan Blank ... either as the person who helped stop the routine, barbaric, torture of NON-CONSENTING, UNINFORMED baby boys, or the one who pushed for it; the one too blind, too bought to see the impact to every aspect of a male's life and to our society, and to our planet.

Choose well, your legacy, Dr. Susan Blank.

I am a birth trauma therapist, baby advocate, and filmmaker doing a birth film for and about fathers in birth. Part four of my film will address the impact of circumcision on the male baby disconnected from his mother, unprotected, and so unspeakably violated ... for no medical reason ... and how this plays out his entire life, including family and child abuse, sexual assault, violence, and war. On my radio show this fall I have done a series with guests who are advocates of intact males; they are doctors, psychologists, midwives, and therapists in a series this fall. I have come to believe that circumcision of our baby males is the most barbaric act of humanity. It is outrageous that female genital mutilation is seen as such, while male babies in our culture are tortured, and these tortured males lead us to war after war, while porn is number one money maker, and pedophiles are a number one concern for communities and parents. Circumcision is torture Dr. Blank, and from what I have learned there is no medical reason to do it, only political and financial gains. The research in Africa is inconclusive and even shows no decrease in AIDS for these men, while AIDS has risen for women.

I have one circumcised son, age 34, and one intact son, age 27. I was holding my son when he was circumcised. It was horrible and shocking, and I couldn't stop it. I had assumed that what I was told to be done next was humane and science based. Now, we do know that it is not. It was tragic to learn later there is no reason for it, and more tragic, as a mother, to learn the resulting outcomes for him that he has to live his whole life with. For example, the violation of the body part responsible for creating pleasure results in a lifetime of dysfunctions in sexual functioning, from minor, like premature ejaculation, excessive masturbation, and being unaware of one's partner's needs (rough because he doesn't have the part of his penis meant to communicate to his brain about pleasure), for which we now have industry after industry to "fix" to the violent crimes against women, children, and society. Men do not know what it is they are missing, and depending on other aspects of their early life and violations, to varying degrees, they go after what is missing with a vengeance; and, Dr. Blank, they go after women and children. This one act against male babies/men provides multiple industries to this country and fuels war.

I am grateful that I became aware of alternative methods of emotional and physical healing, besides the ineffective talk and drug therapy that dominates our society. I could begin to support my son to heal his soul, an apology from the one who allowed it instead of protecting him begins the healing, and he can now choose to even restore his foreskin. Even so, as a mother, I suspect I will never get over the brutality and loss that I allowed my son to experience for no reason. We know now many modalities for healing those who have been harmed, but these modalities are also diminished and vilified by your profession, after promoting the violation, for financial reasons. To embrace the healing of the trauma one has to see the violation inflicted upon helpless newborn babies.

I guarantee you the American people are wising up, and rising up, and they will continue to become a majority against circumcision. Three cultures circumcise their male children: Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. You figure it out. Do the research outside your status quo of medicine funded by drug companies, about the real reasons your professional group struggles to promote what it knows is true one minute and then is promoting the opposite again the next. Your profession has a responsibility to tell and BE the truth, and to stop the torture of our male babies. EVERYWHERE.

Again, Circumcision is the worst human rights violation of mankind done by mankind to mankind, wherever it is inflicted upon on a non-consenting uninformed baby, child, or third world country. As a society we will look back on this action against males, and we we see how it is the primary cause of violence of all kinds, but especially against women and children, and how we plundered the world's people because of it. People will wonder how we could have been so barbaric at this point in history in our human evolution. Your name will be there, Dr. Susan Blank ... either as the person who helped stop the routine, barbaric, torture of NON-CONSENTING, UNINFORMED baby boys, or the one pushed for it; the one too blind, too bought to see the impact to every aspect of a male's life and to our society, and to our planet.

Choose well, your legacy, Dr. Blank.

L. Janel Martin Miranda, MA
Columbia, MO
573-424-0997
www.theothersideoftheglass.com
www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com -- you can listen to podcasts of many professionals from many areas speaking about the impact of circumcision.

I agree with Intact America:

Your statement to ABC News that recent African studies of male circumcision are "very compelling" suggests that the American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Neonatal Circumcision may ignore the ethics, risks and harms of performing medically unnecessary surgery on non-consenting infant boys.

As chair of the task force, please respond to the following questions regarding your upcoming decision:

- How will the task force address the ethical problems related to performing medically unnecessary circumcision surgery on non-consenting newborn males?

- How is the task force taking into account the risks and harms of circumcision?

- Aren't circumcision trials conducted on consenting adults irrelevant to circumcising baby boys who cannot consent?

I look forward to your prompt response.

Sincerely,

Women and Babies in a Disaster Situation

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Mum forced into home birth after floods cut off road
Thursday, February 12, 2009, 08:22


WATER baby Charlie Beattie made a memorable arrival into the world when floods meant his mum could not make it to hospital for his birth.

Debbie Beattie went into labour on Tuesday morning, but she and husband Russell, along with three-year-old daughter Lauren, found the roads out from their home in Rayne were blocked by floods and they could not get to William Julien Courtauld Hospital (WJC) in Braintree.

They had to turn back home and two emergency care practitioners, Steve Colmer and Steve Monk, from the ambulance service, who had fought their way through the flood water, made it there just in time to deliver Charlie.

He was born at four minutes past eight and weighed in at a healthy 8lb 13oz.
Proud dad Russell said: "We set out at 7.30 in the morning and found that the road from Rayne to Braintree was about 4ft under water and the alternative route out of the village had flood water 2ft deep.

Continue at UK Mum forced to do homebirth because of flooding

This and many other new reports continue to fuel my concerns for pregnant and birthing women and babies who will inevitably be caught up in situations that do not allow them access to the hospital, and/or in many states, including Missouri, ACCESS to a midwife. As the Columbia, MO community prepared for disaster possibilities, I was at a forum in June of 2007 and repeatedly asked every representative from the mult-organization team about the plight of women in MO. At that time, it was a felony for a midwife to practice in MO. All women in MO did not have the option to choose midwifery, and this meant that many women in the rural areas (most of MO) were forced to accept the choice of driving hours to give birth.

At this meeting, all day long, I continued to asked the representatives of the Red Cross, the Fire District, the city, all the members of the diaster readiness teams,

"What about the pregnant and birthing women, and women with infants?"
"What if the hospital is unable to accept patients because it is destroyed, or quaranteened?"
"What if a laboring woman can not make it to the hospital? This happens now in an ice or snow storm now?"

And, I point out that in other industrialized nations, including the UK, midwives work WITH doctors and nurses in partnership. Their government and hospitals accept and promote midwifery care. There, a woman has a societial learning and knowing that birth outside of a hospital without a doctor anywhere near by is doable and even preferrable. So, when a diaster happens she IS ABLE to do it without the ingrained fears and beliefs that American women have. But, my question, "What are you doing in this area?" receives only uhmms, ahhhh, or "that is question for so-and-so who is on next panel."

All day long people just looked at me, some dumbfounded, some annoyed ... Midwifery was still illegal at that time and the social and political battleground was very bloody at that time. The only possible options given were that emergency workers or medical staff would have to be called. MY QUESTION, "Is this being considered -- is a plan for pregnant and laboring and birthing women being developed?'

"Ahhhh, uhhhmmm."

For some very strange reason, the dire needs of the pregnant, laboring and birthing woman and her baby during a disaster have not even been considered. I blows me away everytime I think about it, and everytime I think about that day of asking different people, experts in preparing for disaster and protecting us, about pregnant and birthing women and babies needs during a diaster. I am sure it is the same in most places. Every community, big and small, needs an elaborate system in place to care for these most vulnerable of people in a diaster. Is there a "committee" just to look at this need -- from another perspective OTHER than the medical perspective and what they can do and need? Is there a plan in place, with a team on board, of midwives, doulas, and nurses and doctors who will GO TO the woman? Why is this not a high agenda for the Red Cross?

HOMEFIRST in Chicago is a good model to begin to see what is needed.

For the Safe Baby Resolution, which I co-wrote with Star Newland and was introduced in Hawaii Legislature in 2007, I wrote a broad document of questions for legislators everywhere:

Legislative Research Study Questions
by Janel Martin-Miranda, MA, LPC,

The Safe Baby Resolution team asks our state legislators to form a Safe Baby Commission to be comprised of representatives from birthing women, doulas, midwives, physicians, therapists, psychologists, teachers, clergy, attorneys, representatives from women’s and children’s group (i.e., Shaken Baby, Domestic Violence, March of Dimes, Drug Prevention) and a legislative liaison to consider how to answer the following questions.


We are asking the state legislators to assign the commission (or appropriate department, such as Maternal Health and Child Wellness) with the objectives:

- Gather and study the current science that supports the resolution,

- Facilitate multi-disciplinary collaboration,

- Determine the feasibility of launching a major research project to look for long-term solutions, and

- Report the findings of the resolution study at the next legislative session


Number Five addresses homeland diaster preparedness and need to provide for pregnant and laboring women:


5. Homeland Disaster Preparedness – Include a plan for Pregnant, Laboring and Birthing Women, and Infants. How is the Missouri Home Land Security disaster plan prepared to care for pregnant and birthing women in MO in the event of a disaster? Currently, the practice of direct-entry midwifery is against the law in MO, and the CNM must be backed by a physician; therefore, out-of-hospital birth is rare and socially feared. In the event of a disaster hospitals will be focused on trauma patients and/or may be quarantined, and there will be zero options in Missouri for safe and quality care for pregnant and birthing women and babies outside of the hospital. What will they do?

I hope every community will look at this and make provisions for the most vulnerable during a disaster -- pregnant women and laboring and birthing women and babies. I find it interesting in the stories coming out of the recent weather and bridge situation in UK. When a woman can not get to the hospital there is not a collective panic. Women there know they can give birth outside of a hospital.
What what about this stupid, "Shoe lace" thing to tie off the cord? One report was father was struggling to get his shoe lace off!?!? As I prepare the research and father's voices for my film, I am just appalled ... WHY IS THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY STILL PROMOTING THIS!?!? The baby needs to stay attached to the mother. The BABY NEEDS his or her CORD BLOOD. The mother's body and the PLACENTA ARE the RESUSCITATOR. The BABY's physiology WORKS and will clamp the cord. THE FATHER NEEDS TO BE CONNECTING WITH HIS BABY, NOT SEPARATING him or her PREMATURELY from the mother. There is NO MEDICAL REASON to clamp the cord! #*$ &$& )$)__$&#^$*

From the UK article:
"We stayed at the scene for a couple of hours and worked together with the midwife to carry out full health checks, making sure both mum and baby were stable.

"Fortunately they didn't need to go to hospital and the family, including the proud older sister, were able to stay at home, allowing the new addition to settle in comfortably."

NOTE the MENTAL and EMOTIONAL difference? NO way in H-ll, would that happen in America -- leaving the mother and baby in the sanctity of their own home, after being assessed by the medical team on site. In America NO ONE can be born with out the interrogation of the multiple teams of nurses and doctors. Don't we all know the babies who were born at home only to be whisked away for hours and days of intrusive, violating, painful "tests" by strangers and separation from mother?

Now, that I've blown off some steam, back to work on the film ....

Response to Homebirth Petition

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.

Hyper-Masculine Idea of Fatherhood

I am very much enjoying the "break" from editing due to the emails, calls, and plans to go east to spend time with and film a father's group, all compliments of the trailer. I am very, very much appreciating the commenters and posters on lists talking about the film. I am finding it very helpful in preparing for the next phase.

crabgrass Says:
September 19, 2008 at

what really got to me was the way that the trailer was so focused on triggering the “protect” aspect of fatherhood/masculinity. there was a way that it was really working to appeal to this hyper-masculine idea of fatherhood. I don’t think the entire film will be more expansive, because I think that the baseline rationale for the film is that fathers need to be empowered (as manly men!) to step in and protect their wives and babies from the abuse of the medical system.

problematic, yet interesting.

Crabgrass:

What really "gets to me" about the film is how rich and giving it is -- every one has sees and experiences it their different triggers and see that that is what it's about. Based on who they are and "where they are".

I hope you'll go to my blog, www.theothersideoftheglassthefilm.blogspot.com and www.hospitalbirthdebate.blogspot.com and read about why the film is for men and about men.

It is not at all about being manly men .. and it will expand beyond what one can imagine, beyond feminism. It has for me. It will look at what happens when men are able to heal their own primal wounding as baby boys -- born "under the influence of drugs" as were their mothers, "he cut me so bad" stories, separated and treated harshly by strangers, often women -- like the baby in the film who was brutalized by four strange women.

Most adult men --and only part of the male babies now - ere not breastfed, were brought to their mother on a schedule and cried in the nursery, and most often, their penis mutilated. This was often done by causing an erection. This is the story of most men over 25. Only episeotomy, breastfeeding and rooming in has truly changed significantly, Many babies are not circumcised, but there are still subjected to cord clamping before the placenta is birthed, and this suctioning for "meconium risk" that is now routine, despite the research showing there is no reason. NO reason. It makes no difference on meconium aspiration syndrome. 30% of all babies are born surgically. Circumcision is still done in a majority of cases.

There is a whole psychological phenomenon to be unfolded ... how it is that historically men whose innate need is to protect, yet they have taken us to war repeatedly, raped and pilfered, and until recently it was rarely a woman who would abuse a child sexually.

The men in the film were so the opposite of the hyper-masculine, manly men. They were vulnerable, tearful, speaking of their feelings that men rarely access -- helplessness, powerlessness, guilt, and shame. ALL of it related to THEIR experience of their babies births. ALL of them embracing their earliest parts in order to be better men, and one the ways they do so is to support their partner's biological and physiological needs in birth.

Most women, varied by many comments around the web, are totally unaware of their partners need to have their story heard, to have their perspective of the experience of birthing their child heard, felt, and acknowledged. Honored. It is not just women who experience the birth of their baby. And, when they can figure that out, they can "be with" their baby to tell his or her perspective of their birth. The baby has a story. The baby girl, and the baby boy. It starts there. It changes there.

The film is about healing the masculine, and doing so by being embraced as also wounded, by women. Women and men need to work together to heal the wounding of the feminine and the masculine.

It's about the phenomenon of how men - a Marine deployed to Iraq three times - can be giant in the world and yet be brought to his knees by a family physician and an obstetric nurse.

It is about the inner healing that creates gentle protectors -- it's about a man seeing his baby for the first time and what that means to him and to his baby and the baby-mama.

The father who pounded on the glass is one of those. His story, in full, is about how he gently, and powerfully, protected his daughter ... he was watching a circumcision when he pounded on the glass. When a LD deliver nurse insisted that he leave his wife and go to wait in the waiting room and he refused, and she began to push his chest, a 6'4" man, he simply, "Oh, no, I am not going anywhere" and their doctor happen to come by at that moment to "ok it." It is not a hyper-masculine perspective encouraging him and other fathers to fight for peace in the hospital. It is about the caregivers, mostly WOMEN not violating the man, usurping his power, and ignoring his wishes and plans for his family. It is about the caregivers honoring birth, protecting the father's experience so he can be present with his partner and baby.

You leave me with a pondering of how "protection" is equated with hyper-masculine and the "manly man.'  When I am talkin' about women, mostly women, betrayers of women in the hyper-masculine, wounded masculine, overpowering, disempowering male-dominated system, acting like hyper-masculine women, manly women. For the pay check. Because they believe that they can achieve equality through work, career, and income. We're talking mothering here. Mothering the mother. Mothering the father. Fathering the mother. Fathering the father.  Creating it.

Good information for me ... thanks so much for the post.

Homebirth: A Part of the Truth

The truth is, sometimes birth hurts and sometimes it's easier, no matter where you are. We all know or have heard of women like my sister-in-law was notorious for hardly making it to the hospital. We glare on the inside with our fake smile when we hear their story, while our own is about days of labor (back in the day before ACOG put a time limit on our labor).  Many women who gave birth easily at home also listen silently to others stories because they also upset women with horrible birth stories. If they share their positive experiences it is felt by those harmed women as gloating. No one can win.

My friend, Nellie, gave birth to her daughter at home about six years ago. After viewing my video, "The Red Tent Event" that was held in Columbia, MO last year, and featured eight women who shared their stories of giving birth she shared with me how hard her daughter's birth was. One complaint about birth for first time moms is the glorification of how easy it is -- homebirth is so empowering and epidural makes birth a breeze. Both of these are wrong.

In my video, "The Red Tent Event", seven of eight women had given birth by surgery and six of them went on to give birth vaginally. I was surprised. I thought the storytellers would be the woman that Dr. Amy rants about -- the natural birthers who want to gloat to other women about how successful and great their births were. Instead, it was mostly women telling their stories of giving birth surgically and then having a vaginal birth. Like Nellie, even when the vaginal birth was challenging, painful, and long, it was preferable to surgery.

The seventh woman who gave birth by cesarean was still too terrified after seven years to give birth again.

Nellie was inspired to tell me her story of how hard and how painful it was to give birth, at home, with no drugs. She wished that people had been forthright about that. She will have another homebirth as she appreciates and honors the process. Ani De Franco's story here very much mirrors Nellie's story. Giving birth "kicks you in the butt" and builds you as a person.

My personal opinion about the difficulty of Nellie's experience of birthing her baby is that it has to do with the fact that her husband had been deployed, immediate post-911, the month before. He got to come home for the birth and several months later was to be in the first wave of guardspeople deployed to Iraq. Women need to feel safe bringing their babe into the world.

As a mother of a deployed man, I know the unimaginable, indescribable emotional roller coaster. I could not imagine giving birth and caring for a newborn in that circumstance. I am also posting Ani's song, "Self-Evident" put to images by a fan. I do so in honor of those who have made the greatest sacrifice in this country.

www.mfso.com.

Conscious Cesarean Birth

When I interviewed Dr. George M. Morley, M.D., he shared with me the story of his granddaughter's recent birth. She was born by cesarean and the D.O. who attended the birth worked with Dr. Morley to allow the baby's placenta to birth before clamping and cutting the cord. Dr. Robert Oliver proposed Humanizing Cesarean Birth years ago.

Humanizing cesarean birth was poo-pooed by any physician that any woman I have known has tried to communicate to about her baby's birth. They don't want to do it. Now the UK, as usual, is promoting it ....

It is all about what I have been advocating here and on another blog that won't allow the posts about such things to stay up --- birth is not safe for the baby, at home or at the hospital, UNTIL the parents and caregivers embrace the knowledge that the baby experiences birth, feels it and remembers it, and UNTIL medical caregivers in particular acknowledge human physiology and realize that the baby needs it's full transfusion of blood, and to be at the mother's breast. No matter what happens, medically and morally responsible mother-baby care has this has it's core purpose -- making birth humane and safe for the baby. If obstetricians can do a humane cesarean surgery, anyone, including neonatal personnel can do it too --do whatever you do with the awareness and acknowledgment that birth is the baby's experience.

I would take it one step further ... prepare the medical staff and parents to communicate with the baby. In my film I'll feature a homebirth with baby who needs to be suctioned. In the hospital babies are routinely suctioned, but not in homebirths. This baby met the criteria established by the American Academy of Pediatrics (ignored by virtually every hospital including the BIG Kahuna hospitals that suctioned my grandsons under the GUISE of "meconium risk"), and that is a NON-vigorous baby who is not crying. The footage will show a midwife and baby doula preparing and talking to the baby and the pace is slowed down to accommodate the baby's needs while someone is talking TO the baby. This helps everyone in the room to slow down.

The following is from a poster, Sharon, on another blog (where homebirth and midwifery is constantly negated with false claims) highlighting what we would call a conscious Cesarean:

(Notice the "pace" of the surgery and feel your own sensations ... especially if you have performed, assisted, or experienced a cesarean ...)

... I could almost choose a caesarean after reading this article! I particularly like the description of the slow delivery of the baby, allowing him/her to establish breathing whilst still half in utero and attached to the placental circulation and the mother seeing her baby emerge and seeing their sex at the same time as the delivery team. There are some lovely pictures too.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.c...78270/ HTMLSTART

The natural caesarean: a woman-centred technique "Surgery starts with the screen up, and sterile routines observed as usual. After uterine incision, the drape is lowered and the head of the table raised to enable the mother to watch the birth.

As the fetal head enters the abdominal incision, the operative field is cleaned of blood and the partner is invited to stand to observe the birth. The principle for the surgeon is then hands-off, as the baby autoresuscitates: breathing air through the exteriorised mouth and nose, while its trunk still in utero remains attached to the placental circulation. This delay of a few minutes allows pressure from the uterus and maternal soft tissues to expel lung liquid (Figure 1), mimicking what happens at vaginal delivery. Once crying, the baby's shoulders are eased out, and the baby then frequently delivers his/her own arms with an expansive gesture.

Concurrently, the baby's torso tamponades the uterine incision, minimising bleeding. The baby is next left supported for up to a minute, allowing the mother to observe her child. The half-delivered fetus frequently cries but if not, the obstetrician observes its breathing, colour, tone and movement to indicate wellbeing. The rest of the delivery is achieved through a combination of passive expulsion by the contracting uterus and active assistance: the baby wriggles out while its head and torso are supported by the obstetrician. This enables the mother to watch the birth and ascertain the sex of her baby at the same time as the delivery team, replicating the situation at vaginal birth.

Early skin-to-skin contact

Once the baby is finally 'born' and wellbeing again confirmed, the cord is clamped and cut in view of the parents. The anaesthetist/anaesthetic assistant clears the mother's clothing from her chest, and the midwife positions him/herself at the top of the bed beside the mother's head. Still scrubbed, the midwife receives the baby directly from the surgeon to prevent contamination (Figure 3). The woman should be warned not to reach out for her baby, as this risks touching the obstetrician. The baby is laid prone between the mother's breasts, dried with a warmed towel and kept warm with fresh towels and bubble wrap. After a plastic clamp is applied, the partner can cut the remaining cord if he wishes.

Labelling and vitamin K administration are accomplished with the baby on the mother's chest. The baby is positioned so that he/she can begin to suckle. The midwife remains near the head end to monitor the baby and reassure the parents. The baby is only weighed when surgery is finished, and given to the partner while the mother is transferred to her bed. Skin-to-skin contact is then re-established with the baby in the same position."

Amazing new research from AJOG

From the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, August 2008:

FINALLY ... someone in the US, in obstetrics is looking at the need to create a Standard of Care. This was done in Nashville, where there is an alarmingly high number of neonatal deaths. Why does it always wait that long before the system responds?


Improved outcomes, fewer cesarean deliveries, and reduced litigation: results of a new paradigm in patient safety

Steven L. Clark MD^a, Michael A. Belfort MD, PhD^a, Spencer L. Byrum LCDR (ret.) USCG^a, Janet A. Meyers RN^a and Jonathan B. Perlin MD, PhD^a

^aHospital Corporation of America, Nashville, TN.

Received 16 October 2007;

revised 26 November 2007;

accepted 14 February 2008.

Available online 12 May 2008.

(My comments in italics and parentheses)

References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.

In a health care delivery system with an annual delivery rate of approximately 220,000, a comprehensive redesign of patient safety process was undertaken based on the following principles:
(1) uniform processes and procedure result in an improved quality;  
(no mention of whether that is code for "practice according to evidence-based science).

(2) every member of the obstetric team should be required to halt any process that is deemed to be dangerous; 
 (woo-hooo, maybe someday they'll even include the parents as members of the team who can halt any process, OH! wait, after I reveal the information from a obstetrician about parents rights -- in my film -- they will!!)

(3) cesarean delivery is best viewed as a process alternative, not an outcome or quality endpoint; (Dang!)

(4) malpractice loss is best avoided by reduction in adverse outcomes and the development of unambiguous practice guidelines;
(Double Dang and Holy Sh--! this is getting mightily close to actually being about the BABY!) and

(5) effective peer review is essential to quality medical practice yet may be impossible to achieve at a local level in some departments.
(Whaaaat ... more PEER REVIEW? How about some effective NON-PEER review and law enforcement? How about some supervision of them foxes who are in charge of the hen house?)

Since the inception of this program, we have seen improvements in patient outcomes, a dramatic decline in litigation claims, and a reduction in the primary cesarean delivery rate.

I'll be getting the full article and reporting back ..

Cesarean Section Research

In late September of this year, researchers in the US dropped a bombshell onto the cozy world of obstetrics.

After analyzing the records of nearly six million births, they advised that mothers should think twice before choosing a caesarean section (CS) over a natural birth. 

Quite simply, an artificial surgical delivery could be putting the life of the newborn at risk. What the stark American statistics revealed was that caesarean babies are almost three times more likely to die within their first month of life than naturally delivered babies (Birth, 2006; 33: 175).

The article continues here in C-section Aftershocks by WDDTY What Doctors Don't Tell You, a UK site. On the right side of the page on the WDDTY site are numerous articles about cesareans.

Towards the end of the article is this bit of research comparing the safety of breech birth and cesarean.

The most common emergency situation is with so-called breech births—where the baby has its bottom facing the birth canal rather than being head downwards. In the days before anesthesia and surgery, all manner of complex devices were invented to extract the baby from this difficult position—one that is potentially dangerous to both the mother and infant. Some doctors have also attempted to solve the problem by developing techniques of turning the baby in the womb from the outside. More recently, the trend in these cases has been to perform a CS rather than risk a natural delivery. 
 

But here again, this issue has divided the world of obstetrics, with some arguing passionately that CS is not necessarily the safer option for breech-presenting babies. 

In an effort to resolve the controversy, Canadian researchers set up a huge international trial, involving over 2000 breech births in 121 maternity units around the world. Roughly half of the babies were delivered naturally, with the other half by CS. Although the absolute risks to the infants were relatively small in both cases, the differences appeared to be clear-cut: whereas 1.6 per cent of the breech babies either died or were damaged by the CS operation, that figure leapt to 5 per cent for those born without it. In both scenarios, the mothers fared equally well (Lancet, 2000; 356: 1375–83).

Following up my previous post on epidural anesthesia which contains Fentanyl, a synthetic opiod, Dr. Mia Kalef interview, "The Secret Life of Babies", in which refers to the research by Dr. B. Jacobson, Sweden. Dr Jacobson found connections between drug use at birth and drug addictions later in life.

When will obstetricians, pediatricians, and psychologists in the United States do or respect the work of those who are exploring the impact of drugs and violations during birth?

From WDDTY What Doctors Don't Tell You ...

Giving birth to junkies

In wealthy countries a majority of children are born with the use of pain relieving drugs. In wealthy countries drug addiction is increasing.

Bring these two facts together and you will wonder why thousands of researchers are not trying to confirm (or invalidate) the conclusions of the studies by B Jacobson and his team in Sweden about the relationship between opiate or amphetamine addiction in adult offspring of mothers given pain medication during their births ( BMJ, 1990;301:1067-70). These researchers studied the birth records of 200 opiate addicts born in Stockholm between 1945 and 1966. The control group consisted only of siblings of drug addicts, also born in Stockholm during the same period to reduce possible bias caused by such factors as socio economic levels.

Continue reading here

 

My Letter to Dr. Phil

A few weeks ago I wrote to Dr. Phil when I hear that he wanted to do a program about birth. Then I heard that a second show request had gone out; one that appears to be biased towards showing that homebirth is dangerous. So, I cranked out another one ....

Dear Dr. Phil:

I implore you to see the opportunity you have to make a profound difference in our society. Please consider your moral obligation to have the same question posed for hospital birth and to take this issue to a level very few have the courage to do.

Will you share how the US has higher infant and maternal mortality rates than any other industrialized nation where they have a NATIONAL STANDARD OF CARE that includes homebirths and midwives? The US has no standard of care and physicians have no one overseeing what they do, drugs they use that were never shown safe for the birthing baby. Will you discuss the rights of a woman to choose where and with whom she gives birth? Will you discuss how relinquishing responsibility for birth to doctors and hospitals leads us to accept that US birth is safer?

Will you discuss the decades long research showing the epidural is dangerous to baby and mother? And, that the drugs used are dangerous to anyone -- fentanyl is classified as a potential chemical weapon. Will you discuss how NONE of the drugs EVER used in obstetric care were ever tested and researched to prove safety before using on laboring and birthing women and BABIES. Will you consider that 90% of our population was born 'Under the influence" of drugs and born with lack of regard for the vulnerability of the baby --- cord clamping requires the rough toweling of baby to stimulate it to breathe when nature has provided for the transition.

Will you bring on brain experts and pre and perinataly psychologists to discuss the impact of any birth on the baby? David Chamberlain, (www.bepe.info and www.birthpsychology.com), PhD. Marti Glenn, PhD (Santa Barbara Graduate Institute Pre and Perinatal Psychology Program), William Emerson, PhD (www.emersonbirthrx.com), Wendy McCarty, RN, PhD (www.wondrousbeginnings.com), Thomas Verny, MD (www.trvernymd.com), Ray Castellino, DC (www.beba.org). I suggest you include Allan Schore, an expert in early brain development, Peter Nathanielsz, PhD, MD (OB) a researcher in the prenatal and birth period and author of three books on the subject, and Bruce Lipton, PhD., a cellular biologist (www.brucelipton.com).

I hope you will do a whole series of shows ... while the epidural and cesarean section rate soar, so does the "failing" school issue and rates of addictions and other issues. Somehow, someone has to make the connection -- the connection between the most monumental day of life, the most dangerous, most joyful, and most challenging for the human being.

The experience of leaving the womb and coming into this life is the most profound experience of life. It is currently controlled by medical systems and unnecessary, damaging, painful, intrusive, boundary violating practices are made routine for every baby. Many people are choosing homebirth in order to avoid these, in order to protect their baby.

The question should really be how can we bridge the two worlds, like in countries where more babies and women simply survive, and where they appear to go on to be physically and emotionally healthier and are smarter, by educational standards, than our children? One study compared normal Americans to incarcerated citizens in Europe and normal Americans score worse. The biggest difference between the US and these other successful countries is the way we bring our babies into the world.

This is so much more than the issue it is being made out to be -- someone needs to address it differently, holistically, intelligently, looking at the entire picture. Why not you, Dr. Phil?

Respectfully,

L. Janel Martin Miranda, MA
CranioSacral Based Attachment TherapistBirth Videographer/Filmmaker
www.bepe.info
www.SafeBabyResolution.com
www.hospitalbirthdebate.blogspot.com

120 Babies and 120 Hostages: Their common link is Fentanyl

I cannot for the life of me, figure out how anyone today believes that epidural is safe for the mother and baby. I don't think a woman has the right to chose it for no damn good reason. I say that freely after making that choice myself. My fourth child was born in 1994 under the influence of epidural. I didn't have the luxury of the internet to research this; I just believed her father, a medical student, that it was safe. Nearly ten years later I found enormous information on the web about the dangers of epidural.

Since 1990 epidural anesthesia use has become widespread and promoted as safe. Women WANT to believe this, so much so, it is considered "natural birth" because now the definition of "natural" is vaginal. Women will resist sharing with other women that they are not going to use epidural because of the shock and pressure from other women. "Why would you want to go through all of that pain?"

One of the considerations of doing birth at home is to not have a medical person constantly badgering her to use epidural. What has happened to these medical people? Educated, caring, compassionate people who are supposed to protect our health and our baby's health.

Since the prolific research of the late 80's and early 90's clearly indicating the dangers of epidural anestheia (namely bipuvicaine) to both mother and baby, Fentanyl, another unresearched and dangerous drug has been added to the cocktail. Fentanyl is a synethetic opiod being considered as a weapon to use in Iraq and has been added to the epidural mix to counter affect the complications of bipuvicaine. Research on birthing babies determined the "appropriate" dosage. Fentanyl is responsible for the deaths of hostages in 2002 in Moscow and is dangerous for children. In the US the same drug could be used on our sweet, precious babies AND terrorists.

Reports yesterday from Moscow about the gray gas that was pumped into the Moscow theater bear out the assertions of American medical experts that Fentanyl is dangerous to children under 12. Survivors and relatives of victims said that at least 10 of the dead were children. 


U.S. Suspects Opiate in Gas Used in Theater
By JUDITH MILLER and WILLIAM J. BROAD© New York Times, October 29, 2002
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/dll/knockoutgas2.htm

So, Fentanyl is the drug that the obstetric whizs decided was good to counter-act the detrimental and dangerous complications of bipuvicaine in epidural anesthesia. Where are the ethics committee who consider the rights of the birthing baby? What is going on that women who will use no drugs whatsoever during pregnancy will, without question, denying the long term impact on their baby, will demand their right to take Fentanyl during birth. And, some will allow their baby to be treated with less ethical care and consideration than a lab rat.

In this study by addition of fentanyl we tried to minimize the dose of bupivacaine, thereby reducing the side effects caused by higher doses of intrathecal bupivacaine in cesarean section.

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1159169

Study was performed on 120 cesarean section parturients divided into six groups, identified as B8, B10 and B 12.5 8.10 and 12.5 mg of bupivacaine mg and FB8, FB10 and FB 12.5 received a combination of 12.5 μg intrathecal fentanyl respectively.

Women trust the medical profession. They would never allow harm to their baby if they were truly informed of the full risk; if they were informed that these drugs were never shown to be safe for their baby -- in any dose. Neither of these drugs were ever tested for safety for the birthing baby and certainly no research is being done to show the long-term impact to the human being.

The 120 babies in this particular study were not able to chose or be informed about their participation in this study. This is characteristic of all research done on laboring and birthing babies. It is a travesty that "ETHICS" committees and society do not regard the human baby in their research ... research that happens AFTER the use of technology and substance, not before using on babies. And, then to deny the need for research to see what the long-term impact is.

Fentanyl is considered a potential chemical weapon and has been studied for use on terrorists.

And on February 5th, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went a big step further. Rumsfeld, himself a former pharmaceutical industry CEO (1), announced that the US is making plans for the use of such incapacitating biochemical weapons in an invasion of Iraq (see News Release, 7 February 2003).

The Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) and the US Army's Soldier Biological Chemical Command (SBCCOM) are leading the research. Of interest to the military are drugs that target the brain's regulation of many aspects of cognition, such as sense of pain, consciousness, and emotions like anxiety and fear. JNLWD is preparing a database of pharmaceutical weapons candidates, many of them off-the-shelf products, and indexing them by manufacturer. It will choose drugs from this database for further work and, according to Rumsfeld, if President Bush signs a waiver of existing US policy, they can be used in Iraq. Delivery devices already exist or are in advanced development. These include munitions for an unmanned aerial vehicle or loitering missile, and a new 81mm (bio)chemical mortar round.

Many of the Pentagon’s so-called "nonlethal" (bio)chemical weapons candidates are pharmaceuticals. Different names are used for these weapons ("calmatives", "disabling chemicals", "nonlethal chemicals", etc.). Used as weapons, all minimally aim to incapacitate their victims. They belong to the same broad category of agents as the incapacitating chemical that killed more than 120 hostages in the Moscow theater. That agent was reported to be based on fentanyl, an opiate that is also among the weapons being assessed by JNLWD. 

In the US, pharmaceutical fentanyl is sold by Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Janssen Pharmaceutica. Remifentanil, a closely related drug, is a GlaxoSmithKline product. 

WHO is allowing the field obstetrics to go unsupervised? WHO is allowing the same drug to used on terrorists to be used on our birthing babies?? The FDA has approved this? Or, any drug is ok as long as an OB want to use it?

I don't know who wrote the following, but I did find some references that are listed at the end.

Russia's top health official Yuri Shevchenko reported that the gas used in the storming of a Moscow theater held by Chechen gunmen was based on fentanyl, a fast-acting opiate with medical applications. Shevchenko said the deaths were caused by the use of the chemical compound on people who had been starved of oxygen, were dehydrated, hungry, unable to move adequately and under severe psychological stress.

Injected, skin-patch and oral doses of fentanyl sold in the United States carry warnings that the anesthetic can be fatal if administered in too high a dose and that doses must be customized, taking into account the patients' size and any previous exposure to similar drugs.

Fentanyl was among drugs that Pennsylvania State University researchers suggested two years ago that the U.S. military explore as weapons to subdue angry mobs. The Pentagon has put such research on hold, however, because of worries that it would violate the international ban on chemical weapons.Fentanyl is one of the drugs used in epidural anesthesia for childbirth ("hungry, unable to move adequately, under severe psychological stress" sounds familiar). It certainly has worked wonders on the women of this culture as a chemical weapon in the war against spontaneous, unimpeded, empowered birthing.

http://www.sunshineproject.org/publications/pr/pr110203.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/10/31/world/main527614.shtml
 
Oprah says we should be uprising over the dismal state of our education system. We are 25th in the world science and math. Oprah also still promotes epidural anesthesia and drugs in birth -- she does so as most women do, laughing and saying it is the only way to give birth. No regard for the human baby. Oprah gave birth at age fourteen, reportedly she was pregnant by rape. No amount of drugs will help a woman give birth in that circumstance. Oprah's experience is not the correct measurement of what is scientifically wrong for babies. She does not even crack her psyche a fraction to allow the possibility that our failing schools ... failing children ... struggling children are the consequence of the rising use of induction of babies and the use of narcotics, opiods for the birthing brain. As the incidence of drugs in birth and cesarean birth rise at an alarmingly similar rate as the failure of our children in school, we need to rise up and say no more. No more routine drugging of the human newborn at birth.

Based on what we know, the routine epidural anesthesia during labor is not the right of a woman over that of a baby. I don't care what Obama says.

Breastfeeding and IQ

Smarty Gene: Breast-fed kids show DNA-aided IQ boost
by Bruce Bower

Scientists have achieved a breakthrough in deciphering the genetics of intelligence. Ironically, they did it by accounting for a key environmental factor.Breast-feeding boosts children's IQs by 6 to 7 points over the IQs of kids who weren't breast-fed, but only if the breast-fed youngsters have inherited a gene variant associated with enhanced chemical processing of mothers' milk, reports a team led by psychologist Avshalom Caspi of King's College London.


The new finding supports the controversial hypothesis that fatty acids in breast milk enhance newborn babies' brain development.


Moreover, the results demonstrate that intelligence researchers must examine how children's genetic natures interact with the ways in which they're nurtured.


Continue reading at: http://sciencenews.org/articles/20071110/fob1.asp

I liked this quote at the end:

Adds psychologist Jeremy R. Gray of Yale University, "An IQ advantage of 6 to 7 points is unquestionably large enough to have a real-world impact on individuals."

I visited a website that rants about the unsafety of homebirth. I hadn't been there for about six months. Nothing has changed. I added comments about what the baby feels and experiences at birth and people got so jiggy -- I advocated for gentle, respectful treatment of the baby. WOW, mother's of NICU babies went ballistic, folks got rude and ridiculing, and basically saying that babies don't remember so it doesn't matter. You'd think I'd said the world is round.

Really, it's such a spiritual experience to go that blog. I always think of Gandhi:
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."

Although winning doesn't really sound like something Gandhi would seek. Did he really say that?

Anyway, that's how the folks who trash homebirth, natural birth and who support cesarean as a less painful, healthier way for humans to be born, and adamantly resist and attack one for the concept of the human baby being a fully conscious, aware, and learning baby act when one introduces research or logic to the contrary. Contrary to what they are doing, making a living doing, or experienced as a patient. They got so jiggy about me saying that the baby could be treated gently and with respect EVEN if s/he needed to have an intervention. They even said that there is no research to support prenatal learning. They must live in caves! I suggested they Google: fetal programming and development and suggested they look at the mainstream researchers, Janet Dieprieto, PhD, Peter Nathanielsz, MD (OB), PhD (Vet), and Peter Hepper, PhD (Ireland).

I remember when breastfeeding was as opposed with the same flimsy science that convinced women to use formula, while the logic and science that said Mother Nature or Divine Design has provided what the human baby needs was vehemently denied by the medical caregivers. I breastfed my son in 1975 when it was not at cool to do so. They kept my baby from me for hours until my family was gone. Two nurses tried to talk me out of it. They said they had already fed him and he took the bottle just fine. Something deep rises up within me (and the B word too) just writing that. How did they get the "right" and the "power" to impose their MISbeliefs upon MY BABY!?!? It is not to be taken lightly since we once again know as a society that breastfeeding is so critical. The first feeding primes the baby's stomach. HOW DARE they take that away from him. WHY do we continue to allow medical caregivers to perpetrate their opinions and beliefs that are shown over and over and over to be NON-Science based? And, that translate into disrespectful, dangerous, and violating treatment of our babies?

Oprah and everyone else is talking about how the US compares in math and science. One woman on Oprah said that this is the number one issue? Yet, Oprah continues to support epidural .. with all the research that shows it is dangerous and WITHOUT any longitudinal or retrospective research to show it is safe and without consequence. Is the education rate of failure corresponding to the increasing rates of induction, epidural, and cesarean? Doesn't anyone in power THINK and connect?

We are told that induction is safe, drugs are safe, even Fentanyl and other narcotics, during labor and birth, but we should not use them at other times during pregnancy. We are told that cesarean birth is safe for the mother and baby and yet, the obstetric field will not do any long term research. Those doing the research are psychologists and their credibility -- because they are psychologists -- is discredited by medicine, and the women they violated, who must believe, believe, believe that whatever was done to them was done for the right reasons.

Someday, the majority will see that the human being does remember every experience, including birth, and that we can be gentle and respectful doing lifesaving maneuvers. But will we ever be able to just say: Babies are emotionally, physically, and spiritually impacted by their birth experience? How's come we can't seem to overcome the medical power and control and just say it -- poor treatment of the human by doctors and nurses at birth causes X, Y, Z. Like, medicine causes low IQ.

My friend, Rich concurs,

How about a new headline: "Medical research demonstrates IQ cost of hubris and recklessness in pediatric practice". 


Or "90% offormula fed children would have higher IQ's if their parents had ignored a century of conventional medical wisdom". The admission that "formula-fed infants typically received no fatty acids in their diets" is an indictment of american quack pediatric/industrial medicine if there ever was one.


This is just one more in a long stream of findings demonstratingthe immunological, nutritional, psychological and now intellectual deficits suffered by formula-fed babies. Yet there is no outcry, no call for banning over-the-counter formula, no push for facilities to breast-feed and co-habitate in the workplace, no press releases attempting to undo the effects of over a century of medical trivialization and denigration of breast feeding. No doubt children are better off not being held by their mothers anyway. I'm sure sensory deprivation does wonders for their growing brains.


http://www.violence.de/tv/rockabye.html


It wasn't so long ago that new mothers were routinely given injectionsto dry up their breasts. Now at least they can sometimes breastfeed in public without going to jail. Will wonders never cease?Perhaps some day there will be room for human nature in medicalideology. That is, if they can think of a way to make it profitable.

Babies Remember Birth Guest writer, Rich Winkel

The discoveries that are being made in birth psychology are perhaps obvious in retrospect but still widely denied in obstetrical circles because of their devastating implications. If humans had never developed written language and all the diversions and false authority that comes with it, we probably wouldn't have forgotten the timeless intellect and wisdom encoded in our genes and bodies.

The lessons are simple: first, babies and fetuses remember EVERYTHING. The memories are apparently imprinted in the neural nets distributed throughout their bodies and brains, and can affect their perceptions and behavior for the rest of their lives. Adverse events, if left unresolved, can repeatedly resurface in a pattern of trauma-reenactment which ensnares following generations in an expanding cycle of suffering and victimization which could be (and probably has been) responsible for engulfing entire societies in epidemics of sociopathic cruelty.

Second, being born is the baby's first deliberate act, its first expression and celebration of its newly discovered life. Whether it is lovingly received and empowered or objectified and subjugated will profoundly affect its self-esteem for years to come. Birth trauma can even affect a female baby's future births, again setting the stage for self-perpetuating intergenerational patterns of dysfunctional behavior.

Third, birth is only one step in a process of being born, of evolving from a fertilized egg to a physically autonomous child. After birth, the umbilical cord is replaced by breastfeeding and all ofits physical and emotional attributes, which are no less essential to a healthy outcome than the cord itself. The mother-baby is a biological/psychological/social complex which must be inviolate if the baby and mother are to reach their full human potentials.

All of these principles, which appear to be obvious to other primates, have been routinely ignored in centuries of western obstetrical and pediatric practices.

What all this boils down to is that western "civilization" is suffering from a centuries-old psychosocial epidemic involving the systematic and traumatic severing of this cosmic physical and spiritual mother-baby connection to ourselves and each other. We are a society of orphans, alienated from our roots and perpetually in search of pale substitutes for this connection. We are living in abject spiritual poverty in the midst of boundless meanings and possibilities, having forgotten our own divine essence.

The relevance of all this to the search for peace and harmony should be obvious. I believe this issue may be at the heart of the social pathologies of monotheism and patriarchy.

Salmonella or Staph?

In passing today I saw a few moments of The View on ABC.  Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who co-hosts was talking about tomatoes. She is apparently freaked out because of the salmonella outbreak about "certain tomatoes" and is not eating any tomatoes at all. She was quite adamant about the topic. I had to laugh ... she is also the one I saw interviewing Patricia Arquette.

Ms. Arquette gave birth in the hospital and then had a homebirth. She was quite eloquent, though simply matter-of-fact about her experience, while the Ms. Hasselbeck was anything but an "objective news woman". She just couldn't "wrap her head around" the idea of a homebirth ... birthing outside of the hospital? She couldn't imagine not giving birth, not being safe in the hospital ... the germiest places on the planet where salmonella is the lessor of the evils lurking there.

A local news woman said this week about giving birth, "give me the IV and prop me up on the pillows". If not so sad, it would actually be funny. These women have so much influence and their "empowerment" is so shallow.

Modern Birth and Torture

By Rich Winkle

This country has a psycho-social parallel with pre-Nazi Germany which may be surprising to you.

First check out Democracy Now's interviews with Alfred McCoy, author of "A Question of Torture" (and earlier, the indispensable "The Politics of Heroin")

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22a+question+of+torture%22+site%3Ademocracynow.org&btnG=Google+Search

See especially his description of the CIA's current state of the art "psychological torture" technique, which consists of two components:

-Sensory deprivation
-Self induced pain

When you understand how this combination works on the psyche, consider the fact that standard American obstetrical and medicalized pediatric practices have subjected a majority of native-born Americans to a slight variation of the above:

-Sensory and pleasure-sensory deprivation
-Other-induced pain

This is the "parenting" technique which was widely utilized in pre-Nazi Germany on the children who grew up to become war criminals and sadists. Those Germans who were spared this treatment were often part of the resistance to the Nazis.

The Political Consequences of Child Abuse
http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/politica.htm

What are the psychological consequences of the latter variation of torture? The destruction of empathy, the social glue which humanizes us and makes for livable societies.

The Womb is a School and All Babies Attend

The Womb is a School and All Babies Attend

By David B. Chamberlain, Ph.D*

The womb of a mother during pregnancy has been thought of as a veiled, largely silent refuge where babies develop in peace and safety for about nine months before birth. Construction was considered an assembly line process in which all babies got built from genetically-influenced, but basically similar parts. In this scheme, mothers had little to do beyond eating sensibly and taking prenatal vitamins while dads, having made their unique gift of sperm to start the process, were basically in a holding pattern until the real baby materialized at birth. Babies, on the other hand, were regarded as passive passengers, incapable of sensation or communication, without passion or purpose, and clearly beyond reach. In that ancient 20^th Century culture (actually not long ago) everybody knew that parenting began after birth.

Today thanks to lots of new science surrounding human gestation, pregnancy is a whole new world for parents and babies! It turns out that just about everything from conception to birth depends on a matrix of interactions between all parties, is fraught with both physical and psychological hazards, charged with motion and emotion, and the final outcome is more heavily influenced by the immediate environment—principally the intimate world of the parents—than by the genes involved. It turns out that babies possess powers of awareness that were overlooked, have senses nobody counted, and a vulnerable psyche absorbing information from all its experiences in the womb. And surprise, surprise, in this school room, parents are the teachers--ready or not.

In this precarious situation, here are some quick tips for parents who sense they are out of synch with the new facts of life before birth. First, reorient yourself in time to the fact that parenting starts before conception (not after birth) when you still have a chance to clean up your act before the sperm meets the egg. You will know what you need to change to get ready. Second, unload any ideas that clutter your mind about the pitiful ignorance and incapacities of babies and gamble on the opposite notion they are amazing humans who would like to grow up in your family. Third, don’t be fooled by their size, including the size of their brains, and immediately begin looking for their heart and spirit. Fourth, get right to work communicating with all the babies who cross your path; you need practice in communicating one mind to another. Your words, so communicated, will explain, support, and heal through every challenge life brings. Fifth, and finally, turn on daily the high energy nutrients of affection and laughter, the secret “glue” that holds families together.

*David is a psychologist and member of Birth and Early Parenting Educators. More about that group at www.BEPE.info. David is also editor of birthpsychology.com and noted for his popular book The Mind of Your Newborn Baby, now in 12 languages.

David also is co-founder of the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH) at www.birthpsychology.com