Safe Motherhood Quilt Project

AHHHHHHH..... the sigh of relief as I sit here after completing my finals for Winter term and welcome the next 2 weeks of relaxation. Wait. Oh ya, no relaxation for me! I have a browser with 11 tabs open, most of which are midwifery related articles waiting to be read and filed, a few more are autism related articles waiting to be read and discussed with the old man about possible solutions to help with our 9 year old and I have a pile of work upstairs waiting to be organized so I can get to midwifery studies in a few days. 


The life of a midwifery student is exciting and exhausting but oh so rewarding. Especially when you open your computer to see one of the biggest inspirations to your calling being interviewed by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now.  Ina May Gaskin is a pioneer for American Midwives. She has made leaps and bounds in bringing awareness, advocacy and education to mothers for over 30 years. She makes so many articulate points in this interview and is so inspiring. 


One of the things she discusses in this interview is her Safe Motherhood Quilt Project described as, "The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project is a national effort developed to draw public attention to the current maternal death rates, as well as to the gross underreporting of maternal deaths in the United States, and to honor those women who have died of pregnancy-related causes since 1982." There is a list of facts as well as more info on how to get involved and spread the word on the website. Please visit it and learn about how we can prevent maternal mortality and improve the outcomes for many women and families in our country.

Some stats that are important to remember when thinking about maternal mortality rates are :

• At least 30 other countries have lower maternal death rates than the U.S.
• There has been no reduction in the maternal death rate in the U.S. since 1982.
• The CDC acknowledges that we have a massive problem of underreporting of maternal deaths in the U.S. and that our reported rate may be only 1/3 to 1/2 of the actual total number.
• Maternal death rates are four times as high in the African-American community as in the Caucasian community.
• There is no federal requirement that the states carry out a confidential review of all maternal deaths in order to be sure that all are counted, to analyze the principle causes of preventable deaths and to make policy recommendations to prevent such deaths in the future. In most countries with lower maternal death rates than ours, maternal deaths are systematically reviewed and there are lower levels of underreporting of such deaths than the CDC says we have in the U.S.

Please visit http://www.rememberthemothers.org/ for more info!

What are the Conditions for a Physiological Birth?

This is knowledge from the beginning of time that we have had disrupt and prove to be sure that nature had it right... Time and time again, I here professionals who have had more experience than you can imagine, quote scientific studies that tell us that Mother Nature already knew what we needed to survive and only when mankind turned to "man" did we forget the old ways or disrupt them enough that we have to prove it over and over again in as many ways as we can that women know how to birth if left to their own accord.

Antique midwifery texts dating back to the 1600's written by European physicians, male physicians, knew already what midwives are trying to bring back to the women of our communities today.  They describe in great detail the passion of labor, the needs of a woman while she is birthing, the effects of disruption to the mother, the psychedelic state of mind that she enters, the Ecstasy right after labor of an uninterrupted birth and the very little help that one must give other than making sure the mother is well nourished and hydrated and has emotional support if she chooses.

Let's relearn what is already written in our genes, what we were born with, unlearning the fear and accept Birth.

Breastfeeding is a matter of Public Health!

This should not be coming as a surprise, nor should it take a public service announcement to make it common knowledge that Breastfeeding is the best choice for your baby.

Please know, if you or a loved one is having problems breastfeeding, there is loads of places to find support. Your local La Leche League is the first place to look but if that is too "crunchy" for you, please call your local lactation consultants from the nearest hospital. 

Please also be aware there are milk banks and Eats on Feets groups popping up all over the country where you can get donated milk for your baby if you are unable to breastfeed.

"The wealth of new data about the effects of breast-feeding influenced the AAP to update its guidelines. Researchers have found that breast-fed babies have a decreased risk of dying of SIDS, fewer ear infections, less likelihood of obesity or cardiovascular disease And fewer hospitalizations for pneumonia; mothers benefit from decreased risk of breast, ovarian and uterine cancers. Duration is important: “The longer you do it and the more exclusive it is, some of these effects become even more significant,” says Schanler. “Hospitalization for pneumonia is significantly reduced if you exclusively breast-feed for six months as opposed to less than four months. How can you say that’s not important?”

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/02/29/why-pediatricians-say-breast-feeding-is-about-public-health-not-just-lifestyle/#ixzz1np1CIE5A

Surrender

The most amazing thing I have learned about birth so far is that regardless of the planning, the knowledge you obtain, the plans you make the visualizations you rehearse, when you are in the moment in birthing, surrendering to the forces in your body takes work. If the mother fights the surrendering, she will suffer more, become irrational, and experience the birth in ways she was not expecting. This goes for the period right before labor as well, the days in which she tries to get things going, induces medically or “naturally” with herbs or procedures. Surrendering is probably the most important skill to practice, meditation, breathing, letting go. Surrendering isn’t just the responsibility of the mother to learn though, it is important for the whole team of people, should she chose to have one, to be able to surrender with her, leave things alone, let her be primal and instinctual, allow her room to move and vocalize and not get uncomfortable if the sounds she makes are scary or unexpected. The midwife needs to surrender to the time the mother and baby need to make the dance of emergence happen, the family needs to surrender to the idea that their requested presence is all they need to provide and they cannot make the mother’s work easier any other way, the father has to surrender to the power moving through his partner’s body to bring forth this baby and let go of needing to fix anything and just be with her. 

For a wonderful pregnancy meditation click here. 

Surrendering does not mean you cannot be present or make decisions should you need to, part of surrendering is listening to your body and acting on the messages you receive, without expectation of what you think you will hear or what will happen. This goes again for the witnesses, listening, acting on the requests of the mother, understanding the messages that are not verbal, like when to leave her alone and when to support her, when she is scared or when something does require assistance. But if you are too busy thinking, having expectations, you will miss those bits of communication you can only pick up with a clear mind in the moment.

A long time ago, I was on a quest for a vision while meditating with Reiki attunements. I really wanted to receive a message from a spirit guide. I sat and waited, and “watched” with eyes closed, trying to make something out of the shapes that floated behind my eyes. I sat for what seemed like hours, “trying” to have a vision. It wasn’t until I surrendered, what felt like giving up at the time, letting go o the expectation, that I finally saw something and it was so quick, so fleeting, yet so detailed and meaningful I became so excited when it happened, it was gone as soon as I realized it was there. The split second vision I had has stayed with me since then, the lesson has followed and reminds me in many situations about the power of surrendering and the gifts that accomplishing the surrender can bring. 

Childbirth Experiences Have a Lot to Do With Expectations

This is a paper I wrote for a sociology class in reference to this study http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cjri/2008/00000026/00000004/art00004

The expectations and experiences that mothers face can be related to the type of care and the culture that the expectant mother is exposed to. The study, “Childbirth expectations and experiences in Belgian and Dutch models of maternity care” conducted by Wendy Christianens, Mieke Verhaeghe and Piet Brake (Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, Vol 26, No 4, Nov 2008, 309-322, Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Belgium) sought to confirm how a mother’s exposure to societal norms, previous experiences, other people’s stories and the way their care giver attend to the perceived needs and expectations account for the actual event’s experience and the level of satisfaction on the mother’s behalf. Belgium and Dutch women develop different patterns of expectations during their pregnancies and tend to have diverging birth experiences according to the care provided to them during their gestational and postpartum periods. The researchers expected that Dutch women would have a more positive outlook about childbirth than Belgium women, though there was no expectation of difference of experiences versus expectation between Belgium and Netherlands due to the socialization processes as a function of the maternity systems.

            The researchers used a variety previous data dating back  from 1982 to present to determine how to conduct the study and what variables they would use. There was a questionnaire made to be distributed to women in both Belgium and Dutch Maternity care systems. There was one questionnaire given at about 30 weeks gestation and another given at 2 weeks postpartum. These questionnaires were used to determine the expectations and outcomes of the mothers, planning on birthing in a hospital setting or in a home or birth center setting. The fixed factors were time, country and place of birth.

            In Dutch maternity care, it is common to have home births (30% of births), low medical intervention, and short hospital stays if the mothers do plan to attend hospitals. The Midwifery Model of care is used that is woman and baby centered, viewing birth as a normal, natural physiological process.

            Belgium is contrasting in the way that home births are uncommon and the medical model of care is highly practiced having a 98% hospital birth rate. The society there sees birth as risky and that hospital births will ensure a safe delivery. Birth has become a medical event in need of supervision by specialists and it is common to use interventions such as epidural pain relief and surgical birth.

            Data was collected within 4 groups of women. Women who planned their births in either the hospital or home in both Belgium and Dutch care systems. There were 5 hospitals and 27 midwifery practices with similar socio-economical factors. Midwives and Obstetricians asked their clients to participate. The main factors of eligibility were that they had to speak Dutch and be 18 years or older in age. The questionnaire was conducted in an anonymous manner.

            The Questionnaire was designed to learn if the subjects felt anxious about the upcoming birth and labeled the choices as unknown, uncontrollable and unavoidable. The language of “expectation” meant that women had to answer about what they thought would happen, not what they hoped would happen. The outcomes of the score would show people with a higher number were feeling more negative towards their expectations and experience and the lower score would show more optimism.

            Of the 827 questionnaires filled out during the prenatal stage, only 611 participated in the follow up questionnaire 2 weeks after birth, 265 were Belgium women and 346 were Dutch. Participating women were between the ages of 19 and 44, the mean being 31 years old. First time moms were 54% of the respondents and the study reported that more Belgium than Dutch women had a higher education with 77% of Belgian and 40.5% Dutch, though almost equal percentage (85%) of the women were employed. This raised a question for me personally about the way that higher education seems to be correlated with the increased use to medical intervention because of affordability or access to that kind of care.

            The results show that both countries had a expectation that was more negative than the actual experience even though the expectation were significantly different between the subject groups. The results concluded that “expectations and experiences are positively associated and the relation is rather strong. Expectations are a strong predictor of a woman’s experience of childbirth.” In the majority of cases the experience was better than the woman’s predictions. Some of the significant findings were that women planning on giving birth at home had the lower scores showing less anxiety about the process and also showed a higher level of satisfaction after the birth had happened.  This analysis conformed the hypothesis. What was also found in this study was that when replaced by the actual place of birth from the planned place of birth, the home birth subjects had a more positive experience than the hospital subject groups “showing that midwifery care is more satisfactory than care by doctors.” The findings were relevant to how policy is created when caring for pregnant women in a way that supports having a strategy to reduce negative experiences and is more encouraging of optimistic expectations. This would be a preventative approach that can be applied to maternity care systems worldwide.

            The researchers approach was a functionalist approach. The research was based on the idea of how the maternity system functions effect the satisfaction of the people who are receiving care through it. I found this study to be very pertinent to my main focus of education which is midwifery. The level of satisfaction that a mother experiences through her birth effects many parts of society. Her ability to raise a healthy human being is essential to the integrity of the future of our survival on this planet. If she is dissatisfied, that experience can lead to depression, detachment, breastfeeding problems, marital issues just to name a few. The baby could suffer from neurological damage from a traumatic birth,  not having a healthy mother or care giver, nutritional issues from not having built a strong breastfeeding relationship and social issues from lack of bonding due to birth trauma. These effects of birth on society are coming into a larger awareness as we are able to conduct more and more studies about the biology of birth and neurodevelopment and how our society benefits from cooperating with nature’s intended way of babies to be born. Additional research I would like to see on this subject is a longitudinal study of emotional and physical health of babies born in and out of hospitals, the rate of postpartum depression amongst women who have birthed in both settings and the incidence of long term emotional dysfunction (PTSD)from the women who viewed their birth in the higher negative range. 

Kaire Downin 2012

Scared of Repeating Preterm Birth?

A friend of mine just found out she is pregnant. Among her joy is a heavy layer of fear. You see, her introduction to being a mother was complete with a pregnancy riddled with severe morning sickness and constipation that ended in her daughter being born 2 months premature. and a lengthy stay in NICU. She is terrified that she will be miserable again and have to balance her toddler and a possble premie situation again, and I understand these fears. She is afraid that talking about these fears will make me think she is crazy. Here was my response to her, I thought I would share to help others address similar fears.

I do not think you are insane. That is a nightmare of a way to start your life as a mother. Preterm babies are so hard to heal from. There are so many reasons that our bodies decide not to continue a pregnancy, it is very hard to pinpoint. With the level of technology we currently have available, doctors are certainly able to give a better prognosis to these babies that would have otherwise been considered a late term miscarriage in earlier times. Besides the fact you have had this experience, your fears are normal and you are not crazy! 

Some things to be aware of. I know you love statistics so I will give you some numbers.

Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes  (PPROM)is the leading cause of preterm labor and accounts for 88% of babies that die when born (before 37 weeks gestation)prematurely.  Premature Rupture of Membranes happens in about 3% of all pregnancies, around 150,000 annually in the US. (from my research paper on cesarean birth rate)

In Midwifery Today’s last publication, they had a story about premature births and claimed that the majority of these are caused by uterine infections. They also said that dental hygiene is incredibly important to prevent uterine infections.  Pretty interesting huh?

I am going to take a wild guess here, and this is just a hunch, I am by no means qualified to tell you this is fact but being as constipated as you describe can lead to an overload of toxins in your body and probably had a significant role in your preterm birth.  The first step I would take, if I was your midwife, would be to get you on a diet that would help to reduce that. This may include you going outside of your comfort zone to eat things you may not be entirely happy about, at least try it, and if you cannot fathom keeping up with it, seeking alternatives that would have the same effect. Here are some choices…

Besides what the American Pregnancy Association recommends which is the first steps to take my favorite herbologist, Susun Weed, has some suggestions here that are easy to implement with the right motivation, certainly preventing preterm labor and avoiding the nightmare scenario you endured before is enough motivation to give it a try. You can obtain these herbs at your local herb or Tea Shop or order online.  Not only do they have medicinal qualities, they are nutrient rich and better absorbed than prenatal vitamins in most cases. You can lose the iron supplements and replace it with the herbs that also contain calcium and vit A, C and B’s that are vital to your health while pregnant. 

Vit C is another supplement that can drastically reduce your risk of preterm premature rupture of membranes. This study reports “Daily supplementation with 100 mg vitamin C after 20 wk of gestation effectively lessens the incidence of PROM.”  

In this article by Gail Hart, who is a midwife and educator who travels all over the world with Midwifery Today as an expert speaker, whom I have had the absolute pleasure of meeting and conversing with, she goes over some of the issues that cause preterm labor and ways to avoid them. This woman has practiced natural authentic midwifery for more than 30 years and is a jewel to our community. Please read this and let me know if you need any clarification on anything.   

Now, if you are going to go the high risk route with a doctor, and you tell them about supplementing with herbs and vitamins, they are possibly going to tell you there is no evidence to prove any of this works. They are mistaken. The evidence is in the years and years of these plants being used and producing healthy pregnancies and babies and are not reported or scientifically studied because it would cost loads of money and drug companies can’t patent the herbs the way they do medicines so it is a money issue and not a science issue. I honestly understand why you would want the support of a specialist OBGYN with your past experience. I am sure the tests and reassurances you can gain from them will help your confidence in the pregnancy and your ability to learn to trust your body. I hope I can give you the tools you need to advocate for yourself and take charge of your care and seek to understand ways in which you can maintain your health without unneeded interventions that might disrupt the safety of your pregnancy.  

The easiest way to insure yours and your baby’s health is to make changes to your diet. I have an abundance of raspberry leaf and nettle and can bring you some to get started right away if you want. It can’t hurt. I sweeten the infusions with fruit juice like cranberry or pomegranate. You can brew half a gallon of this every other day and keep it in a water bottle that you can sip on throughout the day to help with your morning sickness. I also brew kombucha and can supply you with kombucha tea or a SCOBY so you can brew your own. This will also aid in digestion and prevent constipation and balance your intestinal and vaginal flora. Here is info on Kombucha during pregnancy.  Like the article says, if you haven’t been a regular drinker of the kombucha, start with just a small cup a day, you may never need to drink more than that, but if you enjoy it, you may want to gradually increase it or even add it to your infusions… I love kombucha, but I have acquired the taste for it and noticed the benefits right away!  

OK, that is a lot of reading for you to get started. I hope it helps ease some of your fears by putting some choices in your hands to work with. If it was me, the first thing I would try is the raspberry leaf infusions with some nettle and a small cup of kombucha to help with the morning sickness and prevent constipation. If you don’t have much of an appetite, these are the bare minimum things I would want in my body to nourish the cells and the baby’s growth.

Is Vaccination Really Responsible for the Eradication of Fatal Childhood Disease?

Is Vaccination Really Responsible for the Eradication of Fatal Childhood Disease?

                One of the biggest arguments from people who are advocates of immunizations is that we have seen such a drastic reduction in deadly childhood diseases since vaccinations have been being used.  Unfortunately for them, there is evidence that vaccination didn’t have anything to do with the reduction in illnesses of this nature. In this chart, you can see that the number of people who died from several of the more common devastating diseases were declining before the introduction of vaccines to the population.

        

The Evidence

                A paper published in 1977 from the Lancet, “VACCINATION AGAINST WHOOPING-COUGH: Efficacy versus Risks” (bystianyk/Stewart) reveals, ““There was a continuous decline [whooping cough deaths], equal in each sex, from 1937 onward.” They report that Vaccination was started on a small scale around 1948 and then nationally in 1957. The findings were that it did not affect the rate of decline in deaths due to disease. The results instead point to the bilogy of disease where the decline between 1930 and 1957 is due to the weakened parts of the population already being removed and the spread of the disease lessening because the population was left with stronger immunity. The reports determines, “With this pattern well established before 1957, there is no evidence that vaccination played a major role in the decline in incidence and mortality in the trend of events.” Furthermore, this study shows that since 1977, the scientific community has been aware that vaccines were not the reason that diseases ceased to exist in our communities. These declining numbers came about during a period when the public health agencies spread a wide campaign about hand washing and hygienic practices to help reduce the risks of infection as suggested by Dr Palevsky in the Documentary, A Greater Good. (Manookian) Dr. Palevsky

Do the Vaccines Work for Future Outbreaks?

                Dr. Lopez-Duran, an advocate for vaccination, claims that children of parents that refused vaccinations were at risk for pertussis 2000% more than children that received the vaccination. The writer than goes on to give the results of a study stating, “Of the 156 children who acquired pertussis, 12% were children of parents who refused vaccination.” This statistic leads me to question who then were the other 88% of the children with pertussis? Were they vaccinated? The research participants were all part of a large health care insurance company.  This statement is not followed with information about the ages of these children when they were infected either. The pertussis vaccination wears off in the teens, requiring continued vaccination to be effective. The way Dr. Lopez-Duran states his claim leads me to believe that the vaccination is not effective.

It Can’t Hurt to Be Safe, Vaccination is Preventative!

                Supporters go on to state that there is no scientific evidence to prove that the cause of the severe reactions that are blamed on vaccinations are in fact from vaccinations. This is a flawed statement as all the studies the CDC uses to determine the safety of current vaccinations are not only paid for by the companies producing them but are epidemic and not scientific investigations with in depth looks t the ingredients and their affect on the human body, including neurological health.  Dr. Lopez-Duran goes on to state, “Parents who agreed to vaccinate their children were 2 times more likely than vaccine-refusing parents to visit the doctor for upper respiratory infections.”  His interpretation of this statement is that the participants were biased and that parents who refused vaccination were less likely to seek the help of a family physician when their children were sick than those who voluntarily received the vaccinations. I find there to be fault with this statement in the sense that if the vac-refusing parents were less likely to seek the help of a physician when their kids were sick and they didn’t die of severe infection, then maybe the help of the physician wasn’t needed to begin with.  If the children did acquire pertussis, as the writer assumes is likely underreported for the same bias reasons, and they didn’t die or need hospitalization, maybe pertussis isn’t as lethal as much of the literature would like to convince you it is. This also shows that studies cite children who are vaccinated have increased visits to doctor’s offices. Let’s examine this.

                If there is a higher incidence of return patients in the vaccinated category, and these patients were not reported to (VAERS) The Vaccination Adverse Events Reporting System, than what were these kids seen for?  It is suggested that an increase in the common cold, asthma realted illness, reoccurring ear infections, and other chronic illnesses are what bring these kids in. Is this not because of the reduction in immune system function directly after the immunizations are administered? Studies from India show that there is an increase in fevers, diarrhea and coughs in the month following vaccinations. (Neustaedter)

                Dr. Neustaedter reports in his article, “Do Vaccinations Disable the Immune System” that  in 1950, studies linked receiving the DPT vaccination. The study confirmed that out of the almost 4000 kids in New York that year that were infected with polio, that they were twice as likely to have received the DPT vaccination 2 month before the onset of the Polio.

                Doctors interviewed for the documentary, A Greater Good, stated that doctors are not trained in how to detect a reaction from vaccinations. The VAERS claim that their statistics are flawed because of the severity of under reporting from doctors and individuals. Doctors often will not associate the side effects with the vaccinations because it has been ingrained in them that they are 100% safe and save people’s lives.

What are the Real Risks of Vaccination?

Each Vaccination is a combination of aluminum, formaldehyde, mercury, antibiotics, and a minute amount of the disease being vaccinated against. None of these ingredients have ever been tested individually in comparable doses on human children or babies.  Dr. Sears advocates that the FDA should have done this job before these vaccinations were ever allowed to enter the market and be injected into our bodies.

                Dr. Chris Shaw, a professor of neuroscience says aluminum is used in vaccinations to make the injection last longer in the body, because the body doesn’t process it out when injected instead of eaten. He conducted a study with mice where he injected comparative quantities of aluminum and reported that there was a significant decline in behavior, motor skills and cognitive abilities. Upon autopsy of the injected mice, findings included severe damage to motor neurons that were associated with long term development of Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrigs Disease, and Alzeimer’s 20-50 years down the road.  4 Years later, no one has tried to refute Dr. Shaw’s study and when approached about the results, the FDA responded that it “does not believe that this particular paper brings to light the need for additional research that is not already underway.” (Manookian)

Conclusion

            If we know that the reason the common diseases that caused death and severe illnesses at the turn of the century declined was largely due to hygienic practices and the biological fact that the strong survived and left us with a population of people that are resistant to the disease, why then should we be worried about an epidemic of that nature again? If there is clear evidence that the safety of vaccinations in the entire population is questionable, why are we accepting legislation that is making vaccination mandatory to all who are not using exemptions of religious or medical nature? Why has the FDA approved the injection of chemicals into infants if they haven’t been tested? Even if vaccinations, alone aren’t responsible for the severe reactions that are becoming more and more common in our society, shouldn’t there be more testing to assure people that they are indeed safe and be offered on a voluntary basis? These are the types of questions I want to raise to motivate you to find your own answers to what is really the right way to handle this issue for you and your family. There are many factors involved to why we are seeing 1 in 10 children diagnose with Autism in today’s society. It could be a combination of an overload of toxins and vaccinations are what drives the damage over the top, it could be because of the reduction in breastfeeding, the increase use of neurologically damaging drugs during labor, heavy metals in our food supply, pollution in the air.  The answers are not yet clearly defined and until they are, routine vaccination of over 30 diseases before 6 years old should come to a halt and be examined more thoroughly on an individual basis and the choices left in the hands of the parents, not doctors and politicians.