Review of "Birth Rights: The Risk of Choice"

Birthrights: The Risk of Choice is produced by Betsy Kulman, distributed by Al Jazeera, is a 25 minute documentary featuring several doctors, families and birth choice advocates in an attempt to bring awareness about the choices surrounding cesarean sections as an option to birth. The film starts with a couple from Columbus, GA traveling to Atlanta, 2 hours from home, to deliver their baby at a hospital with the only doctor they could find that will allow a trial of labor in order to provide VBAC services. Another scene in that doctor’s office shows other pregnant moms talking about why they chose him. One woman reports calling over 30 OBGYN clinics looking for a practitioner that would allow VBACs before she found Dr. Tate. She said that she was told by other doctors that she would not find anyone who allows VBACs and “it’s for a good reason.”

            Dr. Tate is a OBGYN who is a man of Jewish faith. He believes that it is his traditional Jewish upbringing that gives him a healthy respect for nature’s intention of the way almost all women are able to birth naturally. He also believes there is a time and place for cesareans and interventions to help deliver vaginally and that he will provide them when necessary. And even though many doctors are performing Cesareans because of the fear of being sued, he leaves that in the hands of his faith and provides the best medicine for his patients that he has determined is in their best interest, not his.

            The documentary also gives statistics such as the WHO recommendations that the cesarean rate be below 15%, that the risk of Uterine rupture during a VBAC is less than 1%, that cesareans are the #1 surgery performed in the USA, and that 77% of OBGYNs will be sued at some point in their career.

            It is because of the risk of being sued that many OBGYNs will jump to section a mother. When utilizing cesareans as a normal part of their business, they don’t have to work the longer hours of a practitioner who waits on natural labor, They can schedule more mothers that are due in the same month, they won’t be under the stress of anything else that might happen which could create risks of being sued and they get paid more money when performing the cesarean. There is no incentive for them NOT to use them or, in many cases, over use them.

            The film also highlights support for mothers who have undergone cesareans and seek community to process the emotional issues surrounding these traumatic births, such as ICAN (International Cesarean Awareness Network) and Jill Arnold’s website www.TheUnnecesarean.com where people can access studies, research, data, birth stories and other resources to make informed choices about birthing practices. Jill says, “The overriding theme is frustration and desire to change the system.”

Dance to Heal the Earth

Dance To Heal The Earth. Whenever you dance, wherever you dance, dance to heal the earth! Dancing is power. Dancing is prayer. Some say that all is dance. Maybe. Now there's a big dance coming, a dance to heal the earth. If you're reading this, you're probably part of it. You take part whenever you do whatever you do to help heal the earth. When you recycle. When you choose to show love, to fight for justice, to bring healing, to bring out what is good in others. When you avoid cruelty and dishonesty and waste. When you are outraged. When you speak out. When you give. When you consider the generations to come. When you protest to the oppressors and encourage those who feel the cutting edge of injustice. And, of course, when you dance. There is a tree that all the prophets see, and whenever you let your love show, you make the flowers grow.
Soon this dance will be done in a big way, in the old way, on sacred ground. All living things will take part. If you want to, you can take part. No one is twisting your arm. You can stop any time you need to, and start up again whenever you're ready. If you've read this far, you probably know what I'm talking about. You've probably been doing it in one way or another for a good while. Soon will be the time to make no bones about it! Cut loose!
Anytime you dance, anywhere, whether at a party or in church, dance to heal the earth! Let your feet beat a healing rhythm into the earth. Let your feet beat a strengthening rhythm for those who struggle the hardest. Let your feet beat a life-giving rhythm for all peoples, regardless of race or national boundary, regardless of whether we're human or whether we're the trees, the air, the fish, the birds, the buffalo, the bear, the crow. We come out of hiding, we come back from the dead, and we dance, and our dance is a prayer, and our songs and our rhythms and our breath give life.
Is the music they're playing some mindless jingle? Never mind, as long as it's not bad music, and you can dance to the beat! Make your own words, and make the words a prayer. A prayer for the end of exploitation, a prayer for the end of lies, a prayer for healing, for justice, for life. Remember your prayer-song, feed it and let it get strong and pass it along. Dance and pray, whenever you dance, dance to heal the earth.
Have you seen anything? Wear it out! Make it so that all can see what you see! Take a white T-shirt and mark it with your dreams. Is there anything you'd like to tell the world? Take your shirt and mark it with your song! This is the way it has been done, so you can do it too. Use any color except black (there are reasons for that that will become clearer later), and you'll probably find that a loose, pure cotton T is most comfortable for dancing in. Because this is an actual dance, you dance hard, you sing and breathe hard and sweat. Wear it when you plan to go out dancing, to dance to heal the earth.
Some people do this dance while fasting, and dance for several days straight. But even a few minutes of dancing helps, and joins with all the other dancing going on, everywhere on Earth. Not everyone can fast these days. Besides, you never know when you're gonna dance, and you have to eat sometimes! But if you plan to dance, hold off eating till later, or just have a little. It's easier to dance if you don't have a hotdog weighing you down.
Some people say, do not do sacred things where people are drinking and partying. But all the universe is a sacred place. It really doesn't matter what others are doing, you can make a place sacred wherever you are, with your intention and your prayers. Some people use smoke to make a place sacred; a cigarette or incense stick will do fine. You can dance to heal the earth anywhere, even a party or a bar! The earth is everywhere, so you can dance anywhere to heal her. Only one thing. Please hold off drinking or using any other intoxicants till you're done. It works better that way.
The Lie has gone far enough. It spreads and makes everyone sick. Now is the time for this dance to begin. It, too, will spread, and it will bring healing to all. In the beginning, they say, God put a rainbow in the sky, to let us know that Spirit never forgets. Now is the time for us to put a rainbow across the earth, to let God know that we, too, remember.
Dance to heal the earth. Not just when you're dancing, but always. Live the dance, whenever you move, in all you do, dance to heal the earth.
~Dee Smith

Fight or Surrender, what next?

Today is my daughter’s 10^th birthday. She was my first home birth. It was a difficult experience that has lead to amazing things. Her whole life so far has been an difficult experience that has lead to amazing things. Now I have to remind myself exactly those lessons today. My mother called to wish her happy birthday, she was lucky to even get that. She also informed me that because her and her husband are behind on her taxes, her financial advisor has told her that she is not to co-sign for any more of my student loans. I am $11,500 short for the 2012-2013 year. I have no idea where I am going to come up with that money. I am basically, excuse my Foul language, FUCKED. I am scared, disappointed, wanting to roll in a ball and feel sorry for myself. But I don’t have time for this. I want to finish my college education. It means a lot to me. I don’t know how much harder I am can work to make it happen and still be able to continue my commitments for assignments with AAMI. I regret joining too soon, I should have waited until I was done with college. But now, now, it might mean I make a hard decision to quit college, get a job and get focused on midwifery sooner than I expected. It might mean that I call Carla, tell her what is going on, hope for some mercy and take a pause in my studies. I hate that my update this week is so focused on ways I might fail instead of all the things I completed and succeeded at this week.

Photo by: Tambako the Jaguar

This week I turned in a 20 page Zine project on VBACs that helped me learn so much. This week, my friend, another student midwife, called me to schedule a visit to process a recent birth she attended and said, “ I just need to talk to another midwife.” Referring to me… I was flabbergasted, I know I am still a student, but she knows, in my heart, I am still a midwife and she honors me as such. So much she has asked me to be her partner in surrogacy as she was just accepted by a company and is in the process of being matched to parents and she wants me to partner with her through her pregnancy to be her support person. I am available to be on call to attend births in August and September and I have been reading the latest issue of Midwifery Today. I am so focused, so excited, so determined to make something out of all this, I can’t believe that I may not be able to complete my degree and walk. It means so much to me. I want the education, I love my classes, my teachers, the experience of being in college and learning and questioning and challenging and meeting exciting people and having opportunities to learn things I have never been exposed to before. I feel like I am thriving but I am floundering at the same time. It is terribly difficult and terribly exhilarating at the same time.

I am transforming so much right now it is overwhelming…  My heart is full.

"Anti Science Hippie Moms...."

A friend of mine posted on Facebook today asking for positive thoughts of comfort for her 17 yr old sister who was having a baby in a hospital with no doula or support people around her. She was concerned because of her own experience as a young woman birthing in the hospital with little choices offered and no one to help empower her. Her's was similar to mine, forced episiotomy, student OB's, a lot of interventions that were never quite explained and a lot of pain and suffering afterwards. A commenter on her post suggested that " I know the anti-science anti-doctor meme in the hippy community has some merit - however some docs are the reason baby and mom survived !" This is the last kind of comment a mother of 3, who has had 3 different births in 3 different settings and knows from experience what happens in a large portion of mother's experiences needs to hear from a "friend."

Please don't assume that people who support natural birth and dont advocate for healthy, low risk women to birth in hospitals don't do their homework, there is plenty of science that supports it. But yes, we are blessed when there are the couple of doctors who really do provide good support. But really, how long is the doctor there for? There are hours and hours for most first time moms with no support at hospitals and scientific studies show that when interrupted in labor by strangers, the physiological conditions that support a healthy biologically correct birth get disturbed and that does cause the complications that often require the help of the doctor to "save them" as she put it.

This article by Alice Dregger, so eloquently points out the misunderstanding fueled by the unethical treatment of women by doctors in the birthing business. 

Credit for pic and a great article can be found here.

" in the U.S., "obstetricians are the experts and the experts have come to see birth as dangerous and frightening." De Vries suggests that the organization of maternity care in this country -- "the limited choices that American women have for bringing their baby into the world, what women are not told about dangers of intervening in birth, and the misuse of science to support the new technologies of birth" -- actually constitutes an ethical problem, although we typically do not recognize it as one."
There are many people who also are under the misconception that midwives are not educated or do not have scientific studies to back up the "witchcraft" that they support. Yet time and time again, studies point to less intervention, less disruption, less meddling and better outcomes for both mothers and babies, long term.  The use of inductions , routine fetal monitoring, epidurals, and the inability to eat or move around freely has disrupted the normal processes of birth, increasing risks to the point that the Royal College of Obstetrics has made claim that there are too many babies born in hospitals.  

 Hospitals around the country are at the beginning phases of implementing a new paradigm into the birth culture of their institutions.  This is a wonderful starting point to shift the commonly held belief that birth is inherently risky and we NEED interventions to be safe. There are 30 other countries that have a better maternal mortality rate than the USA. Obviously, we can improve this. 

When a friend expresses her concern for a loved one, obviously, insulting them with stereotypes is not the nicest thing to do, but even more than that, carrying around this attitude and spreading it is dangerous. When it is already so hard to make decisions and swim through the information that you have to search for because it is not readily offered by your paid professionals in so many cases, the perception of your peers can influence the decisions that are made. If you are going to give advice to someone, please make sure it is accurate, you could be doing more harm than good. And if you made some of the decisions that have been proven to be not as safe as we think, and nothing bad happened to you, consider yourself lucky. This is the exception, not the rule, and it is very invalidating to be talked to like you don't have a reason to be concerned, when you are following your instincts and doing your homework. Being concerned when you have this knowledge is healthy. 

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