Love-Knowledge Baby

Dear Whoever-You-Are (Mom, Husband, Friend, etc.),

To begin, I’d like to say that I understand your perspective.  You love your family or friend.  You love your pregnant wife, the mother of your grandchildren, or whoever she is to you.  Whatever the situation, it starts with love and concern.

You’re standing back, wondering why she wants to do this “natural childbirth thing” when everyone else knows that birth is dangerous and that’s why we let doctors handle it.  Right?  That’s the norm.  We go to the hospital, and a lot of times bad things happen, so it’s good that the doctors and equipment are there.

Are you nodding your head?  Are you thinking that enduring labor without drugs is unnecessary?  Why should your loved one suffer through an experience that is, by nature, painful?  Why would she WANT to?  And as for homebirth, it’s just crazy . . . right?  What does a midwife know that an OB doesn’t?  Isn’t it riskier?

At some point, you have to take your love and concern and use it to fuel actual research.  I’m saying this as nicely as I can:  Get off your butt, and take a look at maternal and fetal mortality rates in the United States as opposed to other countries.  We are NOT doing so hot.  We rank far below Sweden, Japan, and other countries (which utilize homebirth, midwifery, and woman-centered care).

The latest articles coming out say that the maternal mortality rate in the world is going down, everywhere except the US, where it is rising.  Another two studies put mothers and babies at 3 times the risk for death if subjected to a Cesarean Section.  The average C-section rate of a normal patient cared for by a midwife in our country is 5% or less.  The average C-section rate of a normal patient under the care of an OB is going to be 30% or higher, depending on region and individual practice.

Some states have an average rate of almost 40%.  That means, if you lined up 10 healthy pregnant ladies, 3 – 4 of them would probably have C-sections.  The World Health Organization suggests that Cesareans should be 15% or less.  Any higher, and more harm is being done than good.  In our country, Cesareans are an epidemic.

Can it be that bad?  If it were that terrible, why would it keep happening?  I can trust OUR doctor, right?  That’s where the “Get off your butt” part comes in.  You hit Google, and you tell me.  Look for actual peer reviewed studies.  Look for documentaries about birth.  Look for articles.

But really, you don’t need to do that, if you don’t want.  The only resource you REALLY need to take advantage of is right next to you.  She’s been there all along, and she needs your support and love.  If she says she wants a “natural childbirth,” it’s not about a hippy idea of having a good experience (though that’s a GREAT side effect of laboring and birthing as your body was designed to).  It’s about safety, avoiding unnecessary interventions, keeping mom and baby healthy, giving them the best start, and trying to preserve a woman’s basic human right to choose how to birth.

The only research you need is a heartfelt conversation with the woman whose motives and desires you’ve been questioning.  Do you really think she CAN’T think for herself?  Do you really think she’d choose something that could affect her health and her baby’s health without care and consideration?  Do you trust her?

If she says she doesn’t want pain medication, trust that maybe she knows that she wants to feel the labor and birth process and let nothing interfere with the impact of the first few moments of bonding between her and the baby.  Trust that she might know that drugs and epidurals can lead to a multitude of complications that no natural labor could.  Trust that she is willing to trust her own body, and that she needs YOUR unquestioning, unflagging support—because you’re supposed to be there to back her up when her own determination wavers.

Trust her when she says she wants to see a midwife instead of an OB.  Trust that she has thought about what kind of care she wants, what fits HER life, and what will hopefully work out best for her.  So what if other people keep choosing to go to the hospital. Evidence points toward increased complications due to unnecessary interventions and iatrogenic (doctor-caused) injuries, and the last few years C-section rates have been steadily climbing . . . as has the rate of homebirth in response.

Yes, you can trust an OB—as a trained surgeon.  They want the best for you.  Most doctors are doing their job and trying to help, but when you consider that their training and background starts with the idea that birth is inherently dangerous, that they are trained to look for problems, that most of them have never seen a normal birth (with a woman fully mobile, not drugged, supported physically and emotionally, birthing upright or in whatever position suits her, and without maternal-infant separation), and that their jobs rely on having problems to deal with . . . you start to understand the fuller picture of birth in our country.

Yes, trust the doctors when something has gone wrong.  But first trust the woman and her baby.  Her body is amazing, and fully capable.  Trust in the process enough to give that woman and that baby a fair chance at having the best birth, the best start to life, the most natural and ideal labor and birth, and the most fulfilling experience.

Remember where we began this journey?  It all starts with your love and concern for that mother and that baby.  Convey that love and concern to her, but don’t question her motives.  Your support matters SO much, and she’s doing all the hard work of carrying and bearing the child.  Don’t pull the rug out from underneath her because you’re scared.

Birth IS scary, but that why we women need unquestioning, unwavering support from our loved ones.  Because a woman can birth her baby, without gadgets, without people shouting at her to count to ten—We are stronger than you think.  And if THAT is what you’re afraid of, and you’d rather tear her down, just stay away.

She doesn’t need your negativity.

I’ve been taking a lot of time to process this, and I wanted to share something with you. I wanted to let you know that I have never complained about and will never complain about the pain of childbirth.

There are plenty of reasons, of course. When I was laboring at home, in and out of the pool, I didn’t experience anything more painful than period cramps. The natural sensation of laboring is much more intense than period cramps, but I didn’t experience any pain worse than those I’d experienced before on a monthly basis.

Some women labor very painfully, and I acknowledge that. I’m not diminishing your experience if you had an extremely painful childbirth. I’m just saying that my birth experience has never been about pain.

That is a good reason not to complain about the pain of labor, but that is not the reason I choose conscientiously to abstain from that verbal jockeying.

Labor and “contractions” can actually be wonderful sensations. If a woman is supported physically, mentally, and emotionally, labor can feel like rushes and expansions. Labor can be pleasurable, interesting, empowering, satisfying, and, for some women, orgasmic. Knowing that I could have tried to re-frame my experience to be “a most interesting sensation to which I owe my full attention” as Ina May Gaskin suggests, is a good enough reason to avoid complaining about the “pain” of childbirth. Again, that is not my reason.

The fear and terror that our culture has instilled in us regarding the pain of childbirth NEEDS to be addressed. Grantly Dick-Read found the social expectation of pain during labor to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Uneducated women associated with the poor classes during his time showed him that childbirth can be matter-of-fact, calm, and safer without an overwhelming fear which, according to Dick-Read, has negative physiological effects which cause and reinforce pain in the uterus.  The upper class women “knew” that childbirth hurt and that they were ill suited to the activity on the merit of their delicacy.  Unsurprisingly, Dick-Read’s observations showed upper class women in hysterics and great amounts of resulting pain, often needing chloroform.

Reassuring young women (and actually ANYONE) that labor does not have to be mindlessly painful and frightening is a worthy cause, but it is not the reason I will never complain about the pain of childbirth.

Complaint itself is a negative form of communication, but it’s a time-honored tradition.  How else would we let off some steam, tell our best friends about our frustrations, or get to hear how ridiculous our own complaints are once they are voiced?  Sometimes complaining is the beginning of necessary change.  Unfortunately, complaint is addictive and oftentimes just reinforces the negative thought patterns, excacerbates the situation, and lets us goad ourselves into acting in unwise ways.

Is it a distinction of classification that I am making when I say that I will never complain about the pain of childbirth?  Unfortunately, I wish that were true, but it is not.  I want the right to complain about childbirth if I so choose.  I’m not saying that I just don’t like to complain.

I will never complain about the pain of childbirth — Are you ready? — because it was STOLEN from me.

That’s right.  Someone took that option from me.  Everything was fine and dandy when we transferred.  Then things started happening, spiraling out of control.  It’s true that I made the call to start the Pitocin on the advice of my midwife.  It was my choice, and thus I have never regretted it or had nightmares about it.

We went in to the hospital, having labored for days, and my midwife was met with such hostility and suspicion that she broke our signed contract and left the hospital instead of supporting me as a doula in that setting.  She advised me not to allow the observation period and to ask for the Pitocin as soon as possible.

The nurse who was assigned to us was heavily pregnant herself.  She was kind and chatty, and absolutely amazed at how well I handled contractions as far along as I was.  She couldn’t believe how my husband and I held hands, looked into each other’s eyes, and breathed through each contraction.  She asked if we had taken classes or something.  In almost the same breath she’d used to praise my ability to cope, she began to sing the praises of epidurals.  She said, “I would never go through this without an epidural.  Lots of women come to the hospital wanting a natural birth, but they’re so glad to have the epidural when it gets bad.  Sometimes it’s too late to get it, or we have to hunt the doctor down to write up the script and that takes too long.  Why don’t I just have him write it up now, so you can have it immediately when you need it?”

I just nodded at her and let her do what she wanted.  It was easier than arguing with her.  In fact, before my midwife left, the last advice she gave me was to ask for an epidural.  I just nodded at her too.  I think she was more frightened at that point than I was, and NO WAY IN HELL was I getting a needle shoved into my back.  I was in labor, and thus unable to verbalize my extreme aversion to pain “relief.”  It didn’t seem to matter then, because I knew that I wasn’t going to ask for an epidural.

I appreciate the sensations which occur in my body.  I have never just sought to escape from the useful feedback of my sensory network.  I do not take pain pills for headaches, cramps, or anything.  I work through it.  I love my body, care for the temple which houses my soul, and (like a mother who understands that her baby’s crying has significance) attend my body’s needs, using the information that pain provides.  I believe that I have a healthy relationship to my body and the idea of pain.

It is my right to say no to an epidural.  It is my right to say no to sex.  It is my right to say no to anything that anyone wants to do to me.  I am my own person.  As I respect myself and others, so should they respect themselves and me.  I have as much right to say no to pain relief as you have right to ask for yours.  To believe that my “no” means less than your “yes” is a gross injustice.

While I labored at home, I felt nothing worse than period cramps.  When I got to the hospital, the nurse was AMAZED at how well I coped.  My answer to that is that I didn’t have much to cope with.  I was laboring naturally, except for the long delay in progress.  I asked for the Pitocin drip, and I still felt at least a little in control of the situation.

As the drip was started in my IV, I turned to the nurse and said, “I’ve read that Pitocin contractions are much more painful than normal labor contractions?  Is that true?”  She couldn’t answer me, and in hindsight, I realize that she probably did not know the answer to that question.  She had likely never seen a woman labor without Pit streaming through her veins.  It took a little while, but my body answered my question.  Pitocin contractions have nothing to do with labor.

Pitocin is not a natural product in your body.  Your brain cannot regulate the levels of Pitocin in your body, as it can oxytocin.  Yes, it hurts more.  It hurts worse.  There’s a huge difference between a good kind of pain, like the burn and tingle associated with exercise, and bad pain, like when someone is enraged and hitting you with a baseball bat.  Normal labor is like an orchestrated crescendo, each wave cresting and receding, all leading up to a peak when you crown and birth.  I had experienced labor that made sense, and pitocin was like being elbowed in the face in a mosh pit.

Let’s make this clear.  I owned this pain.  I am not complaining about it.  I am explaining, as clearly as I can, the difference between laboring naturally and laboring augmented with Pitocin as I experienced it.  Pitocin contractions were one on top of the next, sometimes there would be a small rest, then three contractions all on top of one another.  There was no time to get a breath.  There was no resting and getting ready for the next wave.  There was no use in breathing, holding hands, or eye contact.  There was nothing but force upon force.

I had asked for Pitocin, but I didn’t know at the time that I could have asked them to start it, then lower the levels to see if my labor could pick up on it’s own.  I wasn’t prepared to deal with the beauracracy and hardships associated with being “allowed” to walk around, or get into other positions to labor, so the pain was intensified by lithotomy position.  I lay on my back, tied down with fetal monitors, rolling back and forth and writhing like an over-turned turtle.

I had back labor.  The nurse and my mother took turns applying pressure on my back, and I thanked them.  I don’t remember if I was making noises, or how I was dealing with those contractions, but I did NOT want an epidural.  My mother and the nurse started trying to talk me into an one.  The doctor’s order was already written up.  All I had to do was say the word, and someone would come shove a needle into my spine to thread a plastic tube of numbing solution into my dural tube.

Who would this have helped, I wonder?  Me, who was just focused on the moment, living second by second, vocalizing naturally as an aid (the only one at my disposal) to labor . . . or the two women who were getting more and more stressed out by their lack of control over the situation?  One, a mother who doesn’t know the first thing about being a birth assistant, and the other a nurse used to an almost 100 percent epidural rate in the women she is paid to attend?

They started rationalizing.  They asked me why I didn’t want an epidural.  The nurse said it was safe, normal.  It would help.  My mom was saying, “You can’t do this any more!  You’re too tired!  You won’t be able to push when the time comes!”  The nurse interjected that there were other alternatives like IV pain medications.  She started spouting technical information about how safe and wonderful, etc.  My mom began yelling at me again.

My poor shell-shocked husband had been sent to the couch to sleep, and after a period of several consecutive days up, he slept like the dead.  I sweated and moaned through Pitocin-augmented back labor, twisting the sheets with my legs as I tried to find a comfortable position, and their voices continued.  My mother became increasingly desperate, and the nurse stuck close with quietly voiced suggestions.

I kept shaking trying to ignore them.  Then I started to shake my head, no.  Then I started to SAY, “No.”  And I had to keep saying it.  Even as the senseless onslaught of synthetic hormone caused my uterus to contract painfully over and over without rest, battering my poor unborn child, I had to keep saying, “No!”

Fentanyl. It’s harmless.  A step down from an epidural.  Do it.  You can’t any more.  You can do this anymore.  You’re too tired.  You’re in too much pain.  You will be too tired to push.  To be fair, the nurse had brought up the suggestion of the Fentanyl, but my mother was the cheerleader determined to bring the suggestion home.  The nurse watched as my mother continued to harangue me into submission.

I remember her screaming in my face, and I interruped her by saying, “I DON’T WANT IT –” and she interrupted me again.  “– BUT!  But, I’ll DO IT.  Just stop screaming!  I’ll take it!”

I gave in.

I had so carefully prepared the way for my child.  I thoroughly researched birth and birth interventions.  I had chosen Pitocin with a clear conscience, having researched it.  I knew what Pitocin was, what it could do, and how it worked.  As a college grad with a passion for biology and health issues, I had absorbed a good deal of information about birth.

Fentanyl was not on the list.  Neither was violation of informed consent or how to counter coercion techniques used on a laboring woman.  It’s something so very simple, isn’t it?  You know the meaning of the word.  Am I talking about the word “pain?”  Guess again.

I’m talking about the word, “No.”

I will never complain about the pain of childbirth because it was stolen from me.  I don’t remember much after that moment of capitulation.  The world becomes hazy.  I lose time.  Someone took my glasses.  Upped levels on Pit.  Topped off my Fentanyl.  I have nightmares in which I ask my mommy to tell them that “It’s wearing off . . .” and I can feel the pain coming back, and I get sick and disgusted with myself.

Every time I read a certain book with my son, and we hit the page “I’m as weak as a kitten.”  . . . that’s what I think about.  Me, tied to a hospital bed, weak as a kitten, mewling for more IV pain relief so that my mommy can save me again.  I’m sure she loved being the savior.  Did I imagine these scenarios?  I don’t know.  I NEVER want to ask, because I’m afraid that they’re true.  The world faded away, and I lost myself.

All of a sudden, it was time to push.  (In fact, many hours had passed before he crowned.)  Welcome to the world, dear son.  Your mother was drugged against her will, but she probably liked it and needed it.  The nurse thought so, and so did your grandma.  You were born with your mother’s blood pouring over your crown from her episiotomy (another procedure to which she did not consent).

I could have had a good birth.  I DID have a good birth, at least the first part.  It wasn’t spectacular, but up until the point that certain individuals failed to respect my right to say no, it wasn’t anything I would have had nightmares about.  I have no intrusive memories of laboring at home, or being admitted to the hospital, or saying good bye to my midwife.

Beginning after a honeymoon period of a few months, I had flashbacks, couldn’t relax, startled way too easily, insomnia, and volleyed back and forth between extreme obsession and extreme aversion to all things birth related.  Added to the struggle of being a new mother was the struggle of being a survivor.  A week living like a ghost at the mercy of the NICU, waiting and waiting to finally meet my son could only solidify the Stockholm Syndrome.

I became a traitor to everything I knew.  Only hours after the birth, I cried and shook hands with the neonatologist my mother said saved my baby.  He scolded me for attempting a home birth, and asked “What were you thinking?” in a South African accent, his dark face hovering in my hazy memories, the remembrance of a stranger staring at me as I pushed my son into the world amidst raised voices.  I cried on his hands as I shook them.

I deferred to the doctors, the nurses, and the system to such an extreme degree that I didn’t even THINK to ask to hold my son.  I just visited him endlessly at his little plastic incubator and dared only to touch him the way the nurses instructed us.  On the third day of his life, while I sat there looking at him, a NICU nurse asked, “Oh, have you held him yet?” as if it were an after-thought! I just shook my head no, and she scooped him up carefully, wires and all, and placed him into my arms, a moment that I will never forget.

So, I have not complained about the pain of childbirth.  Unless I earn the right to complain or abstain from complaint by trial of labor, I can not complain about the pain of childbirth because someone took my choice away.  I experienced pain during my labor.  Then I experienced an artificial pain on top of that.

My RIGHT TO CHOOSE was taken from me . . . and because of that, I cannot ever complain about the pain of labor.  I can’t claim to know what it truly feels like to birth my son, the moment of crowning (the so called “ring of fire”) or the intense expulsion reflex which comes in a trembling rush of adrenaline . . . I can’t claim to know these things.  I wouldn’t have chosen to birth this way just like I wouldn’t have chosen to lose my virginity drugged or stoned out of my mind.

We are supposed to be rewarded by the physical activities which help keep us alive and propagate our species:  eating, having sex, eliminating, labor and birth, breastfeeding.  All of these things are miraculously designed with positive biological feedback systems.  Unless there is something WRONG, these things are supposed to feel good.  A fully engaged, active birth which is pleasurable for the mother is ultimately the healthiest scenario for mother an baby.

This is not an issue of some women thinking they deserve a certain “experience” of childbirth.  This is about sexual and reproductive rights, evidence based medicine, and most of all, it is about basic human respect.

It’s an unfortunate situation when pregnant women have to discuss informed consent (which translates practically to informed refusal) with their OB’s, brief their husbands on their wishes, and hire labor guards in the form of doulas.  It’s an even worse situation when none of these precautions can guarantee that everyone you come in contact with will make the right choice at the critical moment.

From something as simple as trying to massage a woman in labor without her permission, to internal exams or surgical procedures, the best thing to do is to ask gently and listen patiently at every step.  The KEY to avoiding childbirth-triggered PTSD is to make sure that the laboring mother feels in control.  Make sure she gets a choice in the matter, and she won’t have nightmares which prevent her from being the best mother she can be.

Even if there’s a time crunch, give as much information as possible and wait for the OK.  Tell her, “This is what I think would be the best thing to do right now.  What do you think?”

You know the meaning of the word “no.”  Why should it mean less when a laboring mother says it?  No means NO.  Silence is NOT consent.  Always ask permission at every step, listen to, and respect the answer to your receive.  If you’re not prepared to do that, you have no place in the birth room, and I surely hope that you are not a health care professional.

And for God’s Sake, never just assume that anyone is a good choice to lend labor support!  Choose your labor assistants very carefully and make sure you’re all on the same wave length!

—————————————-

Time to use your critical thinking skills.  What’s wrong with THIS article?  Discuss.

I found a wonderful blog post about a pregnant woman’s right NOT to be pushed.  The author goes into various scenarios and sums up the right of parents to make gaurdianship chices for their children, including a pregnant woman’s right to consent or decline any treatments.  Her last scenario includes a pregnant woman whose rights were violated because the doctor didn’t “do VBACs” . . . she narrowly escaped a coerced C-section.

I’m glad to read such an intelligent post about the politics of birth in America, and I perused the Hot Belly Mama blog a bit more and came across a great opportunity to win a Bumgenius diaper:

Win a free Bumgenius 3.0 Diaper! This is a valuable All-In-One cloth diaper that you can use for yourself or give as a gift to someone expecting a baby! Go check out Hot Belly Mama’s Blog for details on how to win this wonderful All In One Cloth Diaper. Hot Belly Mama will announce the winner on March 30th, after her 30th birthday!

Here is the direct link to her blog:

http://hotbellymama.blogspot.com/

Good luck

So go ahead and enter to win a diaper, read Hot Belly Mama’s great perspective on life, and perhaps add her to your blogroll.

Another great blog I follow is called Stand and Deliver.  Rixa writes about birth, and she knows quite a lot.  Her blog is a fount of knowledge about birth and the birthing scene here.  In fact, she has her PhD and her dissertation is about the unassisted homebirth movement in North America.  It’s a great read, and I highly recommend letting that PDF load and sitting down with a drink and a snack to take it all in.

I was also delighted to find that she received her PhD in my state of Iowa, specifically at the University of Iowa which I’m considering for my own masters or doctorate.

Rixa’s latest post enlightened me of two breastfeeding books which I could enter to win, and I wanted to share those opportunities with you:

First, the Motherwear blog is giving away a copy of Breastfeeding: A Parent’s Guide by Amy Spangler.  Please click HERE to enter.

The second book you could win is a visual guide to breastfeeding entitled Breastfeeding with Comfort and Joy: A Photographic Guide for Mom and Those Who Help Her.  This innovative book is filled with large color photos of real women breastfeeding.  This kind of assistance is greatly needed in a culture in which women are innundated with images of bottlefed babies yet left in the dark about breastfeeding.

One of the more helpful tips included in the book is how to avoid sore nipples by facing the baby’s entire body inward towards yourself, instead of upward as they would if they were bottle feeding.  Because of the cultural images we absorb, women tend to face their breastfeeding babies up toward the ceiling and lean their breast over the baby’s face.  This causes a lot of pulling on the nipple and bad posture for the mom, both problems which can impair a breastfeeding relationship.  There’s more information in Rixa’s review of the book.

Having photos of other women nursing with their babies laying across laps with their bellies tucked close to their mothers’ bellies could help countless women (especially visual learners) get the hang of breastfeeding.

So, you want to win this awesome book?  Click HERE to enter.

Nursing your baby is something that can be hard to get right, especially if you don’t have the proper support.  Switching to formula is always an option, but it’s an overrepresented option.  Why would I say this?  Because Breastfeeding Saves Lives:

“Breastfeeding appears to significantly reduce the chances that babies will die in their first year of life, researchers reported recently.  An analysis of a nationally representative sample of about 9,000 US babies found breastfeeding decreased the risk of dying from any cause by about 20%.

The researchers estimated that about 720 infant deaths would be prevented annually if all Americans breastfed their babies for the first year [...] “There’s already a lot of reasons for women to breastfeed their babies,” said Walter Rogan, an epidemiologiest at the National Insitute of Environmental Health Sciences in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, “This is one more.”

Although other studies have found breastfeeding provided a variety of benefits for babies, including apparently reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, the new study is the first to demonstrate an overall reduction in mortality.”

- The Calgary Herald

I’ve spent a lot more of my recent time reading blogs rather than blogging here, but I’m hoping to change that.  Coming soon will be my OWN giveaway.  Stay tuned!

The Experiment: Rubber Band as Perineum With and Without Episiotomy
Take one of those really thick rubber bands, like the kind they wrap around the stalk of broccoli at the grocery store. Put your fingers inside it and stretch it out. That is a perineum (aka, cervix and vagina, a baby’s entrance from the womb to the outside world).

Stretch it quite a lot, and see how it resists, thins, and opens. Then gently let go of the tension of your arms and hands, and watch the “O” of the rubber band shrink back into it’s original shape. You could fit something quite a lot larger than it’s contracted diameter through the opening WITHOUT hurting the rubber band, don’t you think?

If you want to, go ahead and ask someone else to push a large round object through the rubber band opening as you stretch it wide. If your rubber band is not rotted, old, or previously injured (nicks or cuts), you should have no problem pushing something through that opening which is twice or thrice the diameter of the opening of the band before stretching.

Now, let’s see what an “episiotomy” does to “help” a large round object pass through the opening. Get a pair of scissors, and ask for your partner to help you. Start passing the round object through the opening of the rubber band, stretching it as you go. Now, before the main mass of the object passes through the rubber band, have your partner take the scissors and snip 1/3rd the width of the band (1/3rd of the width is to simulate the average degree of episiotomy).

The theory behind episiotomies is that they help make the opening wider to facilitate a faster birth (because we’re assuming a faster birth is automatically safer . . . which it isn’t), and that a controlled surgical cut heals better than a natural tear (which it doesn’t).

You’d better be wearing safety goggles and thick gloves for this part of the experiment, because the rubber band will very likely tear in the spot that the “episiotomy” was performed, possibly snap back on your hands or in your face . . . The cut meant to widen the opening to assist has created a structural weakness in the elastic sphincter, and the chances of a woman’s perineum tearing increases FOUR TIMES when an episiotomy is performed!

Experiment Variation: Paper as Perineum
If you don’t have a thick rubber band, you certainly have a piece of paper. Take a sheet of paper and pinch opposite edges between your thumbs and forefingers. Tug in opposite directions gently but firmly. The edge of the paper becomes taut and straight. Now take your scissors and snip a small cut along the top edge which you’ve been putting tension on. Put your fingers back in the same position and apply the same pressure you did before, pulling away from the center. You will most likely find that the paper tears easily at the weakest point: where you applied your scissors.

How to Avoid Tearing and Work With Your Perineum
If you don’t want to tear when you have a baby, practice squatting. If you can get into a nice deep squat to have your baby, this position naturally preserves your perineum. Even a supported, half-squat will do, if you aren’t that flexible.

You can also do perineal massage before labor to help elasticity (please use a natural oil or a good lubricant). Another thing to do is to make sure you don’t push before you’re ready. Even resisting the initial urges to push and waiting until you body does the pushing without your conscious consent is a good way for some women to slow the crowing and preserve the perineum. Pressure with a cloth soaked in hot water and olive oil as the baby crowns also helps some ladies preserve their perineum (and also feels REALLY GOOD for some people during that stage).

One of the best things I’ve learned (after the fact) about preserving the perineum is to laugh, smile, or make out with someone. Relaxing your mouth sphincter helps to relax and open up the corresponding perineal sphincter. One of the greatest ways a labor attendant can predict a woman tearing is to watch her face and mouth. If it’s tight, hard, white from tension, grimaced, or frowning . . . you’d better get her to loosen up, or get out your sutures.

Extrapolations and Further Thoughts
How does it make you feel that you could walk into any hospital, and they’re likely to perform this arbitrary genital mutilation instead of simply letting a woman walk around, labor as she wishes, comforting her, making her smile and keeping her hopes up and her body relaxed throughout labor . . . ? Also, a pregnant woman can go into any hospital and request major abdominal surgery and be faced with no argument. Why is it legal to request a C-section when it does harm?

C-sections are there because we need to save some babies and some mothers . . . but the World Health Organization (and independent studies) says that C-section rates should be 15% or less. Any higher than that, and we’re causing more mother and infant DEATHS than otherwise! How do some midwifery practices achieve C-section rates so much lower than the typical OB practice? Different, lower risk women? That’s demographically unsupported, especially since women who want natural births but are termed “high risk” (women over 35, women who are “obese,” and many others) often seek out the latent management of midwives BECAUSE they don’t want to be automatic C-sections!

Can a healthy man (not ill what so ever) ask a doctor to cut him open and be taken seriously? Nope. They won’t risk it, and they might think about their Hippocratic Oath. They might refer him to the psyche ward, but they wouldn’t perform abdominal surgery on him. Why should it be any different with a healthy pregnant woman? I don’t think women should have C-sections for anything other than TRUE emergencies, just like I don’t think a woman on welfare should get loans to be artificially impregnated with octuplets while unable to care for her existing offspring.

To be completely fair, most of the women who walk into the hospital requesting a C-section are actually there because they were bullied and frightened into having a C-section with their previous birth, and now they’re told they have no choice but to have another C-section because VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean) aren’t supported by OB’s because of the risk of uterine rupture (actually because the insurance companies charge out the BUM for any doctor willing to touch VBACs, making it nearly impossible for OB’s to support a trial of labor). The risk of Uterine Rupture? 1 in 200, and that’s cited as TOO HIGH a risk to take with the life of the woman and baby.

Compare this to the risk of now-routine test called the amniocentesis (to check for Down’s Syndrome and other genetic abnormalities) which CAN cause rupture of membranes and termination of the fetus? This test is highly supported and suggested for all pregnancies with a very low risk of only 1 in 200 cases. Seriously.

What do you think?
No, really. What do you think about all this?

We spend our lives hiding from the divinity within us, separating our faith from our practical lives. We eat badly, filling our temple with toxins. We drug ourselves senseless instead of preventing harm. We birth in fear, and we fear death.

For some people, there is a moment where the illusion of life shatters, revealing the true nature of existence.  Pregnancy and birth has, for me, lifted the veils of illusion, allowing me to see the open doors which allow faith, spirituality, and the divine to embody every practical moment, renewing with every day my son grows and learns, and every second I spend as his mother.

Faith is not an evidence based practice. It’s all a matter of interpretation. Scientists do not know what causes a few molecules strung together to form the tiniest living organisms, mere strings of amino acids with just fragments of RNA. We don’t know what separates us from the rest of the Universe, but we swear by the labels which define our world.

In essence, every day is an act of faith.

Birth was the crucible for my pragmatic faith, and I came out the other side a woman instead of a girl, a mother instead of a child, and an individual of immense surety instead of doubt.

What comes with an ultimate faith in the Universe, my own body, and the divine plan of love, is a great unending joy which I can choose to reach out and fill myself with. Many times I forget I have access to this, and I get caught up in the stress and worry of my life, but I can never fully lose that measure of peace. The door in my soul is open, and it cannot be locked shut again.

Before I was a mother, what faith I had was not solidified. It had no practical application in my life. As a pregnant woman, I learned the wonders and mysteries of true magic, and found that spirituality can have a very pragmatic face. My faith grew roots and took hold in the simple wonder of pregnancy, the possibilities represented in birth, and the discoveries of motherhood.

I had never felt God before I was pregnant.
I had thought God before, but I had never felt God.

My normal worries, thoughts, compulsions, and fears gave way in the face of the experience of living a miracle. Still I was unable to listen to my true intuitive voice and trust in Birth, so I wasn’t totally free of the illusions of life: webs of fear, desire for praise, fear of punishment and failure . . .

My midwife asked me what I envisioned birth to be and what I wanted it to be. I couldn’t answer her. I just told her something non-committal like, “I don’t know” or “I can’t imagine it” . . . Hindsight tells me I was being a coward. I really needed to tell her that I didn’t need her. I needed to tell my midwife that I wanted to seclude myself, and that my fantasies of the perfect birth included only my husband. I was blocked from those realizations, kept those fears and declarations to myself, and tried to avoid being disrespectful of my midwife.

I was deferring to her authority, and she wasn’t even demanding it. I’m sure she would have appreciated being a labor companion, a helper, and a trusted friend. I didn’t allow myself to let anyone fulfill that position.

A lot of training goes into making a good Chinese girl. A lot of negative energy, shame, guilt, and shocking silence formed my self-identity. I dreamed of birthing alone, in my own power, but I didn’t believe in that . . . I just went along with the assumption that people HAVE to have birth attendants.

I didn’t work through fears, didn’t voice them, pushed them away, and convinced myself that negative thoughts and energy would sabotage my birth. Unfortunately, but failing to address any fears, or allow myself to think of them, I kept all the fears in me . . . fears I didn’t know I had.

Everyone has these fears. From the moment you yourself are conceived, you take in the emotions and attitudes of your parents. You live your own birth, and perpetuate what you learn in the first moments of life outside the womb. Your experience is changed and built with every encounter you have with life — every woman you saw on television screaming in fear and pain as she labored, every “emergency” C-section, every friend or relative you visited in the hospital, and every time someone says “You’re gonna beg for an epidural!” — your heart and soul are impacted.

If I had to do it all again, I would live and breathe affirmations of joy and acceptance. I would meditate and clear myself of my own birth trauma, my mother’s birth trauma, and the trauma of every woman, fictional or real, who has imprinted on my mind, so that I could experience childbirth with pleasure and joy.

I’m reading so many different stories in which women who labored naturally and without fear (in their own homes, alone or attended) had PEAK EXPERIENCES. Child birth is supposed to be a woman’s rite of passage, the hard trail on an inner path to meet one’s true self . . . a recurring theme I run into over and over is “Oh, so soon?” and “I wish I had longer” and “if only transition hadn’t come so fast” and “next time I want longer before the baby comes out, so I can really enjoy it” . . .

Can you imagine that? If you trust and support your own body enough and in the right ways FOR YOU, you might enjoy birthing a baby so much that you want the experience to LAST LONGER? In these cases, women are so healthy and the babies from such births are so healthy. How can anyone even doubt that the ultimate and ideal child birth is a pleasurable experience for both mother and child?

Birth is so dependent on your inner self. To have an ideal birth, you have to know your fears, face them, and set them free. You have to know how to support yourself, follow your intuition, and trust your body. You are important to the process of birth. If you go to the hospital, you will not be treated as important to the process of birth. I wish that would change, but our Obstetric system lives in self-perpetuated ignorance fueled by fear and profit.

Birth is sexual. Birth is spiritual. Birth is personal. To deny any of these faces of birth is to do it a grave disservice, and to inhibit it.

Forget that child birth is “supposed” to hurt. It’s actually SUPPOSED to be fun, and joyful, and pleasurable in all sorts of ways. Work through the circumstances of your own birth and try to see that you live your life influenced by the way you came into the world. I was birthed with midwives, and I felt compelled to fulfill that type of birth when I became pregnant–even BEFORE my mother told me that I’d been born with midwives at the hospital.

Maybe the circumstances of my own birth AT THE HOSPITAL, and the social conditioning that babies are born AT THE HOSPITAL, and my mother’s doubts and opinions that I should be AT THE HOSPITAL . . . maybe all these things got in the way of my being able to finish laboring and birthing at home.

What ever it may be, I release it.
I acknowledge it, and I release it.

It’s actually quite hard to know where to begin on this topic.  We’ll start with the term.  “Babywearing” refers to carrying a baby on your body with a soft fabric construct of some sort.   I have seen a small protest to the use of the term “babywearing” as an objectification of the infant as a piece of clothing, but in general, when people talk about babywearing, they’re talking about a very special type of close nurturing which doesn’t require the constant occupation of your arms and hands.  In short, babywearing is a lifesaver.

As a non-babywearing culture, we are inundated with images of strollers, bouncers, playpens, and other devices to help us be more effective parents and to keep our little ones neatly contained.  All of these things can be useful each in their own way, but I have never found a tool that could match one soft cloth baby sling.

Bouncers, swings, and rocking cradles were all made to take advantage of the nature of babies to be soothed by rhythmic motion.  Newborns are used to being the beat of their mother’s heart and the bounce of her step lulling them to sleep and keeping them company at every moment as it did in the womb.  Sustenance was never far, being cold was a foreign concept, and mother’s voice resonated from a close source.  Even after birth, the most soothing rhytm to a baby is the exact tempo of an adult walk.

In our culture, we expect our young to get the memo:  As soon as you’re born, to prove you’re a “good baby” you shouldn’t cry, you shouldn’t mind being put down anywhere for any amount of time, conform to eating and sleeping schedules, and generally not make a fuss. The general consensus in our society is that a “good baby” is one who doesn’t demand attention.  I have many objections to this definition of a “good” baby, one being that it sets up tough criteria which creates a lot of stress for parents and caregivers and can harm the bond between mother and baby.

To expect these things from an infant is like rowing a boat upstream against the current, instead of letting the stream guide you along.  If we’re talking about evidence based practices, we would all be breastfed, worn close to the body, and have our needs met immediately.  Biologically speaking, human babies are categorized as “carried young.”

Imagine you’re the mother of an infant.  You’re a pretty normal woman adjusting to the role of motherhood.  Your baby doesn’t want to sleep all the way through the night, so you’ve started using formula right before bed to get her to stay down for (you hope) more than 4 hours at a time.  She has a beautiful crib in her own nursery next to your bedroom.  You love taking her out in her stroller to walk around the park.  A lof of the time, you end up holding her and pushing the stroller with one hand.  She just loves to snuggle and never seems as relaxed as when you’re holding her . . . which makes you worry a lot about spoiling her.  She also wants to nurse a lot, and you worry you’re not making enough milk.

One day something happens: A hurricane, a tsunami, an earthquake, flood, terrorist attack, or simply getting lost and stranded in a snowstorm on a holiday road trip.  This event, whatever it may be, is the test of your lifetime.  It could happen.  It has happened.  For whatever reason, you are left to your own devices.  Cars run out of gas, entire sections of the country have been cut off by flood waters, electricity becomes a fond memory, and keeping yourself and your baby alive become the number one concern.

You can’t push a stroller if the sidewalks are cracked and trembling with aftershocks.  Your first instinct is to grab your baby and hold her tight.  Your instinct is right.  Strollers also won’t make it as you wade through chest-high flood waters contaminated by sewage.  If you need your hands free to climb wreckage, grasp someone else’s hand, or to carry what few possessions you could rescue . . . you could sure use a sling to carry your baby.  In the aftermath of Katrina, there was a massive call for baby slings and carriers for the moms living in shelters or mucking out their homes.

When something happens, you want your child as close to you as possible, and soft fabric carriers are the best solution.  If you’re lucky enough to still be breastfeeding, the scarcity of potable water is no threat to your baby, and the closeness of a sling helps the breastfeeding dyad: the closer the baby is, the more she suckles, and the more milk you make–especially important in stressful situations which would otherwise threaten your supply.  Having your baby high and tight on your front, back, or hip facilitates their safety, your ability to nurture while still going about your every activity . . . even going to the bathroom if you don’t have anyone you trust with your baby, or a clean place to set her down.

I watched an episode of television about people who’d gone through things that would have killed most others.  In this episode, a husband, a wife, and a breastfeeding infant got lost and stranded in the snow.  They had very little food, and their gas ran out, leaving them with no heat.  They forged onward with the guidance of a map, but soon succumbed to thirst, hunger, and hypothermia.  In order to keep their baby with them, they bundled him up and zipped him into a garment bag which they dragged behind them.

If only they had come from a babywearing culture, they might have inserted him into the deepest layer of the mother’s clothing, closing her outer jacket as much as possible over them both, perhaps even tying him tighter with a scarf.  This would have held their baby securely and warmly as the skin on an adult torso actually adjusts specifically to the temperature needs of an infant in close contact.  Instead, as a natural defense mechanism against the cold, the child went into a near coma state, all his blood receding from his extremities to preserve his vital organs.  She was also very lucky she was breastfeeding because her body’s ability to rally and provide food for her infant was amazing, even in extreme crisis, thirst, starvation, and cold.

They all survived, but it was a near thing.  If they’d known some basic survival tips (like ALWAYS keep your feet dry), they could have saved some fingers and toes also.  The baby was dehydrated, recovered well once he got warm, and had VERY bad diaper rash.  (Now if that family had been practicing Natural Infant Hygiene, they could have possibly avoided that rash also . . .)

I’m not telling you this because I want to scare you.  Instead, think of the human body as a beautiful, amazing thing which is built to survive and determined to preserve the lives of our children.  Human infants are supposed to be carried young.  If we look at other mammals, we will see that they either cache or carry their young.  The mammals that cache their young, meaning leave them for longer stretches of time, have a very high fat content to their milk, designed to sustain their infants for the duration of their absence.  Human milk has a lower fat content, and our infants are specifically built to digest it quickly and nurse frequently, thus being in constant or near-constant contact with their mother.

So, you’ve been hit by some natural disaster and lost your home.  You arrive at the nearest shelter on foot, your arms past the point of aching.  A haggard crowd forms around you, all of you headed toward the nearest safe point.  A woman with a baby tied on her back with a colorful cloth carrier (like a backpack with long straps) taps you on the shoulder, and you nearly stumble from the shock of contact.  She has something for you.  She takes the length of fabric with two rings on the end and shows you how to thread it and hold your baby upright in a tummy to tummy position.

She gently asks you if you breastfeed or if you need formula and bottles for the baby soon.  You say you’re nursing.  She shows you how to latch the baby and nurse in the sling, leaving your hands free.  She takes care to spread the fabric over your shoulder and evenly on your back, her hands smoothing down your aching muscles, her tone confident and calm.  For the first time in hours, you let your arms lower, the muscles screaming in relief and protest.  Your baby quietly falls asleep within minutes and stays quiet as you check in with Red Cross.

The woman with a baby on her back moves through the crowd, finding mothers with babies, handing out various soft cloth carriers, some with four ties coming off a rectangle, some just pieces of cloth, long and short, until her backpack sags empty.  You realize she didn’t bring anything else, and you packed some non-perishables in your diaper bag.  She smiles really big, bouncing her babe on her lap, as you approach and offer your food, and for the first time in a long time, you feel like things will be alright.

In the weeks that follow, you use the sling almost every moment of every day.  You find that your baby nurses a lot, and sometimes you look down to realize you latched her on.  You stop worrying so much about spoiling her because she just seems so happy, especially compared to the babies in the shelter who aren’t worn in a sling.  Those babies cry all the time, and you’re the one who gets compliments on your baby being “so good” . . . Your milk supply must be doing more than enough because she gets so full she falls asleep.  You offered her a bottle once (someone had donated formula and bottles to the shelter), but she didn’t show very much interest.

When getting food, or new sheets, or using the bathroom, you don’t need to set her down or hand her off.  She sleeps peacefully through most of your activities, and you’re able to line up and fill out paperwork for assistance and recovery without juggling the baby.

So, let’s go back to our earlier definition of a good baby and explore that a little further.  In America the following points are considered good traits in infants:

• doesn’t cry
• doesn’t cry or fuss if put down
• falls asleep alone
• sleeps through the night
• eats on a convenient schedule
• doesn’t demand close contact

Let us suppose that you have a child who fits the definition of a “good” baby per the above criteria, and he has a cousin who does NOT fit into any of the above criteria.  Let’s call them Charles (“good” baby) and Chandler (not “good” baby).  Since you’re probably all tired of the catastrophic scenarios, let’s go back in time with Charles and Chandler.  Let’s go back to the American pioneer days when it was more likely to hear wolves howling than the sound of your neighbor’s voice.

There was no formula, there were no plastics, no car seats, no electricity, and definitely no strollers.  Both Charles and Chandler have mothers who were taught how to hold their babies on their bodies with large square shawls, just like all the women in their family did all the way back to the Welsh farmstead.  They birthed alone, or with the help of their oldest daughters.  They worked as hard, or harder than the men.

These two sisters lived in close proximity, only a day’s full travel away from one another.  They gave birth to their boys within weeks.  Charles seems like a very affable lad.  He doesn’t demand to suckle.  He makes no fuss to be put down.  Charles has many older siblings who share the tasks around the home.  Since he makes no fuss to be separated from his mother, she hands him to an older sister in order to do housework.  Several hours pass, and his mother notices she’s engorged with milk.

She calls for the baby and scolds the older daughter for not calling if Charles was hungry.  Charles nurses a bit, and doesn’t seem interested.  His mother takes a good look at him and tries to latch him again.  He turns his cheek.  She puts the shawl around her shoulder, longer on the left, wraps it around him and tucks it so he’s held snugly to her chest.  She tries to offer the breast often, but he arches and makes a fuss if forced, so she stops pushing.

As mindful as she is of her baby, she has a large work load, and Charles is often handed off to the older girls.  The weeks go by, and Charles doesn’t seem to be plumping up like her other babies did.  He doesn’t scream or fuss.  One day, the older girls set him on a blanket in the sun, sit around him and braid flowers into crowns.  One of their siblings cries out in surprise nearby.  He found something strange, come look!  The older girls get up and tell the youngest little girl to stay with the baby, and they all run off.  The little girl edges further and further away from the blanket, eyes intent on whatever is obscured by the crowd of older siblings.

The “good” baby doesn’t seem to mind being left alone, the sun beats down on his vulnerable body.  At this point, nature sees an opportunity to further the cycle of the food chain.  It could be a sneaky coyote, a rattler scared by the baby’s kick, or simple heatstroke.  Charles is the perfect candidate for reunion with the earth.  He hasn’t suckled much or for very long, diminishing his mother’s milk supply.  He is failing to thrive, not gaining proper amounts of weight.

If he had at least the inclination to cry if left alone, the littlest girl could go back to him and see the danger.  She could pick him up or call for help.

Let us turn our attention to Chandler who lives a full day’s travel to the west.  His mother also has older siblings, and likewise works hard.  She carries him in his shawl constantly because he screams his head off if he’s put down.  This close proximity makes breastfeeding easy, including comfort suckling which increases his mother’s milk supply and helps keep her period at bay.  This is the best kind of birth control women have available other than abstinence.

Chandler sleeps with his mother, nursing quietly and peacefully several times at night.  Both mother and baby sleep very well, the nursing sessions blending into the night.  Throughout the day, Chandler is wrapped in his shawl on his mother’s front, or her back, depending on the kind of work she needs to do.  The motion of her walk, her voice, the rhythm of her arms she works, all these things sooth Chandler.  He will tolerate playing with an older sibling for a short amount of time, but will start looking for his mother after a little while.  If he is alone, he cries until someone picks him up and comforts him.  He doesn’t like being on the ground alone; That seems dangerous to him.

Chandler loves to be held by his mother, to have easy access to nursing, and to feel her tickle him or stroke his back as he falls asleep while she moves around.  He sometimes goes through growth spurts which make him hungry every hour, and his mother sometimes ties the shawl so she can nurse him and work with her hands at the same time, perhaps cooking or sewing.  He cries and fusses often, but nursing usually makes it better . . . so the family hears one or two frustrated cries before he’s put to the breast.

This way, Chandler can tell his mother if he’s cold, hot, hungry, tired, dirty, or uncomfortable in any way.  Without hardly thinking about it, his seasoned mother pats him, nurses him,  cleans him up, rubs his belly or back to help with gas, and he is kept happy and healthy.  He soon grows plump and never gets sick.

So, what do Charles and Chandler have to do with you?  You’ve got electricity.  You can choose not to breastfeed.  You can use strollers, cribs, bouncers, pacifiers, and anything you want do.  I fully support you in your choices as a parent.  You’re the one in charge.  You are the person who determines the type of life you want to live based on your values.  I don’t doubt for a moment that you love your child . . . because I am a mother, and I know that kind of love.  It’s wonderful.

I wanted to take the time to share how my love is expressed for my child.  I love my baby every day by living as naturally as possible, practicing the kind of parenting that allows my child to thrive best in tune with his evolutionary programming, and maintaining certain practices which could preserve his life in the event of a catastrophe.  My parenting is sustainable, green, streamlined, and easy in many ways.

Given a situation in which I did not have access to disposable diapers, or washers to clean cloth diapers, we would still do just fine with Natural Infant Hygiene (EC).  If you take away electricity and clean water from a tap, I could still breastfeed my son . . . even if I had to take in contaminated water and suffer through the diarrhea, my breast milk would still be the perfect food for my baby.  As long as I can find a piece of cloth (tablecloth, bedsheets, etc.), I can nurture my baby hands free and on the go.

“Babywearing” is a lot of things to a lot of people.  It is a closeness and a bond which helps breastfeeding, a convenience for a mother or caretaker, a safe space for a baby, and in many women’s lives all over the world, it’s just how things are done.  Babywearing is a useful skill to have, everyday or in an emergency, and it will not “spoil” your child simply because your baby is built to be carried and will thrive best held close to you.

Sometimes it’s as simple as the fact that I slipped and fell twice on the ice this winter.  Both times my son was on my back and didn’t touch the ground.  If he’d been in my arms, I could have dropped him as my reflex to catch myself flung my arms out.  I could have fallen onto him.  He could have been hurt badly, but riding safely on my back, he was merely jolted and surprised.

Finally, a last note on the benefits of babywearing (reproduced with author’s permission), in response to the question “Do you remember the moment you fell in love with babywearing?”:

Do you remember THE moment?

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For me it was when the girls came home from the NICU (at 4lbs each) and for the first time I realized I had to keep them happy and our 16 month old entertained. What a huge job! I had bought a Moby, but hadn’t done much with it so I took it out and popped both girls into it. All of a sudden I could keep them happy (and close to me) and make lunch for Colin, color, entertain – all the things I couldn’t do otherwise!

But I have to say that the moment that I will always remember was when I realized that wrapping saved Teagan’s life (and no, I’m not being melodramatic.) She was 3 months old and had been home from the hospital for a month with her sister. That night I had been feeding her and she didn’t seem hungry, but was very fussy. So I wrapped her (something that had always calmed her before.) Still she was crying. Then I heard it – a slight wheezing when she took a breath. I didn’t think too much of it and went downstairs with her still wrapped.DH came in from mowing the lawn and I told him about the fussiness and wheezing and we called the NICU to talk to our favorite nurse and ask for advice.

She heard Teagan wheeze (I put the phone up to Teagan’s face) and told us to bring her in immediately. We brought her to the ER where she was diagnosed with Group B Step Bacterial Meningitis. (It was a form of group B that she had picked up somewhere other than birth since if it had been birth related it would have shown up much sooner.) This particular form of Meningitis is very deadly and very fast. By the time we got her to the hospital they told us if we had waited another half an hour she would have had major brain damage – another hour and she would have been dead. We spent 3 weeks in the hospital with her (DH and I rotated time at the hossy 24-7 for those 3 weeks.) I was nursing Meg and pumping for Teagan or vice versa, so it was challenging to say the least.

Now, I can honestly say that I wouldn’t have thought much of the fussiness if it hadn’t been for wrapping. Since I knew she was comforted by that and when she continued being fussy even wrapped, that was the first clue something was wrong. The symptoms for Meningitis are very vague in babies – refusing to eat and fussiness. So wrapping definitely did save her life. Today she’s completely healthy (they had warned about all sorts of wonderful complications that could arise from bacterial meningitis – not the least of which was brain damage, joint damage and hearing loss).

So that’s what I think of when I look at my stash. How wonderful it is to be able to hold your baby so close and really get to know them. It was another few months before I found the wonderful world of woven wraps, but my Moby did the job just fine.

Oh – and Teagan is now the one who gets SO excited when a new wrap arrives! She always runs over to the box and says “a new wrap – for ME??!!” Meg doesn’t let me wrap her much anymore, but Teagan still loves it.

If you’re interested in legalizing midwifery and promoting natural childbirth in the U.S. please write to our new President Barack Obama.  He’s taking suggestions on how to improve our country HERE.

Here’s what I wrote under the “Economy” & “Healthcare” sections:

The most common reason for hospitalization is childbirth.  Birth is a billion dollar business, but one important thing is overlooked: Birth is natural.

We rank 29th in infant and maternal mortality in comparison to other countries.  The money we spend on Obstetrics, C-sections, infant monitoring devices, needless tests, invasive procedures, medical supplies, doctors, nurses, what we ask our insurance to pay out, or our medicaid to pay out . . . all of this could be simply and effectively reduced while AT THE SAME TIME reducing infant and maternal mortality, increasing maternal satisfaction, reducing instances of iatrogenic complications such as high C-section rates, episiotomies, and greatly reducing Post Traumatic Stress conditions arising from high intervention and lack of compassionate treatment in the hospital setting.

Midwives, doulas, and labor assistants trained in TRUE physiological birth (during which the laboring woman is allowed free movement, allowed to progress normally, is supported in an upright position to facilitate birth, and is allowed to push normally and when the need arises) are much less expensive than the upkeep of a single Obstetrician.

A trained and certified midwife is able to tell the difference between a normal, safe pregnancy and one that might have risks.  Midwives would ideally provide care for the majority of pregnancies.  Use of midwives would increase maternal satisfaction due to time spent and quality of care at prenatal visits, increase the number of women able to cope well with labor, decrease use of analgesics which would prevent the cascade of interventions that might not have been otherwise needed.

Studies prove that midwife care at home is as safe as hospital births in regards to fatality, and even safer in regards to needless interventions (C-sections, episiotomies, antibacterial courses due to infections originating at the hospital) . . . just look at the statistics at The Farm under the supervision of Ina May Gaskin.

One way that we can immediately improve our country, improve the quality of life of every emerging citizen (our babies), and save enormous amounts of money . . . is to train midwives in large numbers and to train doctors to work WITH midwives.  Use Sweden’s great practices and wonderfully low infant and maternal fatality rates as inspiration.  Invite Ina May Gaskin to take part in this task force to revamp the American birth system.

Legalize midwifery in all states.  Use our tax dollars in the scientifically and historically supported practice of midwifery.  Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please don’t hesitate to look further into the studies I’ve alluded to.

Leslie Hing Hing Kung,
an American woman of childbearing years, birth advocate, and mother.

I was laying in bed next to my husband and my baby, and I was asking myself to remember a moment of great joy because today is Christmas.  Christmas is about joy, but it’s also about birth.  People don’t often think about Mary’s sacred act of labor.  She toiled in a manger and birthed a messiah.  It must have been a beautiful birth.

I believe that she was blessed to birth naturally, with calm in her heart, with joy.  I can believe that she did not scream.  She didn’t worry about how “unclean” her surroundings were (after all, she wasn’t surrounded by sick people . . . it was merely a manger).

It might have been like the painless births described by Grantly Dick-Read during which one woman turned down his offer of pain relief and, after the birth, when asked why replied, “It didn’t hurt.  It wasn’t supposed to, was it?”

How far the myth of Eve’s “Curse” has spread since the witch hunts of the middle ages.  All things having to do with women’s power and women’s knowledge, like midwifery, healing, herbal knowledge were burned along with the bodies of women called “hags,” “witches,” and “dirty nags.”  The old and the young were turned over to this crucible.  In some villages, no female members were left alive.

Instead of supported by knowledgeable midwives, mothers, grandmothers, women who served the laboring lady, women were locked away by themselves, terrified, and convinced that pain was inevitable.  Even when doctors began practicing, attending births was considered beneath the male doctor–until they began to realize how much business could be had if all midwives were out of the picture.

It continues today.  I know it, and I have seen this witch hunt at work.  Many other industrialized countries are appalled at the American Obstetric community’s continued prejudices against midwifery, a safer, cheaper, more apt assistant to a laboring woman . . . proven over and over in countries which continue to far exceed our poor results in regards to fetal and maternal fatality.

I have seen the ink on my own hospital records:  “Failed attempted home birth ^ UNCLEAN”.

I want to march into that OB’s office and tell him that my midwife used sterile gloves and discarded them immediately after any contact.  We went through almost an entire box and too many sterile absorbent pads to mention.  I want to tell him that he has no idea what a homebirth is like, and that he’s never seen a physiologically normal birth.  I want to gag him and handcuff him to a chair and make him watch a REAL birth.  I want his retinas to burn with the power of an unhindered flowering, the becoming of a woman as mother, the entrance of a precious light onto our physical plane, and I want him to weep with the realizations of his unwitting crimes against women and babies.

Since that’s not going to happen . . . and since I don’t have it in me to impede a woman’s labor with the stress of a handcuffed and reluctant witness, I just want to remember that my son is the greatest gift I have ever received.  To remember that feeling–the first time I held him in my arms, and the third day of his life outside the womb.

I’d been visiting him, looking down at him silently, his little unformed features, the wrinkles on his feet, the way his chest and belly moved as he breathed.  How simple life is when it is reduced to one room, to one little heated plastic bed, one tiny body . . . How simple life is when you brush so close to losing everything.  He looked so fragile, and the tubes and monitors snaked out from him, making him look even smaller.

“Have you held him yet?” a NICU nurse asked, in a sort of off-hand manner, as if she were remembering something of little importance.  I just shook my head, no.  “Do you want to?”  I think I stopped breathing as I nodded, yes.  I can’t remember what she did.  She must have gathered his wires, cleared them from around his limbs, lifted him.

I can’t remember that part.  I just remember when the weight of him pressed into my arms.  He felt so substantial, so much heavier than he looked on his sterile platform.  And yet, he was so tiny, so fragile, and so light.  Beauty and Grace and Love had no true meaning before I held Bailey.  No happiness, no simple joy, no object, no moment could match what I felt then.

Joy poured into me, filled me, and spilled out from me.

I overflowed.

Thank YOU, whatever Power, Entity, Spirit . . . That Which No Greater Can Be Conceived.  Thank you Universe.  Thank YOU.  I take this moment to praise All That Is, and give up the bitterness of the moment.  I promise to be truly thankful for that moment of sheer joy, because maybe I needed those three days to well and truly understand.

Maybe I needed those days without the feeling of my baby in my arms so that I can really be a witness, so I can value the births and first moments, so I can ALWAYS do anything in my power to preserve that sacred moment when a mother receives her child in the world just as Mary received Jesus . . . with her own hands, with her own God-given power as woman.

Three days could not mute the rushing tide of love that blasted through me at the first warm weight of his body in my arms.  I won’t let it.  Not three hours, not three days, not three years.

Merry Christmas, and may you all be as blessed as I was.

May you all be as blessed to realize your blessings.

I’m going to lay back down beside my blessings and finally let myself sleep.