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Author Topic:   How To Give Birth
Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 09:51 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

And How Not To Give Birth

Not many women out here are going to welcome Valus telling them how to give birth, lol, but, nevertheless, this information is critical and largely excluded from public discussion. Too many women are slavishly dependent on authority. They're reluctant to investigate for themselves, to discover what's truly best for their babies. So let's begin.

I just saw a woman give birth
easily and relatively painlessly...

She did it at home,
without drugs or surgery...

All of this information is from the web, and from the documentary
"The Business of Being Born", and, if you may have a child,
you owe it to yourself and the child to take these words to heart.

Midwives attend over 70% of all births
in Japan and Europe, but less than 8%
in the United States.

But in America, business has taken over.

What we see in hospital births is overkill;
callous obstetricians, most of whom have
never even witnessed a single natural birth,
want to get you in and out as quickly as possible.

Since most women have been convinced
that birth is a medical emergency, and
partly a horrifying and painful experience,
they almost all request an epidural for pain.

This tightens the birth canal,
and causes low blood pressure in the baby.

Also, "The baby's heartbeat stops reacting
to the contractions after the epidural is administered."
http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/episdrgs.html#Baby

Since the constricted canal makes birth
more difficult, more chemicals (drugs),
are "required" to induce contractions.
The result is a very difficult birth.

Pitocin makes contractions longer,
stronger, and closer together.
Blood and oxygen flow to the baby
is compromised.

Obstetricians in the U.S. want jobs,
so they try to make themselves "useful".
This results in a "cascade of intervention",
as more and more doctors come in and out,
administering more drugs and manufacturing
the "need" for cesarean sections.

Lying on your back during labor,
as prescribed by your obstetrician,
makes the pelvis smaller and makes it
more difficult to push, "requiring"
further intervention in the form of
forceps, vaccuums, etc.

But any midwife will tell you that
the more you can move, the easier,
and the less painful, it is.

Midwives encourage women to empower themselves
(not doctors), to take their power back, and to really
participate in the process of their child's birth.

They teach reverence and respect
for the entire process of birth.

They encourage the mother to give birth at home,
on their own "turf", where they'll be comfortable.

Doctors are there in case of complications,
and should not interfere with the process.
Complications occur in less than 2% of births,
and this number may be significantly reduced
if the mother follows a healthy lifestyle.

Birth can be simple and easy.
Your body knows what it's doing.

One drug the doctors give for pain,
does not in fact reduce pain, but,
induces a twilight state of awareness,
taking away the memory of the birth.

The long-term effects of "standard procedure"
on the child have never been studied, but
many believe that what happens at birth
has a profound effect on the child.

Astrologers know this to be true,
since the manner of birth is reflected in
the aspects to the ascendant of the chart.

And it's already widely understood that
the earliest periods of a child's life
are the most critical in terms of
how the child's development is influenced.

Yet, the popularity of "designer births"
is increasing in New York City; women
schedule the date of their labors,
induce the labor, have C-sections.
Many get plastic surgery later
to mask the scarring.

Are these women are "too posh to push".

Cesarean sections are major surgeries,
but are now viewed as simple procedures.
The dangers are not reported to mothers,
but they increase with every C-section.
Furthermore, many expectant mothers are
knocked out, and, so, are not even conscious
for the birth of their children.

An expert on home birthing says:

"You get the highest oxytocin rush
you'll ever have in your life,
when you give birth naturally.
You will go into an altered state
of consciousness, and be in a kind of --
a state of 'Yes, there's bliss and
there's pain, and it's all mixed together',
and we have the hardest time explaining
that to women."

Another says that, when he uses the words
"home" and "birth" in the same sentence,
women look terrified, but then he asks them,
'How many of you have actually attended
a home birth?'. None of them have.
He says, "You're like geographers
trying to describe a country you're
too afraid to visit."

It is theorized that a natural birth
is essential for encouraging a strong
connection between mother and child.

The hormones released support this,
as they closely resemble the biochemical
effects of drug dependency.

When birth is induced,
these hormones are absent.
and the hormone balance is disturbed.

In 1900, 95% of births in the U.S.
took place in the home.
In 1938, half of all births in the U.S.
took place in the home.
By 1955, less than 1% of births in the U.S.
took place in the home.
It remains the same today.

Midwife care provides closer,
more personal attention, and costs
a third of conventional "care".
Doctors say their hands are tied,
but the fact is they don't care.

Bottom line, it's about the bottom line.

It's about money
(and power, to be thoroughly honest).

But it could be about your baby.

The choice is yours.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DgLf8hHMgo
http://www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com/

quote:

"The Business of Being Born"

Birth: it's a miracle. A rite of passage. A natural part of life. But more than anything, birth is a business. Compelled to find answers after a disappointing birth experience with her first child, actress Ricki Lake recruits filmmaker Abby Epstein to examine and question the way American women have babies. The film interlaces intimate birth stories with surprising historical, political and scientific insights and shocking statistics about the current maternity care system. When director Epstein discovers she is pregnant during the making of the film, the journey becomes even more personal. Should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potentially catastrophic medical emergency?


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katatonic
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posted June 30, 2010 10:07 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message
we have discussed childbirth here just recently. may i suggest an excellent book from 1931 titled "childbirth without fear" by grantly dick-read, an english obstetrician who discovered that childbirth didn't have to be painful.
i was at my grandson's birth in a lovely big room in an american hospital; equipped to welcome as many people as the mother wished, attended by a midwife and nurse and completed without drugs of any kind. we never saw the doctor. the baby was fine. did the mother have pain? yes, but that was temporary.

i think most women with any curiosity or sense have already realized there are better ways than your standard picture of a hospital birth with stirrups, drugs, etc. in fact most hospitals are already there.

but i find parts of your piece almost comical. obstetricians who have not witnessed a birth are not yet graduated completely from their schooling. you have heard of interns and residents?

when my daughter was born in england i had a midwife just out of college who believed in "elective cesareans" and who complicated things enormously. but even then, 27 years ago, the doctor was only supervising. oh and performing the cesarean we had because the monitors were wonky and he was covering the hospital's butt.

most cesareans apart from the "elective" ones are performed not to make more money but to prevent lawsuits which cost millions perchild sometimes...so to prevent LOSS of money and reputation the babies that MIGHT have PROBLEM births are often "cesars" - of course inducing labour usually leads to some kind of problem which will lead to the decision to "remove" rather than "deliver" the baby.

by the way some of your info is also just plain WRONG. many many many mothers are NOT knocked out for cesareans. again, even 27 years ago we were more advanced than that. there are local alternatives which are not much fun but you stay awake to greet your newborn, a priceless improvement over the days of ether.

do you really think the ladies here have no curiosity, gumption or imagination that you have to present this info as if no one ever heard it before?

still, glad you came across it. many men would not interest themselves. tho you claim not to want children, if you ever change your mind hopefully you will support the mother of your child(ren) in having the birth experience of HER choice.

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 10:32 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

I'm glad people are talking about this.

I missed that discussion, so, here I am,
providing as much information as I've got.

You're right, many hospitals are being forced
to make provisions for more natural births,
though few hospital births, if any, could
be termed 100% natural.

That's great about your grandson.
Why didn't they do it at home?

I'll edit the part about cesareans
to say that many are unconscious.
What else did I get WRONG? Anything?

quote:
but i find parts of your piece almost comical. obstetricians who have not witnessed a birth are not yet graduated completely from their schooling. you have heard of interns and residents?

Did you overlook the word "natural"?
Your definition might differ from mine.
I think I made it pretty clear what
I mean when I say "natural birth".

quote:
do you really think the ladies here have no curiosity, gumption or imagination that you have to present this info as if no one ever heard it before?

I'm not including everyone, just most.
Experience supports me in this belief.

quote:
still, glad you came across it. many men would not interest themselves.

Thanks.

Children are a main concern of mine.

The reasons I'm mostly against procreation
are the same reasons that I take an interest
in them after they're born.

I think they deserve the best.
For the most part, they deserve more
than we have to offer them, which is
why I do not favor having children.

quote:
tho you claim not to want children, if you ever change your mind hopefully you will support the mother of your child(ren) in having the birth experience of HER choice.

I would never intentionally impregnate
a woman who didn't want a natural birth.

My partner and I both agree,
we don't want to have children.
So we haven't discussed this.

But accidents do happen. We'll see.

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 10:33 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
i was awake through both ceseareans. saw the whole thing. non elective.

i have never heard of anyone being knocked out for a cesearean. do they do that now?

mid wife and doula's are really popular here. doula's are in very high demand in this area.

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 10:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

cpn,

quote:
do they do that now?

In the film I just watched,
made in 2007, that's what they did.

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 10:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message
quote:
mid wife and doula's are really popular here. doula's are in very high demand in this area.

That's awesome!

But can you define "high demand"?

You mean, like, 1 out of a hundred women,
or more like one in ten, or do you mean,
literally, in high demand, as in,
more than most?

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 10:45 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
i wonder if that is the norm now. i also wonder why.
if there are no complications a lot of women are now wanting to use midwife and doula at home... but i live in kind of a hippie area, there is a huge market around here for natuaral alternative medicine. i know people that spend rediculas amounts of money on herbs alone...meh, to each his own...they smell garlicy to me all the time anyway...there are 2 healing centers within walking distance of my work. the birthing centers around here discouraged my sons gf from pain meds, and so she had none.
i dunno why they would knock women out for a c-sect. unless medically necessary.

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 10:47 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
in high demand, two girls i know became doulas and they are always busy and successful. i guess thats all i really know about how many people choose doula's, just that the girls i know who chose that field of work, stay very busy. wonderful experience for those families.

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 10:50 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

I don't know how common it is to knock them out,
but the documentary said that, since 1999, cesareans
have become hugely popular, whereas, before that,
it was seen as a last alternative.

Now I'm envious of you,
if you live in "a kind of hippie area".
I can't imagine it would be difficult
to find organic food there.

I'm sure your friends stay very busy,
since there's probably not too many
people around who do what they do.
At least, compared to obstetricians.
It's a shame because it's noble work.

I bet they have to turn people away.

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 10:52 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
yeah, nice girls both of them. the families that get that experience are very lucky.

i always find it so wierd how different parts of our country are so...absolutely different culturally. each city really has its own flavor and feel to it.

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 11:02 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

I think people tend to be more dismal on the East Coast. That's my experience, anyway. Boston, especially. People are depressed and depressing, lol. Cynicism is celebrated and progressive ideas are laughed into the gutter. I was probably influenced by that to see things as worse than they are and to be a little too reactionary. I think the West Coast is a lot more open and forward thinking. The North West, too, looks pretty progressive. I've got a friend in the South East, who says it's suffocatingly close-minded. There's this false "southern hospitality", where they ostracize anybody who is different. That's what I hear, anyway. The bible belt looks even worse. I don't know much about Middle America north of the belt. From what I've seen, especially around the Great Lakes, there's a lot of smoking and drinking and bad attitudes. Maybe on account of economic conditions. Chicago looks kind of cool, though. I dunno. Of course, there are always exceptions everywhere.

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Yin
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posted June 30, 2010 11:10 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Yin     Edit/Delete Message
Ann Arbor is notoriously progressive. Just look at their SOPAC (Social Online Public Library Catalog)
Portland, OR, Seattle, WA (although this one is dark and gray for most of the year) Boulder, CO are supposed to be the same.
Looks like the whole state of California is one step ahead of everybody else.

ETA: Actually Asheville, NC looks progressive too.

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 11:11 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
i agree. ann arbor is the san francisco of the midwest. artsy farsty liberal. i love it.

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katatonic
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posted June 30, 2010 11:24 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for katatonic     Edit/Delete Message
i believe in most places the choice of drugs is up to the mother. and it is made before the birth when she is "in her right mind" rather than in the heat of the moment. it is true that most doctors encourage you to think about what CAN GO WRONG. my own ob/gyn in london, a sweetheart of a man with many years experience in all kinds of births including home, discouraged me from being "too positive" - and he, by the way, read the book i mentioned as a young man!! and thought it was wonderful and "inspiring" but that in many cases things just plain go wrong and it is foolish to believe nothing will...

i went to hospital because i was between houses when my daughter came. i had nowhere else to have her. the hospital i chose was supposed to be the most "mother-friendly" in england but unfortunately for me the experienced midwife who was on the early shift went home and left me with a 24 year old childless idiot who believed that elective cesareans prevented lots of complications. also unfortunately for me i had my daughter at a time when i was considered "old" for a first birth!! tho i was the same age as my mother when i was born ...

it is also true that they don't tell you that it may be up to two years before you feel like yourself again, and that many people develop scar tissue that never really does feel normal again.

however i repeat most cesars are an attempt to prevent litigation...i met the little girl who was "responsible" for mine. she has cerebral palsy because she couldn't get any oxygen and they did NOT cut her out...and she cost the hospital a couple of million pounds to cover the expense of caring for her and the loss of a "normal" life.

doulas are becoming more and more more common in all the "first world" countries where women are educated enough to take an interest in how their babies are carried and born...

* * *

as to california have you heard the expression, as california does today so the rest of the world will in 20 years time? frequently true...

portland currently has a "progressive" reputation but that is really because they are so conservative, especially as to the state of their land...when i lived there if you had "foreign" plates you would get "go back where you came from" notes on your windscreen and the chiefly redneck population couldn't abide us infiltratin' hippie crazies from other states. but they do this to preserve what they have, and that is pretty amazing, that they had the foresight even 40 years ago to realize too many invaders would mean an end to their pristine farmland, forests, beaches and desert....oregon remains pretty amazing - and consciously green - because of their "backwardness".

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 11:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

The choice is always the mother's, kat,
until she puts herself in their hands.

She can choose not to take the drugs,
but the thing is, she is told only
one side of the story, from somebody
who, 99 times out of 100, she sees
as an expert and an authority.

And, as the documentary shows,
they discourage mothers from
asking questions by just telling them
"it's for the good of the baby".
Most doctors label you a difficult patient
if you take an active role in your care.

Yes, you have to practice discretion
when choosing a midwife, just like
you do in anything else, especially
when it concerns the unborn.

If the cesareans are to avoid litigation,
it is overkill, because the number has jumped
significantly since the '90s.

The number of cesareans, that is.
I dunno about the number of lawsuits, lol.

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 11:35 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
i hear portland is awesome.

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 11:38 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

I hear that a lot, too.

My friend is considering a move there,
and we all want to try to move together,
so we might end up moving there, too.

British Columbia's also supposed to be great,
but now we're getting into canuck territory.

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 11:41 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
the most beautiful place i have ever been is between seattle and BC...the san juan islands. breathtaking. you can see mountains with snow tops, orcas playing in the water, and just a peaceful feeling. simply one of the most beautiful places i have ever been

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 11:44 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

i'm googling the pictures.. it's very pretty

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 11:45 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message

almost paradise!

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 11:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
i would love to take my husband there. he hasnt travelled much, there are so many places i want to take him.

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Yin
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posted June 30, 2010 11:49 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Yin     Edit/Delete Message
Beautiful!

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Valus
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posted June 30, 2010 11:50 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Valus     Edit/Delete Message

"Never let 'em tell ya
that it's all the same."

~ Led Zeppelin
Going To California

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cpn_edgar_winner
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posted June 30, 2010 11:59 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for cpn_edgar_winner     Edit/Delete Message
well my hubby figured out how to make his name stop coming up automatically when i posted on our music site under his name how i like to wear my wifes underwear. that automatic screenname disappeared shortly thereafter. ..... i admitted it.

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Yin
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posted June 30, 2010 12:01 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Yin     Edit/Delete Message
LOL, cpn. It was a browser setting in this case. It's all good now

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