Pregnancy, Parenthood & Playtime

Have you ever just had one of those days when you think to yourself, I just can’t deal with my children anymore, or wondered if there was more to their behavior that may be a medical issue?

Tonight, local Chiropractor Dr. Jason Jenkins will be partnering with Dr. Diana Lopusny for a presentation on Chiropractic care in children and how it can improve their health and behavior.

Join them tomorrow night, September 15th, 2009 at 6:30pm
At Preferred Pediatrics
88 Noble Ave. Suite 101
Milford, CT.  06460

Registration is FREE, but space is limited, so contact Jennifer at 203-877-4198.

As a parent who swears by Chiropractic care in children, I believe every parent, or soon to be parent should check this out!behavior

This past week, The Today Show featured a piece on “The Perils of Homebirth” which showed a one sided, misinformed, and opinion filled view of the choice of a home birth. I am sure the piece was also funded or sponsored by the Obstetrician monopoly organization “The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists” better known as ACOG. The problem with ACOG is, they are not a college, or an institute of higher learning, they are, in so many words a large trade group, or union ofr OB/GYN’s. So of course anything that is going to take money away from them, they will clearly frown upon.

In recent studies, which ACOG has chosen to not acknowledge, are showing that planned home births with a registered Midwife, have similar fetal death rates that hospital births do.

The study followed 2,889 women in British Columbia who had planned home births between 2000 and 2004. They were compared with 4,752 women who gave birth in a hospital. The fetal death rate was less than one per 1,000 births in both groups, and Apgar scores, a rating of a newborn’s health, were similar.

That speaks pretty loud, but in our society today, people routinely believe everything they see on television. So when Today Show Host Matt Lauer described the choice of home birth as “extreme” births, that really gets the attention of the viewers. During this piece, Representatives of ACOG described home birth as “the equivalent of a spa treatment”, which not only is ignorant, but it made ACOG sound like a child on the school yard who is pissed off because the playground bully is about to steal his milk money. Really? A spa treatment? Why? Because many women who do choose to birth at home include a birth tub, or use massage, or acupressure to deal with the pain of the contractions without drugs? All proven methods of lowering pain, and allowing the mother to deal with the contractions and stay relaxed, which is key to progressing in labor.

Why are these women opting to birth at home? Maybe this is a message that should directly be sent to hospitals regarding their procedures surrounding birth. Many women I have spoken with who have birthed in a hospital will not do it again because of the treatment they received, and some love it.  Many women today enjoy the bright lights, epidurals, and laying flat on their back to birth, but many do not, which is why we have seen a 27% increase in home births in the past decade. IMO at least, the hospitals are becoming too hands on, and that is a problem, not only for me personally, but for the process of birth itself. Forcing labor via inductions, scheduling cesareans, routine IV’s and being dictated how to birth just isn’t in the cards for some women.

What it all boils down to in the end is money. A midwife attended home birth in our area, yes, there are midwives in Connecticut that routinely attend home births, and I will be interviewing one this coming week for this blog, runs no higher than $5,000, and that number is even high. A natural birth, in the hospital can run upwards for $10,000-$12,000. Who is making more money?
ACOG simply does not want to see women taking money away from the BILLION dollar monopoly of birth in the hospital, and going to these small town midwives.

The proof is in the studies.

I was reading a while ago, in Consumer reports, and I came across a piece about baby products that parents should steer clear of because of accidents, and infant deaths with these specific products.  The problem is, some of these products, when used properly are very beneficial to parent-baby bonding.

The first product that consumer reports takes aim at is an infant co-sleeper, and bed side co-sleepers. The consumer report article states : “Although sleeping with a baby in an adult bed is a common practice among some cultures, it can be dangerous.” Without stating that the countries who do practice co-sleeping with a baby in an adult bed have less cases of SIDS and less infant death. As well as leaving out the fact that the “co-sleeping deaths” that take place in The United States are often if not always linked directly to alcohol, illegal drug or prescription drug usage, and flat out unsafe co-sleeping practices. Meaning, it is the parents fault, not the co-sleeper or the practice of co-sleeping in general. Had these parents been educated on proper co-sleeping practices these deaths could be prevented.
The section on the co-sleepers and co-sleeping then goes on to state “Currently, safety standards don’t exist for either co-sleepers or bedside sleepers. Until they do, we the the safest place for your baby to sleep is a crib.”  Even though the same organization, Consumer reports, reported 97 deaths due to cribs from 2002-2004. Studies have proven to have not only more SIDS deaths with use of cribs, but more recalls for infant death that co-sleepers or safely co-sleeping.

Maybe consumer reports should do slightly more research before publishing such a large publication with very little proof to back their statements.

he Consumer reports article then takes a turn to attack baby slings.  They report “several deaths” over the past 5 years with the use of “sling type” carriers. Not slings themselves, but the kind that you can run out and purchase at walmart made by companies like Infantino. Not the run of the mill slings that you normally see, or the ones that do not allow the baby to sag down to your legs. Proper slings, sling wearing, and sling education can provide a very safe, effective, comfortable, and helpful experience for mothers and babies. In fact, many mothers are able to even breastfeed while using a sling properly.  Again it comes back to using a product correctly.

But what Consumer reports does not touch on is the link between baby bjorn carriers and hip dysplasia problems.Bringing me back to the whole point of my post. It is not the product itself, it is the parent using the product. Any baby product can be dangerous if not used properly. From baby bath tubs, baby bouncers, bumbo seats, and every other baby product out there. Everything can be dangerous to babies when not used right.

Well parents, there you have it. All that fuss over Obama’s speech to students for no reason. His message is the message that parents give to their children all the time, stay in school, do your home work, get good grades, and you can be anything you want.

Seems pretty cut and dry. There was no reason for the mass hysterics.
I feel bad for those few children who were excluded. A couple friends of mine who have children currently in the public school system, their children shared their sadness for those children, and how many of those kids felt left out.

All because their uneducated parents wanted to make some kind of statement that they don’t support Obama.  Well its time to get over it.

The days of everyone liking and respecting our President are out the window. We will never see it again. Society has changed, and no matter who is elected there are always going to be people like this.

What a sad day for our country!

Deliver Me, I didn’t know I was pregnant, Maternity Ward, A Baby Story, Bringing Home Baby, all the makings of a maternity care system in crisis. I have come to a point in my life where I cannot bring myself to watch any of these shows anymore. One after another they are rushed off for into the operating room for their cesarean sections, be it elective, scheduled, emergency (because of some intervention the doctor put into place), or because of their high risk pregnancies.

The message we are sending out women, young and old is that the majority of women having babies need highly skilled surgeons to manage their low risk pregnancies. Which all in all is over kill. 10-15% of pregnant women should be considered high risk, and seeing Obstetricians. Where a good 75% of women should be seen by midwives, able, educated, and ready to handle the care of women, on a far more intimate, and one on one basis. Not in and out in 10 minutes not listening to the concerns or questions they have. But now, back to these shows.

Oh My Gosh! NATURAL BIRTH?!?! OH NO!!!!!

They take the hand full of super high risk women who need medical interventions for their own safety, and show them like normal pregnancies. The fact is they are showcasing these stories for ratings. The most dramatic deliveries make for more viewers. Like in the case of the Discovery Health Channel show Deliver Me. Their tag line being, When pregnancies have a dangerous turn. At least in the episodes I have flipped through in the middle of the night.

They show all these women who need cesareans, premature labor, birth defects, mothers with heart conditions, and promoting them at the norm when it comes to birth.
Not the case.

This is why young girls today are being raised to be so absolutely petrified at becoming pregnant or giving birth. They want to be drugged up, epidurals, inductions, in complete control, which they do not know cases all these high risk scary deliveries. Cytotec being used for induction, which we all know is horrible and not FDA approved for labor induction, pitocin, elective cesareans, all the crap that we should want to be avoiding, not asking for.

How about some shows about natural birth, that aren’t titled “Extreme Births” like the ONE natural birth show that discovery health showed. They took 3 women across the world two of which were having unattended births, and showed these women as their clips for natural birth.

How about showing midwife attended home births?
How about showing midwife attended hospital births with no interventions?
How about showing midwife attended freestanding birth center births?
Because it isn’t what people want to see! Well at least the mainstream idiots who want the crazy, hectic, unnatural, intervention filled births.

Maybe discovery health should show The Business of Being Born as a special?

All I know is that so many first time mothers are being brainwashed by these crappy shows, and something really needs to change.
Boycott these stupid shows or else they are going to continue, and work against the natural birth community and all that we work for daily.

During pregnancy, a lot of women do not feel it necessary to take a childbirth class, or even pick up a book to read about childbirth in general, and I wholeheartedly believe that this accounts for a large portion of negative or less than ideal birth outcomes. Many thing today that you can just waltz into a hospital and have an amazing experience because the birth of any child is such a joy filled occasion. Unfortunately because of the state of maternity care and hospital births in our country, the one-size-fits-all style of experiences because of “hospital protocol” leads to something which I personally like to compare to a factory conveyor belt.

Women are not treated like individuals in many cases, and rules regarding their births are put into place because of the protocol’s hospitals have put into place. One example is all women having some type of an IV. Easy way to avoid this, allow women to eat and drink as they please while laboring. Despite hospital rules, many women do this anyways.  But I am getting off topic…

Education. Learning about the birth process and turning that education into what you want for your experience is the key. I will take the example of my first child. I did some reading, not as much as I probably should have. Didn’t read the right books, and completely skipped over the chapters on interventions and cesarean sections like most mothers do.  Take a group of 10 women expecting their first baby, and ask them how many have read the chapters on Cesarean Sections in the birth books, and maybe 2 will say they have. When that birth turns into a cesarean, they are dumbfounded, hurt, saddened, frustrated, and all these things can lead to other problems, such as an increased risk of Post Partum Depression, which has been studied at length concluding that cesarean birth mother have an increased risk, and also may have a more difficult time bonding with their babies. It is a sad fact of nature.

Knowing what can go wrong…
Knowing what kind of time limits will be put on labor..
Knowing what kind of interventions your hospital considers routine…
Knowing the “rules” for getting out of bed, birthing out of bed, and things of that nature are always important, and remember…
Picking a hospital because it is new, or the doctor your friends went to has privileges there should not make a difference. Your wants and needs for birth should be met, and if their protocol clashes with what you want, look else where.

Also, just because you pick a certain Doctor, does not mean they will be there when you go into labor. You may end up with whoever is on call, because lets be realistic, babies come when they want, not when your Doctor is on the schedule.

Not many people are familiar with the Indian Motorcycle. In fact since the company has gone out of business more than one time, you would think the popularity of the bike would decrease over time. Which has not been the case at all.  My father is an avid rider of Indian Motorcycles and has been since 2003 when he was first introduced.

Every Labor Day weekend, he has a get together in which indian riders from near and far gather, some from as far as Maryland.  This year we had guests from Boston to Brooklyn. So instead of really blogging about anything else today, I am going to share some picture of some great bikes that made their way to the picnic.

This beautiful 9/11 tribute bike made its way from Long Island

Riders Barry & Michelle made a huge hit when they showed up in real indian apparel

Camden was even able to park his Motorcycle right next to Grandpa's!

A Vintage Indian from the 1940's

Getting finger prints all over Grandpa's bike

In the end, there were around 25 Indians, and even more motorcycles.

In the end, it was a great time, and remember,  during the Motorcycle season, keep an eye and ear out for motorcycles you are sharing the roads with!

Set this scene…

Laura Pemberton scoured Tallahassee and the surrounding areas for an obstetrician who would attend her in a vaginal birth for her fourth child after a prior caesarean delivery. She was rebuffed by every doctor she contacted; the risk of catastrophic uterine rupture was too high, they told her. Believing in her body’s ability to give birth vaginally, Mrs. Pemberton decided to deliver at home rather than agree to what she viewed as unnecessary surgery. More than a day into her labor with no sign of complications, she nevertheless worried that she was becoming dehydrated. She reasoned that the best way to safely manage her labor would be to go to a hospital for intravenous fluids, and then return home. Mrs. Pemberton entered the hospital expecting to receive care and assuming that she, like other patients, had a right to informed medical decision-making, including the right to consent to or to decline recommended medical procedures. When she arrived, she was placed on a fetal monitor that showed that her baby’s heartbeat was strong, and that her labor was progressing, albeit slowly. However, when the obstetrician on call realized that she was attempting a VBAC, she refused to give the IV that Mrs. Pemberton needed—unless she consented to a caesarean. Mrs. Pemberton was alerted by a nurse that obstetricians were about to seek a court-ordered caesarean section. Without receiving the fluids and while still in active labor, she fled the hospital out of the back steps in her bare feet.
Mrs. Pemberton made it home to continue her labor, her confidence bolstered by the baby’s strong heart tones. Her progressing labor was interrupted by a knock at the door: it was a sheriff and the State Attorney. They entered her home and even her bedroom, following her throughout her house to make sure she did not flee again. They told her that she had to return to the hospital, because a court order forcing her to undergo a caesarean section had been granted. Neighbors looked on as she was removed from her home, still in active labor, with her legs strapped together on a stretcher. Once at the hospital, she was allowed a “hearing” in her hospital room, with an armed sheriff, the State Attorney, and obstetricians crowding her room. Although a lawyer was appointed to represent the fetus, no lawyer was appointed for her.She spoke between contractions, without the benefit of counsel, telling the judge about the extensive research that she had done to support her decisions. Despite the fact that she could already feel her baby’s head in the birth canal and neither she nor the baby showed any signs of danger, the obstetricians were convinced that she exposed her fetus to too much risk by continuing to deliver vaginally: the judge agreed. Laura Pemberton was sedated, and her baby removed via caesarean section.
Mrs. Pemberton left the state and went on to deliver four more children, including a set of twins, vaginally.

Yes, this is a true story. This was presented by The National Advocates for Pregnant Women, on their website.

Outrageous? Yes.
Scary? Absolutely!
It makes any woman think twice about getting pregnant or choosing to go against what anyone with MD after their name has to say. Can you imagine being put into a situation like this?

Stories like this should be few and far between, unfortunately, they are not, and these cases are growing in recent years across The United States. None have hit the big screen here in Connecticut, but how long before one does? Who is going to be the first to have it happen to?

This is a great example of some of the changes maternity care needs in our country!