Consumer Reports: Cesarean a treatment trap to avoid
The November issue of Consumer Reports lists cesarean section among the top 10 overused medical test and treatments. In its investigative article called Treatment traps to avoid, the magazine notes that at $7,000, c-sections cost about 55% more than a natural birth. And in our fee for service medical system, that translates to big bucks for doctors and hospitals. Many cesareans are performed during labors that are progressing slower than the doctor would like, in spite of other less-expensive ways of encouraging labor. For instance, walking, swaying and other upright positions for labor use simple gravity to help give labor a nudge! and they’re FREE!
VBAC Safe Even After a Cesarean for Twins
New research today show what many women have already known and proven: VBAC is safe for women who have had a previous cesarean birth for twins. It was repoerted in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology that 85.6% of the women who attempted labor were successful in their vaginal births. For more information on VBAC:
Coming Soon…
Hopefully to a theater near you.
This movie is shooting for a spring 2008 theatrical release.
Watch the trailer;
This film will make it’s theatrical debut in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in January 2008. It will also be available to rent from Netflix at around the same time.
Watch the trailer here.
Both films focus on what the results have been of childbirth being put into the hands of corporations that are trying to make a profit. They both look great judging from the trailers, but I will write a review of them once I see them.
The Business of Being Born is being shown across the country right now through private screenings, so there is a chance it is being shown somewhere in your city very soon. Ricki Lake, whose idea it was to create The Business of Being Born after the disappointing birth experience with her first son, has promoted the movie extensively and has raised a lot of interest in the film. Even the daytime show The View, Ricki has appeared to discuss the film and was greeted by a mostly enthusiastic and interested response.
From the trailer, Pregnant in America seems to be a little bit harder hitting. I hope it succeeds in having a nationwide theatrical debut, and has some of the same success as some other recent hard hitting documentaries.
I have thought for a couple years now that a film like either of these was desperately needed, so I am thrilled to see that two were recently made.
It Won’t Happen to Me: Trust Your Practitioner
I was reading a really interesting article that summarizes birth in the United States and what women were saying they wanted versus what was happening. The article basically says that many women think that what they want to avoid will simply be avoided because they will it to be so. However, this is not the case. And as the rates of interventions rise, it’s much less likely to a woman will be able to avoid what she wishes to avoid, like an unnecessary induction or cesarean.
One of the keys here is the practitioner a woman chooses, doctor or midwife. Here is what one OB has to say about how we choose a practitioner:
Many obstetricians have never witnessed a natural birth in its entirety, and today, Eisenstein says, a natural birth in a hospital is “almost nonexistent. It was more likely 25 years ago than today.” People ask more questions when they buy a car or a house than they do when they choose the care provider and birth location that will be part of one of the most important experiences in the life of a family. All of the doctors are nice, he says, “but you’re not hiring your doctor to like [him], you are hiring [him] to have the safest possible birth.”
Need to know the questions to ask? Here are some good starting places:
You can read the whole article at: What Women Aren’t Told About Childbirth.
Infant Safe Haven Laws
The local news in my town today is covering the discovery of a dead newborn in a college dormitory. As a mother, I’m heartbroken to imagine what could have gone on in this young woman’s life to feel that her only option was to abandon her baby to die. Most states in the U.S. have statutes called Infant Safe Haven Laws created to help avoid situations like this. In most cases, these statues allow for the parent or someone else to hand over a newborn to places like hospitals, fire stations, and churches, no questions asked. The specifics vary from state to state. To learn about the Infant Safe Haven Law in your state, search the state statutes at the Child Welfare Information Gateway. Just select your state from the menu, then be sure to check the box for “Infant Safe Haven Laws” about half-way down the page, in the Child Welfare section.
This I Believe - Breastfeeding
“Remind yourself that breastfeeding may well be the first really difficult thing you do as a parent. Instead of using that as a reason to avoid it, embrace it. Parenting is a life-long journey that will ask you to stretch yourself beyond what you thought possible time and time again. You’ll walk your children through bullies, first loves, broken hearts, frustrations with Algebra (maybe that was just me) and many more things. (That’s if you’re lucky…otherwise things will be even harder.)”
Wow. The Lactivist and several other breastfeeding bloggers are doing a carnival on the topic of breastfeeding in the This I Believe style… Want to read more?
Changing Your Perspective
A friend of mine sent me this link the other day. I highly recommend that you try it out. Basically it’s a spinning object and it’s demonstrating right and left brain functions. The instructions say that if you see it spinning one way if you think about it, you can make the image spin the other direction. BAH! I thought. But I was able to stare it and sure enough, make the image go the opposite direction with just a bit of concentration and belief.
Just as I was about to pass this up as a really cool optical illusion it struck me, this is what the culture of birth has become. It’s spinning out of control in one direction - a direction that is becoming quickly unsafe for babies and mothers. But all we need to do is concentrate and focus with a little faith and we can turn things around. Try it out on the simple link above and then see what you can do in the birth world. I challenge you to make one small step to change the world. Post and tell us what you are going to do…
Bravo to Evenflo!
From my email box:
Dear Evenflo Breastfeeding Research Group Member:
As a valued member of the breastfeeding community, we want to personally inform you of some exciting news from Evenflo. As part of our “Best for Baby” mission, Evenflo is elevating its commitment to breastfeeding through two major initiatives. First, we’re excited to announce our acquisition of Ameda. As you know, Ameda is renowned for its high-quality breast pumps and educational programs. Under the Evenflo umbrella, Ameda will continue to serve its core institutional market.
It also gives us great pleasure to inform you that Evenflo will become the first baby bottle manufacturer in the U.S. to achieve compliance with the World Health Organization (WHO) International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes. We are working closely with the National Alliance for Breastfeeding Advocacy (NABA) and its Executive Director Marsha Walker and consulting with UNICEF to ensure that we are taking all necessary steps to ensure Code compliance.
As part of this pledge, Evenflo will immediately take the following three steps: 1) discontinue all bottle/nipple advertising directed to consumers; 2) change our feeding packaging to align with WHO Code guidelines; and 3) remove bottle/nipple images and sales from our web site. Ameda is already WHO Code compliant, and Evenflo is committed to maintain compliance with those standards across its feeding product line.
We recognize that breastfeeding is the healthiest and preferred choice for babies. Our decision to become WHO Code compliant and the addition of Ameda to our family of products will allow us to support more moms to breastfeed with a range of products marketed in a manner that will not interfere with or impede breastfeeding.
Below please find a press release with more details on this exciting announcement. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please do not hesitate to e-mail us at evenflofocusgroup@yahoo.com. As always, we look forward to a continued relationship and we appreciate your support of Evenflo.
Sincerely yours,
Rob Matteucci
CEO, Evenflo Company, Inc.
Cesareans: A New Book
I am finishing a cesarean section prevention book. The book is not mainly stories, but rather has some quotes sprinkled through out. The aim is to get women to say no to the first cesarean, but it does also address VBAC planning and VBAC denial. If you are interested please consider answering some of the below questions. You can say as much or as little as you like, you can also feel free to answer only the ones that you would like or are interested in answering.
This survey is for ANYONE who has been pregnant or is contemplating pregnancy and thinking ahead to your birth choices. You do NOT have had to have had a cesarean or have had a VBAC.
Thanks and if you have any questions, just let me know.
Questions:
1. Please give me your full name, how you want to be identified (full name, first name only, anon, etc.), your general location, number of children, number of cesareans, number of VBACs, anything else pertinent to your story.
2. Did (do) you ever believe that you might have a cesarean? When did you first think that a cesarean was a possibility for your birth?
3. When did your practitioner bring up a discussion about cesarean? Before labor? During labor? Was it a surprise?
4. If you had a cesarean, do you think you could have done anything to prevent it?
5. If you had a cesarean, did you or your baby experience complications? If yes, which ones and how did you feel about this?
6. If you had one good piece of advice for pregnant women or women considering having a baby, what would it be when it comes to cesarean prevention?
7. What is one sure way to have a cesarean?
8. Did you try to prevent a cesarean? If so, how? (Did you switch doctors or midwives? Did you pay out of pocket for a homebirth? Did you stay home longer than you normally would have? Hire a doula? Stuff like that…)
9. Advice for pregnant women in talking to those offering birth horror stories?
10. Where did you get a positive view of birth? Where should others turn?
11. If you have had a VBAC, what resistance did you have? (If any.)
12. What is the hardest part of having a VBAC?
13. What was pregnancy like for you? What advice do you have in general for pregnant women? Feel free to add stories or quotes here.
14. Anything else you’d like to add?
Please send these questions with answers to me at: robin at robineliseweiss dot com
A Mother’s Body
A recent article in The New York Times called Is the ‘Mom Job’ Really Necessary? highlights the trend of women having plastic surgery after the birth of a child in order to erase the effects of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. Some plastic surgeons have been offering new package deals for mothers called “Mommy Makeovers” as “a cure for the ravages of motherhood”. These surgeries include a breast lift that may include implants, a tummy tuck, and liposuction and can cost between $10,000 and $30,000.
In one quote from the article, a plastic surgeon named Dr. David A. Stoker bluntly states, “The severe physical trauma of pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding can have profound negative effects that cause women to lose their hourglass figures.” I wonder how many women go into pregnancy and birth with perfect hourglass figures, and how many of these expect to have those figures back once the process is complete. I also wonder how anyone can suggest that breastfeeding is a trauma to the body! The word trauma as defined by dictionary.com means that there is “sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident”. To use such a strong word and associate it with the selfless act of breastfeeding an innocent baby is very unsettling.
It seems that the media’s perfectly airbrushed hourglass image of a woman has settled into our cultures subconscious, and now a normal, biological stage of a woman’s existence is seen as a physical injury to her body. The New York Times article states, “Many women struggle with the impact of aging and pregnancy on their bodies. But the marketing of the ‘mommy makeover’ seeks to pathologize the postpartum body, characterizing pregnancy and childbirth as maladies with disfiguring aftereffects that can be repaired with the help of scalpels and cannulae.”
I think that the body of a mother needs to be normalized in our culture. It should be celebrated, not hidden. The introduction to a wonderful blog called The Shape of a Mother states, “It is my dream, then, to create this website where women of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities can share images of their bodies so it will no longer be secret. So we can finally see what women really look like sans airbrushes and plastic surgery. I think it would be nothing short of amazing if a few of our hearts are healed, or if we begin to cherish our new bodies which have done so much for the human race. What if the next generation grows up knowing how normal our bodies are? How truly awesome would that be?”
It would be truly awesome indeed!
