birth activist

I have been working with some women (Jenne Alderks, and another which prefers to remain anonymous) to create a discussion board for healing birth trauma. We joined together with Sharon Storton of Solace, who was thrilled to host the discussion board on her website. Here is the announcement about it. Feel free to pass it on to women who have experienced birth trauma;

This message is to announce a new online discussion board called Solace For Mothers, An Online Community For Healing Birth Trauma. It is for women who have experienced trauma around the process of giving birth. For these women, giving birth has left them feeling deeply disappointed, traumatized, or even violated. We want these women to know that they are not alone, that birth trauma is very real, and that other women have had similar experiences and feelings. We have created an online community as a place for women to begin or continue their healing journey.

In the online community, there are different categories and forums, and the topics covered are issues that often come up for women dealing with birth trauma. It is our hope that women can virtually support each other on their healing journeys in this online community, and perhaps eventually connect with each other in the real world if they choose.

There is an introduction page here; http://www.solaceformothers.org/forum.html, and from this page you can register for the discussion board. Due to the very personal nature of this subject, we have made an effort to keep this community private, and women must register before being able to enter or view posts. If you do not fall into the category of a woman suffering from birth trauma, or if you would like to see a preview of the community before joining, you may visit this link to do so; http://www.solaceformothers.org/preview.html. This link is not the actual community and you will not be able to view members' posts from there, it will simply give you an overview of the topics covered.

We are sending this message out via email and posting it to online communities and to lists in order to reach these women. Please send this message to anyone who you feel may benefit from it.

Sincerely,

Jenne Alderks and Jennifer Zimmerman, creators and moderators of the discussion board

Supported by Sharon Storton and the Solace For Mothers team

I found this article on WebMD today;

Cuddling Cuts Preemie Pain
Kangaroo Mother Care Helps Very Preterm Infants Get Over Pain Faster

Some quotes from the article;

"It works in premature infants of 32 to 36 weeks' gestation, according to an earlier study by Celeste Johnston, DEd, RN, and colleagues at McGill University School of Nursing. But can it work in babies born as early as 28 weeks' gestation? The answer is a qualified yes, Johnston and colleagues now find."

"Kangaroo mother care was invented in 1978 by Colombian pediatrician Edgar Rey. Faced with a shortage of incubators, Rey found that mothers could use their own bodies to warm premature infants. Years of study show the technique to be at least as safe and effective as incubators, and it lessens mothers' anxiety while promoting mother/infant bonding and breastfeeding."

"The technique calls for the tiny child to be held upright between the mothers' breasts and covered with a blanket. Because the child must be held upright against warm skin 24 hours a day, mothers can share kangaroo care with fathers and others."

"More importantly, the very preterm babies recovered from the painful heelstick about a minute faster when held kangaroo-style than when left in the incubator. That's a sign the babies' bodies are beginning to self-regulate, a process known as homeostasis."

"'Mothers should be offered kangaroo mother care as neonatal intensive-care unit policy, not only to be close to their infant, but also to provide comfort,' they add."

If kangaroo care, or skin to skin contact, helps reduce preemie pain, wouldn't it help reduce the pain or discomfort of full term infants as well? If it "lessens mothers' anxiety while promoting mother/infant bonding and breastfeeding", wouldn't the same benefits be seen with full term infants? If kangaroo care becomes "neonatal intensive-care policy", why shouldn't it also become the policy in the regular labor and delivery unit?

New York Times Article: C-Section Moms Less Likely to Have More Kids.

Hmm, now I wonder why that would be?

I just read this article the other day; More Than a Traumatic Birth. After reading the article and the comments, it is apparent how controversial the term "Birth Rape" is. The term isn't just controversial, but the idea of a birth that a person would classify as a rape, seems to be something that is very jarring to most.

I personally had a birth that fits into the category of "birth rape", however, I generally don't use the term, as it causes uncomfortable silence and ends conversations that I want to have. It is difficult though, not having an understandable term for what happened. Describing the birth as "traumatic" paints pictures of a birth that went physically wrong which required major interventions, which is not exactly what happened in my case. The actions of the hospital staff and midwife were the major source of emotional trauma for me.

How do you feel about the term "birth rape"?

Pioneering midwife touts 'orgasmic birth'

The Business of Being Born is in the news this week. This article specifically talks about the skyrocketing number of c-sections.

Incidentally, Christina Aguilera, despite being warned by Jennifer Block, the author of Pushed, joined the ranks of other stars who are too posh to push and went ahead with her scheduled c-section to avoid the pain of childbirth. However, it would seem that she did not escape the pain of childbirth by undergoing major abdominal surgery.

I saw a screening of The Business of Being Born last night. It was at a college campus in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was sponsored by an organization called Ten Moons Rising. Overall I thought the film was good, it was full of educational information, touching scenes of births, not so touching scenes of births, and several bits of humor thrown in as well. It was a well made documentary and would appeal to many types of people.

Spoiler Alert: If you've seen the movie and want to read my more in depth review click the "read more" button under this entry.

I often hear this phrase from childbirth educators, doulas, and birth advocates. It is said when these women speak of the increasing cesarean rates, or when they hear of a woman or a baby who was treated cruelly during birth, or when they find out that yet another woman has scheduled her induction or c-section for a reason that seems less than medically legitimate.

As a mother who has given birth, I find this phrase emotionally charged. It may be well intended, or perhaps spoken out of the almost hopeless frustration that can be caused by working so closely with women who often make choices that seem to be the "wrong" ones. Regardless of why it is said, it stings when it is implied that you were such a mother who didn't school herself in childbirth knowledge sufficiently.

The problem with the current maternity system is so much bigger than women not being smart enough to navigate it. Birth education is not like math or science. There is no agreement even within certain groups. For example, take the natural birth movement. Will you do Bradley, Lamaze, or Hypnobabies? Will you deliver in a hospital, birth center, or at home? Will you hire an Ob, Family Practice Doctor, Midwife or have an Unassisted Birth? Will you hire a doula, invite your mother, sister or best friend, have only you and your partner, or give birth completely alone? Will you plan a water birth, squat, or assume a hands and knees position? Will you cut the cord after it stops pulsating, after the placenta is naturally expelled, or wait for it to fall off on it's own? Will you try to breastfeed in the first 10 minutes, within the first hour, or allow your infant to crawl to the breast in it's own time? There are hundreds of more questions I could ask all pertaining to natural birth. There are no right or wrong answers to these questions, there is only individual choice based on the current knowledge and feelings of the participants in the process.

Are first time mothers really not educated about childbirth? Do women have some sort of aversion to learning about the process of giving birth? Perhaps in some cases, but I don't think that is true for most women. I think women do educate themselves about birth when they are pregnant with their first child. How do women do this though? From what I have seen, they watch TV shows about birth, they read books about it, they talk to the women in their lives who have already given birth, they ask their care providers questions about it, they attend childbirth classes through their hospital or take additional classes, and they go online to discussion boards for women who are due around the same time as them and share information. These are valid ways of learning about a subject, and these women do get an education this way. However, I think when these people state that "these women need to educate themselves", they perhaps feel that the education that these women have received is not a good one, and that these women should have somehow realized this and searched further until they came across the correct information.

Is the current state of the maternity system the woman's fault though? Should we really insinuate that the increased c-sections, the intervention cascades, and the birth traumas, and all of the problems associated with giving birth in this country are because women have not educated themselves about childbirth? I don't think so. I think the fault lies with the system. There is a great lack of transparency when a woman chooses who will be on her birth team. Is this a good hospital, a good midwife, a good doula? Will this hospital give me what they promise, will the nurses be supportive of my wishes, will this homebirth midwife try to speed up my labor with so called "natural" augmentations? Will I be listened to, will I be pressured into doing things I don't want, will I be hurt, will my baby be in my arms after it's born? There is no way to educate yourself enough to find these answers because the information is not readily available to us. Things like rates of interventions, or satisfaction with a certain care provider, or how often a woman felt she was not in control or her own experience are not things that they print on the hospital brochures or are advertised on the midwifes websites.

I don't think it is possible for people who have tried hard to learn about a subject to know that there is more to learn. If things go wrong and you are dissatisfied with your experience, such as having a c-section that you don't feel was truly medically indicated, or being mistreated by your care provider, or being separated from your baby for lengths of time with no apparent reason as to why, or having a procedure done that you never consented to or didn't want, or getting bad advice about breastfeeding and finding yourself having problems nursing because of it, you may hear the phrase "this is why women need to educate themselves". I heard that phrase several times after my birth experience turned into a traumatic ordeal and I complained about the treatment I encountered at the hospital I gave birth at. At first I tried defending myself, as I had thought that I was pretty educated. I had read books, taken a childbirth class, watched "A Baby Story" on TV, and frequented "babycenter.com". But I even dug deeper than that, and I read books other than "What to Expect When Your Expecting", and I researched hospitals on the internet and picked one with a birth tub, birthing suites, and midwives. I even hired a doula and asked my midwife several questions about the upcoming event making sure she made notes in my chart about my preferences. I was educated! I was prepared! And I was horribly mistreated, had procedures I didn't want forced on me, and my baby was taken from me seconds after he was born not to return for over 20 minutes, not to breastfeed for 3 hours after the birth. It was not the wonderful natural waterbirth I had planned for. And when I told my story and people pulled out the "education" line, I fought back with my list of things that I had learned about birth and had tried applying. I was then countered with different questions, questions to prove that I lacked a real education about childbirth. According to my inquisitors, apparently I had read the wrong books, taken the wrong childbirth classes, and chosen the wrong type of care providers. I didn't hire the right kind of doula, or watch the right TV shows, or visit the right websites. If I had educated myself properly I would have known that having the midwife make notes in my chart was inferior to having a birth plan, and that my husband should have been properly trained in being my personal bodyguard, and that we both should have learned the common manipulations that hospital staff use to get patients to comply. How can a woman know that there is more to know when she has never given birth before? Even I, who I suspect knew more than the average woman, didn't know enough for some people to be satisfied that my own ignorance is what caused my birth trauma from happening, and a good education would have prevented it.

So you see, this phrase may seem well intentioned and it may seem obvious and true to the speaker of it. But to me, just a woman who gave birth, who tried her best and failed to get the birth she wanted, it feels like blame. Blaming the woman for not changing the maternity care system is barking up the wrong tree. Lets place blame squarely where it belongs. Lets support women and be kind, knowing that "when you know better, you do better" (Maya Angelo). Knowing that childbirth is not simple to navigate in this system of being made to blindly choose providers and birth settings. Knowing that women are trying to educate themselves, but often don't know what to do with the enormous amounts of conflicting information out there about childbirth. Also realizing that there is no one size fits all in birth. There is no perfect type of provider or birth setting, there is no correct answer to every question that arises in birth. There is just doing the best you can do with the knowledge you have at the time and hoping that you get lucky and you are treated with kindness and respect on the day that you have your baby.

There was a recent article in Mothering magazine that I found to be very interesting. The article, entitled "Out of the Mouths of Babes" can be read here. It talks about the toxins found in certain plastics, the health problems that they are associated with, and what to buy instead. The article focuses on infants and the many plastic products that they come into contact with.

A study referred to in the article, "Toxic Baby Bottles", was released by an advocacy group called Environment California and can be read here.

Also, here is a video that shows mothers from the group called Making Our Milk Safe (MOMS) holding a protest to ask Target to phase out PVC from it's merchandise;

Apparantly their efforts worked, as Target recently announced their plans to phase PVC out of their stores, which you can read about here.

This information has really given me something to think about, and along with all the toy recalls lately, I've been thinking about trying to just completely phase plastics out of our lives. Of course, that seems like an impossible task, but I do check the recycle codes now and am trying to get rid of, and not buy any more 3, 6 and 7 plastics, which apparently are the dangerous types. Many plastic things we have don't give any indication anywhere what type of plastic they are, and now I am left confused as to what types of chemicals we have sitting around our home. It is upsetting that these chemicals are still being used in any products, and especially in children's products, but I find it hopeful that Target has taken steps to phase some of them out and I hope that other retailers follow suit.

My 2 year old son recently started talking to me about his birth. His birth was very traumatic for me and it is what started me on this road to birth activism. Certain things that happened during his birth were forced on me, and other things I consented to under duress. When the midwife decided to break my water when I was dilated to 9.5 centimeters, I had little choice in the matter. I technically consented, but it was very clear that this was not what I wanted. I had always secretly imagined that my baby would be born in the caul (the amniotic sac), and apparently that was his intention as well. The link below is his birth story, told by him, interpreted by me. It is important to note that I didn't discuss these events with him before this, nor did I truly believe that children could remember their births until this happened. I tried not to lead him, but simply interpret what he was trying to tell me, as I always do in any situation.

Here is his story: Owen Remembers His Birth

Owen has a craniosacral therapist that we were working with before this happened, and now we are working with her specifically on his birth issues. He is still going through a tough stage as far as separation anxiety goes, but it has gotten better. He has mentioned his birth a few times since this happened. A couple times he mentioned coming out of a big hole, but then quickly dropped the subject after that. I've been able to talk to him more about his separation from me right after the birth, and he seems to be dealing with that a little better. His verbal skills have dramatically increased in the last couple months, and I am considering bringing the subject up again to see if he can explain things better now that he has more words.

This story with my son really showed me that newborns are sentient beings that have an emotional reaction to interventions that are done during the birth process and the procedures done afterwards. The fact that my son has such a sadness about the 20 minute separation that we endured directly after his birth really shows me that he was very aware of what was happening. I wish that care providers and nurses knew this about newborns. If they did, perhaps they would not be so eager to snatch them away from their mothers in those first hours and days after they are born.

Consider buying the babies in your life some safe and natural toys, free of harsh chemicals and lead. Here is a great place to get started; cool mom picks.