kutulu

lol, it's not like it isn't necessary for the continuation of the human species. Maybe procreation should be reserved for the rich, but then who would we have to flip our burgers?:

Anyways, back to the topic. The term 'unassisted' can be misleading. In many places midwives are not allowed to homebirth (something having to do with feeding the medical machine, how dare you opt out of the status quo). Therefore, the midwife is not allowed to sign off on the birth and it gets recorded as unassisted.

Also, there is nothing wrong with water births. Our second child was a water birth at a birth center. The total cost, which was covered by insurance was less than our copay when we had our first. However, some BS regulations now require 'disposable tubs' for water births in hospitals (as if they cannot be properly cleaned) and therefore it has become cost prohibitive to perform water births in many places.

Ourcrazymodern?

Before we started valuing ourselves so highly these were considered less important:

sex
childbirth
death

life has gone on.

As it will once we've given up on money as a concept.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

analog

Right... a study done 30 years ago. Pretty much everything having to do with that article has changed drastically. Hospitals' practices for antimicrobial and sterilization, neonatal care, and the very technologies implemented in the procedures mentioned make absolutely everything in that article total bullshit. 30 years? Please. When doctors graduate medical school, about 50% of everything they learned is obsolete within 5 years, if not sooner- especially in surgical applications.

This is also not to mention, as someone brought up, that the study still had trained midwives/birthing personnel of some kind.

The plain and simple truth is, c-sections are way more common for a reason: it gets the baby out quickly and safely in the event of a possible problem. Lawsuits for birth problems are astronomical. HUGE. The doctors did not become surgery-happy, c-section pushers. They started doing it way more frequently to reduce the risk of getting sued due to problems encountered with the fetus before or during birth.

C-sections are directly related to litigation, and nothing else. Yes, it's more invasive for you, but it's a very good way to extract a fetus without incident.

Holy shit...

Sometimes, you have a thought and you try and breathe life into it, but you never quite seem to make the words truly capture the thought in your head.

The above words have hit the nail on the head. Thank you.

tecoyah

I do not claim to be an expert on birth, Hospital statistics, mortality rates.....etc...

I have helped deliver Two Children though, and have no problem sharing the experience. Granted there could have been complications, but I managed to memorize the numbers 9-1-1.....I could only hope someone less abrasive than you answered the call for Help.

analog

Let me get this right... you believe that your opinion is absolutely correct and therefore I'm positively wrong... and I'M the one who doesn't have an open mind in this scenario?

I needed a good laugh, thank you. Also, my "profession" means that I actually DO care about medicine, procedures, and the safe delivery of children. It would be nonsense to think otherwise. I don't, however, understand what my "personality" has to do with anything. *shrug*

I'm in here having a conversation already... I'm already talking with people... you come in and tell me i'm not open-minded. I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, but I will tell you here and now that you are incorrect. My mind is perfectly open- if you say shit that is inconsequential, meaningless, or use a 30 year old medical study to compare to current-day medical practice, the openness of my mind has nothing to do with whether or not I find your research and/or application methodology to be utter shit.

Well, my understanding of the "freebirth" thing was no birthing personnel, based only on the other feedback in this thread. Don't look at me, take it up with them.

You're absolutely correct, "very good" is an opinion. It was not my intention to indicate my opinion, rather, to inform that birth by caesarian section is a current, accepted practice in obstetrics and gynecology aside from natural birth. In cases of fetal distress of any kind, it is the ONLY indicated procedure for correction of the issue with safe extraction of the fetus.

YOUR opinion is whether or not you want such a procedure done, which is fine. I'm not arguing with anyone over preference- I was pointing out the logical fallacy in using a 30 year old study that is so horridly obsolete it's scary to even consider using as a basis for anything.

I don't know what this means, but it doesn't sound friendly. Unfortunate.

tecoyah

I should know better....done here.

ShaniFaye

Excuse me but the 2nd paragraph in the OP's article says

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Charlatan

I am all for the practice of a home birth where a midwife, or some sort of trained professional is standing by but to go it completely alone is foolhardy.

I also agree that using a 30-year-old study is problematic. In Ontario there are many more options available these days. We had the option to go to the hospital and use a midwife rather than a doctor. We also had the option to use a birthing room, a purpose-built series of rooms where you can do labour and delivery in the same place (nice lighting, specially designed beds, bath tubs , etc.).

The point here is that there are choices we can make.


I am disturbed by the free birthing movement. It strikes me as another symptom of the amateur vs. professionals thing mixed with a healthy dose of back to nature and anti-medicine.

Nobody is really asking for us to go back to the clinical childbirth of the 50s and 60s where a father was forbidden from even entering the birthing room, where it was treated like surgery.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

ngdawg

I don't know if this was something told to you while in class, but that's not entirely the case. Given a choice, most responsible OB-GYN's would rather NOT do C-sections. They are major surgery, require longer healing, longer hospital stays, carry much greater risk to the mother and are or could be a source of malpractice suits every bit if not more than going 'natural'. Both my sister and I suffered nicked bladders, mine requiring 10 days on a foley; my scar is crooked and made my abdomen misshapened. We missed the births of our kids because we were not allowed full view during the procedure(and, because my epi was wearing off, I felt the first cut-there's a whoops! moment). And, in my case, the nurse, as she was handed my daughter(who was second), slipped on the water, falling onto her knee-she did have the presence of mind to protect the baby as she went down.
Sister was in hospital 4 days, I was in 6. Both were emergencies.
I don't know why anyone in their right mind would choose a C-section(yea, this means you, too, Angelina).

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Cynthetiq

I keep telling Skogafoss that I want to stay in the waiting room pacing back and forth with a box of cigars waiting for the nurse to come give me the news...

she's not going for it at all.

good thing we're not having children.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Charlatan

There is a certain appeal to letting someone else deal with it. The thing is, we now have a choice to not participate (demanding partners aside - my friend, you have no choice) back in the clinical days if a father *wanted* to be in the birthing room he couldn't be there. It was strictly forbidden.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Nimetic

For sure. What screwed up health system is it when there is no govt assistance for birthing?

For sure - births are going to occur. They are required for long term economic success. Sometimes they are not by "choice". This should have government support.

I'm not saying it's a "right". There are no rights really in this world... just that it's a bloody important thing for the government to support to a reasonable extent.

Jenny Hatch

but if you people on this forum are into the evolution of human sexuality then you need to do some research on Freebirth.

Michael Odent, a french obstetrician has written some fascinating books and articles on the scientification of love. Here is a basic primer article

Freebirthing fits perfectly into this paradigm. When faith overcomes fear in birth, amazing amounts of joy bless the family.

Here is my own recent birth story:


http://www.unassistedchildbirth.com/...ennyhatch.html

Birthing alone at home is fun! Check it out!

Jenny Hatch

lurkette

Well, you lost me right there. Faith isn't going to keep you from hemorrhaging, love, nor from complications from the baby having the cord around its neck.

Silliest thing I've heard today.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France

spindles

The government in NSW has recently announced a policy elective caesarians.

link

This is basically an attempt to limit the number of these occur by telling people of the danger involved.

There is a huge difference between caesarian and giving birth vaginally, in terms of complications and recovery. They are not suggesting doing it at home alone, though.

I really don't see that there is any upside to being home alone doing this. After all, having medical attendance does not have to mean medical invasiveness.

__________________
who hid my keyboard's PANIC button?

analog

Right. Given the choice, most responsible OB-GYN's would rather NOT do C-sections. I wasn't talking about choice, I was specifically talking about cases where there is any challenge to the baby's circulation (or air supply, which pre-birth is in their circulation), or even the indication that a challenge may exist. They are much, much more likely to birth by caesarian because they have a definitive time frame until they can extract the child, which may be necessary to ensure the baby is not deprived of oxygen at any time. The field of childbirth is incredibly litigious, and the main point for lawsuits in that field is "the doctor did not perform a timely c-section and the baby was deprived of oxygen". That's a reality, not an opinion.

Also, since you brought up the fact that I'm a student- given that I'm currently in school to be a paramedic, and being taught about the current state of medicolegal judgments (medical jurisprudence), with regard to pretty much every medical situation I can be faced with, I maintain that my statement about the current state of litigious action in caesarian births is accurate. Unfortunately, personal experience of childbirth does not give a person insight into the litigious nature of the field as a whole, unless you've done independent research (recently). However- my personal experience as a person who has formal training in medicolegal judgments and the current litigious nature of medicine, with regard to medical malpractice (including c-sections), does.

Charlatan

You do know that the choice to have a c-section by models and actors is directly related to the fact that most stretch marks occur in the final weeks of pregnancy as the baby drops in preparation for birth. A c-section, scheduled with this in mind, will generally help in the prevention of stretch marks.

As for the scaring from the incision. a) these are highly trained doctors who are working to minimize scar tissue and b) they make the incision quite low, below the line where a bikini would cover (i.e. no visible scar).

It's all about appearances.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

ngdawg

Exactly. I remember when Jane Seymour, at the age of 47 or so, had twins and the talkshows, etc., were all abuzz with how fantastic she looked just after giving birth...hello??? C-Section with a cosmetic surgeon on hand to do the finishing stitching? I'd have looked fantastic as well. I wasn't aware until after my kids came that I could have requested a plastic surgeon to stitch me up.
Analog: no reason to appear snippy. I'm not a student getting the latest information any more than you're preggers I just read a lot about issues that I've either experienced or know of others who have and absorb the info, however anecdotal it may appear.
It had been suggested to me numerous times to sue my OB/GYN for the damage done. The scar is not only 'visible', but made my abdomen quite misshapened. Best case scenario is no visible scar, etc., but patients and doctors are unique and best case scenario is not universal. I will note that I had one of the most popular and well-respected OB/GYN high risk specialists in the state. But I can still stuff change under the left side of my stomach.....

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Jenny Hatch

Working in the faith realm is the work that we parents are engaged in. "Faith preceeds the miracle", "as a man thinketh, so is he". If you have studied quantum mechanics you will know that our beliefs about things provide steps to our reality.

If a mother believes that Birth is painful, deadly, and dangerous - her birth will likely follow her beliefs in terms of how it plays out.

But if a mother spends quality time working on her beliefs, her mental programming, she can literally move mountains and give birth alone.

Dr. Crippen is calling for us moms who have a babe die during a freebirth to be charged with manslaughter. (Or at least be prosecuted by brain damaged children later on)

I think he is really on to something in his call for criminal charges for dangerous parental decisions around birth.

We freebirthers will gladly accept the responsibility for our birth outcomes WHEN and IF mothers who are choosing elective C-sections are held under the same law.

Nobody is above the law...Right?

So, as long as moms who choose a medical intervention without true medical cause are being prosecuted and locked up for their dangerous and deadly choice for baby, we will gladly bow down to the law and allow ourselves to also be prosecuted and charged for a supposedly dangerous birth choice.

See, we have nature and the lack of chemicals on our side, and I can promise you that the mothers from the medical side will be prosecuted ten to one more often than we mothers who are giving birth alone. Toxic, "blue" chemical laden babies have a much harder time recovering from birth than our beautiful natural babes who are born at home with proper hormonal interactions and lack of deadly drugs like Cytotec raging through their livers and brains.

It seems to me that if poor parental choices are being thrown into the mix of who gets prosecuted and who does not, those babies who are brain damaged from too many drugs at birth, those babies who never reach full genetic brain potential cause Momma didn't want to breastfeed, and those children who are permanently maimed and disabled by never being fed whole organic foods, should also be enabled to have cause to sue parents for damages.

As I said, if you are truly interested in the evolution of sexuality, lining up our sexual lives along the parameters outlined by Dr. Odent will lead to a much more peaceful society.

Freebirth fits it to a T.

QUOTE: by Dr. Odent

This simple, basic, and necessary question is also paradoxically new. As long as we put it aside, the promotion of breastfeeding will suffer. Today we are in a position to explain that breastfeeding starts before the baby is born.

Until recently the fact that the maternal body prepares to secrete milk before the baby is born was in the realm of intuitive knowledge. Today, physiologists are in a position to explain how the hormones released by mother and baby during labor and delivery play a role in the initiation of lactation.

Here are some examples of easy-to-explain connections between the physiology of birth lactation:

In 1979 we learned that the levels of beta-endorphins increase during labor (Csontos, Rust, Hollt, et al., 1979; Akil, Watson, Barchas, & Li, 1979). We already knew, since 1977, that beta-endorphin stimulates the release of prolactin (Rivier, Vale, Ling, Brown, & Guillemin, 1977). It became therefore possible to interpret a chain of events: physiological pain in labor (system of protection against pain) and the release of the key hormone of lactation.
Swedish studies, published in 1996, demonstrated that two days after birth, when the baby is at the breast, women who gave birth vaginally release oxytocin in a pulsatile (i.e., effective) way, compared with women who gave birth by emergency caesarean section (Rivier, Vale, Ling, Brown, & Guillemin, 1977).

Furthermore there is a correlation between the way oxytocin is released two days after birth and the duration of exclusive breastfeeding.
The same Swedish team found that the caesarean women lacked a significant rise in prolactin levels at 20-30 minutes after the onset of breastfeeding (Nissen, Uvnas-Moberg, Svensson, Stock, Widstrom, & Winberg, 1996).

An Italian team demonstrated that the amount of beta-endorphin in the colostral milk of mothers who gave birth vaginally is significantly higher than colostrum levels of mothers who underwent caesarean section (Zanardo, Nicolussi, Giacomin, Faggian, Favaro, & Plebani, 2001). It is probable that one of the effects of milk opiates is to induce a sort of addiction to mother's milk. One can anticipate that the more addicted to the breast the newborn baby becomes, the longer and easier the breastfeeding.

In general it is easy to explain that the first time when the human neonate is able to find the breast (See Odent, 1977), the behavior of mother and baby is influenced by the numerous hormones they released during labor and delivery (Krehbiel, Poindron, Levy, & Prud'Homme, 1987). These different hormones released by mother and baby during the birth process are still present during the hour following, and all of them play specific roles in the interaction between mother and baby and therefore in the initiation of lactation.

Of course there are many other factors that participate in the development of the capacity to breastfeed (Odent, 2003). However, we must focus on the physiological processes that are routinely disturbed by the cultural milieu.

Such considerations are particularly relevant at the age of elective caesarean section on request and at a time when we have at our disposal multiple powerful ways to disturb the physiological processes in the period surrounding birth. It is undoubtedly because the basic questions are not addressed that the results of public health campaigns are rarely cost effective. None of these public health campaigns take into account the widespread, quasi-cultural lack of understanding of birth physiology that leads to high rates of obstetrical interventions and to the extensive use of pharmacological substitutes for natural hormones. The priority now should be to rediscover the basic needs of women in labor (Odent, 2001).



I came home to give birth after having my first three in the hospital because I was sick of the interfearence after my baby was born. Sure I gave birth to two of my children without inductions or drugs and I know I can claw my way to a natural birth in that environment.

But it was not until my fifth baby that I was able to hold my child in my arms for as long as I wanted, without some busybody standing by waiting to take him or her away from me.

Freebirth puts the bonding moment right back in the spotlight, and freebirthers are known for being very proactive breastfeeders.

I'm still nursing my fifth child a couple times a day and he is four and a half years old.

ngdawg

Everyone's choices are what's best for them. Assuming the 5th was your 5th pregnancy and the previous four were not quads, one would take that into consideration as your being 'experienced' in the ways of giving birth. Had that been your first, that would not have been the case.
Personally, I would not nurse a 4 year old anymore than I'd give a 4 year old a bottle, but again, that's your decision and how your kids end up is soley your doing based on your own decisions.
I do, however, take offense when remarks about how I and others like me that did not or could not go along with this line of action imply that that too, was entirely our choice. My kids are so healthy I have to renew their records every time I've needed a physician's signature for something. They don't eat organics, they got both bottle and breast and, Horrors!!!! were born in a hospital through emergency C-Section.
Simply put, we do what we think is best for the situation at hand. I do feel, however, that anyone attempting this the first time out is putting at least two lives on the line and that's scary.

I want to add that I find it most interesting that those who advocate the practice of freebirthing as it's been outlined quote the very doctors they're attempting to avoid.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

tecoyah

I am well aware of the freebirth concept Jenny, but I must say fanaticism serves no movement well. Many people choose a hospital for good reason, and should not be criticized for doing so, any more than you and I for choosing not too.
While I personally might agree with much of what you profess, the extremism you project would make me want to leave the room and disassociate. Congratulations on your choice, and the beautiful experience natural birth can be (I speak from experience), But an equal Congrats to Dawg for the Birthing she created. To each their own....Just enjoy the Kids.

The_Jazz

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense whatsoever and there's absolutely no data to back up this kind of outlandish claim. To the contrary, there's lots of information to show that common birth experience has no bearing on warfare or society.

There are plenty of cultures in the world today that don't use medications during childbirth and have at home births. We can look at tribes in the Amazon or the South Pacific, and one of the common traits that they all have is that they all practice warfare on outsiders. Past cultures have been, if anything, more violent than our own, and the vast majority of them did not use any chemicals during the labor or delivery processes.

I can also make the arguement that there evidence that makes such a claim laughable by pointing out that these chemicals were very prevalent from 1960-2000, which was a comparatively peaceful time in the world.

You're really going to have a long way to go to convince anyone that freebirthing is going to lead to any sort of societal changes like you're projecting. Otherwise, it's just another outlandish Chicken Little claim.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

ShaniFaye

gee all those quotes from studies from doctors about how great it is....and I don't see one of them explaining why none of that worked pre 20th century to keep the infant mortality rate down

I highly resent anyone that tells my I'm less of a caring mother because I didn't breastfeed

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

snowy

My mom has similar problems. She suffers from keloid scarring, which creates thick, ropy scars that go beyond the original wound site. She had two scars on her abdomen for a long time--a giant C-shaped scar from having her appendix removed (her appendix was not where it was supposed to be, and so they kept going until they found it, up near her stomach), and a long scar descending from her belly button downward from having an emergency C-section during my brother's birth. When she went in for her hysterectomy, they were able to also do some plastic surgery to reshape the scars and remove some of the keloid tissue. They look a lot better now, and her stomach is much less misshapen. She has had subsequent surgeries on her abdomen for other problems due to the keloids (after her hysterectomy, they left her ovaries in, and she had to have them removed later because they got entangled in keloid scar tissue, as did part of her intestine) but now they just go through her belly button, which is much less invasive.

So if you have to ever have any procedure done on your stomach...ask if they can redo your scars.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jinn

That's a damn slippery slope. If someone chooses to smoke and ends up with lung cancer, you think that cancer treatment is thereby an "elective" procedure? Universal health care shouldn't cover this person's treatment (and possibly preventing their DEATH) because they made a bad choice?

If I make the choice to go into my burning house and drag out dogs out so they don't burn to death, universal health care shouldn't cover any burn management treatment because I "elected" to do so?

There are a lot of choices to make in life, and many of them are bad. The idea of "Universal Health Care," however, is to prevent and treat human suffering and death. I fail to see how "choices" they make are even relevant. The fact is that they're suffering now.

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

Cynthetiq

I live in a tri-state area, so companies providing health benefits can easily be seen how they differ from state to state working for the SAME company but benefits differ.

In one company that I worked for the benefits were:

in NJ, they didn't cover ANY prenatal

in NY, they covered full up to $X,

in CT, they covered up to a certain amount via a deductable.

all these things are choices and they all affect different things. Move to NYC, pay tax on toilet paper, live in NJ pay only 3% tax for most household things.

makes me toss up my hands and say whaddayagonnado?

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

*Nikki*

Seems like many here are the expert on this subject, yet few have actually experienced childbirth.

Information on paper is quite different then the actual experience.

Agreed.

filtherton

I agree also. There are a whole lot of people who seem to go around with incredibly oversimplified ideas of what makes or breaks a child's health. It often(though definitely not always) has little to do with the actual child and more to do with a desire to embrace an idealized notion of how things ought to be.

That being said, my daughter was delivered in a hospital with the aid of a midwife and it was fine; there were no doctors pushing for unnecessary procedures. We had no complaints until the regular nursing staff took over. They were just kind of mostly indifferent and it was really a crapshoot after a shift change whether the new nurse would be an interested nurse or a completely dismissive nurse.

Jenny Hatch

This is true in most areas of life and I am a very much a live and let live person, but when you have a medical doctor blogging that we should be prosecuted for manslaughter should something go wrong, well then I feel the need to go defend my lifestyle choices a little bit.

As I said Above:

"Dr. Crippen is calling for us moms who have a babe die during a freebirth to be charged with manslaughter. (Or at least be prosecuted by brain damaged children later on)

I think he is really on to something in his call for criminal charges for dangerous parental decisions around birth.

We freebirthers will gladly accept the responsibility for our birth outcomes WHEN and IF mothers who are choosing elective C-sections are held under the same law.

Nobody is above the law...Right?

So, as long as moms who choose a medical intervention without true medical cause are being prosecuted and locked up for their dangerous and deadly choice for baby, we will gladly bow down to the law and allow ourselves to also be prosecuted and charged for a supposedly dangerous birth choice.

See, we have nature and the lack of chemicals on our side, and I can promise you that the mothers from the medical side will be prosecuted ten to one more often than we mothers who are giving birth alone. Toxic, "blue" chemical laden babies have a much harder time recovering from birth than our beautiful natural babes who are born at home with proper hormonal interactions and lack of deadly drugs like Cytotec raging through their livers and brains.

It seems to me that if poor parental choices are being thrown into the mix of who gets prosecuted and who does not, those babies who are brain damaged from too many drugs at birth, those babies who never reach full genetic brain potential cause Momma didn't want to breastfeed, and those children who are permanently maimed and disabled by never being fed whole organic foods, should also be enabled to have cause to sue parents for damages.


This was the point of my post, and I just shared Dr. Odents quote to back up my claim that bonding and getting off to a good start with nurturing at the breast starts during pregnancy.

UC Birth was the way for me to grasp this reality as a mother after four very frustrating/distracting bonding moments with my older children in the immediate hours after birth.


And I was simply attempting to explain WHY freebirth was so important to me as a mother. It enabled me to bond with my child in a way that I had NEVER been able to do in the hospital. And, just so you know, I live in Boulder County Colorado and gave birth at a birthing center with the best Family Practitioner (most supportive of natural birth in the state), my husband and I were Bradley Method Childbirth teachers for eight years, and even with all of this prep and birth plan, and all of the good communications, I still had to fight to give birth naturally with no interventions. Ironically it was my C-section baby that I had with me the most in the days after birth.

Hope that helps you to understand.

Jenny Hatch


Fanatic? Extremism? To my way of thinking a US C-section rate or 30% is the extreme. To me the fanatics are the blog doctors calling for parents to be prosecuted for manslaughter.

The current fight that is taking place in America over birth is just sickening.

You know how I see the world right now?

On one side we have the doctors backed up by the pharma companies and the republican party.

On the other side we have the trial lawyers backed up by democratic party.

(I know those are gross stereotypes but hear me out)

And in the middle???

We have a nice young pregnant woman. And she is looking at all of the yelling, lititgation, money being shoved hand over fist to one side or the other.

And she is looking up at them and quietly says: "I just wanted to have a baby"

What we freebirthers are saying is, "Come over here where life is green and healthy, and you can birth in freedom and peace, and then enjoy your child without being bothered by all of that noise."


Yet the very fact that this is our message leaves us prone to the very vitriol that has been displayed on this thread. Nuts, crazy, delusional, DANGEROUS PARENTS"

I've been promoting this lifestyle for a long, long time and I can promise you, I have been called every name in the book. Being for husband/wife home birth has brought the most ugly, disgusting, evil energy you could ever imagine into my life.

And it is not my intent to make any mother feel bad about her life choices.

Why do I keep talking about it? Promoting it?

Because if we don't we are going to get to a place in our society when all that is available for women is in fact a scheduled section. And I want more for my daughters and grandaughters than a knife in the belly when they give birth.

Jenny Hatch


I'd like to see some of that information please. Links? Quotes?

As for my DATA - go here and do a little surfing. The pre and peri natal psychologists are doing the research that the medical people SHOULD have been doing all along.

Go Here

Jenny Hatch

Quick Facts on Violence

1. Violence is a mental health problem, perhaps the most serious mental health problem facing society today.

2. Violence is learned, typically in the family circle. Domestic violence is the breeding place for social violence.

3. Many experts believe that the "bonding/attachment" of babies and parents in the period before and around birth will have life-long importance. Fifteen percent of U.S. children may enter life without such an attachment, feel no intimate, safe, and loving connection with anyone, posing high risk of violent behavior.

4. Psychological tests of 14 juviniles on death row in U.S. prisons revealed major neurological impairments, psychotic disorders, and low I.Q. scores--profound handicaps which often reflect lack of nourishment and love during prenatal development.

5. For 60% of boys born in the United States today, hospital birth still ends with a violent act: circumcision. A urologist estimates that 90% of the men who are walking the streets today had this painful initiation shortly after birth. For them, sex and violence are linked.

6. About 30,000 children currently await adoption. Adoption, when it is the last in a series of traumatic experiences perhaps includidng fetal alcohol poisoning, malnutrition, rejection, and birth complications, can lead to antisocial behavior, especially in boys.

7. Certain birth complications, when accompanied by severe parental rejection/separation in the first year, strongly influence criminal behavior in later life.

8. Infant monkeys, reared in isolation from mothers, develop structural, neurochemical, and neuroelectrical abnormalities which mediate depression, hyperactivity, self-mutilation, and pathologic violence. Human infants, similarly deprived for brief periods following birth, also show these behaviors.

9. For the first time in history, violent sexual assaults are being committed by boys younger than ten years of age. More than 128 were convicted of rape in 1993.

10. Every 2.5 minutes, someone is raped in America. Females are the main (not the only) target--regardless of age, race, education, or physical description. In most cases the attacker will be a relative, friend, neighbor, or other trusted acquaintance. Nearly 90% of the assaults will involve a weapon and threat of violence and death.

The_Jazz

Jenny, your data does nothing to support your argument and some is outright laughable. Point by point, using your own system:

1) Sure violence is a problem today. However, birthing drugs are a very new phenomenon, historically speaking. I'm sure you'll agree with that. In that light, is violence more, less or the same problem it was 50 years ago? 100 years ago? 500 years ago? 1000 years ago? 5000 years ago? Violence has been a problem since evolution created the predator/prey relationship. Cows and sheep perpetrate violence on grass every day. Humans have perpetrated violence against each other for as long as there have been humans. Violence is instictual.

2) Social violence may or may not be a learned behavior, but domestic violence is not the breeding grounds for social violence. Unsocialized children are very violent. Witnessing domestic violence does not automatically condemn a child to be socailly violent. It increases the chance, but it is by no means automatic.

3) Where is your data that supports the argument that children that do not form the immediate bond with their parents are more violent? What you're saying is that premature babies have a higher incident of crime, particularly violent crime, since that is the usual measuring stick for these things. I have never seen a study supporting anything of the sort, and the suggestion seems to ignore any later influence that a parent may have over a child.

4) You're quoting a sample size of 14 as fact? That's a far reach. I would expect that any study of death row inmates, regardless of age, would reveal major neurological impairments, psychotic disorders, and low I.Q. scores. However your last claim, that these are the result of a lack of prenatal love, is magically pulled from the air. By what standard do you measure love? How do you quantify it? Can we develop an over-the-counter prenatal love test that expectant mothers can use to document their love just to make sure they're giving enough? By "nourishment", I'm going to assume that you mean "nutrition", because the contrary would make less sense than your love claim. Obviously prenatal nutrition is important, but please show me any scientific study that equates violence with a lack of prenatal nutrition.

5) You've got your hard facts about circumcision right, but then you go and equate circumcision and sex. Where did that come from? Since I'm circumcised, I'm going to beat my wife? Where are the studies showing that uncircumcized men are less violent? Let me point out that the majority of men in the Third World are uncircumsized. It's a good thing that the Third World is the bastion of peace and understanding in the world... Real world evidence shows that circumcision has absolutely no effect on the level of violence in a society.

6) We finally agree on something. But it has absolutely nothing to do with your greater arguement.

7) What birth complications? What about children that do not experience these unnnamed complications but still experience the rejection? What is their rate of criminality?

8) What studies show that human babies mutilate themselves after being separated from their mothers? What is the average period of separation of the monkeys compared with the mothers? What you're saying is that if human babies are taken over to a scale to be weighed and measured, they are more likely to commit acts of violence.

9) For the first time in history? Give me a break. Maybe they're being reported for the first time in history, but there's no data to suggest that it didn't happen before 1928, 1893, 1973 or any other arbitrary date you want to use.

10) Rape is a horrible crime, but what does it have to do with your point? My heart goes out to the victims, but you've presented no evidence to support that babies separated from their mothers or born to mothers who take birthing drugs have greater rate of criminal acts, let alone rape, than those who don't. I'll bet that you are unaware of the fact that rape is a very common occurrence in the animal community as well. Monkeys, seals and some birds all practice it. That by no means justifies it among humans, but only goes to illustrate my point that you're trying to shoehorn irrelevant data to make your point, which only goes to detract from it.

Jenny, just because you quote statistics doesn't mean that there's any correlation between them. I can use statistics to make an argument that my average golf scores in the month of July directly affect both the weather in Madrid and the price of oil. Just because I lump two numbers together doesn't mean that they have any influence on each other. That's what you're trying to do here, and I can't intellectually accept any of your arguments since there doesn't seem to be any logic involved.

Your overall point here is suffering because of the arguments you're making. You'll notice that I haven't really questioned your greater idea here, only the way that you're justifying it. Freebirthing may or may not be a good thing or the right thing, but the claims that you're making about it smell heavily of snake oil.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Cynthetiq

Reading your information Jenny, I'm sure you know and understand that correlation does not imply causation. I too find the sample size 14 to be laughable. I'd maybe agree that it has a little bearing say for a population of the country Iceland which is 300,000. But since we are talking about America, it is like me only polling my circle of friends and stating that it is factual and representative of the rest of the population.

Since I was a preemie, almost 2 months preemie, I'm prone to violence? I have been circumcised so I'm in double jeopardy to being prone to violence?

As far as the rape comment, what does that have to do with your argument? Push the emotion button to obfusicate the lack of logic that you have presented in some of your points? Tu quoque much?

Now based on your statements your kids #1,2,3,4 are all part of "Fifteen percent of U.S. children may enter life without such an attachment, feel no intimate, safe, and loving connection with anyone, posing high risk of violent behavior." So are they more violent than child #5?

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Jinn

Thank you Jazz. I started to rebut her points with similar logic, but quit out of apathy as the her "information" increased in its nonsense. Thanks for taking the time to do a point-by-point.

__________________
"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel

The_Jazz

JinnKai, I'm glad to do it. I woke up this morning feeling something was amiss with The Force and quickly surmissed it was your apathy. I wrote this knowing that you needed to get your point across and was happy to be the vehicle for it.

Jenny, the more I read your latest response, the more I'm reminded of patent medicine, leaches and bodily humours. I'm sure that at it's core you have a very good point to make, but the arguments you've presented above do nothing to illustrate it.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

ngdawg

Those points raised by Jenny are the most assinine things I've ever read.....and I used to read Letters to Penthouse!
To surmise by that, one must assume that the only child out of the five she bore that will grow to be a healthy, happy major contributor to the betterment of society....is #5....

Let's see here..
My adopted nephews will be loveless, possibly sociopathic adults...well, that's wrong, anecdotally as they are both adults and doing quite well, thank you.
My son will be a violent adult because he was circumcised, a C-Section baby and drank from a bottle. Nope. And ONE urologist says this? A urologist estimates that 90% of the men who are walking the streets today had this painful initiation shortly after birth. For them, sex and violence are linked.
I'd guess there are more than one urologists in the country, and thus, more than that one opinion. It was not a point worth mentioning at all. On fact, every point made used reference to one doctor's opinion, not a group, survey, medical establishment or backed by others.
Points 9 and 10 had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Nor do points 1 or 2.

And for all you bothered to post(none of which, quite frankly bears any real meaning since any and all numbers were so small as to be sidenotes to the larger question) gets tossed down the drain with this one statement:
One must assume by that quote that it will be that child who fares best, based on your own statements before and after.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

highthief

"Dear Penthouse,

I've never written to an adult magazine before but just had to share the story of what happened to me on Spring Break. Their names were Nicole and Stacy and ..."

__________________
Si vis pacem parabellum.

Redlemon

I'm sure this won't surprise anyone... Just to let everyone know where she's coming from.

__________________
I can't read your signature. Sorry.

abaya

Interesting, I thought you were only in this business (literally) because you loved babies...
Are you also sending an invoice to the TFP??

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

ngdawg

$10,000 a night?????
And the qualifications/portfolio/ educational background is....hm, doesn't say.

__________________
Don't blame me. I didn't vote for either of'em.

Cynthetiq

here curriculum vitae is Children 1-4 and now #5. I hope he isn't named Johnny. Johnny #5 is alive!!!! oh god... I need to get some rest.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Dilbert1234567

good find...

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