I attended a birth on July 4th. You guessed it; of course, it was a homebirth. I s'posed that the baby might be one of the very few babies born on the holiday during 2007. Most of the babies due anywhere near were induced in order to have the holiday free. Imagine what havoc the Wednesday holiday created for obstetricians --- getting births in on Monday and Tuesday. I bet that was tricky. Do you suppose that they just induced the week before to make sure the weekend was free as well? You can go to your local hospital website and track births. I started doing that two years ago when my cousin's son had a baby in St Louis, MO. My mother couldn't pull up the picture and I was helping her. DAMN!!! I noticed immediately no babies on the 4th and a spike in the days before. I got to looking and DAMN! again! BIG drop in the numbers of birth on Saturday and Sunday and every holiday. *#($(& $(&#(* (*#&(*. Makes me angry to think about how obstetricians are given free license to do whatever they want even when the science shows the danger and consequences to women and babies (induction, then the needed epidural ANESTHESIA, and then surgical births they lead to.) I wonder how NICU census numbers range near holidays.

ANYWAY, back to sweeter things ..... the homebirth I attended. Baby number four. Second homebirth. The first two were cesarean births. (I could get into that, but will save it.) The midwife for the birth was an Amish midwife who was two hours away. I was seventy miles. The baby was "over due" and not much happening. The mother woke in labor about 6:30 am and she called me by 7. I headed out about 8 ish to drive the 78 mile trip. I arrived about eight minutes before the baby was born at 9:30 am, and the midwife was about four minutes behind me.

No one answered the door and I crept in quietly, whispering, "Haaalllooo." Grandma stuck her head out of the bathroom and said, "We're in transition!" I was unwrapped video camera cords as I approached. I looked in and thought, "Ah, you are way past transition." Baby's head was crowning. Grandma said, in a panic now, "Have you been to a birth before?" I was there to video the birth for my documentary AND to support the baby and mom to have minimal disruptions and to do the self-attachment sequence. She said, "I don't know if this is normal -- I have never seen it from this end." (She did two homebirths too.) I noticed that it was only the dad sitting on the side of the tub supporting the mother, and the grandma. No midwife. A flushed and relieved and now-panick feeling Grandmother moved aside for me to "take over." I was still fumbling with the camera cord and my camera battery seemed uncharged. The father said the electricity had gone out. As I put the camera aside, I said "It is, (normal). She's crowning." To the mother I said, "You're doing great. I see baby's head. " To Grandma I asked, "Do you have gloves?" My fleeting thought was a plan to support the mother to catch her own baby and to get ready to activate a transport. I was grateful I'd taken neonatal resuscitation certification with Karen Strange in January and had just reviewed it. Country birth. Amish midwife. Seemed like a good thing to do. I was more grateful it wasn't necessary.

In that couple of minutes, between the crowning head contraction and the next one that pushed baby out, while I was thinkin 'bout what to do about no gloves (and blood and fecal matter), the midwife arrived. She walked into the bathroom, pulling on her gloves. I moved to the side by grandma who had moved aside for me. The midwife leaned down between us and the tub (like we were playing Twister -- bathrooms aren't made for five people and one birthing a baby) and she caught the baby. Easily. Peacefully. Gently. It could not have been orchestrated more perfectly and beautifully if we'd tried it. Minutes, literally. If I had stopped along the way to go to the bathroom, or if I'd gotten behind a slow vehicle, or if I'd hit the lights wrong going through town, or stopped to talk with my friend when I dropped off something to her, I would have missed it. Three hours of labor were basically transition. I left about six hours later and I went to my fourth of July party.

That night my father was transported two hours by ambulance from the rural area in other direction to Columbia. Rural Missourians have next to zero options for ANY kind of medical care, birth to elderly. Today I finally got to have a long talk with the happy, rested mama. I told her (I'd been awed by this thought) that her baby is the least traumatized human being I have ever seen. She was so well cared for in the first hours of her life, and in a quiet environment where no one hurt her. She did cry and cry for twenty minutes, and I believe it was about the pressure on her head. Going fast is very painful for the baby.She had not one sonogram, or vaginal check, or monitoring between contractions. No shots, no scrubbing or bath. Weighing done at one hour just before the midwife left . Otherwise, baby in mama, daddy, or Grandma's arms, and mine briefly in the first minutes of her life. Only people the mother trusts and chose. I held her briefly during the first moments of her life while the mother repositioned herself on her knees, then to support self-attachment, and to carry her to the other room where mother wanted to sit after two hours. Baby's head was not constantly poked and prodded as in a birth I attended recently at home where baby was monitored in between every contraction. So disrupted. Why? Because the doctor has to document and protect herself. Not from the parents necessarily, but from the system that will go after her should anything happen. The mother held the baby while she was still on her knees, holding her, talking to her, touching her .... what she wanted that she'd missed in the first births.

The mother held the baby below the level of the placenta -- just as Dr. Morley says is optimal (http://www.cordclamp.com/). When the cord was cut it was white -- indicating transfer of blood and cessation of pulsing. The midwife was holding the baby. The father softly said, "Give her to me" and the midwife did immediately. It was SO BEAUTIFUL --- SO the way it is supposed to be. Isabella is HIS daughter. It's his home, and mama is his wife. There was zero resistance from the midwife. She trusted the woman's body to care for the baby during labor and birth, and she trusts a father to care for his baby in the first minutes of life. There is nothing like seeing this.

Later when the electricity was back on I got video of him cleaning the bathroom and working in the kitchen. It was amazing to watch -- he was instinctual. While mama and baby cuddled, touched, and nursed he would go do caretaking chores --- getting the laundry started, making food. He was circle around and check on his baby and wife. It was like watching the male of an animal species caring for his baby and partner.

Welcome to the world, little one, little Isabella. She is so cute. She did self attach by the way. She did it her way and in her timing, of course. Self-attachment is so awesome to watch. The baby at the previous birth I videotapped also got to self-attach. I stopped the midwife from interfering -- the baby was crying and struggling, as they do and are supposed to. Baby and mother, just like in labor and birth, interacting together. It's ok for the baby to struggle with soft, gentle guidance and support from mother -- to attach at her breast. Welcome, Phoenix. Sweet, amazing baby.

So cool. SO COOL.

I was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa so I appreciated seeing a visitor from there. Welcome. I was "delivered" by Dr. Lemon -- as was 90% of the population in the fifties through early 70's. Good ole military doctor who knew the latest in obstetrics. I don't know if it was normal or not with every family, but dad was in the delivery room for all four of us born there with Dr. Lemon - 1950 through 1960.

MO Medical Associations File Lawsuit Regarding Midwifery

This synopsis is by Jody McLaughlin, editor of Compleat Mother Magazine

Yesterday four Missouri physician associations filed their petition against the state of Missouri regarding HB818 because The Physician Associations¹ members will be adversely affected by themidwife provision, unless it is declared unconstitutional and enjoined bythis Court."

The petition representing the interests of the Missouri State MedicalAssociation, The Missouri Association of Osteopathic Physicians andSurgeons, Missouri Academy of Family Physicians and The St. Louis Metropolitan Medical Society is attached to this email.

MSMA, MAOPS, MAFP, and SLMMS are collectively referred to as the ³PhysicianAssociations² in this Petition.

All are identified as organizations who "represents its members¹ interestsbefore the state legislature, state agencies, and state courts" explainingthat many of their "members provide services related to pregnancy (includingprenatal, delivery, and post partum service.

"The Missouri physician associations claim "the midwife provision jeopardizesthe health of pregnant women and their babies" and "The midwife provision allows midwifery and other pregnancy related services ­including C-sections,epidural anesthesia, and terminations ­ to be performed by individuals with the specified credentials."

[[No mention is made of midwives in Missouri who are doing c-sections,administering epidurals or terminating pregnancies.]] "Licensed physician and surgeons will be subject to professional discipline for cooperating and/or coordinating the care of their patients with unlicensed midwives."

[[This could be changed within the membership of the various ³PhysicianAssociations.²]]

This Petition is in reaction to the HB818 amendment which reads ³Notwithstanding any law to the contrary, any person who holds current ministerial or tocological certification by an organization accredited by the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA) may provide services as defined in 42 U.S.C. 1396r-6(b)(4)(E)(ii)(I).²

The Petition further explains ³Tocological² is an obscure and non-standard reference to obstetrics and/or midwifery."

"House Bill 818¹s Original Purpose was to Increase Portability andAccessibility of Health Insurance" "An Unrelated Provision Allowing the Practice of Midwifery by Laypersons was added to the Second Senate Substitute for House Bill 818" and "The midwife provision is not related to health insurance, and therefore is not encompassed within the title of SS#2 SCS HCS HB 818"

[[To satisfy the physician associations major objections to theinclusion of the "midwifery provision" in this bill, the court could declarea Solomon's judgment to extend health insurance to cover midwifery care inMissouri.]]

Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed SS#2 SCS HCS HB 818 on June 1, 2007.

The midwife provision will become effective on August 28, 2007.

Sincerely,
--Jody--
=================

Jody McLaughlin
Compleat Mother Magazine
US PO Box 209
Minot, North Dakota 58702-0209
email: Jody@Minot.com
phone: 701 852-2822
web sites: http://Compleatmother.com http://BoysToo.com
"The Farmer and the Obstetrician" by Michel Odent, MD in Hardcover is available to Compleat Mother readers for $27.50 (or 2 for $48.50) including Air Mail postage. Visa,MasterCard and PayPal to: Jody@Minot.com are accepted.

Midwifery in Missouri

My post on the Columbia Tribune page about Governor Blunt signing the legislation legalizing midwifery. He is getting a lot of positive responses from Missourians.

Amazing. Missouri could go from being last to being first; that is, last to legalize midwifery and first to de-legalize doctor’s/hospital’s/ACOG's misuse of power over and disproportionate responsibility for a woman's body and a baby's birth. From conception beyond, labor and birth are the ONLY period of time a woman is not legally, morally, personally, and socially held responsible for her life choices that impact her baby's emotional, psychological, and physical development and well-being. Why is labor and birth the domain of medicine to such a degree? The Show-Me state could be the first to do real tort-reform in obstetrics and take away the disproportionate power and responsibility for birth and outcomes FROM THE doctors and give the responsibility for birth and their bodies back to the birthing women -- where it belongs.

A small number of mothers and babies are saved by medical intervention, but far more are harmed by invasive, non-necessary procedures done only for the doctor's schedule, and malpractice avoidance. Mothers and their children have to live with the consequences -- when the primary, human relationship phenomenon of mother-infant attachment is so disrupted and abused.

Let MSMA and ACOG sue – and we, the people, will let them know what we want! Humane birth! It's time someone stood up on behalf of the women and babies of MO. I hope MO legislators and citizens will stand up and create legislation demanding that doctors work in healthy, respectful, evidence-based partnership with midwives and women and their partners - not just legalize midwifery, only to have women and babies brutalized when they do need to transport. Make midwifery a legal, moral, personal relationship partnership like in every other country where doctors care for high-risk women and midwives care for moderate to low-risk pregnant women. Don't let MO women and babies continue to be the chattel of the medicine profession. Obstetric tort reform will be too bad for hospital coffers and litigation lawyers, but good for babies and good for the economy.

Way to go, Loudon! Thanks, Blunt! Now, just go the distance. Get with it, Graham and Wilson. Babies (children), not doctors, are "our greatest resource." Remember?

And, a quote my daughter tacked on ...

“I have a story to tell, but are you willing to listen?”

- Mariah M. of the 21st Century

Silent Witness -- Be a Baby Keeper

Baby Keeper is the name of the training I am developing. It is on the “back burner” with many other bubbling pots of good stuff in my life. Better, it is a seed germinating and sprouting in the dark, rich soil and being nourished by the warm sunlight and sweet rains.

Baby Keeper is a new skill set for Doulas and midwives. I plan to teach the basic pre and perinatal psych and trauma healing skills to birth caregivers. Many of them are also wounded babies and women unintentionally bringing their own energy of woundedness – powerlessness, abandonment, violation, and fear – to the “outer womb” of the baby who is birthing. Women and caregivers are well-intentioned, and the burnout rate is high. Women begin to see patterns in the births they attend.

I thought it’s a good thing to share and to introduce the concept of the Baby Keeper. One who keeps the soul’s journey as the focus of birth, and one who knows that s/he is a part of a very important process that impacts that soul for life. In the training a caregiver will learn how to be a SILENT WITNESS at the birth. This means, rather than going to the birth to create a certain birth or to heal one’s own wounds, a caregiver knows how to Settle her own nervous system in order to hold the sacred space and just witness. Many people know how and do this already. The larger question is always, “What to do after the birth to support them?” Especially when the mother is so disappointed and both she and her baby are so emotionally, physically, and spiritually wounded. Our culture does not yet acknowledge that birth is the journey of a soul into this life and that it IS THE experience that creates the foundational, survival, and relationship template. This is where the Baby Keeper training provides the caregiver with basic skills to be with the mother, baby, and father to heal.

So … I found this while looking through files for something else. I wrote it some time back in response to a discussion on line. Someone had talked about witnessing birth and being judgmental.

At the risk of sounding like a speech writer for our great leader, “It’s only judgmental if you are judging, otherwise it’s witnessing.”

In our quest to be non-judgmental, we are not being authentic and reflecting truth to the other, the soul, the baby. Witnessing is seeing what is happening, what the baby is experiencing, and naming it – when you are able and willing to observe, remember and even hold it for the baby.

“I heard this ……” “I saw this …..” “I felt this ……” and acknowledging the reaction as one’s own and allowing the baby to express his or her experience of the event or circumstance. “I watched the nurse resuscitating you and heard her saying, ‘You can run from the doctor, but you can’t hide from the nurse.’ I am sorry – I was so angry, I couldn’t believe it, I!! wanted to scream at her to shut-up and to push her hands away, and pick you up. I wanted to put you in your mommy’s arm and let her gently give you the oxygen you needed.”

Giving witness to a soul preparing, to a prenate, laboring, birthing, or infant is about more than just being well-intentioned, non-judgmental third party. Being non-judgmental, well-intended third party isn't really all that possible, whether spoken as a warrior or a poet.

It is about engaging with that soul to see, hear, and feel THAT soul's experience. This soul is often in the body of a newborn who NEVER gets his or her experience acknowledged. I never say never, but I say in our world, in the US, almost never does a baby's experience get heard and seen and FELT as significant. HOW many people of any age lament that "they just don't get me" and starting in the earliest childhood behavior, children are trying to be seen and acknowledged. That is all any of us really need and want. Babies are not seen or acknowledged as EXPERIENCING their experiences. All of the stories of babies in the past few weeks --- mother going to work, father leaving,
mother focused on conceiving another baby -- these are all seen as the experiences of the adults in the life of these babies. The cultural behavior and belief that denies the sentience and fullness of the human baby leads us to ignore that THIS IS the LIFE of the BABY. The baby is vulnerable, impressionable -- SO impressionable as that amazing brain is computing all that is happening. Babies are sensory beings, sponges taking in EVERYTHING, including the energetic emotional and psychological patterns of those in his or her enviornment. No other time is so important. The baby will LIVE WITH whatever is programmed during this period. How do we as a culture so minimize this period to the degree of allowing such violations that human babies experience?

Babies, from the soul coming in and beyond, need to be seen, felt, acknowledged, and supported in order to have brains and bodies that are functional. They are mini-me's. They want what we adults want -- only we want what we need after many, many years of not getting it. We want from our lovers, our friends, our families, the world that which we always wanted. To be held. To be seen and acknowledged. Touched gently. To know when someone is coming or leaving our presence. To not be let alone to cry it out. To snuggle into the warm, soft safety of the arms of a loved one. If our mother didn't get that during our gestation and we didn't get it during our birth and infancy, we cry for it forever. My son, GI Joe, coined the phrase, "Baby Cry" referring to people's behavior. It's so true. It is our amgydala, the early brain that remembers the early woundings that seeks to have that loss healed.

How do we do that? Logic, inner wisdom, and compassion -- and now, science confirming we are energetic beings, tells us our brain is plastic and we can re-imprint, re-wire, and re-connect. Our baby self can experience that which was lost and reorganize. We do this in relationship with the other. How? How can this be? Most of us know -- when we are in something deeply -- when someone "gets it" or when they don't. When we really "get it" that our friend is in emotional, mental, or physical pain, we feel it, we tear, we make eye contact, and we express it, "I really see or feel for you" --- and we do. We say, "I am sorry." Babies need what we all needed as children and grown ups --- genuine, empathic touch, and words by someone whose intention is to support our intention. It's magic.

In healing work we are acknowledging the earliest experiences of the soul and body -- I cannot undo that my mother was a hairdresser in 1955 and breathed toxic perm and color solutions, or that everyone else in the environment smoked cigarettes. I cannot undo the traumatic aspects of my birth experience that made me the survivor I am. But, until someone supported me to tell my story (a lot via the body as babies communicate) and acknowledged it, those imprints prevailed. Our earliest brain is not differentiated from who we are today. Our neocortex developed, wired around early childhood experiences and prenatal and birth events. We believe that when we try to get rid of pain or dysfunctions that the earliest part of our brain (that experienced it) feels that the self is trying to get rid of it. Witnessing is about how to hear, hold, acknowledge a baby whose experience and perspective differs from the parents, and our own. It is a bit judgmental to say to a woman, even today, "You are hurting your baby by smelling toxins all day long." We cannot do that!! I WISH we could -- because we all know within us what is needed by the baby (our self and others) to be a functional human being. How can a chronically depressed or bipolar mother parent effectively? I don't know. Is that judgemental or reality? Do we have the right as a society to expect that those not capable of bearing a healthy, functional human or who are capable of loving, caring, protective supportive parenting not bear children? Or, is it the soul's decision?

We cannot intrude upon a woman's right to choose her life and her actions. We cannot say to a woman, "This is not the time to be conceiving a baby. Your body is not healthy enough -- your marriage is a wreck --- you are a single parent -- you are on depression medication and it is wrong! -- You cannot induce your baby -- you cannot bottle feed, and on and on and on. WE CAN, whether it looks judgmental or not, be the one who, even if NOT spoken out loud, acknowledges that soul's journey. When the soul, whether in a two day or two month or two year old body has a third party who is witnessing the experience, this baby does amazing things. And, parents often begin to see the pattern in their own lives.

So, the soul/baby (if there is one) who may be conceived to a woman who is already has post-Partum depression and is on medications can actually be acknowledged right now.

The spiritual idea and intention is one thing -- we each still bring who we are to every situation and relationship. The soul is conscious before conception and comes into a body at conception. Physical and emotional and mental development begins. One of the possibilities to consider from the prenatal and perinatal psych and trauma healing/attachment healing field is that when we ourselves are not conscious of our own conception, prenatal, labor and birth, and infancy experiences (our earliest brain development), we are acting out the experience in our daily life and relationships. This becomes very important we engage with pregnant and birthing and post partum women. The soul AND the brain/body is a recording everything.

Eleven Natural Colic Remedies

Eleven Natural Colic remedies

Posted by: "Shirish Bhate" shirishbhate@yahoo.com shirishbhate
MD Pediatrician from India discussing ayurvedica methods of resolving colic

Perinatalayurveda@yahoogroups.com
Wed Jun 6, 2007 3:08 am (PST)


Dear Moms:

You may have spent sleepless nights worrying about baby having stomach ache/colic. Other than mothers milk, nothing suits babies up to 2 years. Switch to formula causes colic. Mothers diet also sometimes causes colic.

Collection from grandmas and moms, aunties, etc is here. Handed over to the author by a obstetrician friend. Author too added something. Most of it may be already known to you. Thought it may be useful. If you wish to add to it, please and pass on to next generation.

1. Just get into a hot bath with the baby. Both of you will relax and the colic will quickly disappear. You and the baby will be able to sleep thereafter.

2. Pure (Extra virgin) Olive Oil works great for babies with colic. Give them a teaspoon full, and in 15-20 minutes, they are quiet. It not only coats the stomach, but it helps when they use the rest room.

3. Take a quarter of a small onion and boil it in a small sauce pan. After about five minutes of boiling, take 2 oz of broth and 2 oz of cold water, and 1 tsp of jaggery and place in a bottle. Give bottle to baby. This helps the desire to suck, and the onion breaks up the gas. Child stops crying and is back to sleep in 15 minutes. For those not having jaggery can use karo syrup or honey.

4. Steep fennel seeds for 10 minutes. Give 1/2 to 1 oz as needed (luke warm). No sweetner please.

5. In author's childhood, Gripe water was available, which also used to work. Procedure to make this water: Take 250 ml water and add 2 tsp each of Cotrander seeds, cumeen seeds, ajwain seeds, anise seeds, dill seeds, Vidanga seeds if available. All seeds to be coarsely ground before adding to water. Slow boil till water remains 100 ml. Strain and gripe water is ready. Vidanga takes care of parasites too.

6. Find an orange tree, pick some leaves off of it, wash them, make a tea of them by boiling them in water which also sterilizes the tea, and add a little jaggery or honey.

7. Take hot water bottle (the rubber kind) a towel and heat water to fill bottle to 50%. Wrap it in towel (so you don't burn the baby). Place it in the middle of the babies bed. Place the baby on top of it with the bottle immediately under the babies stomach. Pat the baby's back gently until it goes to sleep.

8. Many colic situations arise as a result of gas entrapped in stomach. Dissolve a peppermint candy in hot water and give baby even 15-20 ml would be adequate. Allow baby to burp the gas.

9. This is something unusual. Try it as last option. Take small bottle and fill it up with about 25 ml beer. Shake well so that all bubbles and gas passes out of bottle. Give to baby and see the miracle.

10. In remedy#3, instead of quarter onion, substitute two cloves of garlic and a new remedy results. Adding a little jaggery would take care of pungent taste.

11. Take 2 tsp cooking oil. sesame oil would be best. heat it. when fumes start coming, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 pinch turmeric powder, 1 pinch ajwain powder. when garlic turns golden brown, add a pinch of asfoetida and remove from fire immediately. When oil cools to warm temperature, apply it around belly button of baby and massage lightly. Baby will pass gas and sleep.

Baby Keeper on the radio

Janel was interviewed by Victoria Day on Womens Issues, Womens Voices on community radio, KOPN 89.5 in Columbia, MO. The topic was the Safe Baby Resolution -- aware conception, safe gestation, and gentle birth as the means of creating harmonious and healthy humans.

http://kopn.publicbroadcasting.net/archive.html

Check it out.