Organ-ic

I have posted quite a few articles in the past about the benefits of placenta consumption. Some examples are:

• Afterbirth, After Birth Pt 1
• Afterbirth, After Birth Pt 2

The response is always the same, ½ of the comments are along the lines of ‘awesome, that is too cool’, while the other ½ of the comments are ‘eeew! That is sooo gross!’.

Some go as far as to say that placenta consumption is cannibalistic.

I call that a knee-jerk reaction. Why are people so concerned about consuming a part of a human body?! You might just think that this here doula has completely lost her mind, but let’s take a look at our own daily habits:

• Do you chew your lip? Guess what, you are consuming your own skin cells
• Are you one of those that suck or chew on their hair? Yup, you're eating your own body. 
• Do you kiss your spouse or partner? Guess what? You are consuming their cells
• Do you chew your cuticles? You are biting off hunks of your own skin tissue
• Do you kiss your children’s hands, faces, or lips? You are ingesting their tissue
• I won't even go into oral sex...

You get the point? Our bodies are continuously sloughing off cells into our immediate environment. We are all considered cannibals if you follow this line of thought, and we are all guilty of consuming ‘gross’ things.

Let’s take it a step further; consumption does not only occur through the mouth/digestive tract. We consume many things through our skin.

If you put lotion on, your skin will absorb the nutrients, toxins, and other ingredients to be integrated into your cells and, as such, your blood stream. The same goes for cosmetics, washes and soaps, and shampoos and conditioners.

So, what does this have to do with the placenta? Many hair and skin products contain human, bovine, and ovine placenta. The ingredients would be listed as amino acids, Estrogen, or even outright placenta.

Yep, that’s right, many of you who are going ‘eew, that’s nasty to consume a human placenta in pill form or in whole form’ have no problem smearing it all over your face, body, and hair!

So, while you might gnaw on your cuticles, kiss your spouse, or coat your body in placenta, far be it from me to suggest consuming an organ that is rich in nutrients, hormones, and antioxidants, able to help your postpartum body heal, give you energy, and increase both your milk supply and milk content.

Rant over.

How I and My OB Colleagues Swindle Patients...

This is probably one of the most infuriating, shocking and appalling articles that I have ever come across...

When the issue is childbirth, excuse me, patients are often nuts. Just witness the epidemic of home childbirths... - He says

Hmmm... the epidemic of homebirths? A measly 2-3% of women who choose home birth because of patriarchal $&%! like this, and it is an epidemic? We could only hope!

I cannot believe this man. I was stunned at how spot-on I was in my previous post. Yes, I knew I was right, but I didn't want to believe just how right I was.

Dr. Diastolic is an idiot. I'm sorry, but he is. He relates women's birth preferences and desiring their doctor's support to a woman with a kidney stone making her demands known... Not even close Dr. Diabotic... oops, did I say that?

If you notice, all of his comments surround him and his needs, his colleagues needs, etc... another OB even goes on to say, in his defense:

As a physician, I feel that if you and others demand perfection from me, I should be getting the same. So, next time I order a taco or go to the dry cleaners or get an oil change, I don't want to see any lettuce spilled over or oil on the floor, and no mechanic better touch the paint on my car. I wonder what your job is and what happens when you screw up, and how much time you put into educating yourself to get there, and how many hours you work a week, and how many of those are being woken up at night - oh, and I'm sure you're paid a lot, A LOT of money.
So, next time you are told to stay overtime for free for a few more hours on a friday night, or get called in on Sunday morning while you're in the park with your kids, I'm sure you'll be joyously dropping everything to take care of whatever your boss forgot to do during the work week.
Anyways, we don't need your advice. If you don't like the service, why don't you drop your 9 - 5 job and become a doctor, and fix your own damn problems.

Then later, he says he demands perfection from himself, other doctors, and his patients... well then, therein lies his problem - when you try to control something, something perfectly natural and normal can become imperfect.

In addition, if you work on a labor and delivery floor, you signed up for odd-hours, on-call status, and 12-hour shifts. That is part of the whole kit and caboodle. They signed up for this, they knew it when they did, but they don't want to, so they attempt to manipulate women so that they can go home. Hello... they work for us! Our $$ is paying them for this inconvenience and renting out a hospital room. What is their problem?!

Interesting, I am not sure if anyone bothered to check on his profile, but his clinical specialty is Anesthesiology. Oh, it's all so much clearer now!

On a happier note, I do so love the article linked by one of the repliers... be sure to read it to bring your boiling blood down a notch!

How We Expect to Make Mothers out of Women When we Treat Them Like Children

Perhaps I was blessed with my first doc, or maybe just lucky - but I had a wonderful experience with my FP and thought that all FP's/OB's were as wonderful. He would often ask how I was doing, not just baby and I, he recommended many alternative health-care professionals in the area for classes, chiropractic care, nausea, etc..., our visits typically lasted 30 minutes of talking with him while he also did his normal work with me. He would often turn my chart around to show me my results, show me what was 'normal', talk about any concerns he had with anything he was seeing, and offered many different courses of action along my pregnancy journey.

It wasn't until I was pregnant with my second baby that I noticed something was wrong with the Obstetrical world. When I returned to my wonderful FP with news of my pregnancy, he regretfully had to let me know that they had cut back on the number of doctors in the office who had MP insurance/were able to continue to do births. He then 'mechanically' said 'I am to refer you to the FP on staff who continues to attend deliveries". Something in his demeanor told me he had to, didn't want to, say this. I oked setting up the appointment and he encouraged me to bring my birth plan to my first appointment with this FP.

When I got there, I waited 30 minutes in the room dressed in nothing but that silly paper t-top and napkin to cover my thighs. When my 'new' doc came in, she stood next to the bed and asked me to lie down. She then proceeded to talk over the top of my file to me about my lab works all the while staring at my file. "congratulationsyouarepregnant. Ihaveconcernsaboutyourironlevels. Youwillbeprescribingyouironseupplements. Iexpectyoutotakethemtwicedailyalongwithyourprenatals."

I interrupted her litany to ask what my iron level was. 'Why'? was her reply, as she raised her eyebrow and closed my file with a snap. I replied that I was just curious since my iron levels were always low. While I explained, she tossed my file on the counter, snapped on a glove and greased two fingers.

Without even acknowledging that she heard me, she went to my knees, pushed them apart, and said 'wearegoingtodoaquickexamrelax', and, without warning, shoved her fingers into my vagina. She was not gentle, she didn't ask, she simply did.

I gasped in pain and surprise and instinctively began to close my knees. She pushed one roughly apart while nodding to the nurse (who came and pulled my other knee apart) and remarked "I said relax... (exasperated sigh) - you obviously know how to open your legs this should be a piece of cake".

I was dumbfounded, appalled, sickened. As she finished up, since I had no presence of mind to do anything else I stammered that I brought a birth plan that I wanted to talk with her about. While the nurse handed me a few paper towels to clean myself up with, the FP from hell turned her head to the birth plan sitting next to my file, gave it a cursory glance and proceeded to rip it up and drop it in the trash, saying "you can forget that. You can 'want' anything, it doesn't mean it is going to happen. Birth plans are a waste of time".

At that point, I was so stricken and sickened by what I had just happened that I had no doubt this woman would not be at my child's birth.

She said something to the nurse and turned and walked out, casting over her shoulder, "seeyouinamonth".

Only when hell freezes over.

My nurse asked if I had any questions and I politely said "[snort] not for your practice". I threw on my clothes, grabbed my stuff, left that practice, and never went back. I called my wonderful FP and left a VM for him at the office.

It must have sounded something like this:

"I'm sorry Dr. K, (sniff sob), I can't let that woman deliver my baby. I can't do it. I don't know what to do. I need to (sniff - blow) find a new doctor. Can you (hiccup) help me? Please? I don't want your professional recommendation - screw that. I want your personal recommendation. Please call me back Dr. K. Please".

He called me at 8pm that evening, apologizing it took him so long to get back to me - he worked the late office shift that evening. He was glad to hear that I wasn't staying with their practice and he could understand my misgivings ("believe me, between you and I, they are warranted"). He said he already had that other recommendation ready.

I ended up going with his recommendation, an OB who happened to be his roommate in college. He was another great experience, excited to learn about my birth method of choice, very accommodating and allowing me to call 'all the shots' regarding my health care, tests, and birthing preferences. He said it was nice to see someone so active in their health care choices.

The whole point of woman-centered birth is the knowledge that a woman is the birth power source. She may need, and deserve, help, but in essence, she always had, currently has, and will have the power. - Heather McCue

The more I have experience with expectant moms, the more I realize that what I went through in my second pregnancy is not uncommon. In fact, it is more common than naught. And the problem? Women think it is normal and acceptable to be treated that way.

Our culture, and many women, have a god-mentality when it comes to doctors. That, since they have studied obstetrics and labor and birth, that they have a right to make decisions regarding our health and bodies. We give them the right to dominate our bodies with tests, practices, interventions, and medications because it is 'the way they do things'.

Often, women come away from prenatals feeling belittled - being reduced to a child having a child. They feel that they really don't have a right to decline tests or procedures, let alone ask questions about their files, get second opinions, or ask for alternatives. If they dare to do that, they are met with reprimands, vague answers, or hostility. If they dare to decline, they are fear-mongered or coerced into giving their 'informed consent' to procedures that they really don't want and don't approve of.

Our culture says 'my doctor knows best'. What ever happened to 'I know my beliefs and my body'? It is interesting that women across the US demand equal rights, and yet we are happy to give up those rights to our doctor's expertise. And, even if we don't feel it is 'right', seldom do we do anything about it. Sorry, but that is sad.

Pregnancy should be revered as a coming of age, a time when women were strong, bestowed with power and mystery. Women should be confident in their bodies abilities and women should care for other women, believing the same.

Instead, our culture perceives pregnancy as a sign of weakness, a time when women are fragile and incompetent to make their own choices. The obstetrical model shows woman as someone who doesn't know what is best or right for her and she should, whether it is said or not, be subjected and obedient. She is reduced to a child and is treated like she is ignorant to her bodies abilities.

Have we come so far that we have forgotten that we hire our doctor! They work for us! No other time in our lives would we put up with this type of treatment!

Can you imagine going to a gutter professional and asking them to help us with our gutters? Then, when they come to our house, they simply tell us what will be done, without question to the true necessity of it, and then expect us to compliantly sit back and let them tear out all of the old gutters and eaves, run numerous, many unnecessary, or even ridiculous, tests, then put in their brand of gutters and eaves with no question?

And, if we were silly enough to question the necessity or wisdom of it, they would snap at us, act offended, and demand or coerce us into the new equipment, tests, and procedures anyways.. do you think we would stand for that? Heck no! We would fire their butts on the spot and find someone who treated our property and our pocketbooks with respect.

And yet, when it comes to our BODIES and our whole WELL BEING, we treat ourselves with less respect, and expect less, than what we do for our property.

"what is it about women's brains where they just aren't interested in this. They are interested in Prada bags, they are interested in Sex in the City...." - Dr. Christine Northrup

If our professionals expect women to simply obey, they ARE reducing women to child-like mentalities - how can we expect them to make the leap from pregnancy to motherhood, to competently take care of their childrens' well beings as adults when professionals don't even trust them to make competent health care choices about their own well being before birth?

"Birth is not only about making babies. Birth is about making mothers - strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength." - Barbara Katz-Rothman

I firmly believe that we need to take a lesson from Ina May and many other pioneers (or should I say Old-School Sages) in the childbirth field when they say that they...

... think it's terribly important to put the mother at the center. When you do that, everything follows.

Not the hospital or doctor...Right now, as it stands, we make birth all about the doctor and the hospital. Now, before you disagree with me, think: how many have heard someone say, or have said themselves, one of the following:

• My doctor told me to come in...
  
• They wouldn't allow me to eat anything once...
• The hospital said I had to get in the wheel chair...
• I was told they wouldn't allow me to go past...
• They told me "we will give you 24 hours"...
  
• The hospital needs to have a 20 minute...

And on and on... I am sure you could share a few hospital and doctor-centered statements and practices that have little if anything to do with the mother, her health, desires, wishes, and well being...

I think we have a long way to go before we are where we need to be in maternal health care issues.

How are grease pits and obstetrics alike?

Well... besides the obvious.... :o)

After being directed to Jill through Rixa, I read her amazing analogous post of McDonald's and the ACOG.

I've worked in the food industry for the past eight years. When a restaurant comes out with a sensational new dish, drink, sandwich, what have you, competing restaurants don't immediately launch commercials slamming that dish as poisonous or disgusting. No - they come up with a similar item instead and try to make it better than the other guy's. Example: McDonald's recently started selling a "southern chicken sandwich." Wendy's and KFC quickly jumped on this trend and began selling their own versions of the same sandwich.

Amazingly accurate. It's true! Only in the childbirth industry, politics, and family - passionate motivators - can we get away with smear campaigning and personal attacks. Brilliant post, simply brilliant!

Don't Be A Sheeple - Think Outside the Flox

Sheeple is a term of disparagement, a portmanteau created by combining the words "sheep" and "people." It is often used to denote persons who acquiesce to authority, and thus undermine their own human individuality. The implication of sheeple is that as a collective, people believe whatever they are told, especially if told so by authority figures, without processing it to be sure that it is an accurate representation of the real world around them. The term is generally used in a political or religious sense. The term is also used for those who are tolerant of government intrusion and regulation.

People you meet every day.

People who say it is ok to force a state of homeschooling parents to vaccinate their children by imprisonment and excessive fining. People who say it is only right to take away the option of home birth with a competent and well-trained attendee because "birth belongs in the hospital"...

Heaven forbid we think outside the flock.. rather than being mindlessly herded together under GroupThink mentality.

C'mon....

THINK OUTSIDE THE FLOX, SHEEPLE!!!

Wake up!

Question!

Research!

Did you know that the fence we are stuck in is actually quite low? It seems high only because you are on all fours. But if you stand up, you gain two feet!

But what about the Sheep Dog?! Trust me, his bark is worse than his bite...

Aargh. Going to go have some pomegranate tea and snuggle my kiddos.

Taking Away The Choices - We'll Be Left With What?

Surprise, surprise, the AMA wants to take away our right to home birth. Great, strip us of our right to birth our children without policies, procedures, and increased risk? Why would we not passively let you do this? Ugh.

The blog world is COVERED in responses to this - including Ricki Lake's response. I won't link them all, but here are a few...

• A Doula Too
• FireFly Mama
• Journey Birth Wrote Two - A response to the AMA and Ricki Lake's response.
• Spirit Led Birth Wrote Two - A response to the AMA and Ricki Lake's response.
• Hathor the Cow Goddess wrote a response and created a comic.
• Woman to Woman
• Even the Huffington Post
• Permission to Mother - a doc's weigh in

And to end the list, only one of the many reasons we can't let this get ANYWHERE in legislature.


Finally, I am adding the little guy at the top of this post to my sidebar - please consider doing the same.

Hi, My Name Is Nicole and I am a Conspiracy Theorist

I have been called a conspiracy theorist for touting that women's options are actually disappearing the more liberal we get with our birth practices.

With recent articles like Choosy Mom's Choose Cesareans, and responses from myself and others, it sounds like we are just hot under the collar and making up dark images of a 'right to choose'.

But are we?

Emotionally and physically, women are hurt, and their options are forever limited or made to be seemingly insurmountable uphill battles. Cesareans are becoming so prevalent and rates are increasing because of 'choice', policies, and iatrogenic complications, that we made an awareness month about it to promote more public education regarding this major abdominal surgery.

ICAN has a great resource on hospitals and VBAC bans... check it out for yourself BEFORE you go into labor or choose a cesarean... you will have a better idea of if you will be 'allowed' a VBAC next time around. That is one battle that many of us were already aware of...

But the battle just got bigger.

Now, after a cesarean, women with abdominal scars could very possibly find themselves without insurance. Some insurance companies are beginning to refuse women coverage if they have had a previous cesarean or give them higher insurance costs.... Unless they are sterilized or infertile!

“Obstetricians are rendering large numbers of women uninsurable by overusing this surgery,” said Pamela Udy, president of the International Cesarean Awareness Network, a group whose mission is to prevent unnecessary Cesareans.

Not only are women feeling pressure to have Cesareans that they do not want and may not need, but they may also be denied coverage for the surgery.

“You have women just caught in the middle of this huge triangle of hospitals, insurance companies and doctors pointing the finger at each other,” Ms. Udy said.

ugh! This is not how I, or any other professional in my field, wanted to be vindicated. I would rather be considered a conspiracy theorist than to see our healthcare and the lives of children and moms be affected in such a profound and inhumanitarian way.

• A Doula Too blogs about the horrible realization that our public is coming to: our cesarean rates are out of control, hurting our healthcare options, and hurting our babies.
  
• Karen The PA Doula is outraged and incensed - wanting to find a way to fix this mess.
  
• Navelgazing Midwife positively lights on the fact that this might make VBAC more possible and sought after and make cesarean a 'less achievable' OPTION for women when not medically necessary - will women start making more informed and mother-friendly, newborn-friendly healthcare choices?
• Pushed Birth reminds us that, with cesarean rates on the rise, it is a horribly unfair and hard place for families to be: coerced into unwanted cesareans either by default or by iatrogenic complications, and then refused basic care and health coverage - limiting their choices for care even more.
  
• Crunchy Domestic Goddess gives a great post on how others are responding to this article and have foreshadowed this day previous to it.
  

What next peeps? What do we have to do and be put through to get the information in between those plates of bones resting on top of your spine? Those of you in white lab coats - is it worth it to be home in time for dinner?Oi. I am going to the pool to cool off.

Ugh - the condemnation....

Sorry ladies (and gents) but I am going to vent here because I can't, in good conscience, hijack another's blog to continue this... so, bear with me...

I get it but I don't get how women can do this to each other. Rather than give a woman a place to simply be, we have to pour in ourselves into their space and fill appropriate silence with inappropriate and empty platitudes.

Recently (I mentioned in another post regarding the same woman whose birth I replied to) ***** returned to her blog with a heart-felt grief for her birth experience. She was given many good 'safe place' and 'its ok to grieve' responses... but, amongst them all, there were also a good many 'you should be happy you have a healthy baby', 'what did you expect going overdue and trying a homebirth's, and 'birth is overrated' comments...

My response at this point follows:

I can only offer this: a safe place to grieve what 'should have been'. We know, those of us who are honest with ourselves and our bodies, we KNOW how important it is! This is not an over-dramatization, this is not a fantasy, this is not a selfish thing: it is a personal right, the way it was intended, a process which was denied. You have every right to allow yourself time to grieve.

Be what you need to allow your emotional self to be. Know that there is a bottom to this grief, and at that time, you will have the chance to be still and listen to that voice which, initially called you down to the bottom of this grief. That same voice, while you are in the belly of your soul, will again call, quieter this time, to collect your body around you and start climbing out.

Listen closely to what that voice tells you - just as it commanded you to leave things behind in your birth (expectations, places, etc..) it will demand you to collect things on the way up. These things will be a balm to you, a mend, a blessing to your heart.

You DO have a healthy baby, and I know you are eternally grateful, but you have every right to mourn this without the cliches of others who intend well but either have not been there and can't understand, or have refused to make their own journey.

You may have thought you started and ended your birth journey with Lova's actual labor/birth. In fact, you are in the midst of it.

WOMEN: it is our responsibility to continue to protect her birthing space as we did before babe was born. She is not through this journey and our well intentioned and misplaced platitudes will not help her to make this journey what it needs to be for her: personal.

Someone's response to MY response?

"Cliches of others"? As far as I'm concerned, all of this obsession with the perfect birth is a cliche. Birth is a primal, miraculous thing, but some of you are taking it way too far. 42 weeks and trying to have a VBAC at home sounds risky and dangerous to me. What about focusing on the fact that we're lucky to live in this day and age when we have the knowledge and the means to have safe births when things go wrong and don't follow the "perfect birth plan". Instead of mourning all that went "wrong", rejoice in what went right. Nicole, you say that natural birthing is our "personal right, a process which was denied" of *****. What about all of the infertile women in the world - what about their "personal right" to conceive and bear children? I recently lost a friend (who never smoked a day in his life) to cancer - where was his "personal right" to live a healthy life? I just can't understand this whole subculture of women who are obsessed with birthing and seem determined to undermine the entire medical community. Doctors and hospitals are not out to get us.

Ignorance and assumptions. No one said there is a perfect birth or is there an obsession with it. It is a fact that birth MEANS something. Why in heaven's name would God have something like labor if it wasn't for a purpose?! Otherwise, we would simply HAVE babies - not labor for them. 42 weeks is not risky, VBAC is not all that risky, and homebirth is not all that risky. ***** mentioned in this post that it was HER choice to transfer, not her mw, not her doctor. She chose it.

The replier is missing that we are not 'mourning all that went wrong' and neglecting what went right - we are rejoicing that her baby is safe and healthy and what went right, but validating *****'s emotions to be able to mourn what did not go the way nature intended it to be.

Birth is a personal right. When it is taken (whether by fallen nature, by doctor, or by circumstance) away, it is RIGHT to be able to mourn it. It is healthy and valid to feel that. And, just as a woman who is infertile is right to mourn that which is her right to bear children, just as her friend who died of cancer was denied his right to a healthy life, so **** should be allowed to grieve her right to have born her child. It is a mourning of that which is out of the natural order.

And finally, her jab that we are out to undermine the medical community and her assertion that I believe doctor's and hospitals are out to get us... I never breathed a word of that and said nothing against the medical community. The thought never crossed my mind. The thought that was in my mind is that our fallen nature robbed this beautiful birth warrior from the way it was intended to be.

So, roll up your argument and plant it back where it came from El.

Ok - I feel better. How about you?