The news in Los Angeles today is interesting. Breastfeeding woman is harassed by female employees at Cost Plus World Market in Orange County.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Mother-Harassed-for-Breastfeeding-in-Public-101427799.html
Meanwhile, another headline is "Man Arrested Near Paris Hilton's Home" over a picture of her with her huge, fake breasts jutted upward. (Blogger has changed and I can't find how to upload pics!)
Posters on the news about the breastfeeding woman vary from the breastfeeding supporters to those who believe we are not a third-world country, she should go the car or bathroom, breastfeeding in public, maybe anywhere is being not classy, and examples of seeing it in public with men staring at the woman's breasts ... all reasons against it. Oh, several posters said it's like defecating ... you don't do that in public, do you?
My response to this article's posters and to the world:
Being breastfed is a human right. It is a BABY's right to be breastfed whenever hungry & mother's responsibility to do so. If we would stop seeing it as a woman's right only and see it as the right and ...need of human baby (hers when she was a baby, yours when you were a baby), maybe those of you with issues about seeing it could begin to get over it.
Breastfeeding is same as defecating ONLY if we are talking about a baby who is doing either or both. Do you expect a mother with a pooping baby to leave? No.You laugh as if a normal process is funny. Do YOU eat in bathroom, closet, hot car or with blanket on your head? So why do you expect a baby to be treated that way? Most likely your mother walked around a store with chemical formula in a bottle feeding you. You got fed in public.
We've had generations of misinformation and downright lies, all based on, yeah, you guessed, money, about formula as better, and therefore, a majority of humans did not get what they needed -- HUMAN MILK, from their MOTHER, and on demand. Now you spend money trying to "create abundance" in your life when your early brain tells you there ain't none. When the breast and mother is available to the newborn when she or he needs it ... for food, for comfort, for connection ... THAT person will KNOW abundance, and that everything they need is there for them. THAT, my friends, is the real "Secret." It was your right and your child's right to be breastfeed and since you didn't, you see it as nasty, and worse, you see a mother-baby breastfeeding and you see it as sexual. You see love and connectedness only as sexual.
Breastfeeding is NORMAL. Not being breastfed is one of the most devastating, fundamental causes of many physical and emotional issues in our culture. Anyone here against it for whatever reason, if you go and look at truth of the science and what has ALWAYS been true about breastfeeding, and MOTHER-BABY attachment, and you deal with fact that you weren't and you didn't give it to your child (BECAUSE the system, experts LIED to you or your mother), you can get over "shock" of seeing what is normal and natural and absolutely necessary.
Now, will you please go after women walking through that store with all but her nipples hanging out, butt cheeks, tattoos, & belly ring showing that is supposedly "normal"? And, those man-boobs, please do call security. And, can you go after industries that sexualize even little girls, capturing them as little consumers before they can even read their ABC's? Can you go after Miley and Brittney to keep their teenage breasts covered so our little girls are not pressed to follow these role models in slutdom? So that a when she's a woman breastfeeding her baby her breasts are not seen as sexual, merely for men's pleasure, and she is not ostracized for doing most natural, necessary thing in the world.
Thanks Mom for breastfeeding me for a year ... in 1956 .. the height of the industrialization complex and when sheeple thought you were "behind" the times, so I could do it too in 1975 (and 1977, 1983, and 1994) when I was weird and uncool for breastfeeding. Thanks for helping me to see that "mothering" was the most important job I could so. Of all the things I've been through with my children, I see that breastfeeding was the magic bullet that helped us recover from birthing in the medical machine designed to separate mother and baby.
One of the sad truths is that men do sexualize the breasts and wombyns. I was on youtube on an exercise segment and I was shocked at the comments, presumably by men about how annoyed they were that the picture of nice butt lured them in and it wasn't that good to masturbate to. SO MANY! Men masturbate to work out videos, I knew this, but dang, the things people say when they think they are anonymous, like on Youtube in general.
So, yeah, men are also supposedly masturbating to breastfeeding images these days. Scandals have broken about Facebook creeps trying to get access to breastfeeding pictures. Men luring at wombyns and baby breastfeeding IS a big issue. And, yeah, it's god-awful, but dang, it IS INFORMATION folks. Like the father in my film says, referring to circumcision, overpowering wombyns at birth, and men's experience, "We have to stop the harming and heal those who were harmed."
Male babies are so profoundly harmed at birth. We can not stop disrupting the mother-baby at birth fast enough for me. Inside me, every fiber of me wants to go HULK on those who continue to separate and harm babies, acting out THEIR own traumas and getting paid so well to do so. It's outrageous to watch male and female babies and how they are treated at birth. We can not begin fast enough to insist that medical caregivers support the self-attachment and support women in doing this. I am amazed at the women who say they want to do this profound, natural, simply done, physiologically programmed event -- supporting baby to crawl to her breast and self-attach himself or herself, and then they don't. This is a symptom of a wombyns own wounding, her own fear of attachment and connectedness. We humans are so confusing. Come here, go away. She offers her sexuality, her breasts and then doesn't deliver. She can't; she's not mama. "I have to have her" and then he cheats on her, or beats her, or ridicules her. And then he hates himself and then he compensates. Oh, how well, we all know of this cycle. Trying to connect with the Mama. Instead we collectively destroy her, the Mama Earth, and we harm wombyn. It begins with denying her body, mind, and soul the power and dignity birthing as a female body, and as a young girl programming her with false images of what a wombyn is and it culminates in the drugging, controlling, and manipulating of her during childbirth ... when she brings forth another life, a little boy or girl baby. The cycles repeat.
We can not fast enough STOP the genital mutilation of our precious little boys. I can not even begin to know, to touch how profoundly most men in this country have been harmed as a newborn, and how it is to live life through this PREVERBAL rape and violation. Allowing my oldest son, even though I was young and uninformed, to experience this to have allowed it is the hardest thing for me to forgive. I was holding him and I do believe this has allowed me the information I needed to really see what happened and the need to address it. They no longer allow a parent to be there. For good reason ... they don't want you to see it. They make a lot of money from that foreskin. If you see it, you talk about it.
Circumcision is a sexual violation. They often manually make the boy's penis erect to do it. Strange women TOOK him from his mother in his first moments of life when every cell of his is programmed to reconnect with her. These women "bonded" with him by being the first to look into his eyes, talk to him, touch him, FEEDING him with a rubber nipple (women also robbed of this with their own babies do it to other women) ... all in violating way .. after robbing him of his cord blood by separating him from his transitional Life Force/God/Creator/Allah in the womb with him. Then WOMEN tied him down so that his penis is sexually mutilated. The nerve densest piece of skin on his body made to give him pleasure by communicating with his brain is now missing, and the brutal pain of cutting it off puts him in shock. He was BORN a whole being, ready for love and connection. We all are. We are welcomed with strangers inflicting pain, fear, and self-serving separation that, as they wish it to be, is blamed on our mother's. Mothers take it on as their guilt, rather than seeing they too are violated and prevented from giving their well-loved and gestated babies what they know in every cell to be what he or she needs. Mothers and babies live with the impact of separation and hospital systems continue to crank out wounded, wounded, wounded human beings.
These men we speak of angrily, the violence in society we seek to end, wars, harming women and children, pornography, masturbating to breast-feeding pics or exercise videos, to molesting children .... ALL of them have experienced some combination of being conceived and gestated unwanted, born with doctor-nurse inflicted trauma, not allowed to feel her touch first, gaze into her eyes first, to crawl with her gentle support to her breast to self attach, but instead were separated from their mothers, force fed formula by strangers (force fed because a baby's stomach is only the size of a hazelnut, enough to hold a super-duper shot of colostrum), and then he was circumcised.
These men never had the comfort of the mother's breast no matter how they tried. Babies DO try over and over to get to the breast of the mother. Formula feeding mothers know this if they allow it to come through to them ... how their babies try to get to their breasts. Well, they never stop trying, folks - baby boys or baby girls. So, of course, they sexualize the breasts and breastfeeding. Of course men go masturbate to these images, or a young male after seeing a breastfeeding baby at the breast. I am sorry my sister's whose path it is to push this boundary for us all -- public breastfeeding -- may or may not know this. It's not their problem. It's yours if you have an issue with seeing a breastfeeding baby. An adult male is simply, yet profoundly, trying to connect all that was lost, oh, so much that was so lost. So, of course young girls and women are profoundly impacted by their images related to their breasts too - how they look, how men respond to them. Why is it ok for our teenage girls to expose their breasts ... to gain love and connection and attention they yearn for? The young Heidi who had ten surgeries in one day and can not legally in the US have a bigger breast implant. My goodness, what do these boys and girls really want? What do these men really want? All misplaced ... poor little babies.
All of this can be ENDED by giving the utmost care to the human new born being, male and female. We have to stop the harming and help those who were harmed to heal.
I'm curious about the men who were not breastfed and who were circumcised as they now choose to keep their baby whole and they support breastfeeding. How do they come to this decision? How do they deal with their own feelings of loss and of being violated? Does it change their perspective? Actions (like porn and masturbating), and does it change the quality of their own lives, their relationships with their partner? With their mother?
Watch out!! These are the kinds of questions I asked years ago about men in the hospital room with their babies being born. People ask me how I came to know to do this film -- focus on fathers. So many people, even homebirthing women, tell me they never really thought about birth impacting their partner. WOW. That's amazing to me. I have come to realize profoundly, not surprisingly, since I've known it all along, but it is because of my own birth. I was very traumatized, and almost died, as did my older brother, the first. Our sister born second was born "unassisted" in the labor delivery room while my father was trying to find a nurse. It was quite rare that my father was in the hospital room with all six of us, born between 1949-1970. OF COURSE, MY baby self KNEW how important it was that he was there, and now I know, a part of me has always known also how wounded he was watching it all. Just recently he told me that he was off to the side, could see blood, could hear it. It was not like today when men are able to be right there. I was very sad that my dad did not get to see me come out. I realize that has been a huge loss for me, and explains an issue with him, a confusion -- "you WERE THERE. Can't you acknowledge how hard it was for me?" This is what I see in babies ALL THE TIME, even today. We all want our mother and father to acknowledge us, our experience, as they share THEIR story, to see ours, the baby. I experienced deep sadness for my dad, a shared moment we never got to grieve or process together ... in 53 years. Another piece of healing my own birth that allows me to sit with and witness and support babies with their parents in their experience. My dad does not remember the last three I learned when I sit down to find out my three younger siblings birth stories. We always hear the stories of us three older ones. I said he couldn't remember them -- he was there, but because the first three were so hard he sorta checked out, he guesses. Fifty some years and I am just hearing this ... what I've always known, and I see it in the relationships with those younger three. And, I see the impact, "good" and "bad" in his relationship with us three older ones.
WHAT is YOUR baby self's story? What is YOUR story in relationship to your mom and dad's story? So many women from the 30-70's can't remember their story. It's such a big black hole in so many people's lives. Your body, mind, and soul know ... it's in your preverbal brain. You can know the story, grieve it, embrace it and become whole again, or at least BE IN the process of becoming whole, rather than living in the patterns of trauma, loss, and grief of disconnection from the mother.
There are many modalities now to assist ... but the best one, I believe, is my teacher, Ray Castellino's method.
http://www.castellinotraining.com/referrals/graduates.php
Others related to this modality are: www.myrnamartin.net, www.healyourearlyimprints.com.
How we protect and support the physiological need of the human newborn attachment sequence is the foundation for creating safe birth wherever birth happens.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Other Women: Feminine Betrayal of Wombyn By WoMen
As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, includuing (sic) other women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species." -- Casual Male Observer on Momania blog
I visited Momania blog where the article was called: "Cat fight on the mom blog: Are we meaner than the sports blogs?" They are talking about what we all know ... Girl-on-Girl and Woman-on-woman emotional and verbal violence. Oh, my the comments!
I got as far as "A casual male observer's" comment. "Most men protect Ideals, such as family, nation, politics, religon, etc. As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, including another women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species. The average male does not stick around for the children, for the woman is the only true chance for survival of the children. This is true for every species on this earth, with few exceptions."
LOVE IT! As filmmaker of "The Other Side of the Glass" a birth film for and about men's experience in modern birth, I'm looking at the soul's journey into a physical body and earthly family, the result of a sperm and an egg being united by a spark that results in another life. I'm looking at how men are disempowered in birth ... from their experience as a baby being born and how that manifests in his experience of birthing his children. Ain't NOWHERE else in the world, except the hospital where a man is so disregarded and disempowered when his/her wife/partner is birthing their baby into their arms.
Going back to first comment, about how women are historically mean to each other, and where it is socially and culturally acceptable now, why is this? Why is this, how is this acceptable now? All of history? No. American history? Could be. What is the core issue? I believe we need to look at the total denial of what "Casual male observer" has so eloquently stated: "As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, including other women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species." And, sorry to say, because I know some very caring LD/OB nurse, and I say this with regard for the fine wombyn who are great nurses and midwives. The source, I believe, of woMan-on-wombmyn violence is a result of the domination of women's bodies and birth by the medical system. It is women in this system who harm other women. OTHER WOMEN who disrupt, control, and manipulate a wombyn in this most vulnerable experience and she controls the father as well.
The truth is that wombyn are unable in modern birth to protect themselves and their baby from OTHER WOMEN in the most vulnerable but power experience of her life. I don't think there is any place else or any OTHER WOMAN who has so much control over a man as the hospital labor and delivery nurse. The strongest and most powerful man crumbles and is voiceless and powerless in this woMan's environment. Midwifery is under the control of medical training and beliefs, and as more medically trained midwives do more birth even wombyn giving birth at home with a midwife are being betrayed. They are being betrayed in this moment that "Casual Male Observer" points out is true of every wombyn: the need to protect their baby, even from OTHER WOMEN.
It is OTHER WOMEN throughout modern obstetric history who have carried out the deeds of male obstetric dominated care. Big time since the 1400's when the Church and Medicine hooked up. It is OTHER WOMEN who separate the man/other from his wife/partner ... either covertly or overtly. Overtly, the nurse puts a wombyn in the birthing uniform and begins the control, sometimes becoming torture. Nurses, OTHER WOMEN, used to shave us, force us to do enemas. They still put us in bed, deny us food and water, drug her, tie us down (don't need to so much these days because they are drug pushers of epidural -- with synthetic opiods), hush us, disrupt us to monitor us every 15 minutes and on and on. The doctor, more often female now, comes in to do the fun stuff. Sits at the end of the conveyor belt, gets to do the honors, and thanks the lady's for the preparation and making it so easy, pleasurable, and lucrative for him or her. Her job is done then, and nurses, OTHER WOMEN, resume control. Even the most non-violent birth is a subtle form of rape of women.
After the "ecstatic" or even "orgasmic" moment (whose is a very interesting question) is over, baby is most likely, most often is handed to the OTHER WOMEN. Sometimes the wombyn actually gets to hold the baby or see baby before baby is whisked away by OTHER WOMEN. Everything in a wombyn's being WANTS HER BABY. She has instincts to make eye contact that will trigger the hormones of attachment. Every fiber of her wants to see, touch, smell, and yes, even taste her baby. wombyn today who don't do this ... well, they are not the "normal" ones. Sorry. They are sufficiently suppressed wombyn that are system-compliant.
It is OTHER WOMEN who touch our babies first, never as gently as a mother does when left alone. It is often very rough and even brutal how OTHER WOMEN "stimulate" our babies to breath. It is OTHER WOMEN who deny us our wishes; yes, following the rules of the male-dominated medical hospital system. It is these OTHER WOMEN who take the baby (a main reason for immediate cord clamping, I believe, nothing to do with what the human newborn physiologically needs for optimum life), another woman's baby and deny both mother and baby their God-given need and right to RECONNECT in this most vulnerable and short, yet life defining moment. OTHER WOMEN, sometimes many other women, touch our babies and hold our babies and look into our babies' eyes before us. They do this while doing medically unnecessary interventions, some akin to torture if done by adults to adults in other situations and locations. Our babies hear OTHER WOMEN's voices and feel their touch before they feel ours, before they feel us, smell us, or hear our voice. OTHER WOMEN take our babies and touch them and do things to them that causes our babies to writhe in pain, to scream full-body screams, crying for us, crying for us to make it stop. But we can't. Our baby's father can't even stop it. Our body screams out "NOoooooooo, STOP IT" even when our words don't come out. This scream, I call it the "maternal scream" is STUCK in most of us women ... and, until we heal our bodies, souls, and minds of these experience, we take it out on other women and our spouses. Our babies also live this out, with us and in society. It is, I believe, the core of most emotional and psychological disorders.
WHY do wombyn do this to wombyn? Because it was done to them .. as a baby and as a birthing wombmyn. It's called "normative abuse". The do to OTHER WOMEN and BABIES what was done to them ... as babies and as birthing wombyn ... so that they feel normal. Then we all call it normal. And, we call ourselves normal, but no one ever feels normal. Not until they embrace their body and spirit and heal their early woundings and become more natural. Meanwhile, the "system" gathers steam, via the wounded workers, and thwarts most efforts to be natural, to do what THE BODY ONE LIVES IN WAS PROGRAMMED over eons to do and be. Wombyn who've not given birth but work in these systems have their innate knowing and their instincts over run. They've watched traumatic births all their lives, on television, and see this as normal. They are taught in college and advanced training programs that this is right, moral, scientific and best ... when everything logically, scientifically, physiologically, and emotionally tells us otherwise. wombyn harm other wombyn ... in this profound moment where it is instinctual to protect, hold, nurture her baby, even protect it from other wombmyn, that "Casual male observer" points out, "This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species."
Well, guess what, our society and species is failing. Big time. Asthma, cancer, autism, psychiatric disorders doubling and tripling as epidural and cesarean sections rates do the same. Babies under one are being given anti-psychotic medications and it just gets worse for the child in our society. Contrary to what many people said in the comments, it is NOT "normal" for teenage girls to be so vicious and for women to be so vicious. To survive we have to stop it ... wombyn need to stop it. People need to resolve their own early experiences of coming into this world. When a medical caregiver, in charge of the situation, has successfully disengaged a man/partner from the mother, those people have just taken charge of that baby ... body, mind, and soul.
The person who drugs, controls the mother, and forcefully pulls that baby from the mother's body is imprinting "I am in charge" on that baby's whole being. Collectively, it is is strangers, men and wombmyn, who do this to a baby. Collectively, they become the "system" and we are under it's control unless we wake up and consider the plight of the baby. This control forced upon the birth baby is called "mind control" by my colleague and co-host of the radio show we do. This mind control is why people keep going back to the medical profession to birth again or for all the other craziness found there ... they're programmed. At birth. We're programmed by women to not trust wombmyn, and not to trust men, but at the same time, to give it over to "them".
The way out of it is one person at a time. It stops one wombyn at a time, doing her own healing work. It involves stop being the OTHER WOMAN who harms a birthing woman and separates her baby from her ... even with the smallest of NON-medically necessary interventions ... coached pushing, talking, bulbing, putting hat baby, not putting and leaving baby in her arms. ANYTHING done to the baby is felt by the baby and imprinted in his or her brain and body. For sure, stop denying her movement, food, water. Stop following the rules of the system that harm babies and mothers -- fetal monitoring (known IN obstetrics for 20 years to contribute to cesarean that is only "necessary" in the end BECAUSE of the monitoring), drugs, rupturing the baby's membranes, speeding up, slowing down (controlling) her baby's and her body's labor. STOP cutting the cord. STOP making father's feel like "getting to cut the cord cord" is their badge of honor, their shining moment in the birth --- prematurely separating mother and baby before baby and mother have met, before the mother's body knows the baby is ok (signaled by HER releasing the placenta).
It is wombyn and men, especially wombyn, who can stop the women-on-wombyn violence. We can stop the violence of teenage girls and women in drama by stopping the violence perpetrated upon women giving birth.
Most of my career in this field has been trying to find the balance ... be the bridge ... I respect the people as individuals, those who are in the obstetric field and who, I feel, are stuck in a rut they are not aware of, or don't know how to get out. Some of that is a symptom of our social problems of consumerism. People have to work to pay their bills and they have to shut down parts of themselves to do this. I think the worse place for this is maternal-baby health care. I believe it is a known effort at some level to control wombyn's bodies and souls and minds, and to disrupt the mother-baby relationship, the core of humanity. I am concerned for the people who are lovely, caring, compassionate people who became doctors, nurses, or midwives for noble reasons, but have ALSO been harmed by the collective system. I am concerned for the harm to them being in a system that does not honor them either. They work in a system where they are not allowed to stop the violence, and yet they stay. This harms them as well. Blessed is the nurse and doctor, of whom I know many, who are able and willing to navigate the system and the legal and hospital policy issues, breaking rules, in order to do what they know is right for the baby, mother, and father/partner.
My show yesterday, in the archives, is about the early church and witch hunts, the earliest betrayal of women by women. We carry it in our genetic memory.
www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com - is my radio show.
Here's a video promoting natural birth in a birth center. Perfect example of the propaganda that perpetuates the violence of wombyn in the system
I visited Momania blog where the article was called: "Cat fight on the mom blog: Are we meaner than the sports blogs?" They are talking about what we all know ... Girl-on-Girl and Woman-on-woman emotional and verbal violence. Oh, my the comments!
I got as far as "A casual male observer's" comment. "Most men protect Ideals, such as family, nation, politics, religon, etc. As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, including another women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species. The average male does not stick around for the children, for the woman is the only true chance for survival of the children. This is true for every species on this earth, with few exceptions."
LOVE IT! As filmmaker of "The Other Side of the Glass" a birth film for and about men's experience in modern birth, I'm looking at the soul's journey into a physical body and earthly family, the result of a sperm and an egg being united by a spark that results in another life. I'm looking at how men are disempowered in birth ... from their experience as a baby being born and how that manifests in his experience of birthing his children. Ain't NOWHERE else in the world, except the hospital where a man is so disregarded and disempowered when his/her wife/partner is birthing their baby into their arms.
Going back to first comment, about how women are historically mean to each other, and where it is socially and culturally acceptable now, why is this? Why is this, how is this acceptable now? All of history? No. American history? Could be. What is the core issue? I believe we need to look at the total denial of what "Casual male observer" has so eloquently stated: "As a whole, women protects her own, the children, against all others, including other women. This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species." And, sorry to say, because I know some very caring LD/OB nurse, and I say this with regard for the fine wombyn who are great nurses and midwives. The source, I believe, of woMan-on-wombmyn violence is a result of the domination of women's bodies and birth by the medical system. It is women in this system who harm other women. OTHER WOMEN who disrupt, control, and manipulate a wombyn in this most vulnerable experience and she controls the father as well.
The truth is that wombyn are unable in modern birth to protect themselves and their baby from OTHER WOMEN in the most vulnerable but power experience of her life. I don't think there is any place else or any OTHER WOMAN who has so much control over a man as the hospital labor and delivery nurse. The strongest and most powerful man crumbles and is voiceless and powerless in this woMan's environment. Midwifery is under the control of medical training and beliefs, and as more medically trained midwives do more birth even wombyn giving birth at home with a midwife are being betrayed. They are being betrayed in this moment that "Casual Male Observer" points out is true of every wombyn: the need to protect their baby, even from OTHER WOMEN.
It is OTHER WOMEN throughout modern obstetric history who have carried out the deeds of male obstetric dominated care. Big time since the 1400's when the Church and Medicine hooked up. It is OTHER WOMEN who separate the man/other from his wife/partner ... either covertly or overtly. Overtly, the nurse puts a wombyn in the birthing uniform and begins the control, sometimes becoming torture. Nurses, OTHER WOMEN, used to shave us, force us to do enemas. They still put us in bed, deny us food and water, drug her, tie us down (don't need to so much these days because they are drug pushers of epidural -- with synthetic opiods), hush us, disrupt us to monitor us every 15 minutes and on and on. The doctor, more often female now, comes in to do the fun stuff. Sits at the end of the conveyor belt, gets to do the honors, and thanks the lady's for the preparation and making it so easy, pleasurable, and lucrative for him or her. Her job is done then, and nurses, OTHER WOMEN, resume control. Even the most non-violent birth is a subtle form of rape of women.
After the "ecstatic" or even "orgasmic" moment (whose is a very interesting question) is over, baby is most likely, most often is handed to the OTHER WOMEN. Sometimes the wombyn actually gets to hold the baby or see baby before baby is whisked away by OTHER WOMEN. Everything in a wombyn's being WANTS HER BABY. She has instincts to make eye contact that will trigger the hormones of attachment. Every fiber of her wants to see, touch, smell, and yes, even taste her baby. wombyn today who don't do this ... well, they are not the "normal" ones. Sorry. They are sufficiently suppressed wombyn that are system-compliant.
It is OTHER WOMEN who touch our babies first, never as gently as a mother does when left alone. It is often very rough and even brutal how OTHER WOMEN "stimulate" our babies to breath. It is OTHER WOMEN who deny us our wishes; yes, following the rules of the male-dominated medical hospital system. It is these OTHER WOMEN who take the baby (a main reason for immediate cord clamping, I believe, nothing to do with what the human newborn physiologically needs for optimum life), another woman's baby and deny both mother and baby their God-given need and right to RECONNECT in this most vulnerable and short, yet life defining moment. OTHER WOMEN, sometimes many other women, touch our babies and hold our babies and look into our babies' eyes before us. They do this while doing medically unnecessary interventions, some akin to torture if done by adults to adults in other situations and locations. Our babies hear OTHER WOMEN's voices and feel their touch before they feel ours, before they feel us, smell us, or hear our voice. OTHER WOMEN take our babies and touch them and do things to them that causes our babies to writhe in pain, to scream full-body screams, crying for us, crying for us to make it stop. But we can't. Our baby's father can't even stop it. Our body screams out "NOoooooooo, STOP IT" even when our words don't come out. This scream, I call it the "maternal scream" is STUCK in most of us women ... and, until we heal our bodies, souls, and minds of these experience, we take it out on other women and our spouses. Our babies also live this out, with us and in society. It is, I believe, the core of most emotional and psychological disorders.
WHY do wombyn do this to wombyn? Because it was done to them .. as a baby and as a birthing wombmyn. It's called "normative abuse". The do to OTHER WOMEN and BABIES what was done to them ... as babies and as birthing wombyn ... so that they feel normal. Then we all call it normal. And, we call ourselves normal, but no one ever feels normal. Not until they embrace their body and spirit and heal their early woundings and become more natural. Meanwhile, the "system" gathers steam, via the wounded workers, and thwarts most efforts to be natural, to do what THE BODY ONE LIVES IN WAS PROGRAMMED over eons to do and be. Wombyn who've not given birth but work in these systems have their innate knowing and their instincts over run. They've watched traumatic births all their lives, on television, and see this as normal. They are taught in college and advanced training programs that this is right, moral, scientific and best ... when everything logically, scientifically, physiologically, and emotionally tells us otherwise. wombyn harm other wombyn ... in this profound moment where it is instinctual to protect, hold, nurture her baby, even protect it from other wombmyn, that "Casual male observer" points out, "This is a good thing, an act of nature, for with out this basic natural instinct, we would fail as a community, or even as basic as failing as a species."
Well, guess what, our society and species is failing. Big time. Asthma, cancer, autism, psychiatric disorders doubling and tripling as epidural and cesarean sections rates do the same. Babies under one are being given anti-psychotic medications and it just gets worse for the child in our society. Contrary to what many people said in the comments, it is NOT "normal" for teenage girls to be so vicious and for women to be so vicious. To survive we have to stop it ... wombyn need to stop it. People need to resolve their own early experiences of coming into this world. When a medical caregiver, in charge of the situation, has successfully disengaged a man/partner from the mother, those people have just taken charge of that baby ... body, mind, and soul.
The person who drugs, controls the mother, and forcefully pulls that baby from the mother's body is imprinting "I am in charge" on that baby's whole being. Collectively, it is is strangers, men and wombmyn, who do this to a baby. Collectively, they become the "system" and we are under it's control unless we wake up and consider the plight of the baby. This control forced upon the birth baby is called "mind control" by my colleague and co-host of the radio show we do. This mind control is why people keep going back to the medical profession to birth again or for all the other craziness found there ... they're programmed. At birth. We're programmed by women to not trust wombmyn, and not to trust men, but at the same time, to give it over to "them".
The way out of it is one person at a time. It stops one wombyn at a time, doing her own healing work. It involves stop being the OTHER WOMAN who harms a birthing woman and separates her baby from her ... even with the smallest of NON-medically necessary interventions ... coached pushing, talking, bulbing, putting hat baby, not putting and leaving baby in her arms. ANYTHING done to the baby is felt by the baby and imprinted in his or her brain and body. For sure, stop denying her movement, food, water. Stop following the rules of the system that harm babies and mothers -- fetal monitoring (known IN obstetrics for 20 years to contribute to cesarean that is only "necessary" in the end BECAUSE of the monitoring), drugs, rupturing the baby's membranes, speeding up, slowing down (controlling) her baby's and her body's labor. STOP cutting the cord. STOP making father's feel like "getting to cut the cord cord" is their badge of honor, their shining moment in the birth --- prematurely separating mother and baby before baby and mother have met, before the mother's body knows the baby is ok (signaled by HER releasing the placenta).
It is wombyn and men, especially wombyn, who can stop the women-on-wombyn violence. We can stop the violence of teenage girls and women in drama by stopping the violence perpetrated upon women giving birth.
Most of my career in this field has been trying to find the balance ... be the bridge ... I respect the people as individuals, those who are in the obstetric field and who, I feel, are stuck in a rut they are not aware of, or don't know how to get out. Some of that is a symptom of our social problems of consumerism. People have to work to pay their bills and they have to shut down parts of themselves to do this. I think the worse place for this is maternal-baby health care. I believe it is a known effort at some level to control wombyn's bodies and souls and minds, and to disrupt the mother-baby relationship, the core of humanity. I am concerned for the people who are lovely, caring, compassionate people who became doctors, nurses, or midwives for noble reasons, but have ALSO been harmed by the collective system. I am concerned for the harm to them being in a system that does not honor them either. They work in a system where they are not allowed to stop the violence, and yet they stay. This harms them as well. Blessed is the nurse and doctor, of whom I know many, who are able and willing to navigate the system and the legal and hospital policy issues, breaking rules, in order to do what they know is right for the baby, mother, and father/partner.
My show yesterday, in the archives, is about the early church and witch hunts, the earliest betrayal of women by women. We carry it in our genetic memory.
www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com - is my radio show.
Here's a video promoting natural birth in a birth center. Perfect example of the propaganda that perpetuates the violence of wombyn in the system
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Being Born
Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.
You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.
You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.
You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.
- Carl Sandburg
Being Born IS the BABY's experience. Giving Birth is mother's. TWO BEINGS, TWO BEING'S experience TOGETHER. And, what about the father? What's his experience, perspective, and needs?
Fathers stand "at the bedpost and have seen a mother", his partner, "on her high harvest day, and the day of most golden of harvest moons for her."
The baby "groping towards mouth nipples where white milk is ready" is the fruit, the harvest of his seed. He is the father of this baby, made with this woman. This is HIS HARVEST. Why is he treated so poorly in American hospitals? Why is the father of duct tape, vinyl records, the spinning loom, the microchip, and the father of this country or that religion or a philosophy given more reverence and regard than a man at his seed's harvest?
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.
You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.
You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.
You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old,
So involved, so traced with circles of the moon,
So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.
- Carl Sandburg
Being Born IS the BABY's experience. Giving Birth is mother's. TWO BEINGS, TWO BEING'S experience TOGETHER. And, what about the father? What's his experience, perspective, and needs?
Fathers stand "at the bedpost and have seen a mother", his partner, "on her high harvest day, and the day of most golden of harvest moons for her."
The baby "groping towards mouth nipples where white milk is ready" is the fruit, the harvest of his seed. He is the father of this baby, made with this woman. This is HIS HARVEST. Why is he treated so poorly in American hospitals? Why is the father of duct tape, vinyl records, the spinning loom, the microchip, and the father of this country or that religion or a philosophy given more reverence and regard than a man at his seed's harvest?
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Abortion and Birth: A Means to an End. Control.
Abortion and Birth: A Means to an End. Control.
Women may not ever have true equality until they give the same to the fetus. Abortion and where to give birth should not be under control of MEDICINE and should not have ever been illegal. Prior to modern history women always had the control over keeping or not keeping a pregnancy. Many pregnancies then and now were a result of non-consensual sex, violence, and control by men. Legalizing and not legalizing abortion was and is not the answer. We now have a society where it is more covert, so embedded into our DNA and when women have made gains, but still are powerless ovver their bodies. Thank you to the modern medical system.
Today the care of women's body in the medical system has to do with making money ... and truly has nothing to do with womens'rights and her body, let alone, mens' or babies' rights. I am pro-life and pro-choice, equally fiercely BECAUSE the human being coming in has rights and the woman has rights, and I believe it is between HER, the soul trying to incarnate, and yes, even the man whose sperm made the baby. It's not between the State and a woman. It's between her, the Soul coming in, and her God. You can't kill a soul. Abortion and birth disregard that humans are a soul.
Elena Tonetti was on my show this week and discussed conscious birth and her film, "Birth As We Know It". She explains conception in a very amazing way .. how there is an energetic force present IN ORDER for there to be union of a sperm and egg to create conception, a third human baby with a soul. In other words, pregnancy depends upon more than a sperm and an egg meeting up. That happens billions of times a day. There is a being there, in the fetus, whether we like it or not, whether is serves our needs and wants or not. Here's the podcast. http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/janel/TCR100308.mp3. She comes on about 15 minutes after.
I don't think women will ever have true equality and rights until they stop going along with the status quo established by men thousands of years ago .... and the right to her body over the life of another human being is the just the double talk of hundreds and 1000's of years of subjugation by the dominance of men.... now ingrained in collective psyche.
Medicine and law took women's rights long, long ago, women rights to their body and their children, and their decisions, and we are still dealing with it. They made what women do illegal, immoral, and sinful. I'd like to know when it became ILlegal to get an abortion. What's the law? When was it? When did ABORTION become like BIRTH ... a legal, medical matter, in the hands of men and doctors, controlled by laws. In the 1400's two German monks wrote a treatise that was about how evil women are, especially the midwives. It told how to identify witches, interrogate them and punish them. Every Catholic magistrate and court had to read this, and led to the witch hunts that murdered millions of women for being midwives, healers, and mystics, or just for being female. It helped usher in men as doctors and men have been in control since then. Midwives were the biggest target -- and still are. THey are trying to make it ILLEGAL again in MO for a midwife to attend homebirth. It's outrageous. It shouldn't have EVER even been legal. Birth, midwives, abortion are NOT legal or medical matters. It was all to control women. and "they" still are. I'd prefer neither legal or illegal abortion or birth -- but the control of is way too lucrative and both serve to divide and conquer.
Pro-life and Pro-Right, I told a man this week, when he was complaining about the health care bill paying for abortion. Isn't that what's it is always really about? WHO will get paid and how much? And, not about the woman, not about the being within her, or the man who participated in conception. He says, "How can you be both?" I said, "You can't kill a soul. My business is my business, another woman's is her business."
And, it all boils down to money, like everything else in our culture.
Determining when life begins is a mind-fuck for women, and for men, but especially the woman who is supposedly the only decision-maker. One woman will be justifying her decision to abort at 20 weeks while another, or even the same woman grieves and grieves over the loss of the baby to miscarriage. Either way, she grieves, sometimes for a lifetime. Abortion ALWAYS impacts a woman. It is not an easy answer. Regardless of the rhetoric the feminist, liberal movement has perpetuated, a woman who chooses an abortion has to come to resolution in her her body, mind, and soul about ending the life of a fetus that she conceived. As Elena articulates, some energy, some entity has to be present for a pregnancy to happen. A woman who chooses, against all odds, to have a baby and to raise it also lives with her choice. They are very different, but they are also the same in that for an unwanted pregnancy there is no easy answer. The decision, to abort or not, is a country-dividing, family-dividing fight between religion and the state, and, I am convinced, it is just a MEANS to end for the powers-that-be. Going along with the medical, man-made money-focused logic that pervades our lives doesn't help any of us get to the truth ...
And when we have equality ... true equality, between male and females, it will be when and because we value every human life everywhere on the planet. When we believe killing for war is as wrong as killing for any reason as an individual ... murdering another adult, a child, or aborting a fetus, I really believe there will be less unwanted pregnancies that become abortions and unwanted humans, because both men and women will BE more conscious of themselves and their actions.
And, then there's circumcision ... yeah, and that's the biggest assurance that men will continue to perpetuate the legacy ... especially if they involve a woman in it. A woman mutilating another woman's baby boy.
Women may not ever have true equality until they give the same to the fetus. Abortion and where to give birth should not be under control of MEDICINE and should not have ever been illegal. Prior to modern history women always had the control over keeping or not keeping a pregnancy. Many pregnancies then and now were a result of non-consensual sex, violence, and control by men. Legalizing and not legalizing abortion was and is not the answer. We now have a society where it is more covert, so embedded into our DNA and when women have made gains, but still are powerless ovver their bodies. Thank you to the modern medical system.
Today the care of women's body in the medical system has to do with making money ... and truly has nothing to do with womens'rights and her body, let alone, mens' or babies' rights. I am pro-life and pro-choice, equally fiercely BECAUSE the human being coming in has rights and the woman has rights, and I believe it is between HER, the soul trying to incarnate, and yes, even the man whose sperm made the baby. It's not between the State and a woman. It's between her, the Soul coming in, and her God. You can't kill a soul. Abortion and birth disregard that humans are a soul.
Elena Tonetti was on my show this week and discussed conscious birth and her film, "Birth As We Know It". She explains conception in a very amazing way .. how there is an energetic force present IN ORDER for there to be union of a sperm and egg to create conception, a third human baby with a soul. In other words, pregnancy depends upon more than a sperm and an egg meeting up. That happens billions of times a day. There is a being there, in the fetus, whether we like it or not, whether is serves our needs and wants or not. Here's the podcast. http://www.math.missouri.edu/~rich/janel/TCR100308.mp3. She comes on about 15 minutes after.
I don't think women will ever have true equality and rights until they stop going along with the status quo established by men thousands of years ago .... and the right to her body over the life of another human being is the just the double talk of hundreds and 1000's of years of subjugation by the dominance of men.... now ingrained in collective psyche.
Medicine and law took women's rights long, long ago, women rights to their body and their children, and their decisions, and we are still dealing with it. They made what women do illegal, immoral, and sinful. I'd like to know when it became ILlegal to get an abortion. What's the law? When was it? When did ABORTION become like BIRTH ... a legal, medical matter, in the hands of men and doctors, controlled by laws. In the 1400's two German monks wrote a treatise that was about how evil women are, especially the midwives. It told how to identify witches, interrogate them and punish them. Every Catholic magistrate and court had to read this, and led to the witch hunts that murdered millions of women for being midwives, healers, and mystics, or just for being female. It helped usher in men as doctors and men have been in control since then. Midwives were the biggest target -- and still are. THey are trying to make it ILLEGAL again in MO for a midwife to attend homebirth. It's outrageous. It shouldn't have EVER even been legal. Birth, midwives, abortion are NOT legal or medical matters. It was all to control women. and "they" still are. I'd prefer neither legal or illegal abortion or birth -- but the control of is way too lucrative and both serve to divide and conquer.
Pro-life and Pro-Right, I told a man this week, when he was complaining about the health care bill paying for abortion. Isn't that what's it is always really about? WHO will get paid and how much? And, not about the woman, not about the being within her, or the man who participated in conception. He says, "How can you be both?" I said, "You can't kill a soul. My business is my business, another woman's is her business."
And, it all boils down to money, like everything else in our culture.
Determining when life begins is a mind-fuck for women, and for men, but especially the woman who is supposedly the only decision-maker. One woman will be justifying her decision to abort at 20 weeks while another, or even the same woman grieves and grieves over the loss of the baby to miscarriage. Either way, she grieves, sometimes for a lifetime. Abortion ALWAYS impacts a woman. It is not an easy answer. Regardless of the rhetoric the feminist, liberal movement has perpetuated, a woman who chooses an abortion has to come to resolution in her her body, mind, and soul about ending the life of a fetus that she conceived. As Elena articulates, some energy, some entity has to be present for a pregnancy to happen. A woman who chooses, against all odds, to have a baby and to raise it also lives with her choice. They are very different, but they are also the same in that for an unwanted pregnancy there is no easy answer. The decision, to abort or not, is a country-dividing, family-dividing fight between religion and the state, and, I am convinced, it is just a MEANS to end for the powers-that-be. Going along with the medical, man-made money-focused logic that pervades our lives doesn't help any of us get to the truth ...
And when we have equality ... true equality, between male and females, it will be when and because we value every human life everywhere on the planet. When we believe killing for war is as wrong as killing for any reason as an individual ... murdering another adult, a child, or aborting a fetus, I really believe there will be less unwanted pregnancies that become abortions and unwanted humans, because both men and women will BE more conscious of themselves and their actions.
And, then there's circumcision ... yeah, and that's the biggest assurance that men will continue to perpetuate the legacy ... especially if they involve a woman in it. A woman mutilating another woman's baby boy.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Dr. Fischbein On My Radio Show
We just completed week three of our shows with Dr. Stuart Fischbein, obstetrician from California on Thought Crime Radio: Voices for the Human Rights of Babies. The podcasts are up at www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspot.com.
Please visit his site, Www.SupportDrFischbein.com and learn about his experience as an obstetrician fighting for women to have true informed consent and right of refusal (BIRTH CHOICES - breech, VBAC, as well as no drugs, homebirths, delayed cord clamping etc.) when birthing their babies. Check out his plan to create a new form of birth center ... a collaboration between obstetricians and midwives in a facility separate from the hospital.
Also, on this page, check out the youtube presentations of excerpt from his interview for the film.
Please visit his site, Www.SupportDrFischbein.com and learn about his experience as an obstetrician fighting for women to have true informed consent and right of refusal (BIRTH CHOICES - breech, VBAC, as well as no drugs, homebirths, delayed cord clamping etc.) when birthing their babies. Check out his plan to create a new form of birth center ... a collaboration between obstetricians and midwives in a facility separate from the hospital.
Also, on this page, check out the youtube presentations of excerpt from his interview for the film.
Friday, January 8, 2010
"It's a tragedy for all the women who are missing out on natural men..."
WHY is the "grass" always greener in someone else's panties?
RCG: Anything to shift responsibility.. Ever since Adam... God asked him "Adam, did you eat from the tree?" His reply, "It was the woman you gave me!".
AR (man): It's the hardware and the wireing.
RCG: Anything to shift responsibility.. Ever since Adam... God asked him "Adam, did you eat from the tree?" His reply, "It was the woman you gave me!"
AR (man): Geez. It's not shifting. Men are Simple creatures. And our evolutionary physicallity does have a lot to do with our behavior. We are, however not all the same.
BH: I think I could count on one hand the number of men I know that have NOT cheated on a partner. I'm really not as angry as I sound... no man (recently) has cheated on me or anything... but just so, so many men are doing the craziest things lately. I just don't get it!
Okay, 'nuff of that vent. On to nicer topics.
EO: My husband is a great guy. Completely obsessed with sports, beer and sex, but faithful as the day is long a good friend and a wonderful father. That being said, always remember this: If it's got tires or testicles, it's bound to give you trouble.
ME: What's wrong with men, and it's cheating that makes you ask? Has much to do with the disruption of his opportunity to come to his mother's breast, gaze into her eyes, bask in her arms, in safety, and suckle at will -- when connection and intimacy are disrupted it wires and fires. This is what the majority of males have experienced. Then he has ... See Morebeen handled by strange women, roughly and separated from her and most men today were isolated in a nursery crying, being boundary violated over and over. And then, his penis, his sex organ, is mutilated, most likely after being strapped down against his will by a FEMALE nurse.
Circumcision short circuits the neural system between the brain and the penis, robs them of the full capacity to be empathetic. Of course, it still has it's primary functions -- urinary and ejaculation. The circumcized man spends his life looking for the fulfillment of something in his head that can seem to be completed through the penis, but is supposed to. Its why they are rough and thoughtless with women, even the ones they love. They have to be focused, have images in their heads, and work really, really hard to get what their brain tells them there is ... but can't do it without the nerve endings in the penis. They're frustrated .... it must be HER fault, and her and her and her, Looking for that connection that was lost.
Having done months of shows talking to the experts in circumcision and birth on my radio show, (www.thoughtcrimeradio.blogspotc.om) and listening to men I see men differently. After two years of talking to men about their experience of their baby's birth, after a decade of intense study of birth trauma and the healing of it ..... I'm .... I guess that why's I'm doing the film ... to bring to light the extreme traumatization of the male baby and how it impacts him for life. It's why I'm so rabid about the care and touch and the emotional quality of the team when birthing a baby.
Watch the circumcision on my blog, if you can. And, if you can't it tells you a lot. THIS is the pain, deep, deep pain that 90% of our men carry that is "unconscious" to them, but drives them. Years and layers of years later, he is still crying to connect. He will always act out his breaks in the connection with his mother with other women.
SN: Love this and you Barbara!!! I AGREE!! We aren't stupid, and if not the smell of perfume. Then its the look all over their face! BUSTED
SN: L. Janel, I would like to post your comment please on my page. This is just so wonderfully put, I'd like to share it,
AR (man): Janel, I love your explanation. It makes a lot of sense. I'm always looking for the science or evolutionary explanation of the "why?". I'm curious if this is a just a good theory or if you have empirical data to support it. And how, in a similar way, does it relate to why a female spouse cheats, which many do. Also how does it explain the why of ... See Moremales cheating in other cultures, and in previous generations where breatsfeeding is the overwhelming norm and circumcision is rarely practiced. As a cinematographer who favors the doco form, I am intrigued by your project. Bon Chance with it.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Podcast to my interview on "Love, Sex, Pregnancy, Childbirth and Parenting
I was a guest on Jeanice Barcelo's blog talk show on December 23rd. In the last ten minutes I share with her a situation that happened in late April -- the reason for the delay in finishing part one. Here's her announcement and link to the podcast follows.
Jeanice Barcelo Heads-up everyone! My radio show - "Love, Sex, Pregnancy, Childbirth & Parenting" - airs in less than two hours. This week, Janel Martin will be my guest. Janel is in the midst of making a birth film for fathers called "The Other Side of the Glass." This film promises to be an incredible look into the experience of fathers -- many of whose partners have given birth in a hospital -- alienating the dads and creating separation in the family. Janel is also a birth trauma specialist and a babykeeper/attachment therapist. Her focus is on keeping the soul's journey into the physical world as the focus of birth. Please join us today at 11AM Hawaii time, 1PM Pacific, 4PM Eastern to hear this incredible show. Callers are welcome: (646) 478-3967
Jeanice Barcelo Heads-up everyone! My radio show - "Love, Sex, Pregnancy, Childbirth & Parenting" - airs in less than two hours. This week, Janel Martin will be my guest. Janel is in the midst of making a birth film for fathers called "The Other Side of the Glass." This film promises to be an incredible look into the experience of fathers -- many of whose partners have given birth in a hospital -- alienating the dads and creating separation in the family. Janel is also a birth trauma specialist and a babykeeper/attachment therapist. Her focus is on keeping the soul's journey into the physical world as the focus of birth. Please join us today at 11AM Hawaii time, 1PM Pacific, 4PM Eastern to hear this incredible show. Callers are welcome: (646) 478-3967
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/jeanice-barcelo/2009/12/23/love-sex-pregnancy-childbirth-parenting
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Support a New Father and Go Green
Story about a father seeking custody of his newborn and a fundraiser to help him pay for legal fees.The fundraiser is very reciprocal offering a green household product sample package for $20. Details below. First, the story.
Dear mommas, friends and colleagues,
I am writing asking for support in helping my son Alexander reunite with his infant daughter Bella, who was taken in a parental abduction ten days after his girlfriend, Alex gave birth to her in our home. They are now in New Jersey, where they are actively keeping Allie and our family from any contact with Bella. I have attached Allie’s story about his experience of becoming a father, so that you will know in his words what has happened.
It is clear based upon their actions that Alex’s family has been under the direction of an attorney whose methods involve attempts to demean and discredit our family’s beliefs in homebirth, breastfeeding, attachment, holistic health care and attention to the psycho-spiritual well-being of infants. Allie has been lied to, attacked, insulted, threatened and cut off completely from his daughter. A birth certificate has been filed without his name and he has been denied the opportunity to give his daughter his surname. The actions taken by Alex and her family against Allie and our family are so atrocious as to be almost unbelievable. But, they are indeed quite true.
When the moms in the Moms’ group I facilitate heard this story, they wanted to organize a fundraiser to help Allie pay for legal assistance to gain custody of Bella. Unfortunately, such fundraisers are complicated to organize and can cost more than they ultimately raise. Right now, we are being told that Allie needs at least $7500 for legal fees.
Energetically, Allie maintains his connection to Bella every day, working to keep his vibration up, to communicate heart-to-heart with his daughter, to access supportive therapies and keep a positive attitude, knowing that Bella needs him and deserves the love and devotion of her father on a daily basis. Allie loves Bella dearly.
Sadly, Alex is completely unconscious as to the needs of her daughterand acts only from her own fears, insecurities and neediness. In her fear and under the control and manipulation of her family, she has stated that Bella has no awareness of Allie and that she will never know of his absence. Bella spent the first ten days of her life in her father’s arms when not at her mother’s breast. She slept by him every night and recognized his love for her immediately. Allie has read a great deal about attachment and understands quite well the damage being done to Bella through her mother’s actions. Her experience of his loss
to her can only be one of abandonment, which even further serves to tear him apart. This false premise, that Bella has no awareness of Allie and no experience of loss has been encouraged and reinforced by Alex’s parents, who clearly have not even the most basic understanding of infant psychology. For her part, Alex’s focus is on herself and her own wants and needs, expecting that her life should not change in any way and resenting Bella’s intrusion into her life.
In reality, Bella has already experienced deep psychological trauma due to the ignorance of her mother and the manipulations of her grandparents. First, her very existence was denied, as her mother lied about her pregnancy for 34 weeks. She experienced her mother’s fear, denial and complete lack of connection. Think of all the times a pregnant mother talks to her baby, strokes her belly, thinks of her baby with love and wonder. Think of all the love and affection a father shows both the mother and the baby during gestation. All of the love that flows from extended family and friends, delighting in her coming. Bella experienced none of this. There was no connection, no love, no wondrous expectation—only oblivion. Yet, at birth, she was welcomed wholly and completely into our home, into the arms of her father who had no idea of the machinations of her frightened mother and jealous, angry, resentful grandparents.
Allie was prepared to take leave from school, seek employment and rearrange his life to put Bella’s needs first and foremost. Now, he is in the unenviable position of needing a lot of money and resources to secure his relationship with his daughter. Not that we underestimate the power and love and energy in this family, but sometimes that love and energy need to co-mingle with other kinds of actions that support the desired outcome.
When Allie and I discussed the idea of a fundraiser, he felt strongly that it is important for him to provide something meaningful in exchange. Before Allie was aware of Alex’s pregnancy, he signed on as a distributor for WowGreen, a natural enzyme-based cleaning product, to assist him in paying for his education. Now, while Allie intends to return to school in January, it is more important than ever that he have the ability to make money, both because he needs to pay a lawyer and because he needs to have long-term income sources to support Bella.
As it turns out, WowGreen has a very simple fundraiser available that can be easily organized and completed quickly. WowGreen markets a sample box that contains five products and sells for $20 as a fundraising product. The typical fundraiser asks 20 people to sell 20 trial boxes each and would provide $4000 to Allie. Additional sales yield additional funds, of course. Allie and I are asking the many families and individuals we know who care about the deeply significant relationship between an infant and her father, as well as the well-being of the planet to help Allie raise this money.
Each person’s energy contributed to Bella’s return will likely be the most powerful aspect of this entire process. Remember, we live in an inclusive Universe—if we focus on Bella and Allie as one, they will be together.
In love and gratitude,
Jennifer
I have included only the end of Allie's letter here in case you don't feel the need or have the time to read it in its entirety. The
pertinent information about the fundraiser in copied here:
I am unable to come to any resolution with Alex and must seek legal assistance to gain joint custody of Bella. I have been asked for a $7500 retainer and my family cannot afford this. Several of the moms who are in my mother’s Moms’ Group have offered to organize a fundraiser to help me with these costs. Several ideas were discussed, but I felt that I would like to be able to give something in exchange for the help.
A couple of months before Bella was born, I became involved in a company that sells natural household cleaning products through a company called WOWGreen LLC. As my mother’s letter explained, I intend to use this business to help me get my daughter back. Since making that decision, I have learned a lot from this experience and am designing a website and blog to educate other people of my generation about the options they have in many areas of their lives other than those spoon-fed to us through schools, the media and advertising.
In researching my parental rights, I have followed a path toward discovering just how misinformed and uneducated most people are about the needs of babies and children. From there, I read and explored a lot more about the ideas I was raised with. People my age need to make better choices in diet, lifestyle, education, health care and even in plans for raising children. I want to teach people my age how important these things are and that they have many choices to make they are not even aware of. Creating the life we want can begin at any age. We do not need to reach middle age and suddenly realize we have lived in a
way that doesn’t bring us joy. We can make active decisions to create lives that rise to our highest personal potential. Selling these products is the beginning of my intention to create a broader forum for reaching young people and inspiring them to live lives of joy that include health, well-being and caretaking the planet.
Fundraiser and Product information:
Some of the key points about these products:
It is a contradiction to imagine that your home or office can be clean if the products used leave toxic residue on services. WowGreen contains no toxins and leaves no such residue.
They have 4 plant-based ingredients: Enzymes, Natural Surfactants (Natural Surfacing Agents, natural soaps that are 100% non-toxic), Natural scents and dyes and Water. Nothing else. The different products simply utilize different enzymes.
Of the twelve products, half are shipped in refillable plastic spray bottles. Refills are simply small packets that you add your own water to. This saves hugely on environmental impact, as there is no landfill waste and less to ship in the future.
You can replace all of the toxic products in your home or office. The people responsible for cleaning your office or home are no longer exposed to toxins in their “workplace”.
Here are some options to consider:
If you are willing to organize a group to fundraise or if you are willing to sell the trial boxes yourself to friends and family, then we can provide you with a single trial box for demonstration purchases for $20 if you are local ($25 including shipping otherwise). Once you have pre-sold a case of twelve, we can ship it to you directly. Once you and others have tried the products you may simply purchase the full-size products that you like through Allie’s link, which will allow him to continue to have an income stream from this fundraiser. If you would prefer to, you can sign up as a Preferred Customer to purchase the full-size products. You may also become a distributor, as I have.
Whatever you choose, please do not think any effort is too small. It is only through these small efforts that I hope to have the opportunity to raise my beautiful daughter Bella.
Sincerely with gratitude,
Allie Tow
860-338-3733
alexandertow@yahoo.com
A link to the explanation of the Enzymes:
http://www.wowgreen.net/Products-ScienceBehindTheIngredient.aspx?ID159
My WOWGreen™ home page:
http://www.wowgreen.net/?ID159
Fundraising information:
http://www.wowgreen.net/images/FundraisingIntroLetter.pdf
Product order page:
https://www.wowgreen.net/DefaultProductListing.aspx?ID159
This is the enrollment page:
http://www.wowgreen.net/Enroll.aspx?ID159
It is clear based upon their actions that Alex’s family has been under the direction of an attorney whose methods involve attempts to demean and discredit our family’s beliefs in homebirth, breastfeeding, attachment, holistic health care and attention to the psycho-spiritual well-being of infants. Allie has been lied to, attacked, insulted, threatened and cut off completely from his daughter. A birth certificate has been filed without his name and he has been denied the opportunity to give his daughter his surname. The actions taken by Alex and her family against Allie and our family are so atrocious as to be almost unbelievable. But, they are indeed quite true.
When the moms in the Moms’ group I facilitate heard this story, they wanted to organize a fundraiser to help Allie pay for legal assistance to gain custody of Bella. Unfortunately, such fundraisers are complicated to organize and can cost more than they ultimately raise. Right now, we are being told that Allie needs at least $7500 for legal fees.
Energetically, Allie maintains his connection to Bella every day, working to keep his vibration up, to communicate heart-to-heart with his daughter, to access supportive therapies and keep a positive attitude, knowing that Bella needs him and deserves the love and devotion of her father on a daily basis. Allie loves Bella dearly.
Sadly, Alex is completely unconscious as to the needs of her daughterand acts only from her own fears, insecurities and neediness. In her fear and under the control and manipulation of her family, she has stated that Bella has no awareness of Allie and that she will never know of his absence. Bella spent the first ten days of her life in her father’s arms when not at her mother’s breast. She slept by him every night and recognized his love for her immediately. Allie has read a great deal about attachment and understands quite well the damage being done to Bella through her mother’s actions. Her experience of his loss
to her can only be one of abandonment, which even further serves to tear him apart. This false premise, that Bella has no awareness of Allie and no experience of loss has been encouraged and reinforced by Alex’s parents, who clearly have not even the most basic understanding of infant psychology. For her part, Alex’s focus is on herself and her own wants and needs, expecting that her life should not change in any way and resenting Bella’s intrusion into her life.
In reality, Bella has already experienced deep psychological trauma due to the ignorance of her mother and the manipulations of her grandparents. First, her very existence was denied, as her mother lied about her pregnancy for 34 weeks. She experienced her mother’s fear, denial and complete lack of connection. Think of all the times a pregnant mother talks to her baby, strokes her belly, thinks of her baby with love and wonder. Think of all the love and affection a father shows both the mother and the baby during gestation. All of the love that flows from extended family and friends, delighting in her coming. Bella experienced none of this. There was no connection, no love, no wondrous expectation—only oblivion. Yet, at birth, she was welcomed wholly and completely into our home, into the arms of her father who had no idea of the machinations of her frightened mother and jealous, angry, resentful grandparents.
Allie was prepared to take leave from school, seek employment and rearrange his life to put Bella’s needs first and foremost. Now, he is in the unenviable position of needing a lot of money and resources to secure his relationship with his daughter. Not that we underestimate the power and love and energy in this family, but sometimes that love and energy need to co-mingle with other kinds of actions that support the desired outcome.
When Allie and I discussed the idea of a fundraiser, he felt strongly that it is important for him to provide something meaningful in exchange. Before Allie was aware of Alex’s pregnancy, he signed on as a distributor for WowGreen, a natural enzyme-based cleaning product, to assist him in paying for his education. Now, while Allie intends to return to school in January, it is more important than ever that he have the ability to make money, both because he needs to pay a lawyer and because he needs to have long-term income sources to support Bella.
As it turns out, WowGreen has a very simple fundraiser available that can be easily organized and completed quickly. WowGreen markets a sample box that contains five products and sells for $20 as a fundraising product. The typical fundraiser asks 20 people to sell 20 trial boxes each and would provide $4000 to Allie. Additional sales yield additional funds, of course. Allie and I are asking the many families and individuals we know who care about the deeply significant relationship between an infant and her father, as well as the well-being of the planet to help Allie raise this money.
Each person’s energy contributed to Bella’s return will likely be the most powerful aspect of this entire process. Remember, we live in an inclusive Universe—if we focus on Bella and Allie as one, they will be together.
In love and gratitude,
Jennifer
I have included only the end of Allie's letter here in case you don't feel the need or have the time to read it in its entirety. The
pertinent information about the fundraiser in copied here:
I am unable to come to any resolution with Alex and must seek legal assistance to gain joint custody of Bella. I have been asked for a $7500 retainer and my family cannot afford this. Several of the moms who are in my mother’s Moms’ Group have offered to organize a fundraiser to help me with these costs. Several ideas were discussed, but I felt that I would like to be able to give something in exchange for the help.
A couple of months before Bella was born, I became involved in a company that sells natural household cleaning products through a company called WOWGreen LLC. As my mother’s letter explained, I intend to use this business to help me get my daughter back. Since making that decision, I have learned a lot from this experience and am designing a website and blog to educate other people of my generation about the options they have in many areas of their lives other than those spoon-fed to us through schools, the media and advertising.
In researching my parental rights, I have followed a path toward discovering just how misinformed and uneducated most people are about the needs of babies and children. From there, I read and explored a lot more about the ideas I was raised with. People my age need to make better choices in diet, lifestyle, education, health care and even in plans for raising children. I want to teach people my age how important these things are and that they have many choices to make they are not even aware of. Creating the life we want can begin at any age. We do not need to reach middle age and suddenly realize we have lived in a
way that doesn’t bring us joy. We can make active decisions to create lives that rise to our highest personal potential. Selling these products is the beginning of my intention to create a broader forum for reaching young people and inspiring them to live lives of joy that include health, well-being and caretaking the planet.
Fundraiser and Product information:
Some of the key points about these products:
It is a contradiction to imagine that your home or office can be clean if the products used leave toxic residue on services. WowGreen contains no toxins and leaves no such residue.
They have 4 plant-based ingredients: Enzymes, Natural Surfactants (Natural Surfacing Agents, natural soaps that are 100% non-toxic), Natural scents and dyes and Water. Nothing else. The different products simply utilize different enzymes.
Of the twelve products, half are shipped in refillable plastic spray bottles. Refills are simply small packets that you add your own water to. This saves hugely on environmental impact, as there is no landfill waste and less to ship in the future.
You can replace all of the toxic products in your home or office. The people responsible for cleaning your office or home are no longer exposed to toxins in their “workplace”.
Here are some options to consider:
If you are willing to organize a group to fundraise or if you are willing to sell the trial boxes yourself to friends and family, then we can provide you with a single trial box for demonstration purchases for $20 if you are local ($25 including shipping otherwise). Once you have pre-sold a case of twelve, we can ship it to you directly. Once you and others have tried the products you may simply purchase the full-size products that you like through Allie’s link, which will allow him to continue to have an income stream from this fundraiser. If you would prefer to, you can sign up as a Preferred Customer to purchase the full-size products. You may also become a distributor, as I have.
Whatever you choose, please do not think any effort is too small. It is only through these small efforts that I hope to have the opportunity to raise my beautiful daughter Bella.
Sincerely with gratitude,
Allie Tow
860-338-3733
alexandertow@yahoo.com
A link to the explanation of the Enzymes:
http://www.wowgreen.net/Products-ScienceBehindTheIngredient.aspx?ID159
My WOWGreen™ home page:
http://www.wowgreen.net/?ID159
Fundraising information:
http://www.wowgreen.net/images/FundraisingIntroLetter.pdf
Product order page:
https://www.wowgreen.net/DefaultProductListing.aspx?ID159
This is the enrollment page:
http://www.wowgreen.net/Enroll.aspx?ID159
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Woman writes letter to her OB
From VBACFACTS.com
An OB you like or who makes you comfortable isn’t enough
Many women do not interview OBs/midwives when selecting their VBAC care provider. They either stay with the GYN who has been providing their well-woman care or the same OB who performed their cesarean because they like them.
Women they really believe that if they are good patients, if they are friendly, if they don’t question to much, if they are good-natured, their OB will treat them with the same courtesy by reading their birth plan, respecting their wishes, supporting their desire for a vaginal birth, and creating an environment where VBAC is the goal. In short, the woman believes that she will receive a genuine opportunity to VBAC.
However, as we read below, it is not enough to like your OB. It’s not enough that you feel comfortable with them. They need to support VBAC. They need to see the value in vaginal birth.
Dear Dr. XYZ:
It is with great reluctance that I submit payment to you for services rendered.
I hired you for an intervention free VBAC. Instead I had EVERY intervention I told you I did not want. Under your care, I failed in the most basic way a woman can fail – I failed to birth my children. You ignored each and every point on my birth plan. I cannot help but wonder if you even read it, or if you ever had any intention of following it.
I needed time for my body to do what it was designed to do. I needed support from my doctor, from my nurses, and from my hospital. What I did NOT need was to be pumped full of drugs, have multiple interventions that I specifically stated I did not want and pushed into a surgical procedure. I am especially struck by our final interaction prior to consent. Never, for the rest of my life, will I forget how you made your speech, and then stalked out of the room. I recall thinking “I’m actually paying to be treated like this? To be verbally bereted and physically tortured?”
I have no joy when recalling my children’s births.
I have regrets.
I regret coming in for an appointment that day when labor was in the early stages. I regret listening to you that I should go to the hospital “just for some monitoring.” I regret not leaving when labor stalled. I regret agreeing to pitocin. I regret allowing you to turn up the pitocin to a point where I could not stand it without pain relief. I regret getting the epidural instead of just screaming my lungs out until it was over. I regret letting you artificially rupture my membranes. I regret allowing the monitoring – internal and external. I regret not telling you that this was my baby, my birth experience, and I wasn’t having a C-section without a court order.
But what I regret most is choosing you as my provider. I knew going in that you had a high C-section rate, that you had already given me most of those interventions with my first child. But I liked you, and allowed that to influence my decision.
How I wished I had chosen someone I loathed who would have worked with me to get the natural birth I desired. In the end, liking you got me nothing that I REALLY wanted.
So, here is your money. I don’t particularly think you have earned it, but I want to be free of this one last reminder of the worst experience of my life.
Sincerely,
Jenn in St. Louis
Monday, July 20, 2009
Michel Odent's Observations about Men in Birth
An article about Michel Odent and his observation that the presence of a man in labor and birth disrupts and slows labor has created quite a discussion on Face Book (and probably elsewhere).
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25804208-36398,00.html
I was encouraged to whip up a piece with his interview with me where he talked about this.
In it, one can hear Michel Odent, MD, in his own words, discussing his observations about the impact of men in the birthing environment.
My teacher of birth trauma healing, Raymond Castellino, has collected obstetric text books from the forties. It is helpful in treating the trauma from birth to know the trends and what was likely during an era. Obstetrics is like fashion; it goes in trends. Every ten years obstetrics promotes something very different as "scientific". In the 70's the push by who? WAS it women? got father's in the hospital room with birthing woman.
In the 1940's the obstetric text books warned against the use of drugs ... for the mother AND the baby. An interesting piece of history is that it was WOMEN who wanted to use drugs during birth. It is part of the feminist movement. Women campaigned and fought for the right for "pain relief" during birth. Even the Pope had to ok it because women by God's orders, remember, are meant to bear the pain of labor for punishment for the ruin of Man.
Odent's voice and observations must be heard during this time of strength of women claiming their bodies and their baby's birth and the fight to keep midwifery legal and so the right for women to choose the caregiver and place she chooses.
The question of whether or not it is best for the birth of the baby and for the mother AND for the FATHER for him to be there has to be considered.
Odent has unique perspective that likely few if any OBSTETRICIANS have experienced. He shares at the beginning that how his observations of fathers disrupting the mother's labor and birth is based on attending birth in every situation home and hospital, both excluding fathers and including fathers. He started in the early 50's as a physician/surgeon and attended women where the father was not present. Then in 70's to mid 80's he attended births in the hospital where the father WAS present; then a decade of attending homebirths with the father present. And since the early 2000's he attends homebirth with an experienced woman, a Doula, with his presence only to make it legal. He and the father are not in the birth.
I have heard often this past two years working on this film of fathers who do not want to be in the birth, and the now forty years later the expectation is that every man must be there or something is wrong with him, he is a betrayor if he doesn't want to be there and perform the way he is supposed to. Never mind that HIS feelings are rarely considered, never mind that HE must be prepared to participate in the birth that is heavily controlled by others and by DOGMA. Either he has to abide by the "medical model" and physicians and nurses rules and expectations based on insurance and hospital needs, or he has to abide by the "midwifery model" including homebirth and the midwives guidance, theories, and expectations.
Society, theorists, doctors, women have very rarely included the male in ANY decision but Odent is saying they haven't LOOKED AT THE IMPACT on LABOR AND BIRTH.
Odent is questioning how the social expectation of men at birth happened and progressed, WITHIN THE HOSPITAL SETTING, not by midwives, but by theorists, in the early 70's, without ever looking at the impact of the change; without asking HOW WILL IT IMPACT THE LABORING MOTHER?
What I, the baby advocate/birth trauma therapist, filmmaker/interviewer, sees is that men in birth is one more issue in birth that is defined and controlled by the medical establishment. As long as birth is in the clutches of doctors, insurers, and lawyers, what ever we do as consumers to try to change practices within the system are going to be distorted and manipulated to stay within that framework.
The question is, WHAT did happen when the movement, the "fight" began to include fathers? How did men participate in it? DO men really truly want to be in the middle of it? And, do women really want them to be? Can a man today say so if he doesn't want to? Society now, 40 years later, expects a man to be there or something is wrong with him. Now, it's a "betrayal" of his partner if he doesn't.
Perhaps, women who birth at home will begin to validate his findings. I hear it enough. She doesn't actually want him there. ONE MORE thing that women and men DON'T communicate honestly -- because they haven't the language or training. WHAT do women want when they free themselves from the medical establishment's restriction and dogma? WHAT DO MEN REALLY WANT AND NEED? We need to know this important information in order to create a new way of birthing.
We need to find out ... way beyond the medicalized, indoctrinated dogma of what we've been taught is normal ... we need to support women to choose to not have their husband and we need to support men who now feel rejected or left out when she doesn't. In part two Dr. Odent explains more the impact on the relationship the disruption of birth where there is this conflict.
I think men might be numb and angry and overzealous, over needy to violent in their efforts to control women because of their exclusion in birth that has also taken away THEIR ability to really participate in the way they need to, the way the nature intended?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25804208-36398,00.html
I was encouraged to whip up a piece with his interview with me where he talked about this.
In it, one can hear Michel Odent, MD, in his own words, discussing his observations about the impact of men in the birthing environment.
My teacher of birth trauma healing, Raymond Castellino, has collected obstetric text books from the forties. It is helpful in treating the trauma from birth to know the trends and what was likely during an era. Obstetrics is like fashion; it goes in trends. Every ten years obstetrics promotes something very different as "scientific". In the 70's the push by who? WAS it women? got father's in the hospital room with birthing woman.
In the 1940's the obstetric text books warned against the use of drugs ... for the mother AND the baby. An interesting piece of history is that it was WOMEN who wanted to use drugs during birth. It is part of the feminist movement. Women campaigned and fought for the right for "pain relief" during birth. Even the Pope had to ok it because women by God's orders, remember, are meant to bear the pain of labor for punishment for the ruin of Man.
Odent's voice and observations must be heard during this time of strength of women claiming their bodies and their baby's birth and the fight to keep midwifery legal and so the right for women to choose the caregiver and place she chooses.
The question of whether or not it is best for the birth of the baby and for the mother AND for the FATHER for him to be there has to be considered.
Odent has unique perspective that likely few if any OBSTETRICIANS have experienced. He shares at the beginning that how his observations of fathers disrupting the mother's labor and birth is based on attending birth in every situation home and hospital, both excluding fathers and including fathers. He started in the early 50's as a physician/surgeon and attended women where the father was not present. Then in 70's to mid 80's he attended births in the hospital where the father WAS present; then a decade of attending homebirths with the father present. And since the early 2000's he attends homebirth with an experienced woman, a Doula, with his presence only to make it legal. He and the father are not in the birth.
I have heard often this past two years working on this film of fathers who do not want to be in the birth, and the now forty years later the expectation is that every man must be there or something is wrong with him, he is a betrayor if he doesn't want to be there and perform the way he is supposed to. Never mind that HIS feelings are rarely considered, never mind that HE must be prepared to participate in the birth that is heavily controlled by others and by DOGMA. Either he has to abide by the "medical model" and physicians and nurses rules and expectations based on insurance and hospital needs, or he has to abide by the "midwifery model" including homebirth and the midwives guidance, theories, and expectations.
Society, theorists, doctors, women have very rarely included the male in ANY decision but Odent is saying they haven't LOOKED AT THE IMPACT on LABOR AND BIRTH.
Odent is questioning how the social expectation of men at birth happened and progressed, WITHIN THE HOSPITAL SETTING, not by midwives, but by theorists, in the early 70's, without ever looking at the impact of the change; without asking HOW WILL IT IMPACT THE LABORING MOTHER?
What I, the baby advocate/birth trauma therapist, filmmaker/interviewer, sees is that men in birth is one more issue in birth that is defined and controlled by the medical establishment. As long as birth is in the clutches of doctors, insurers, and lawyers, what ever we do as consumers to try to change practices within the system are going to be distorted and manipulated to stay within that framework.
The question is, WHAT did happen when the movement, the "fight" began to include fathers? How did men participate in it? DO men really truly want to be in the middle of it? And, do women really want them to be? Can a man today say so if he doesn't want to? Society now, 40 years later, expects a man to be there or something is wrong with him. Now, it's a "betrayal" of his partner if he doesn't.
Perhaps, women who birth at home will begin to validate his findings. I hear it enough. She doesn't actually want him there. ONE MORE thing that women and men DON'T communicate honestly -- because they haven't the language or training. WHAT do women want when they free themselves from the medical establishment's restriction and dogma? WHAT DO MEN REALLY WANT AND NEED? We need to know this important information in order to create a new way of birthing.
We need to find out ... way beyond the medicalized, indoctrinated dogma of what we've been taught is normal ... we need to support women to choose to not have their husband and we need to support men who now feel rejected or left out when she doesn't. In part two Dr. Odent explains more the impact on the relationship the disruption of birth where there is this conflict.
I think men might be numb and angry and overzealous, over needy to violent in their efforts to control women because of their exclusion in birth that has also taken away THEIR ability to really participate in the way they need to, the way the nature intended?
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Baby's Colic Linked to Fathers Prenatal Depression
Colicky infants who cry excessively may be more common in children of depressed men, Dutch researchers said Monday. Go to full article here.
Depression before child's birth
Most research done regarding birth -- especially about the baby, but also the mother, and definitely the father, leaves out THE BIRTH! It is a huge, huge, I think GLARING omission in most research designed to tell us very important information about babies and parents. How can it when it doesn't include the baby, mother's, and father's experiences of birth?
Think about it. Be aware and notice this. From now see I bet you will also notice that our language when speaking, reading, and researching about the baby, the mother, father, and family and baby development almost always uses the phrase "before and after birth?" The baby and parents for generations have left the hospital expected to suck up whatever happened and "be happy that the baby is alive." I believe it is a monumental break in our fundamental relationships. Women and men, mothers and fathers, go home to live their lives with these huge unnamed, unrecognized, unintegrated individual and family violations and woundings.
How could science leave out the EXPERIENCE of birth for the baby, the mother, and the father as a factor in any research? How could the impact of birth on us as a baby not be recognized and how could our mother's experience of birthing us and our father's experience of being there and seeing us come into the world not be the subject of research? When it is allowed to become the subject of joy and power, maybe .....
Depression before child's birth
Recognizing paternal depression next to maternal depression before childbirth could be beneficial for identifying fathers who need help for themselves and their children.
It's unlikely the baby's crying caused men to be depressed since they were screened for the condition before the child was born, they noted.
The researchers speculated that the link between a father's depression and their baby's colic could be related to:
- Genetics (though false paternity could not be ruled out in the study.)
- Poor interaction between depressed fathers and their infants.
- Indirect stress from marital, family or economic pressures.
Most research done regarding birth -- especially about the baby, but also the mother, and definitely the father, leaves out THE BIRTH! It is a huge, huge, I think GLARING omission in most research designed to tell us very important information about babies and parents. How can it when it doesn't include the baby, mother's, and father's experiences of birth?
Think about it. Be aware and notice this. From now see I bet you will also notice that our language when speaking, reading, and researching about the baby, the mother, father, and family and baby development almost always uses the phrase "before and after birth?" The baby and parents for generations have left the hospital expected to suck up whatever happened and "be happy that the baby is alive." I believe it is a monumental break in our fundamental relationships. Women and men, mothers and fathers, go home to live their lives with these huge unnamed, unrecognized, unintegrated individual and family violations and woundings.
How could science leave out the EXPERIENCE of birth for the baby, the mother, and the father as a factor in any research? How could the impact of birth on us as a baby not be recognized and how could our mother's experience of birthing us and our father's experience of being there and seeing us come into the world not be the subject of research? When it is allowed to become the subject of joy and power, maybe .....
Monday, June 22, 2009
Father's with Babies Study
FATHERS WITH BABIES STUDY
Every day, over 10,000 men in the United States become the fathers of new babies. Surprisingly little is known about the social and emotional experiences of fathers with babies and young children. In an interest to improve the well-being of new dads – and to foster the well-being of their children and families – the purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences of dads with babies, as well as the causes and consequences of the joys and challenges these fathers face.
ABOUT THE STUDY
This study is being conducted by Dr. Will Courtenay, in collaboration with the Center for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School . Dr. Courtenay is an internationally recognized researcher and scholar whose work focuses on understanding and helping men and fathers. Dr. Courtenay has served on the clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School , and the University of California , San Francisco , Medical School .
Taking part in this study means completing an online survey. In the first part of the survey, you will be asked some background information about you and your baby. In the rest of the survey, you will be asked about experiences you’ve had as a father and with your spouse or partner, as well as your attitudes on a variety of topics. You will also be asked questions about your feelings and behaviors that relate to your moods. The survey should take about 20-25 minutes to complete.
The survey is completely anonymous. You will not be asked to identify yourself or provide any identifying information.
WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE
For this study, we are interested in the participation of adult males over 18 years of age, who have had a baby (or babies) within the last year. If you are not an adult male over 18 years of age and have not had a baby (or babies) within the last year, thank you for your interest in the study, but please do not continue with the survey.
WHY YOU SHOULD PARTICIPATE
Fathers have an enormously positive impact on their babies and young children. We understand this from lots of good research. But the impact that babies have on their fathers, is relatively unknown. Your participation will help to generate a greater understanding of the experiences of dads with babies. We hope that, ultimately, this greater understanding will help foster the well-being of fathers, their children and their families as a whole.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
If you would like additional information about the study, or have questions about it, you can contact Dr. Will Courtenay at DadsStudy@MensDoc. com to answer any questions about the survey.
STUDY LINK
You can go to the survey by clicking on this link:
https://www. psychdata. com/s.asp? SID=130274
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ __
Will Courtenay, PhD, LCSW, "The Men's Doc"
Helping Men Live Happier, More Fulfilling Lives
McLean Hospital , Harvard Medical School
2811 College Avenue, Suite 1
Berkeley , CA 94705-2165
415-346-6719
DrCourtenay@ TheMensDoc. com
TheMensDoc.com
Every day, over 10,000 men in the United States become the fathers of new babies. Surprisingly little is known about the social and emotional experiences of fathers with babies and young children. In an interest to improve the well-being of new dads – and to foster the well-being of their children and families – the purpose of this study is to better understand the experiences of dads with babies, as well as the causes and consequences of the joys and challenges these fathers face.
ABOUT THE STUDY
This study is being conducted by Dr. Will Courtenay, in collaboration with the Center for Men and Young Men at McLean Hospital, Harvard Medical School . Dr. Courtenay is an internationally recognized researcher and scholar whose work focuses on understanding and helping men and fathers. Dr. Courtenay has served on the clinical faculty in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School , and the University of California , San Francisco , Medical School .
Taking part in this study means completing an online survey. In the first part of the survey, you will be asked some background information about you and your baby. In the rest of the survey, you will be asked about experiences you’ve had as a father and with your spouse or partner, as well as your attitudes on a variety of topics. You will also be asked questions about your feelings and behaviors that relate to your moods. The survey should take about 20-25 minutes to complete.
The survey is completely anonymous. You will not be asked to identify yourself or provide any identifying information.
WHO SHOULD PARTICIPATE
For this study, we are interested in the participation of adult males over 18 years of age, who have had a baby (or babies) within the last year. If you are not an adult male over 18 years of age and have not had a baby (or babies) within the last year, thank you for your interest in the study, but please do not continue with the survey.
WHY YOU SHOULD PARTICIPATE
Fathers have an enormously positive impact on their babies and young children. We understand this from lots of good research. But the impact that babies have on their fathers, is relatively unknown. Your participation will help to generate a greater understanding of the experiences of dads with babies. We hope that, ultimately, this greater understanding will help foster the well-being of fathers, their children and their families as a whole.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
If you would like additional information about the study, or have questions about it, you can contact Dr. Will Courtenay at DadsStudy@MensDoc. com to answer any questions about the survey.
STUDY LINK
You can go to the survey by clicking on this link:
https://www. psychdata. com/s.asp? SID=130274
____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ __
Will Courtenay, PhD, LCSW, "The Men's Doc"
Helping Men Live Happier, More Fulfilling Lives
McLean Hospital , Harvard Medical School
2811 College Avenue, Suite 1
Berkeley , CA 94705-2165
415-346-6719
DrCourtenay@ TheMensDoc. com
TheMensDoc.com
Thursday, May 14, 2009
YouTube Censored ME and other news
But someone had to report it as "offensive". What is up with that!!?? I take great care to blur and to be conservative. I did show breasts in the entry to the Better Birth Virginia Contest. I want to engage people who would not have heard this info ... people who are no so free as to birth so freely as women at home do. What was offensive? The breasts? Or the message -- that the medical establishment has been cutting human babies off from their vital placental blood that would give them the better chance for GOOD LIFETIME HEALTH!? And, in doing so, they also cut the mother and baby's relationship short so that we will have a myriad of psycho-social issues all rooted in disempowered women and maternal guilt and shame. Am I mad? YEAH.
My son is in Afghanistan again .. where he has been most of this last three years. I can bear it only when I keep focused on his passion for protecting this country and our freedom. I justify that he is preserving my freedom of speech, my freedom to speak on behalf of babies and men ... and this really pisses me off!!
I had to redo and reload the trailer and my entry to the Better Birth Virginia Contest. I hope you'll vote for my short, "We Can Be Much Kinder".
The music is original composed and performed FOR me by Michael Stillwater, www.InnerHarmony.com at an Honoring Ceremony in Scottsdale, AZ in March 2009. In a group of eight other people, my intention/need was to have focus in my project and as I was feeling overwhelmed by my family's wounding (the hospital birth family), my own birth, and my babies births, I asked to be able to forgive and to have compassion for all involved. A few moments later Michael "channeled" this brand new song for me. He is also doing original music for Part One/Two. Check out his website and the Honor Ceremony.
In early June I will be meeting with an editor in MO to polish up Part One. It's really happening. Meanwhile, I am fundraising big time to pay for it and the upgraded professional production package. See previous posting for details. Please check out the donation plan I have outlined here.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR WORK IN OUR EFFORT TO HEAL BIRTH!!
Yeah, I am shouting that ... so grateful for you all.
My son is in Afghanistan again .. where he has been most of this last three years. I can bear it only when I keep focused on his passion for protecting this country and our freedom. I justify that he is preserving my freedom of speech, my freedom to speak on behalf of babies and men ... and this really pisses me off!!
I had to redo and reload the trailer and my entry to the Better Birth Virginia Contest. I hope you'll vote for my short, "We Can Be Much Kinder".
The music is original composed and performed FOR me by Michael Stillwater, www.InnerHarmony.com at an Honoring Ceremony in Scottsdale, AZ in March 2009. In a group of eight other people, my intention/need was to have focus in my project and as I was feeling overwhelmed by my family's wounding (the hospital birth family), my own birth, and my babies births, I asked to be able to forgive and to have compassion for all involved. A few moments later Michael "channeled" this brand new song for me. He is also doing original music for Part One/Two. Check out his website and the Honor Ceremony.
In early June I will be meeting with an editor in MO to polish up Part One. It's really happening. Meanwhile, I am fundraising big time to pay for it and the upgraded professional production package. See previous posting for details. Please check out the donation plan I have outlined here.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND YOUR WORK IN OUR EFFORT TO HEAL BIRTH!!
Yeah, I am shouting that ... so grateful for you all.
Friday, May 8, 2009
Film and Donation Update
I am leaving CA tomorrow and heading east to Missouri first and later to Illinois, and in June to Georgia, NY, and wherever else the story (part 3 and 4) leads me. I am still the one-woman production team -- traveling, filming/interviewing, and editing, and I anticipate doing so through June. It is very challenging but I do know the light at the end of the tunnel is not a freight train. I have a colleague/editor who will be available in mid July and I hope we are working on Part 3 by then!
I have changed my production plans regarding Part One ... which is good because the quality will be better but not so good as it means a delay. The company I am using to create the end product has two options. One allows me to get 1-300 burned copies and requires that I do the DVD label and cover design on their online graphics program, which I did in January/February. The other option is an industry quality glass mastered product and requires a HUGE minimum order and requires that they do in-house label and cover design at a big cost -- even if using my design. I have decided to go for the second option. I have decided to go for my first-run/printing/mastering as the real deal, the whole shebang .... and not end up with two versions, the original being a lessor quality. But I have to raise more funds and that delays the whole process until I do ... while completing the thing, of course.
I have updated the information to the right here regarding donating to the project and being the first to receive Part One:
This is the best opportunity to get your copy of Part One at a decent price. When the film is released the price will go up and shipping will be added.
Because the film's audience is also Doulas, midwives, and childbirth educators -- and to show my gratitude for your support -- people who have donated to receive Part One will also be eligible for special discount prices on future bulk orders (of all four parts as they will come out separately) to sell to their clients. Donors over $40 will also be eligible for an additional discount and to have their business/website listed in the closing credits.
Donors over $100 will also be eligible for all future deals related to the film, such as the discounts and special benefits (tbd) for screenings and/to raise funds for local birth groups.
All donors will be listed in the "thank you" in the credits.
Part 2: His Moment of Awe is due out hopefully by Father's Day ... yeah, that could be 2010, but let's all hope for 2009!!
Part 1 will expand upon the information presented in the trailer. Looking at Andrew's birth, part one will provide the basic information men and women need to make birth safer -- wherever they give birth. The series is designed for women and men to present to their caregiver -- midwife, nurse, or doctor; and for childbirth educators, midwives and doctors to show to expectant men and women.Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Part One Update
Just wanted to let you know that I am still working on Part One of the film. I had really hoped to have Part One ready by the first of May ... and here it is May 6th already. I know, I know ... I've been saying that for every month for six months. Since November I've been in Phoenix one month and CA one month, back to Phoenix, and then to California again. I am still interviewing and editing which is all very time consuming. There is so much to do and as the one-woman crew I am always up to my eyeballs and way behind.
I had a tragic family emergency a week ago and then the next day I also found out that my younger son has returned to Afghanistan -- again. I was out-of-commission last week and I am now standing again. A whole lot of life has happened in the past three-4 years to get me prepared for doing this film and to get me on the road, and big time while I've been "on the road" for the past sixteen months. It's been a truly exciting, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Living one's dream always is. I have met and interviewed the most wonderful people and I am most grateful for the loving and generous support of people around the world.
Being "on the road" is so exciting, but it makes editing very challenging. It takes time to set up and get back into the groove. I am looking forward to settling back into home and hearth in the fall to finish editing Parts 2, 3, and 4 ... "where" is yet to be revealed to me. Any ideas?
I am very aware of how important it is that Part One be done well and the closer I get the more aware I am of how challenging it is "to be done" (on many levels.) I am reminded of when I painted and how hard it was to be done. It is more like how doing a huge 1000 piece zigsaw puzzle appears to me -- only twice as many pieces and they have multiple places they "fit". You only use half the pieces and they could fit together anywhere. It's hard to know when it is completed. The story is amazing though ... and I am very much looking forward to information being available.
I want to thank everyone who has donated to my film and who awaits the arrival of their copy. I appreciate your patience, and your enthusiastic, passionate, and generous support. I couldn't do it without you ... and without the work that you are doing in the field. I am grateful for your support. I really feel the love for Andrew and his mother and father ... as this film is for them ... my loved ones who experienced the violations in their births and in their baby's births, and whose story will help many, many others.
Part One will be worth the wait .... I promise.
I had a tragic family emergency a week ago and then the next day I also found out that my younger son has returned to Afghanistan -- again. I was out-of-commission last week and I am now standing again. A whole lot of life has happened in the past three-4 years to get me prepared for doing this film and to get me on the road, and big time while I've been "on the road" for the past sixteen months. It's been a truly exciting, once-in-a-lifetime experience. Living one's dream always is. I have met and interviewed the most wonderful people and I am most grateful for the loving and generous support of people around the world.
Being "on the road" is so exciting, but it makes editing very challenging. It takes time to set up and get back into the groove. I am looking forward to settling back into home and hearth in the fall to finish editing Parts 2, 3, and 4 ... "where" is yet to be revealed to me. Any ideas?
I am very aware of how important it is that Part One be done well and the closer I get the more aware I am of how challenging it is "to be done" (on many levels.) I am reminded of when I painted and how hard it was to be done. It is more like how doing a huge 1000 piece zigsaw puzzle appears to me -- only twice as many pieces and they have multiple places they "fit". You only use half the pieces and they could fit together anywhere. It's hard to know when it is completed. The story is amazing though ... and I am very much looking forward to information being available.
I want to thank everyone who has donated to my film and who awaits the arrival of their copy. I appreciate your patience, and your enthusiastic, passionate, and generous support. I couldn't do it without you ... and without the work that you are doing in the field. I am grateful for your support. I really feel the love for Andrew and his mother and father ... as this film is for them ... my loved ones who experienced the violations in their births and in their baby's births, and whose story will help many, many others.
Part One will be worth the wait .... I promise.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Home births: here's three we made earlier
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article6134730.एस
From The Times
April 21, 2009
Home births: here's three we made earlier
A former Blue Peter presenter on why, when it comes to childbirth, there's no place like home
Peter Duncan
I'm frustrated by the clichés surrounding childbirth. If I read another article such as Melanie Reid's in this newspaper last week - in which she said that women who choose home births are spoilt and complacent - or have to listen to another couple state that their baby would have died if they hadn't been born in hospital, I shall eat the next plancenta I find in the freezer.
Grotesque though this may sound, occasionally I have come across them there - where else can they go when you have your babies at home? You can't leave them for the dustman along with the empty champagne bottles।
I have a distinct inner feminine nature। Certainly my male outer shell was almost invisible when I partnered my wife in our children's home births। There were no sandals worn, as Reid suggested, nor any sign of squeamishness। My wife chose to have her babies with a midwife, who was with her throughout the entire journey - from when those first few cells were dividing to the time the baby had gained a few pounds to compulsory breastfeeding। She also chose to not to go into hospital, a place dominated by inner and outer males whose protocols dictate the procedure in the business of birth. All birthing animals like to be born - and die, incidentally - in familiar, dark and gentle places.
I might have been more in line with my species by saying: “If the doctors say you have got to have a C-section because the baby is breech then they must be right because they're doctors। This is the 21st century; they can take away the pain so you don't have to suffer। What counts is the baby's life and yours। There's no need to act like a spoilt, complacent woman।”
Of course it's not compulsory for men to be there at the sharp end, cutting the cord, breathing with your partner when she panics, but it's better than hanging around in the corridor wondering what is going on।
The excitement of being at home for me meant that I had no choice but to be in the thick of it। The sheer joy of looking at your child's features and recognising your own in them, to be allowed to hold your seconds-old newborn and place her on your partner's chest. For your tears of ecstasy to drip on to your first son (after three daughters) as you repeat, mantra-like: “It's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy.” I even commented on the minor repairs of a small tear on the perineum - none of these intimacies could happen unless you are in your own space.
My mother, who was also present at one of our children's births, had a profound experience। She, like me, could remember nothing of our difficult forceps delivery; her fear of birth was expunged. The trail of little feet, who always time their entrance after the event, somehow sleeping through the raised night-time noise levels, pile in to prod, kiss and fondle their new sibling. It's a party atmosphere and everyone is invited.
It doesn't happen like that in the wing of your average hospital। My wife's future, and consequently mine, was born by the nature of our children's arrival: two breech and two cephalic (with head down, the most usual birthing position). The experience precipitated the choice of a new career for her as an independent midwife. Our first-born, Lucy, was a rare thing, spending her first year of life as a Blue Peter baby. She set the tone and I can remember arguing that if they didn't put breastfeeding on children's TV I was leaving the show. I also entertained viewers with incompetent male demonstrations of bathing, weaning and nappy changing.
The pragmatic truth about the hospital birthing industry is that we don't quite trust it to provide a proper and responsible service। It is not its fault that midwives and doctors work in dysfunctional institutions that sometimes make mistakes and misjudgments that affect us. It is not intentional. We try to choose the best hospital as we try to choose the right school, but sometimes it doesn't work out. The problem with hospitals is that they like routine and babies don't always fit into their schedule. Just check the Caesarean rate on a Friday. On the other hand what a fantastic facility to have available when there is a real problem such as pre-eclampsia or placenta praevia, and they are there to intervene and save a life. The problem is that they want to intervene in normal birth too - with epidurals, inductions, the effect of opiate drugs and inappropriate communication that can lead to poor outcomes.
Reid claims that homebirth is a minority sport. Not true. Where homebirth is available with one-to-one care the statistics shoot up. In Torbay, in Devon, it's 11 per cent. A National Childbirth Trust survey says that 25 per cent of women would consider it, if it were more available.
The real issue is not whether you have your baby at home or in a hospital, it is how you have your baby। It is “continuity of care” that is the key - a trained midwife who is with a woman from start to finish and a little beyond. It is a holistic approach because how you think and feel about it affects your confidence to give birth and function as a future parent. If you can achieve that in hospital then fine; if not, you should be able to consider alternatives.
This is where men can make a difference. You may think your role is insignificant and all you are doing is protecting your partner and unborn child by making sure they get the right treatment. Well, treatment is usually for illness and for most normal births it is not required. What is required from men is that they trust their partner's instincts and understand emotionally what is occurring. The first call is still your GP: if you don't like what you hear get a second opinion. Take responsibility and stop colluding with other males with the mindset of taking control.
I think I was brave to side with my wife's instincts when she became “high risk” because the baby was breech। “You don't want a dead baby” was the advice I got from everyone. I knew that what I said to my wife would have a huge impact on what we did. I know most males would not take that route, fearing that the blame of giving the wrong signals would fall on them if it all went wrong. But that's what responsibility is: making choices with your heart and mind and living with the consequences.
As you get older, increasingly, your heart rules your head. When I think back to the moment my grown children entered the world just feet from where I'm sitting yet more tears drip into my keyboard. I think about how those first few moments together has affected everything that has happened since.
www.heresoneimadeearlier.com
From The Times
April 21, 2009
Home births: here's three we made earlier
A former Blue Peter presenter on why, when it comes to childbirth, there's no place like home
Peter Duncan
I'm frustrated by the clichés surrounding childbirth. If I read another article such as Melanie Reid's in this newspaper last week - in which she said that women who choose home births are spoilt and complacent - or have to listen to another couple state that their baby would have died if they hadn't been born in hospital, I shall eat the next plancenta I find in the freezer.
Grotesque though this may sound, occasionally I have come across them there - where else can they go when you have your babies at home? You can't leave them for the dustman along with the empty champagne bottles।
I have a distinct inner feminine nature। Certainly my male outer shell was almost invisible when I partnered my wife in our children's home births। There were no sandals worn, as Reid suggested, nor any sign of squeamishness। My wife chose to have her babies with a midwife, who was with her throughout the entire journey - from when those first few cells were dividing to the time the baby had gained a few pounds to compulsory breastfeeding। She also chose to not to go into hospital, a place dominated by inner and outer males whose protocols dictate the procedure in the business of birth. All birthing animals like to be born - and die, incidentally - in familiar, dark and gentle places.
I might have been more in line with my species by saying: “If the doctors say you have got to have a C-section because the baby is breech then they must be right because they're doctors। This is the 21st century; they can take away the pain so you don't have to suffer। What counts is the baby's life and yours। There's no need to act like a spoilt, complacent woman।”
Of course it's not compulsory for men to be there at the sharp end, cutting the cord, breathing with your partner when she panics, but it's better than hanging around in the corridor wondering what is going on।
The excitement of being at home for me meant that I had no choice but to be in the thick of it। The sheer joy of looking at your child's features and recognising your own in them, to be allowed to hold your seconds-old newborn and place her on your partner's chest. For your tears of ecstasy to drip on to your first son (after three daughters) as you repeat, mantra-like: “It's a boy, it's a boy, it's a boy.” I even commented on the minor repairs of a small tear on the perineum - none of these intimacies could happen unless you are in your own space.
My mother, who was also present at one of our children's births, had a profound experience। She, like me, could remember nothing of our difficult forceps delivery; her fear of birth was expunged. The trail of little feet, who always time their entrance after the event, somehow sleeping through the raised night-time noise levels, pile in to prod, kiss and fondle their new sibling. It's a party atmosphere and everyone is invited.
It doesn't happen like that in the wing of your average hospital। My wife's future, and consequently mine, was born by the nature of our children's arrival: two breech and two cephalic (with head down, the most usual birthing position). The experience precipitated the choice of a new career for her as an independent midwife. Our first-born, Lucy, was a rare thing, spending her first year of life as a Blue Peter baby. She set the tone and I can remember arguing that if they didn't put breastfeeding on children's TV I was leaving the show. I also entertained viewers with incompetent male demonstrations of bathing, weaning and nappy changing.
The pragmatic truth about the hospital birthing industry is that we don't quite trust it to provide a proper and responsible service। It is not its fault that midwives and doctors work in dysfunctional institutions that sometimes make mistakes and misjudgments that affect us. It is not intentional. We try to choose the best hospital as we try to choose the right school, but sometimes it doesn't work out. The problem with hospitals is that they like routine and babies don't always fit into their schedule. Just check the Caesarean rate on a Friday. On the other hand what a fantastic facility to have available when there is a real problem such as pre-eclampsia or placenta praevia, and they are there to intervene and save a life. The problem is that they want to intervene in normal birth too - with epidurals, inductions, the effect of opiate drugs and inappropriate communication that can lead to poor outcomes.
Reid claims that homebirth is a minority sport. Not true. Where homebirth is available with one-to-one care the statistics shoot up. In Torbay, in Devon, it's 11 per cent. A National Childbirth Trust survey says that 25 per cent of women would consider it, if it were more available.
The real issue is not whether you have your baby at home or in a hospital, it is how you have your baby। It is “continuity of care” that is the key - a trained midwife who is with a woman from start to finish and a little beyond. It is a holistic approach because how you think and feel about it affects your confidence to give birth and function as a future parent. If you can achieve that in hospital then fine; if not, you should be able to consider alternatives.
This is where men can make a difference. You may think your role is insignificant and all you are doing is protecting your partner and unborn child by making sure they get the right treatment. Well, treatment is usually for illness and for most normal births it is not required. What is required from men is that they trust their partner's instincts and understand emotionally what is occurring. The first call is still your GP: if you don't like what you hear get a second opinion. Take responsibility and stop colluding with other males with the mindset of taking control.
I think I was brave to side with my wife's instincts when she became “high risk” because the baby was breech। “You don't want a dead baby” was the advice I got from everyone. I knew that what I said to my wife would have a huge impact on what we did. I know most males would not take that route, fearing that the blame of giving the wrong signals would fall on them if it all went wrong. But that's what responsibility is: making choices with your heart and mind and living with the consequences.
As you get older, increasingly, your heart rules your head. When I think back to the moment my grown children entered the world just feet from where I'm sitting yet more tears drip into my keyboard. I think about how those first few moments together has affected everything that has happened since.
www.heresoneimadeearlier.com
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I entered late into a conversation going on a friend's page on FaceBook.
Her status today was: BH: wants to know... what is WRONG with men? Sheesh.The comments that followed speak to the part four of my film that is about healing the masculine, so we can heal the feminine and the relationship between them. I shared the conversation with my friend and cohost, and fellow rabblerouser and intactivist, Rich. He emailed me back, "It's a tragedy for all the women who are missing out on natural men..." That's Rich. Simple words, profoundly to the point.
So, my friend's status today was:BH: wants to know... what is WRONG with men? Sheesh.
Here are the responses from mostly women:
RBR: Just a bit of genetic trivia... The “X” sex-chromosome consists of 3000 – 4000 genes. The “Y” sex-chromosome only consists of 50 genes (and most non-functional).
RCG: clueless, just clueless... and how frustrating to try to explain to people who don't know, what they don't know and they think they know it all!
EBA: all things we can take care of without men
--- Ok, this is the one that got my "dog in the fight." God DID provide him with enough blood and the nerves to operate not only his brain and penis, but to have them connected to his heart. It is adults who have robbed the male of his blood (separating him from his placenta and blood) and his neural connections between penis and brain (CIRCUMCISION). The baby did not choose this, and I am pretty certain that the adult man is pretty damn mad about it .. even if he can't name it.
I'm with U Erika... my toy works REAL well and I don't have to have a headache... fake or real!
BH: Monika is on the right track... well, the track I was on. I mean, almost every single man I know or have known or watch on the news or tv or even who paints the stars... men have no couth when it comes to their genitals. I just do not understand how they don't know WE WILL FIND OUT. Do they *really* think they are so sly we can't smell perfume? Hear the hushed tones? Figure out the paycheck isn't equal to all the time away from home? It's baffling to me. They must think WE are idiots.