abortion debate- has anyone heard of her??

[StarTrekCaptain]

Yes, I don't think people should have sex until they are married. I don't think there's anyhting wrong with birth control, but if you are using birth control and you STILL get pregnant, then IMO God really wanted that baby. Just my opinion, that's all.

[[email protected]]

I will take this point by point....

--It's not being overweight or underweight that causes some complications. It's holding back on eating enough food, and not eating the right kinds of food.

--You said, "But you said your self that there are certain complications but wrote them off because they were brought on by the actions of the woman. Well, those are still problems regardless of how they occur. "

My point was that when we know what causes certain complications, we can prevent them by eliminating those causes. A good midwife will discuss nutrition with her clients at every prenatal visit, because she knows that in doing so, she is preventing a host of complications later. Since we know that immobility and lack of food during labor can cause fetal distress and lack of progress, we can keep our clients out of bed and keep them eating. Almost all complications can be prevented by practicing in this fashion.

--"......a tear on the inside" could mean a lot of things. If it was a case of the placenta detaching from the uterus, that is usually caused by inadequate nutrition, or high blood pressure, which is also caused by poor nutrition (as in not enough protein, not enough salt, and not enough calories).

It can also mean that there was a tear in the cervix, which is usually caused by the doctor pushing the labor to go too fast with drugs, or pressuring her to push too soon or too hard.

"Tears" do not just happen inside a uterus. Sometimes after a previous C-section, the scar will separate a little bit during a later labor, but they almost never cause a problem, unless the mother is being given a labor-stimulating drug.

--I am not blaming the mothers for affecting their pregnancies and labors, except for when they choose to keep their weight down on their own. Most of the time, it is the doctors who are giving them misguided advice and persuading them to accept medical technology that leads to complications.

--I am an RN too, and I can tell you that most RN's do not understand the type of information that natural-birth midwives, and doctors, and RN's like me know and teach and practice, so I am not surprised that your mother is not familiar with it. For example, most mainstream doctors and RN's still believe that too much salt in pregnancy causes high blood pressure, when the opposite is actually true. Farmers know enough to put out salt licks for their pregnant cows, but many birth attendants tell their healthy clients to cut down on their salt intake--how does that make sense?

--Saying that a pelvis is too small is one of the most common reasons given by doctors for a C-section. And it is also one of the most common mistaken reasons that is given for a C-section.

When women are kept in bed and not allowed to walk during labor, the pelvis cannot stretch the way it is designed to do. When they are told to push while sitting on their tailbones, or lying on their backs, their pelvises cannot stretch the way that they are designed to do. When women squat to give birth, their pelvises can stretch an extra 1-2 cm, which can make all the difference.

One pediatrician that was in one of my prenatal classes said that at the hospital where he worked, they had a 33% C-section rate, and it was his job to do the first check of all the babies. He said that most, if not all, of the C-section babies had perfectly round heads, which told him that there hadn't been a serious attempt at labor at all--if there had been, the babies would have had "cone heads" from trying to fit into the pelvis.

--A cervix can have difficulty dilating for many reasons, most of them resolve-able by natural means.

One of the more common reasons is lack of food. Most hospitals do not allow women to eat during labor, which often leads to labor stopping and refusing to progress. Low blood sugar leads to the body breaking down protein for calories, which results in a build up of ketones in the blood, which makes muscles weaken, and the uterus is a muscle, so it can no longer pull on the cervix and cause it to dilate.

Another common reason is positioning. The baby needs to move around a lot to find the best way to fit his head through the pelvis, and often he can't do this when the mother has been encouraged to stay in bed and to not move around much. Sometimes this lack of mobility leads to asynclitism, where the baby's head is entering the pelvis a little off-center and then can't maneuver down far enough to put pressure on the cervix to help it dilate. We have many creative techniques for helping babies get into a better position.

Another common reason is not allowing enough time. Sixteen hours may seem like a long time, but it's really not. It's very common for a mother to have a long latent phase where not much dilating happens. It's not uncommon for a latent phase to last 24-48 hrs or longer. And the first 5 cm can take much longer than the second 5 cm--once labor kicks in at about 5-6 cm, it usually goes much faster. So the best thing is to tell the mother to go home, soak in a warm tub of water for an hour, eat some real food every hour, and do activities that will help her ignore the labor--make bread, watch TV, go to the mall, play card or board games with her spouse, turn the lights out and take a nap, etc. We also sometimes engage the help of chiropractors or massage therapists. There are many comfort measures we make use of to help mothers with the long waiting. With lots of time, and creative coping techniques, and patience, the labor eventually kicks in and picks up its pace, but it takes a lot more patience and creativity than most doctors have, so women usually fare much better when they go to midwives.

With my second baby, I was 2-6 weeks late, and my labor was 5 days long, and the labor went fine, easily tolerable, and he was born a healthy baby boy, at home with a midwife. The key is to keep eating and drinking and sleeping, so that you can keep up your strength and not get too tired.

Another common reason for the cervix not dilating is muscle tension somewhere else. Whenever the laboring woman tenses muscles somewhere else in her body, her cervix also tenses up so that it cannot dilate. So one thing that we do is monitor the mother's body for tension, every time that she has a contraction. If we see her clenching her fists or curling her toes, we help her to release and relax those muscles, with massage and peaceful coaxing. This is especially true of the mother's face, lips and vocal cords. If they are tight, the cervix will be tight and resistant to dilating. So we pay special attention to not allowing her to grimace, or tighten her lips, or make high pitched tight sounds with her voice. We lightly stroke her face until she releases those muscles, and gently coach her to let the muscles go limp, and we help her lower the pitch of her voice to a lower note and guide her to half sing/half groan a lower note and add an "h" sound on the front of the note, to relax her vocal cords.

--Had your mother had her babies at a more primitive time, she most likely would have had a midwife who knew some of the techniques that we use in many midwifery practices, and she would probably have had her babies just fine the v___ way.

When you get to the point when you are ready to have children, I strongly recommend that you read this book, before you get pregnant. It has a very good section on how the prediction that a pelvis is too small, or the diagnosis that a pelvis was too small, is usually wrong.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/089...lance&n=283155

The main places in the world where that is not true are places where pubescent girls are required to carry very heavy loads on their backs in such a way that it puts a lot of pressure on their pelvises and causes them to not be able to develop properly. Growing up without proper nutrition in those cases, also adds to the problem.

--The idea that huge numbers of women died during childbirth before modern technology is a modern myth. It comes from a situation at a convention of doctors, about 30 or so years ago when a vote was taken on a statement that six times as many women died in childbirth before modern medicine took over childbirth. They voted that it was true, and ever since then it has been quoted as fact, when it was never proved by any documentation.

The fact is that the US has the most highly technologically-controlled childbirth practices in the world, and yet we are consistently the 16th or higher in the world, in terms of infant mortality rates. Sweden and Holland are almost always 1st and 2nd, with the lowest infant mortality rates. Sweden has almost all of its babies born with midwives in the hospitals, and Holland has almost all of its babies born with midwives at home (possibly shifted to hospitals more recently).

The truth is that most of the maternal deaths that happened in the primitive times were probably from malnutrition (from poverty and dependence on whatever could be grown on one's own land), from poor understanding of hygiene and germs, from lack of experienced assistance, and from less understanding of how the body works, and not from lack of technology. In fact, as the use of technology in childbirth increases, the rate of complications also goes up, because in over using the technology (which always happens), the body is blocked from being able to do what it is designed to do.

The old saying applies here--"When you give a man a hammer, everything looks like a nail" When you give a doctor medical ways to deal with complications, every variation looks like a complication.

The following books and articles document what I have been saying.....

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/089...lance&n=283155

http://www.maternalsource.com/bk575.htm

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/bio/wagner.asp

http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articl...ogyinbirth.asp

Joy

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 12, 2005 04:55 AM: Message edited by: djsnjones ]</font>

[rachie421]

LOL, Since there is too much to cover here and I dont have the time to go point by point Ill do what I can.

The 'tear' was the placenta being torn from the fetus. I couldnt remember at the time I was writing, LOL. As for my own mother. Well I noticed there was no explanation for her being a month late. Which they proved wasnt just a mistake on when they had thought she concieved. When they examined me they found that I was 43.5 weeks old or whatever it would be. I have no idea how much food my mother was allowed during labor and I do know that she was obviously in the traditinal lying down position at the hospitol. But I also know she was active and not bedridden and healthy while pregnant. I know that the 'too small' pelvis excuse is probably used too much-I highly doubt Britney Spears really needed a c-section-but I simply dont believe that that is never true as you seem to claim. My mother is almost 5ft tall and before she was pregnant weighed about 105lbs. She has a very small bone structure and was simply tiny back then. Even though she gained the proper weight-She told me about 30lbs-she still had complications. She also-for what its worth-had complications in becoming pregnant. I realize that probably most women are born with pelvises which are capable of v-aginal birth, but it seems impossible to say that all women will be born that way.

As for the convention of doctors, Im sorry but that come across as a conspiracy theory to me. Ill look it up because now youve gotton me curious, but I have a hard time digesting that one. There is more evidence to support that there were problems back then there isnt. Going back to the statement I made earlier. All the variables you have given are still proof to me that pregnany and chidbirth are tricky things. There are so many things that can easily go wrong that short of being absolutely perfect while carrying-and that seems hard in itself-you will probably run into some problem.

For what its worth, I have actually always thought that I would go to a mid-wife when I have kids of my own. I realize the instant I walk into a Dr.'s office they are going to take one look at me and say, "5ft tall and 110lbs?? C-SECTION!" And I would certainly like to avoid that if possible, LOL. So even though Im totally playing the devil's advocate here, I do agree with you on a lot and have a great deal of respect for that profession [img]smile.gif[/img]

[rachie421]

Thanks for the info. It is fascinating what the human body is capable of. Totally jumping subjects here, but talking with my buddies awhile back about bad accidents in the nfl made me look up the Joe Theismann incident when he fractured both bones in his right leg. When reading the article, after being thouroughly grossed out by the replay, he made the comment about how amazing the body is because he was only in pain for a moment or two and the endorphins kicked in and the whole leg went numb. Probably from shock I dont know Im not a doctor, but a blessing nontheless as his tibulua was sticking out of his leg [img]graemlins/gulp.gif[/img]

Anywho, I think I actually remember my ma saying something about walking around for a little bit tring to move it along. But to me honest I dont think she ever even got to hard contractions. Since I was so late and she was 'taking too long' they did the c-section. And actually, after my birth and probably related to that surgery, she developed severe endometriosis and had to have a full hysterectomy at only 35 [img]eek.gif[/img] Poor woman. Anyway, Im getting so disgusted with how many women today ask for a c-section because they dont want to go through labor. Hello?! Its major surgery, at least give v-aginal birth a chance.

As for the being born late. I was a healthy 8lbs on the nose. Im assuming I must have just been developing very slow, because otherwise it would seem as if I should have been bigger. My younger brother-a planned c-section, which my mother tried fighting for a v-aginal but Doc wouldnt have it-was born 2 weeks early and weighed almost the same as I did! My ma blames my late birth on having to be born a Taurus instead of an Aries which I personify perfectly [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

I know what you are talking about with some midwives being not that disimilar from medical doctors. But I am curious to how much medical equipment that the traditional ones use. Or at least, have on hand. I already have it figured that I will definitely NOT give birth in the lying down position. I mean, it simply doesnt make sense, its all to make the Dr. more comfortable [img]tongue.gif[/img] Squatting, at the very least, lets gravity help everything along, LOL

Anyway, its been an interesting and enlightening topic [img]smile.gif[/img]

[[email protected]]

I understand what you're saying about the C-section rates in some places. Britany Spears says something to the effect that she had hers because her mother's stories all her life convinced her that the pain of childbirth was horrendous. So major surgery is better?! I don't get it.

And the C-section rate in Brazil is up to something like 97%!! And it's mostly elective C-sections--women talking their doctors into doing them--and get this--it's because they've become convinced that that will prevent incontinence when they're older--and even if it were true that that was the only way, major surgery is better than incontinence?! I don't get it.

How much equipment do traditional midwives use? It's hard to define "traditional"--not easy to generalize on some aspects of midwifery.

Certified nurse midwives who practice in hospitals use the monitor only as their own philosophy and hospital policies dictate--usually as little as possible--maybe once on admission, maybe for a certain number of minutes per hour. They often try to keep the mother out of bed. They often keep the mother off of IV's and often allow them to eat. They usually don't do episiotomies. They sometimes use birthing pools. Depending on the client and on their own comfort levels, they may facilitate the mother getting pain killers.

Certified nurse midwives and direct-entry midwives and doctors who deliver babies at home use dopplers or fetoscopes to listen to the baby's heart at various intervals, depending on the stage of labor. In rare circumstances, they use IV's--for a certain kind of infection, or for excessive bleeding. In my 28 yrs, and hundreds of home births, I have never been present when one was used. They have herbs for various labor needs, and they have herbs or pitocin for excess bleeding after the birth. They bring oxygen, but don't often need it. They have sterilized instruments for clamping and cutting the cord, and for various other things, and sutures and local anesthesia for stitching small tears. In 28 yrs of home births, I've seen maybe 1 or 2 small episiotomies cut. We never use conventional pain killers at home, because they are too dangerous and can make a good labor go sour at a moment's notice. We use herbs and homeopathy and various creative comfort measures, and sometimes call a chiropractor, for pain (which there is usually less of when the mother is free to eat and move around during labor). We usually each carry about 3 bags of stuff that we might need, and we usually go home without having used most of it. There's a long list of supplies to buy or collect that we give the parents. [img]wink.gif[/img]

Believe it or not, this is the hardest question to answer so far, because the list is so long and varied and inconsistent--each labor is so different and needs different things at different times and you just go with the flow. The "Midwifery Today" website will probably give you more info on that question.
Joy

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 12, 2005 02:50 PM: Message edited by: djsnjones ]</font>

[vor]

Gianna Jessen's story, and those of others who have survived abortion attempts, is very powerful. It's something that makes even supporters of a woman's right to choose (like myself) stop and think. As I believe Jessen herself has said, "if this is about a woman's rights, what about *my* rights?" That really is a powerful statement.

But I see this as a human rights/civil rights issue, NOT a religious one. I don't understand why pro-lifers don't spin the human rights angle more, rather than always bringing religion into it. Turning it into a religious discussion just polarizes people more, IMHO.

I have compassion for the unborn because they are potential human lives, with potential personalities and accomplishments of their own. Not because they were "created in God's image."

Just my [img]graemlins/money.gif[/img]

[cebula_2005]

Voice-of-Reason, welcome to the board!

Those arguements about how babies are human lives iwth accomplishments and personalities of their own is all very true. The arguement that each human was created in God's image does not detract from that, in my opinion, it adds to it. I mean you are saying that the baby is special because of its potential, I'm saying that too, but also because God created it.

Thanks for your views.

Joy and Shortie--interesting conversation you have going on. I have learned so much about babies. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Keep posting guys,
THanks,
Tra

[StarTrekCaptain]

I agree with you "Voice-of-Reason". You know whats interesting and nice about this board? That on one thread, I might totally disagree with "voice-of-reason" and we can debate it, and then in the next thread we might agree on the subject [img]smile.gif[/img]

I mean, I do think "created in God's image" add to it as well, but mostly I tend to just think its a life thats being taken away, that doesn't get a choice and is killed without any say in what happens to them, and any potential they may have had to change things is wiped out.

I also think it should have more of a human rights stance instead of just religious. Because many people will immediately tune you out when you start religious discussion, but more poeple will listen if you talk human rights.

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 12, 2005 09:51 PM: Message edited by: StarTrekCaptain ]</font>

[rachie421]

Human rights, what a good way to put it. I support the right to choose in the first and second trimesters, but I think the anti-abortion stance would reach a lot more people if they relied less on religion. I believe in a 'god', but I do not think everyone is created in his image or something like that. I believe in a far less controlled world where not everything happens for a reason and hearing that theory does turn me off. I think our biggest problem is not reaching out enough to young girls. I agree whole heartedly with your post [img]smile.gif[/img]

[[email protected]]

--From your description, the tear sounds like it would have been the placenta detaching from the uterus, since it is not attached to the baby. Only the cord is attached to the baby. This complication is most usually caused by the mother not getting enough food during the pregnancy (as in the Brewer Pregnancy Diet).

http://www.blueribbonbaby.org/

--There was no explanation for being a month late, because it's not a complication, if the mother has been eating a healthy diet. It is only a variation of normal. The placenta does not "age" to a dangerous level unless the mother is a smoker or eating poorly (ie not eating the Brewer Pregnancy Diet).

--Being active during pregnancy does not relate to how well the pelvis will stretch during labor. Since you do know that she was not walking around during labor, that was probably 90% of her problem, and her poor pelvis just got a bad rap from the doctor. Check out the "Silent Knife" book on that one. They have a couple of good sections on pelvises getting unjustly maligned.

--I don't claim that C-sections are never needed. They may be needed about 1-5% of the time. They are used about 20-30% of the time, and most of them happen between the hours of 9 am and 5 pm. Now we know that true emergencies aren't nearly that considerate in their timing. See the link to Marsden Wagner.
http://www.midwiferytoday.com/articl...ogyinbirth.asp
Also, I was saying that many common but unnecessary interventions/routines actually cause the fetal distress or lack of progress which leads to many unnecessary C-sections.

--Yes, I am saying that almost all women are born with the ability to birth through their pelvises. Sometimes environmental factors mess up that pelvis before the woman matures and becomes pregnant (rare if at all in this country). If this were not true, the species would not have survived for the thousands of years before modern medicine came along.

The pelvis has an intricate and fantastic design, and it has many features built in to make it a one-size fits all. The pelvis is not one solid bone, as it may appear to be. It is actually made of 3 bones. Two of them are held together in the front by a ligament in the center--in the area we call the pubic bone. Those same two bones are connected to the third bone (the "tail bone") with more ligaments, in the back, on either side of the tail bone.

When the woman is not pregnant, these ligaments that hold the pelvis together are so tight that the pelvis acts like one solid bone. But when she is pregnant, the placenta secretes a hormone that loosens those ligaments. That is one reason you will often see a woman waddle during the last weeks of her pregnancy--her pelvis bones are actually shifting as she walks. If a woman hasn't been eating quite enough food, the placenta gets a lower blood supply and can't secrete this hormone as effectively and the ligaments may not loosen as well.

During labor, as the baby moves down through the birth canal, when these ligaments are loose, the pressure of the baby inside the pelvis actually makes these loosened ligaments stretch, and the pelvis actually becomes bigger, in terms of how much diameter is there on the inside for the baby to go through.

That also brings me to why no one can tell you whether a baby will fit through your pelvis before you're actually giving birth. The hormones will not have done their full work before the end of the pregnancy, and the bones will not stretch to their full capacity until the baby is actually in the pelvis, being born--much as you can't measure a rubber band lying there on the table at rest, and tell me that that is the rubber band's full capacity. You have to put your fingers inside the rubber band and stretch it and then measure it, to see how far it will really go.

In addition, when the mother is walking around, that stretchy pelvis actually shifts around the baby's head, Every time the mother puts her weight on a leg, that side of the pelvis shifts up over that side of the baby's head, just like what you see when you rock a tight ring back and forth to get it off your finger.

In addition to that, the tail bone is actually on a hinge, and it's designed to hinge outwards as the baby is passing by the tail bone.

If the mother is lying or sitting in bed during labor, the pelvis will not be able to stretch as it wants to do, there will be no rocking motion to help it shift over the baby's head, and the tail bone will not be able to hinge outward as the baby's head tries to pass by. So the overall effect is that the pelvis will appear to be much smaller than it was designed to be.

In addition to all of that, as a back-up measure, the baby's head is designed to get smaller as it's being born. The reason for the two "soft spots" that the baby is born with is to allow for the bones to overlap as the baby is being born. The bones do overlap, making the diameter of the baby's head smaller, which is why he is born with a "cone head".

The baby is designed to tuck his chin down onto his chest, so that the smallest part of his head is going through, and he's designed to spiral through the pelvis, so that he proceeds through the widest part of the pelvis at each of the three planes of the pelvis. Again, this cannot happen as effectively if the mother is lying or sitting in bed during the labor.

--I believe that the account of the vote at the convention is in the "Five Standards" book. I can find the page number for you, if you like. Contrary to what most people believe, much of medical practice is from tradition and popular decisions, and not from scientific study or data.

--Regarding the evidence about how problems compare between then and now, I do recommend the Marsden Wagner writings, and the "Immaculate Deception" book , and the "Five Standards" book. They have a lot of numbers on that issue. All the books should be available at your local library, or through inter-library loan.

--It all boils down to trusting the design or not trusting it. It really is such an unbelievably marvelous design that it boggles the mind as I learn more and more details about it. There have been so many checks and balances and back-up measures, and back-ups to the back-ups built into the system that you really have to do a lot to make it mess up. And immobilizing the woman, and giving her various drugs, etc, etc, add up and add up until finally all those interventions overcome all the back-ups in the design, and something goes wrong. The tricky part is not so much the birth process itself, but moreso the things that are often added to or taken away from the birth process.

--I am so glad that you've decided to go to a midwife when your time comes. That is your absolute best chance at helping your body do what it really wants to do and has been given the tools to do.

Of course, some midwives have also evolved into being as medical as doctors are, so it is still good to do your homework ahead of time and shop around. Marsden Wagner's piece on technology in birthing has a good section on what kinds of questions to ask, and what kinds of answers are warning signs. [img]wink.gif[/img]

I think that you will have a lot of fun reading the books and writings that I have listed. [img]smile.gif[/img]
Joy

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ December 12, 2005 12:58 PM: Message edited by: djsnjones ]</font>