Consumer Reports says L&D has turned into a "highly profitable machine"!

Consumer Reports is officially on my "good list."

" Despite a health-care system that outspends those in the rest of the world, infants and mothers fare worse in the U.S. than in many other industrialized nations. The infant mortality rate in Canada is 25 percent lower than it is in the U.S.; the Japanese rate, more than 60 percent lower. According to the World Health Organization, America ranks behind 41 other countries in preventing mothers from dying during childbirth.

With technological advances in medicine, you would expect those numbers to steadily improve. But the rate of maternal deaths has risen over the last decade, and the number of premature and low-birth-weight babies is higher now than it was in the 1980s and 1990s."

" But another key reason appears to be a health-care system that has developed into a highly profitable labor-and-delivery machine, operating according to its own timetable rather than the less predictable schedule of mothers and babies. Childbirth is the leading reason for hospital admission, and the system is set up to make the most of the opportunity."

" Topping the list are unnecessary cesarean sections. The rate has risen steadily since the mid-1990s to the point that nearly one of every three American babies now comes into the world through this surgical delivery. That’s double or even triple what the World Health Organization considers optimal."

Check out the other NINE procedures that the CS recommends to avoid HERE!

Planned Home Birth safe?

"Planned home birth for low risk women in North
America using certified professional midwives was associated
with lower rates of medical intervention but similar intrapartum
and neonatal mortality to that of low risk hospital births in the
United States."

Am I the only one who wants to sing VICTORY when what I know in my heart is true is also proved by studies? If you have ever wondered what is up with home birth and if it might be for you now or in the future, reading and understanding all or part of this study is a must!

Three cheers for informed choice!

Forget yourself, be in the present.....

Published in the latest Charis Childbirth newsletter here. Expert from Frederick Leboyer's book, Birth without Violence.

"Darkness, or almost, and … silence.

A profound peace settles the room.

You can feel the respect that naturally

Attends the arrival of a baby.

One doesn’t shout in a church.

One spontaneously lowers one’s voice.



If there is such a thing as a sanctified place, surely

It is the room the child is about to enter.



Subdued light, silence…what else is needed?

Patience.

Or rather, the sense that one should slow down

And thereby enter into another rhythm; the profound

Rhythm of life,

To which the mother has spontaneously become attuned,

And which is also the tempo of the child.



Unless you have re-created this incredible languor

In your own body, it is impossible to understand

Birth. Impossible to meet the newborn in his terms.

In order to reach this deep understanding, to arrive at

A place where you can meet the child, you have to, as it

Were, step out of time.

Step out of our time.

Meaning our strong, familiar sense

Of how time is flowing, of the apparent speed with which

For us, it seems to flow.

Our sense of time and the time sense of the

Newborn baby are practically irreconcilable.

The one is a state of near statis,

The other state, ours, is often a frenzied restlessness,

Close to madness.

Besides, we adults, are never “here.”

We are always somewhere else.



In the past, in our memories.

In the future, in our plans.

We’re looking back, at what is gone,

Or ahead, at what is yet to happen.

Never focusing on “here and now!”

Yet if we have any hope of rediscovering the newborn baby,

We must step outside of our own furiously running time.

Which seems impossible.

How can we step out of time?

How can we escape in fast and furious flow?

The only way is by trying to be fully present with the moment.

Yes, to be here and now, as if there were no yesterday, no tomorrow.

To allow any thought that the moment

Will end, that appointment awaits,

Is enough to break the spell.

As usual, everything is very simple.

And apparently impossible.

How can we reconcile the irreconcilable?

How can finite combine with infinite?

It can only happen if we open completely to the other,

Which means completely forgetting oneself.”

I don’t know if Frederick Leboyer is a Christian, but this concept works because the present is where God’s grace is! Elizabeth Elliot said, “There is no grace for imagination.” It’s not about the past, He has already forgiven that. It is not about the future for we cannot handle the future. The present is where His grace and peace are and when we are there, we can do anything with Him! Blessings on your births and precious babies, midwives all over the world!

Love, Bethany

Uterine rupture?

"Uterine rupture has become a big risk over the last few decades. At least that is what pregnant women are told. Especially for moms who want to birth vaginally after a previous cesarean section. A cesarean is major surgery and a scar and scar tissue are a result. The body is amazing and can heal and adapt very well. Just how much of a risk is uterine rupture to a mother?"

Considering a VBAC? Should uterine rupture be taken into consideration when deciding on a VBAC or repeat cesarean? Read more HERE!

"The unborn child can help heal his mother for the rest of her life."

"A standard pro-abortion argument hinges on the premise that a baby inside his mom’s womb attacks her bodily integrity. The developing baby is seen in this light as an intruder, a parasite, a threat to the woman’s autonomy. From this perspective the pregnant woman is viewed as being occupied. The only way she can continue to exercise her interest in bodily integrity, the argument goes, is to be liberated through the termination and expulsion of the invader.

But science paints a vastly different picture about the actual relationship between a baby in utero and his or her mother, showing that, far from being a parasite, the unborn child can help heal his mother for the rest of her life, as beneficial cells from the child pass into the mother’s body during pregnancy." continue reading

"I was brought to my knees...."

" I get emotional more because it was simply the biggest thing I've ever gone through. I knew having a baby would be. I knew it would change me; I knew it would ask me to go to places I didn't even know I had in me to go to. I just thought the map and the roadside attractions would be very different. Rather than the triumphant warrior goddess breathing her baby out, I was a trembling, teary woman brought to her knees. And that, in its way, is another kind of bravery and another kind of goddess, to have the willingness to be present for something as challenging as it was, and I know that. In a way, I feel this birth required me to be stronger than had I had the one I envisioned."

Read the rest of Leigh's beautiful birth story here.

Hello? Hello? Anyone out there?

Ok! Push comes to shove and I want to know if anyone reads this blog! I started out writing this blog and recording things so I could keep track of my school projects. I did not have Microsoft Word at the time so it was convenient. Now I mostly post news and studies and such.

If anyone reads this thing, I'm sure that is nice but if nobody does, I'm probably going to organize everything and sort for my own convenience later. Things would not be as personable and readable anymore since it would just be for my sanity and not really for random readers. Thoughts?

:knock knock: anyone out there?