Who needs a medical degree?

Once again, a 9 year old steps in to save the day and receive her mother's baby during a precipitous birth. This time the baby is premature and tiny, still everything turns out ok.

HypnoBirthing in the News again

In August, HypnoBirthing(R) was in the news again in a video about Painless Birth.

And should have been mentioned in this story about Stress in Pregnancy because HypnoBirthing isn't just beneficial for quicker, more comfortable birth with fewer complications, but helps babies stay inside until they're done!

I wish every woman would welcome the idea of HypnoBirthing. Not every woman would have a painless labor and birth, but every woman would have the best birth possible for her, which many are not getting now considering "at least 1.5 million Americans fall prey to hospital error every year." (MSN Health and Fitness; content provided by Forbes.com)

The message? Stay out of the hospital unless you're sick! If you must go (because you are sick or injured, not healthy having a healthy baby), read YOU: The Smart Patient.

Yay for the New England Journal of Medicine!

At least someone is using some commonsense when it comes to the HPV vaccine! No, I'm not jumping on the bandwagon to shoot my daughter up with this mess. Unless/until someone can assure me it is safe and effective, no way. And so far, it's not looking good for those willing to toss caution to the wind. Europe has been watching the US closely before jumping on-board, and what they see isn't pretty. The risks are high and the efficacy is unknown, so I was glad to see the NEJM encouraging caution and that the news actually picked it up.

The Big Cost of Little Babies

ABC News had a video news clip Saving Premature Babies in August 2008 and I felt there were a couple of things worth commenting on.

Minimizing prematurity is definitely a cause worthy of a newscast. Women need to be educated in how everything from their diet to their stress level increased the chance of prematurity because these are things they can largely control. They may need assistance or tools to cope, but most of the things that cause prematurity are preventable.

The problem I had with this particular video was that they keep harping on the importance of prenatal care as prevention. If prenatal care as it is currently defined in the US today actually improved outcomes, that would be great. However, Prenatal Care Does Not Improve Outcomes.
The American College of Physicians even recommended fewer visits and fewer ultrasound 10 years ago.

Effective prenatal care is how the woman cares for herself and her baby. If we spend as much time and money educating women and helping them make good decisions as we do on wasteful and useless routine technology, we'd have better outcomes.

The other problem I had was with the statement "Doctors say if every premature birth could be delayed even one week, the infant mortality rate would go down dramatically." (Vargas)

The statement is true, but it isn't the mothers who don't get prenatal care that account for the largest number of premature births...it is the women who DO see a physician and are induced.

Dr. Kenneth Trofatter explains in his Health Line blog:

"Late preterm birth now constitutes about three-quarters of all preterm deliveries. This amounts to more than 300,000 deliveries per year! Many of these deliveries are by elective cesarean section and many others result from cesarean section as a consequence of failed labor induction..."

I just get annoyed when the public is misled by people supposedly providing factual news.

To be fair, the same reporter did a similar report on prematurity in poor communities that was much more accurate and balanced.

I'm losing my grip!

It's been ages since my last confession...er...I mean blog.

A couple of months ago I added a 4th job to my schedule. At the time it seemed like a good idea. I only conduct HypnoBirthing(R) classes every other month and the occasional odd time for those couples that don't fit into the traditional scheduling. My hypnosis clients were not economically scheduled, so I figured I could condense appointments to one or two very full days a month. My Internship only takes up two days per week and I enjoy it so much it hardly seems like work. And the job I thought I applied for was Calligrapher, which I also enjoy. It was a part-time position personalizing Christmas bulbs. I thought, "How hard can it be?"

Unfortunately, the job included retail, which I absolutely abhor. I'm no good at it. It takes a special person who enjoys the unpredictable and dealing with a wide assortment of personalities. That is not me. I'm not a people person. I'm a hermit who enjoys researching, writing and being in controlled environments with a script, like public speaking on topic I know very well or teaching a topic I know very well. I need to channel my 'Inner Sheri' (my extrovert friend) just to get through a retail shift. It's exhausting. The job is 90% stuff I hate and 10% calligraphy or pricing, which I enjoy because it's solitary.

I am scheduled for half my weekends, all weekend, as well as more hours than I can handle during the week, especially now that school started and I have 8 hours of class each week plus assigned work. Within a week of working retail I remembered why I went back to school. Within two I knew I was in deep over my head and not doing so well at keeping afloat.

Every body says I should just quit, but calligraphy is a really obscure talent that they really need someone to do. Sheri says I'm taking a job away from someone that needs it by staying. Maybe. They are short staffed and haven't found other people who can do calligraphy yet. I like the people and don't want to leave them in a lurch. I gave my word that I'd help and I find that hard to break. The manager is trying really hard to work with my insane schedule, which helps, but it's not so much the regular schedule, but the weekends that are killing me. On the weeks that my husband travels and then I work all weekend, I barely get to see him. We haven't been together a quarter century by stealing an hour here and there if we can get it. We need to have time together that isn't all about bills and if one or the other of us has done laundry.

He says there is nothing worth sacrificing my sanity, and if I worked that hard for myself I'd be much better off. Probably.

So far I am figuring out ways to make it sort of work except that I am incredibly tired and I haven't had time to work on my book or other research/writing projects I have in my head. That is what's making me lose my grip. When I don't get the opportunity to get all this out of my head, it almost seems like...how can I explain it? Like pressure, I guess. Like at some point my brain is going to make me stay up all night just to drain it all into my computer, and then I'll collapse. I don't have time for yoga, knitting, Wild Divine or any of those things that keep me healthy and balanced either, including blogging and walking the dog. The poor dog! She was getting walked 2-5 miles a day and the luxury of being in the house with a constant companion. Now she's alone out in the garage all day and is lucky if she gets a walk around the block. My husband and dau have always had busy lives, but I was the hub that sort of kept it all running smoothly. It's not running quite as smoothly these days, even though they are helping out a lot.

Anyway, I might have reached my last straw. I may just have lost two HypnoBirthing clients because I'm having difficultly working even more in and they needed personalized schedule. That just won't do. HB is what I'm trained for, it's what I love and I hate to have even one woman who wants to enjoy the wonders of a HypnoBirthing miss out because I'm trying to accommodate a minimum wage job that means nothing to me simply because I can't walk away or say 'enough'.

So, now that I've bitched about a bunch of stuff that is totally within my control that I've done nothing about, Sheri would ask, "When are you going to do something about it?" I don't know.

What I do know is I have about a half dozen absurd tidbits I want to post here, but I've wasted time kvetching, so now I have to get ready for work. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back on tonight.

How many parents hate their newborns?

Men's Health has an article today (July 31, 2008) titled, "I Hate My Newborn Baby!": A new dad confesses: They're not always bundles of joy

It is true: babies are not always perfect. Sometimes the babies are wonderful, but our expectation of what babies actually are is often unrealistic. However, in the case of this article, which is heartbreaking and all too common, the suffering of the baby and the parents was probably avoidable.

How many parents think it's 'normal' for babies to scream in agony for 19 hours a day? How many sleep deprived parents schlep to the doctor's office on weekly basis switching formula in an effort to stop their baby's pain due to "a little intestinal distress" that "is fairly common and nothing to worry about".

Eventually, the doctor decides perhaps the baby has a milk allergy and switches to a soy formula, which makes the baby so much worse the parents decide they'll have to take him to the E.R., but just before they leave, he falls asleep and all is well from that point on.

A milk allergy. That's sort of an understatement. Human babies are not designed to consume cows milk, which is what formula is made of. In fact, the advice is to not give babies under one year cows milk. But because it is common for parents to give babies artificial baby milk to infants, newborn pain and suffering is now considered 'fairly common and nothing to worry about'.

Parents need to know that it doesn't have to be that way so they don't have to feel the guilt of hating their babies.

Surprise! Baby born at campground.

The FDL Reporter carried the same story over two consecutive weekends (July 20, 2008 and July 27, 2008): A woman who didn't even know she was pregnant gave birth while camping.

The short version is she didn't know she was pregnant. While camping, she experiences some funky stomach cramps and her boyfriend goes to get her some OTC medication to make her feel better. She goes into the camp bathroom and births an 8 lb. baby girl. The screams of the mother and boyfriend bring a nurse running, and according the nurse, she saves the baby's life because the baby wasn't breathing and the nurse, "...doubts the baby would've survived until an ambulance arrived."

This is an 8 lb. baby later pronounced healthy.

Healthy babies have an instinct to breathe. A natural birth stimulates the baby to breathe. Babies delivered surgically sometimes don't breathe on their own. Babies born with narcotics in their system sometimes don't breathe on their own. Babies coming from a uterine environment that has been hyper-stimulated by pitocin may have experienced distress (like cord compression), meaning they may need help to begin breathing. Premature babies may not be able to breathe right away. Babies sick with RDS (Respiratory Distress Syndrome) may have breathing difficulties at birth. Babies who have been through a long hard labor due to malpositioning or something may be slow to start.

Healthy babies who are still attached to a pulsating cord may take their time in initiating breathing because they are still getting oxygen from the placenta and cord. Sometimes people who are not familiar with natural birth assume a baby isn't breathing because she isn't crying, which isn't always true. (And people assume that because a nurse knows how a healthy, undrugged newborn looks and acts, but this nurse was a geriactric nurse. She provides nursing for the elderly. And even if she was a neonatal nurse, I just had a client who had a HypnoBirthing(R) at an area hospital and the nurse commented afterwards at how inspiring and unusual it was, because in 4 years of maternal nursing, she'd not seen even ONE natural birth; not ONE baby born unaffected by some sort of drug.) Sometimes they are just acclimating slowly and looking around, but they have a strong heartbeat and they are indeed breathing. Even if they aren't, if a mother were to pick up the baby and hold and talk to the baby, they would cough and sputter and begin breathing.

Babies who essentially fall out after an essentially painless labor? It's unlikely she 'wouldn't have made it'. However, it is too bad the mother didn't know what to do. As I've said before, I think it's crazy that women don't have a clue how to follow their own instincts in the event of a quick and easy birth because they've just expected someone else to do everything for them.

Now, in this case, the woman says she didn't know she had a wiggling 8 lb. baby and, oh, probably as least 10 lb. of water and placenta inside her. I don't understand that, but others have claimed it, so I take her at her word. However, I find it very interesting that she gave birth quickly and easily to a healthy 8 lb. baby and she said if she had known she was pregnant she would have gotten 'proper care'. Interesting because there is the assumption, like the assumption that birth is dangerous and painful, that seeing an OB 14 times per pregnancy means better babies. According to the American College of Physicians, that's not true. Lots of visits and lots of tests does not translate to better outcomes for mothers or babies.

Ultimately though, the reason I wanted to blog about this birth is that the mother is quoted as saying that her friends are jealous that she didn't have to feel "that pain". This is a perfect example of how, if a mother doesn't know she is "supposed" to feel pain, she doesn't. She wasn't afraid because she didn't know she was in labor, so she considered her 'cramps' only worthy of an over the counter remedy. I couldn't think of a better illustration of how many ways we CREATE pain in labor from our expectations and fear of a perfectly natural physiological process.

Spring Green, 1332 Parkview Rd., Green Bay, WI 54304

It takes a lot to get me really mad. I'm the kind of person who doesn't often send food back to the kitchen or bother to return to a store if I later find an overcharge I think was an honest mistake.

I seldom raise my voice in anger when I get lousy customer service. I'm really appreciative of good customer service and say so when I get it.

That said, I've reached my limit with Spring Green out of Green Bay, Wisconsin. We've tried every route of resolution to deal with their deceptive business practices, and have gotten nowhere, so now I feel it's only fair to warn others of what they may encounter should they decide to go with Spring Green.

In early 2007 it was our first spring in our new home. We'd never put any chemicals on any lawn we'd maintained, but since the previous owner here had done so, we signed up for a summer program through Spring Green. They were to make several visits throughout the season. By the time we had received two applications, we had discussed the necessity of this service with our new neighbors and decided we really didn't need it and we weren't sure we like the idea of chemicals on the lawn anyway. At that time, we were not unhappy with the service; we had just decided that we'd wait and see how our lawn behaved before deciding what we may or may not need/want.

Obviously our request to cancel was received and understood, as Spring Green did not send any one to service our lawn again that year.

Fast forward to 2008. We begin getting calls from Spring Green, but we keep missing them. Finally, I catch a call, and a technician asks if we would like to sign up for the same service we had signed up for the previous year. I tell him no, we canceled last year because we just want to wait and see what happens if we deal with it ourselves. Besides, companies were offering an organic alternative this year, and we thought we might do that if we did anything at all. I'm thinking that's the end of it. Had I known I was dealing with people who would try to rip me off, I would have documented the call. However, most of the people I've dealt with in WI have been incredibly friendly and honest. I did not record his name or the date of the call. My mistake.

Weeks later, there are little flags in our yard. We figure our condo-mate must have signed up for lawn care. But later, she comes over and asks US if we did, because a bill was left on her condo. It had our name and address on it, but it was left on her door. Both of our homes are clearly marked with our addresses. We get to talking with other neighbors, and we are told that a lot of people are having this problem. My husband wants to pay it and avoid hassle. I insist that we did not request the service, it's their loss. It seems to me that they are counting on a lack of communication between condo owners, and they figure most people are just going to figure they got the service, they'll pay the nominal fee. The charge was $46.09.

MY problem with this is that if they screw enough people, they make a huge profit by being dishonest. I'm vehemently against rewarding unethical behavior just for the sake of laziness.

So, my husband writes to Spring Green and explains the situation. They insist that the service automatically continues without notification of discontinuation. After getting nowhere with them, he decides he will pay half just so they don't send this stupid bill to a collection agency and ruin our credit. He figures then he'll report them to the BBB, post our experience on Angie's List, and contact Clark Howard and any other news outlet that might be able to protect the consumer. I will add, he did not tell me this was is solution to the problem. Anyway, on July 15th, 2008 he agrees to pay $23.05.

On July 18th, 2008 we get a notice from Spring Green that we have failed to pay a balance of $46.09 on our past due account. The date the letter was drafted was July 16: the day AFTER they had spoke with my husband.

I happen to be the one to open this particular piece of mail, and I'm livid! Had we gotten service all last summer, I'd buy that they didn't know we didn't want their service. But they STOPPED OUR SERVICE AS REQUESTED WHEN WE REQUESTED THEM TO STOP. That means, there was no miscommunication. We did not fail to play by the rules. And they came and serviced the yard anyway, and then were insistent we pay for a service we didn't ask for and didn't want!

So I call and talk to LORI. (This time I got a name and a date: July 18, 2008, around 4 pm.) I explained to her we did not owe them anything, and I was about done being patient. She told ME that my husband had agreed to pay. End of story. The more she insisted that since 'the mister' had agreed to pay, there was nothing more to discuss, the angrier I got, until I finally got to the same place my husband had gotten...we'll pay the damn thing...but I was A LOT more pissed off than he ever got, I guarantee.

When I asked her why, if she had come to this agreement with my husband on the 15th, we were billed for the full amount on the 16th, she said their policy is not to show that on an invoice until the agreed upon 50% has been paid. I told her, if past actions predict future actions, I would fully expect remittance of ANY amount in response to that bill would then be used by Spring Green to somehow 'prove' we agreed to it, and I wanted EVERYTHING in writing EXACTLY as agreed. She informed me that she didn't appreciate my tone. Like having a business lie and expect compensation for it is no reason to get irate.

They could have just said, 'Gee, we're sorry for the confusion. Of course we'll take that charge off.' Instead, they stand to lose hundreds if not thousands as we spread the word of how they treated us. $20 here and $50 there over thousands of potential customers means they make money even if they don't do the work...as long as no one complains and everyone just pays it to keep their credit in good standing.

Like I said, it's not the amount. Sure, it would be easier to just pay it. Most people probably do. But the fact that this is how they handled it says to me that they aren't concerned with customer service. They are concerned with making a buck no matter how they do it. Which also suggests to me that was the plan all along, which is why I'm so upset.

So, buyer beware is all I have to say.

OMG AMA!

This is really not such a good day for doctors!

Opposition over the AMA and ACOGs attempt to make it illegal for women to hire anyone but them (doctors) or birth anywhere but thier hospitals (can you say 'restraint of trade' boys and girls?) is gaining speed as women realize what this could mean. The discussion ranges from women possibly being 'investigated' for accidentally birthing anywhere but an institution, to separation of mom and baby as parents face jail because their baby fell out on the way to a hospital, to having our children ripped away from us and placed in foster care if we choose to birth with midwives, even though we've researched our options and the science backs our decision?

Ultimately, those are unlikely scenarios. However, what WILL happen, should this AMA resolution pass, is that the highly trained midwives who could assist parents would face prison for helping parents birth safely, thus assuring unsafe birthing situations. As I see it, AMA is willing to risk your baby's life to 'prove' homebirth is unsafe...by making it unsafe. Sort of like 'proving' that all twins are early and small by removing them by cesarean at 36 weeks.

Outraged bloggers like those at Our Bodies Ourselves and The Rivers Report are speaking up and organizations like Citizens for Midwifery, International Cesarean Awareness Network, Lamaze are providing facts. If you read the message boards on the topic, doctors and midwives from around the world are stunned at this move by the AMA. England is trying to INCREASE the numbers of homebirth because it is safer and less expensive to birth at home with a trained midwive who is a guardian of normalcy.

So, there's that going on, and then today's news carries this headline: Doctors' Group Plans Apology For Racism
Ouch. Women are not the only people the AMA has repressed. Is now such a good time to be pointing that out?

Yesterday, the headline spoke to the patients doctors also try to bully with Hospital bullies take a toll on patient safety:Bad behavior by doctors and others undercuts morale, leads to errors

Really, with all these doctors behaving badly, is it any surprise that babies are getting smart and arriving so easily and quickly so they might avoid being abused! This VIDEO (sorry, I couldn't embed it) was on MSN this week. In it, one couple tells of their 'baby's choice' birth to an 8 lb. baby boy . Babies are falling out more and more often, but what made it news was that this ws the third birth in less than a week that 911 dispatchers 'delivered over the phone'.

Well, that was the way the news told it. Actually, while the dispatcher was credited with this safe delivery, the fact of the matter was that it would have happened exactly the same with or without her. She did nothing except give bad advice that her 'strict protocol and training' prepared her to give; that being to "...have her push hard to get the rest of the baby out". Hard pushing is causative in perineal tearing, shoulder dystocia, and a whole host of other issues one would want to avoid, but not only that, it's not necessary. According to one study by authors Brancato, Church & Stone published in the Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic and Neonatal Nursing, Vol. 37, Issue 1, 2008:

CONCLUSIONS: Significant positive effects were found indicating that passive descent should be used during birth to safely and effectively increase spontaneous vaginal births, decrease instrument-assisted deliveries, and shorten pushing time.

"Passive descent" means "no hard pushing".

But this isn't the only bad advice dispatchers give. One story I saw on the Today Show had the dispatcher telling a 12-year old boy to take the shoelaces out of his shoe to tie off the umbilical cord. Tetanus lives in dirt; dirt is on a 12-year old boys shoes for sure; the one certain place deadly infection can enter a newborn? The cut cord!

I do not doubt in the case of illness or injury 911 operator are heroes rushing in to save the day. But birth is neither an illness nor an injury. At best in these cases their assistance is pointless and these babies are surviving in spite of their bad advice.

But let us suppose for just a moment that this wasn't so. If 'phone birth' works so well, what does that say about highly trained surgical specialist (obstetricians) attending 90% or more of normal healthy births?

If enough healthy, nice sized babies choose to come this fast and easy, maybe eventually women will realize that birth is safe. Pizzas, not babies, are delivered, and only a mother births her baby.

More on ACOG

Some people think that when ACOG makes a declaration that the decision must have been based on evidence, and that such evidence has been found scientifically sound and agreed upon by the members of the organization. This letter shows that this is not the case.

From: Stuart Fischbein [mailto:angelfischs @ yahoo.com] Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 5:35 PM To: ExBd@acog.org Douglas H. Kirkpatrick, MD The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists PO Box 96920 Washington, DC 20090-2188 Dear Sir: I am a practicing OB/ GYN in southern California and Fellow of ACOG and recently was informed by midwife colleagues of your recommendation and encouragement for the AMA to lobby Congress for a law banning out of hospital birth. Funny that I had to hear of this decision from outside sources and was never approached by my college to see how I or my local colleagues felt about it. I have grave concerns regarding my organization taking such a stand. I think we are all agreed that ACOG has a statement regarding patients' rights to informed consent and informed refusal. Yet, it seems with every decision our organization moves further away from that basic tenet. ACOG's little "guideline" paper on VBAC in 2004 where the word readily was changed to immediately has had the chilling effect of doing away with VBAC options at hundreds if not more hospitals. Not due to patient safety, or the ideal of giving true informed consent but really, let's be honest, to fear of litigation. I have seen how patients have become counseled by obstetricians at facilities where VBAC has been banned. They are clearly given a skewed view of the risks of VBAC but rarely told of the risks of multiple surgeries. If you think this is untrue you are, sadly, out of touch with real clinical medicine. As to out of hospital birthing, please give me the courtesy of an explanation as to the data you used and the process by which an organization which is supposed to represent me came to this conclusion. Any statement saying that it is as simple as patient safety and that one-size fits all hospital birth under the "obstetric model" of practice should be applied to all patients is, putting it nicely, not really in line with what best serves all our patients. In many instances, hospitals are not safe, certainly not nurturing and have a far worse track record for disasters than home birth. Even when emergency help is nearby this is true. The focus of all of us in medicine should be on reigning in trial lawyers and tort reform and lobbying Congress for that. The best interest of the college members and the patients we serve would be for my organization to spend its time and energy on something that has true benefit. Removing choices from well-informed patients and caring doctors and midwives is wholly un-American. So please send me detailed information on how ACOG decided outlawing home birth was a wise thing to do. You must have scientific data to take such a drastic stand. Please make it available to me so that I may share it with like-minded colleagues. I would also like to know the process by which this came to pass. Who first raised this issue and why? What committee reviewed all the data and did its due diligence in interviewing those of us with long-standing experience in backing midwives who perform out of hospital births. There must be a fine, non-confidential paper trail you can share with your members. Specific names of committee member who voted for this would be enlightening and I am requesting this information. I would like to know the background and expertise regarding out of hospital birth for each member who had a hand in the decision to go to the AMA. We live in an odd era where once something is said or recommended by a legitimate organization such as ACOG it has deep ramifications never intended such as becoming fodder for trial lawyers trying to squeeze the lifeblood and dignity out of your members. Or forcing women to travel hundreds of miles in labor to find a supportive facility. Or even worse, to have them arrive in a VBAC banned hospital and refuse surgery. Can this be the best we can do for our patients? Remember, your VBAC statement was meant to be only a recommendation but quickly became the rule by which hospital administrators, risk managers and anesthesia departments of smaller hospital banned this option for thousands of women. An option, that in proper hands, was the safe and accepted standard of care for 30 years. In fact, you still have an ACOG VBAC brochure that recommends this option! For those of us working at smaller hospitals where VBAC was banned due to lack of emergency help (anesthesia, OR crews, etc.) there is a big question that has perplexed us that no administrator seems to be willing or able to answer. That question is: "If a hospital cannot handle an emergency c/section for VBACs, and most emergency are for fetal bradycardia, hemorrhage (ie. abruption) or shoulder dystocia not for ruptured uteri, then how can they do obstetrics at all?" For they seem to still be able to have a maternity ward without in house anesthesia. Will someday ACOG, in their great wisdom but seeming disconnect from reality, make a "recommendation" that little hospitals stop providing obstetric services? Will this better serve women and their communities throughout America? I am frightened and angered by what you have done in my name. Now I ask you to defend your position in encouraging the AMA to lobby Congress for another restriction on the freedom of choice that belongs to women and their families. Those choices include midwifery and the right to have the most beautiful and life changing event occur wherever best fits their desire. Midwives are well trained and required to have obstetrical backup. They have very special relationships with their patients and want the very best outcomes for them. They do not need me or you to police them. We have a habit in our country over the past 40 years of thinking we can legislate out stupidity. All that has done is erode the individual freedoms that belong, by birthright, to each of us. I would hope you trust your Fellows to know their specialty, their colleagues, and what is best for the patient as an individual. These decisions do not belong to politicians or faceless committees. You should have more faith in your members to give balanced informed consent. Again, my recommendation to you is to put all your considerable energy into changing our legal malpractice system. Those of us actually practicing medicine and caring for patients know this to be the greatest threat to the mission and responsibility we have chosen to undertake. I look forward to your response and possibly the beginning of a meaningful dialogue. Sincerely, Stuart J. Fischbein, MD FACOG Medical Advisor, Birth Action Coalition

KZYX HypnoBirthing Interview

I often give presentations about natural birth. Sometimes I'm doing interviews, sometimes I'm preaching to the choir (speaking at midwifery conferences), sometimes I'm speaking to quite a varied audience (like nursing students).

Afterward, I sometimes feel I 'nailed it'. These days, I consider those my 'Obama' presentations. So far, thank heavens, I haven't had any I considered 'Bush' moments. Tonight however, I feel like I was off my mark; sort of a McCain awkwardness. That makes me sad, because Chris Skyhawk was wonderful, and I was very cognizant that I was representing HypnoBirthing(R) to a large audience.

Normally I have my references on the tip of my tongue and can recall the most relevant of facts. I can sound somewhat intelligent for the most part.

Tonight I was reaching. I didn't feel like I answered the very thoughtful questions Chris asked in the most eloquent of ways. I have no idea why. I wish I could predict when I'd be able to hit the mark and when I wouldn't.

In any case, at the end of the interview, suddenly I heard dead air. There was nothing on the other end and I thought I lost Chris. I'm not sure if I did or not, but when I next heard him, he explained that they were getting updates on fires that are raging there.

So, for all you in CA, I wish I could send you some of the copious amounts of water we've had here. My thoughts are with you as you battle the blazes.

HypnoBirthing Radio Interveiw

Just so you know, I will be speaking with Chris Skyhawk Thursday, June 26, 2008 at 9 pm Central.
The show does stream live I believe, so if you want to check it out, here is the promo from Chris:

Please join host Chris Skyhawk for Universal Perspectives Thursday night at 7PM (P.D.T.) on KZYX where he begins a new series entitled Birth and Living. His guest will be Kim Wildner. Kim is a practitioner of a birthing method called Hypnobirthing which allows the mother, along with the aid of the father and/or labor companion, to give birth using their natural instincts and the bodies natural responses and hormones. These birthing methods allow babies to be born in a natural, drug-free manner.

Chris Skyhawk

www.chrisskyhawk.com

Protect all safe birth options!

I just got this petition in my email. I will be passing it along to everyone I know, and I ask you do to the same.

Hi,

I wanted to draw your attention to this important petition that I recently
signed:

"Keep Home Birth Legal"

I really think this is an important cause, and I'd like to encourage you to
add your signature, too. It's free and takes less than a minute of your
time.

Thanks!

Even if you wouldn't want a home birth, please sign this petition to keep this safe option available to those that would.

Obviously Ricki Lake is making a difference in public awareness; there has been a huge PR backlash from ACOG and the AMA regarding scientifically safe birth options that do not require their services. Ricki Lake has been targeted personally, although her name was ultimately removed from the resolution against homebirth due to protests from women's groups and other women angry at the attack on their personal freedoms.

There is a great article from the Huffington Post with a wonderful debate following. This is a very important issue! In the past, it was easy to play on women's fear about birth and convince them it was dangerous because a privileged few had access to the actual facts. In the information age, women can look up the data for themselves and can see that the U.S. has some of the worst infant and maternal mortality stats for the industrialized world. They can see actual birth video of painless birth, empowering birth and orgasmic birth on YouTube. (Just surf around this blog for many of them!) We now have a global community and women are starting to wonder just why their sisters in England or Holland should be able to have a safe homebirth when they have to fight for it here.

Not only have women decided enough is enough, but many doctors have decided to speak up. They've seen the surgical birth rates rise with no improvement in outcomes (or worsening outcomes) and stood up for evidence-based care, which includes midwifery care. They took a vow to harm none, and they are choosing to stand up for that over profits, unlike others.

We've reached a tipping point and ACOG and the AMA obviously know that. They are taking a defensive stance to secure their livelihood. And it isn't just OBs; hospital maternity care in the U.S. is one of the largest marketing tools hospitals have. Not only is it a huge portion of their income, but if they can get women in to their hospital for their birth, they will come back when other family members need care.

They are powerful entities. They will fight hard with seemingly unlimited resources. Let's just hope women are mad as hell and not willing to take it anymore.

Police Woman PROMOTED for breastfeeding!

A policewoman who breastfed nine orphaned infants during China's earthquake has been promoted. She is being hailed as a hero, as well she should be! She undoubtedly saved the lives of those babies.

Many babies caught in natural disasters do not die from whatever calamity they find themselves in. They die afterwards due to dehydration, starvation, or disease either because they lost their mothers, like these poor little ones, or because no water (or clean water) was available to mix formula or there was no way to get pre-mixed formula right away.

I briefly blogged about this recently because of the floods the mid-west is now experiencing, but this is one aspect I never thought of. Kati Kim kept her own children alive when her family was stranded in a snow storm and her husband was lost looking for help, but I hadn't thought of how many other children could avoid suffering, even if their mothers were lost, if there were other women around who could provide instant, sterile, prewarmed nourishment.

Wow! Women are amazing!

Virtual Refrigerator

My daughter did this and I thought it was pretty.

State of Emergency

Yesterday around 4:30 pm the tornado sirens went off, so we headed to the basement. Over the next two hours or so, the sirens went off about a half dozen more times as funnel clouds were spotted. We finally had to come up to grab something to eat and use the facilities . We couldn't hear much of what was going on above ground, so we were stunned at what was going on while we were underground. The pictures above are just some of what we took. Crazy. People are getting around in boats.

And once again, I was struck by how tragic it is that women don't have a clue what they would do if they were stranded and had to birth on their own. Or that so many babies starve because parents can't get to the store to get formula or can't find clean water to mix it with if they have it, when if they were breastfed, sterile, ready-made food would be instantly available.

Of course, the women don't need to know anything special, because their bodies know. Babies come out and they don't care where they are or who may (or may not) help mom. However, women would be much less afraid if they know they could (and indeed do) birth their own babies just fine under all but the most unusual of circumstances.

Archived Entries with Birth Videos

Some of the great videos I posted went up months ago, and while I haven't exactly been prolific in my writing, they still got buried.

So, here are a couple of links to the pages that have birth videos (for those women needing a little inspiration):

http://fearlessbirthing.blogspot.com/2008_01_20_archive.html
http://fearlessbirthing.blogspot.com/2008_01_13_archive.html

Also, a collective thank you to those of you posting regarding the request for painless birth stories! I haven't responded to each personally mainly because there have been so many (How fabulous is THAT?), although I did made sure the comments got posted.

So, thanks again, and keep them coming! Stories (or offers to tell stories) can be sent to kim at kimwildner dot com or links to stories that are public domain can be added via comment from the post entry as others have done. Nothing will be used without direct contact and permission from you.

The High Cost of Health Care

The current issue of AARP: The Magazine has an excellent article titled Why Does Health Care Cost So Much by Shannon Brownlee, the author of Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of this to review here. I couldn't tell from the available editorial or customer reviews if maternity care is covered in the book, and there isn't a 'look inside the book' option.

In any case, the problem, as Brownlee explains so well in the article is over-treatment, with 50% of the interventions that not supported by evidence. In obstetrics, that number is higher. Citizens for Midwifery and Childbirth Connection reveal that:

Fully 85% of U.S. women enter labor at "low-risk" for problems (Healthy People 2010), but virtually 100% of U.S. women have at least one intervention. (Listening to Mothers Survey. Childbirth Connection 2002). Every intervention has the potential of doing harm as well as good. If a woman has an intervention she doesn't need, then she runs the risks with no counterbalancing benefit.
http://childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ClickedLink=334&ck=10068&area=27

Why women aren't furious about this I can't imagine! In fact, what blows me away is that when movies like The Business of Being Born or books like Obstetric Myths versus Research Realities and Born in the U.S.A expose the problems within the system that make it dangerous, expensive and emotionally damaging, women don't get upset that the system is broken. Instead they get mad that anyone dare suggest the system even has issues, damned be the evidence! I keep finding little puzzle pieces as to why this may be so, but honestly, I feel the more I learn the less I know some days.

Naturally Born Twin Video

This is wicked cool!

Painless Birth

It's been ages since I actually posted content here, I know. I haven't been a slacker, honest! I'm actually writing a book on painless birth, so I've been researching and writing. Mother's Intention is also about to go out of print, so I'm re-writing as well, hoping to fix what I didn't like about it the first time and perhaps find a publishing house that will pick it up. I'd like to concentrate on writing and research, not billing, marketing, or order fulfillment. I also have two presentations for the HypnoBirthing(R) convention that require preparation. Oh, and I have a 'real job' now too.
In addition, the summer is getting crazy just because that's what summer does.

In any case, I'm putting out a call for birth stories for the new book. I need people to send me stories of their painless natural births (including mostly painless or almost painless), either created (through HypnoBirthing or other means NOT including drugs) or encountered (those fast, painless births that take mothers by surprise in the shower, on the toilet or in gas station bathrooms). If I choose to use your story, I will send the paperwork for official permission to use it. I'm only expecting to use three to five stories at the end of each chapter, so depending on how many submissions I get, there is no guarantee every story will make the cut. You will retain the copyright to your own story, and it will be edited only for spelling and grammar. I'm looking to keep each story under 1,000 words. If typed, we're looking at two or three pages double spaced, size 12 font, 1 inch margins. If you want to include photos, that would be awesome.

Please pass this request around to all of the lists you may be on and to anyone who may want to participate. I'd like a nice assortment of birth locations and birth attendants. Thanks!