Posted on 05/09/2007 6:29:59 AM PDT by Jenny Hatch
I lost a baby to preeclampsia and came close to dying myself. It is not a disease of malnutrition - Brewer is selling a line that has women beating themselves up and blaming themselves. There are plenty of women who have followed his diet to the letter after a first bout and still have come down with preeclampsia a second time. Or just happened to be eating superhealthy according to Brewer and taking supplements and got PE a first time. There is evidence that women who are truly malnourished (third world conditions) are more at risk.
You have a almost zero chance of salvaging a pre-term baby earlier than 30 weeks outside of a hospital. If you know pre-term delivery is inevitable, steroid shots will help lung maturation. Magnesium can help stop contractions, a cerclage can help an incompetent cervix.
Sometimes low-tech can accomplish amazing things - the McRoberts maneuver for shoulder dystocia - essential for the home midwife. But there are some diagnoses and treatments that can only be done with modern medicine.
My point is, “no man knows the day or hour,” and you might lose your baby or your life living as if that hour has come.
I always thought that what Jesus said referred not to mothers’ suffering during childbirth, but their suffering watching their children suffer and die. Paul recommends celibacy, not childbearing, when the end times approach.
Mrs VS
Thanks have changed a lot in the even past 5 years. Doctors are too afraid of the John Edwards of the country and cannot afford their malpractice insurance to cover VBACs.
Bragging: My wife gave birth to both our daughters without ANY drugs or interventions. Completely natural. I’m very proud of her.
BTW, both kids are way above average in health and development.
The doctors when I had mine thought the same way too. But at the time, my doctor was a resident with me when my first was born and he was my ob/gyn with my second child. He wasn't stuck in the 'this is the way it has to be' mind set. He has become one of the top fertization problem doctors in the mid-west.
Like I said, he had the operating room on stand by and my delivery room was right next door, so I had no problems at least trying and neither did he.
If your scar is horizontal on the uterus, then you have no problems with it. In my case, my former doctor failed to note that, so we were flying blind almost. I was his first natural birth after c-section, so he was extra careful about keeping notes and an eye on me.
My wife was born in a doctors office, her family lived in a very rural area. Most of her friends were the same. But the day a hospital (small to be sure) was built in the area was a day of joy and rejoicing.
All of our children were born in hospital - I am a trained/licensed EMT with years of experience and we would never consider home birthing, but that’s just us - there is too much that can go wrong - fast.
Our daughter had her children (we were both there to assist) in a birthing room. The room looked ordinary enough, but the walls could fold back allow use of the most modern medical equipment avaliblible. Best of both worlds, I suppose.
For years Alaska had the highest IMR is the US, today, things are much better.
Chose as you will, but be prepared for the costs if the choice turned out to be a bad one.
Alaska got its first NICU not so long ago, if I’m right. Before, they had to airlift babies down to Washington if they could move them at all. Technology makes a difference.
It’s great to know how to deliver a baby in an emergency situation, but if the bad times come, I want myself and my family being as healthy as possible going into them. That means I take my blood pressure medication now, even if I can’t get it then, my husband takes his Lipitor, and my children get their vaccinations, and I give birth in the hospital - we benefit from modern medicine while we can.
The Soviet Union made sure that it vaccinated its citizens.
After its fall, it did not take many years for diptheria and other preventable diseases to make a comeback.
Mrs VS
That seems to be mostly vintage stuff, at least on the first page.
I've got 70something tomato plants ready to go in the ground this week, another 30 or so for next week and another 100 I just got started. About the same number of peppers as well. Along with peas that are already up, 2 types of lima beans, 4 types green beans, 5 kinds of squash...........and I'm only half way done. The first of the corn is going in this weekend.
The PMS NICU and small staff dropped the IMR by 80% in less than 2 years. As you noted, the trip to Seattle was usually fatal.
I like living in Anchorage, I like the idea of having clean running water year around, good hospitals, a working sewer system etc, etc. Civilization has its perks.
I have lived in bush and rural communities, like the folks on Green Acres, give me city life!
Yeah, wouldn't that be the best. Society as we know it comes to an end and we lose all our medical care and just take our chances.
FYI
I know of a baby that died from meconium in a home birth. Too many things can go wrong that are easily addressed in a hospital. If my baby died or had birth defects from a home birth gone wrong, I don’t think I could forgive myself. And then who’s going to pay for a child with birth defects all it’s life? The state? I’d hope not. Anyone who has problems from a home birth should be ready to absorb the costs themselves. I don’t think it’s worth the risk.
“To ignore the possible consequences”
Freebirthers do not ignore the possible consequences. We have EVERYONE around us reminding us daily of the potential dangers of our life choices.
During my pregnancy with our fifth child, I had friends from church calling me weekly to REMIND me of the fact that I had bled down to a 4.7 hematocrit after our 4th was born. As if my husband and I could forget!
This choice was not made casually or even naively.
I give birth at home, because I believe it is the best for the baby. That’s it.
I have had hundreds of stories like yours thrust into my face over the years. My heart aches for the babies and the mommas who give birth to them.
However, I will not be railroaded into a dangerous birthing situation just because of other peoples fears. I have spent countless hours overcoming my fears around birth. I dont’ take one bit of my life or the health of my family and myself for granted.
And I want to testify in the name of Jesus Christ that learning and praciticing Free Birth has Comforted my heart in regards to end times events.
Society itself is very fragile. But this life walk that Paul and I have been on has been so empowering and filled with joy. Do you know how amazing it was for me as a mother to hold my child in my arms for the first couple hours after his birth??? He was my fifth and it was the first time I had been able to bond with and enjoy my baby without anyone taking him away.
I think it is absolutely pathetic that instead of bonding in the immediate hours after birth, Momma has a demerol hangover and baby is being tortured in the NICU. It is a pathetic and sad state of affairs, and this ripples out into our society in bonding disorders, mothers being unable to relate to their children without drugs being involved, and women vowing they will never again have another child.
Most of the UC birthers I know want to have huge families because it was just so fun to give birth alone!
We have a story to share! And we don’t believe this lifestyle is for every mother. However, we are going to pursue our rights of self determination. If we don’t I sadly predict that the day will arrive in America when all sense of what is normal and natural in mothering will be lost, and all babies will be born by c-section and the druggy haze that currently infects our populace will overpower and disable the vast majority of our little ones.
Thanks for sharing your links, and God Bless your family.
Jenny
Of course the choice is yours.
Of course the choice is mine as well.
Of course I am thrilled by the fact that ALL of your children are alive and well.
I am thrilled that mine are as well.
None of them were tortured in the NICU however...and did not spend a minute out of my site.
I take it by your defensiveness that you found my post to be particularly irritating since it is the only one I have seen you respond to since yesterday.
Have a great life.
I hope that you know that rather than further your cause, you have replied with defensiveness, triteness and insults to me as a mother and a woman.
How nice to be so sure that yours is the only way to give birth safely and promote harmony and happiness.
It must be great to be you.
In reading my above post...I see that aside from my anger..I failed to convey any else.
My apologies for that.
I want to thank you for the wishes for my family and wish you the same.
It is a shame that I failed to do so above.
I should have been able to feel angry and wish you the best at the same time.
No need to apologize. In opening this thread and asking for debate, I understand the pure unadulterated emotion that comes up.
As for deciding who to respond to, it is more a matter of time than anything. I spent the whole day at the park with my four year old and had a very busy night with my family. I dont’ always have the time to respond to every person, and picked yours because you mentioned a couple things that I wanted to address.
Mostly the fact that we are naively and perhaps ingnorantly giving birth at home alone.
I have studied birth intensely for 18 years. I know the facts and understand the risks. That was all I was trying to convey.
The defensiveness comes from a place of understanding that a certain segment of the population belives that we should be prosecuted for medical neglect, and the fact that the powers that be have the ability to take away children and ruin lives based on these choices.
So, yeah, I’m defensive. But I think of articles like the one from west word as us being on the offensive. Sharing the facts of our stories, sharing the lifestyle, sharing the links, words, and testimonials.
And I still claim that UCBirth is best for the baby. No apologies.
Jenny
“And I still claim that UCBirth is best for the baby. No apologies.”
Great.
It is always nice to be told that you did something wrong to/for your baby.
Feels great.
Happy Mother’s Day
Ya think? I'm not against home births, but if a woman is delivering naturally, after having had a section, it is STOOPID not to have someone assisting at the birth! There is just too much that can go wrong, even among women who have delivered at home, uneventfully, before.
Sure, women have given birth at home since the beginning of time, but, except for women giving birth on the prairie or out on the frontier somewhere, there was almost always an older woman in attendance. Those unassisted births contributed to the high infant and mother mortality rate of those frontier families.
We have the knowledge God has given us; why not use it to it's fullest, even for home births?
more women need to know they have that moral support. i lost a baby that could have been saved, and when i requested a new doctor for my next pregnancy my husband of the time refused me!!!
you are an inspiration.
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