hate

it's such a strong word. but as i write this one handed because i am nursing my new baby, i think it...feel it...and strong does not seem like enough.

you know what?? i would punch you if i saw you, on the street i would cross over to let you know what i am thinking now.

i hate what you are putting my mom though.

everyone knows grief. has bad things happen to them. you could choose to grow stronger, learn.

but you choose not too. and to blame everyone around you.

i thought from the first time we met that you where a bitch. thanks for proving me right.

Almost done

38 weeks and 5 days!

Last night I had some fairly strong contractions...for a total of a few hours. ;) I have to say when they started spacing out and I fell at last asleep between them...I thought ahhhhhhhh....I can go to sleep!!! It's ok to have the baby another night! :)

When they started around 9pm I was kinda like oh no! I had been at work all day, up early with my almost 5 year old...I wanted to rest. To sleep. Not labor. Oh well, when it is time, it is time.

And truly, I can not wait to meet this new little person who is moving and rolling around inside me. :)

Come out baby whenever you are ready!!!

grief

so i went to grief therapy with a really really nice woman a couple of days ago. i cried and cried and cried.....

and did some talking as well.

for the first time in a quite a while i have had no acid bubbling up in my throat. no burning heart pain.

learning to live in the moment. not in the past, not in the future. now. and that feels better.

one more day and i am 38 weeks. baby is head down...

i am calm one moment and freaking out the next...mainly inside but there are times where it breaks free and i start to take it out...briefly on those around me (sorry family!!).

baby had been head down, on the right side...sometimes laying more towards my back but HEAD DOWN.

now, NOW baby is laying SIDE WAYS. yes, side ways..

one might wonder how the hell a pretty much full size kiddo is now laying side ways instead of up and down??? i am wondering that myself anyway.

one thought is that i am stuffing emotions in and not expressing some grief that has come into my life, and baby is acting crazy 'cause of this. or, since my sister had her second baby a month ago i spend lots of time (as much as i can!!!) holding her little daughter laying across my stomach...and my baby is now laying in the EXACT same way just INSIDE me, that maybe they like each other and are bonding...heartbeat to heartbeat. weird. cute, but weird.

i think i am going to go to belly dancing class this weekend. mom is going to pressure points on my feet and give me some homeopathics.

i can not remember ever being scared with my first baby. never. i just assumed that i would of course have my baby come out of my body at home when it was ready to come out. and he did. and it all was fine and dandy. now i have fears, really big fears that keep me awake at night, that make my cry at random times, that make me doubt what my body and my baby can do.

i still go to births and feel like of COURSE everything will be great, and that this is what our bodies are made for, and feel calm and centered.

and now it is my turn, and one day can be great and calm and positive. and the next could be me feeling shaky and frightened. is this normal?? mom says maybe i should spend the next few weeks going to therapy, working out some of this with someone else. and i am not against that. but it's like where am i going to fit that in what with a almost five year old son and work and the house and being so DAMN TIRED...and can i just say that i am tired of crying?? cause that is what i would be doing, lets be honest here, just lots and lots of crying and sobbing, i don't even know when i would find the breath to talk...

so writing is supposed to help. so i am writing. and maybe it will. maybe i will not have a nightmare tonight that my baby is born breech or something is wrong or or or or or....

Wine and Pregnancy – Lies That Women Are Told

January 05, 2006
Wine and Pregnancy – Lies That Women Are Told
Editor's note: Please feel free to contribute comments and opinions on this article. Scroll to the bottom of the page to find the comment screen. Only 50 replies are shown per page, starting with the first comment received. Hit the "more comments" link to read our entire public commentary. All comments are read and approved before posting. All opinions are welcome, but comments must contribute to moving the discussion forward and indicate that the reader has in fact read the article and commentaries. Profanity, personal insults and bizarre claims are not allowed. ________________________________________________________ Contributed by Daniel Rogov, wine writer

Since 1990 every bottle of wine, beer and spirits sold in the United States has carried the warning that "according to the Surgeon General, women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risk of birth defects." If that has not been enough to add to the anxiety of women already concerned about their own health and the health of their fetuses, hundreds of newspaper articles and television talk shows have been devoted to convincing women that if they have even a single drink during their pregnancy that there is a chance that their baby will be born deformed, addicted to alcohol or retarded.

It seems, however, as if the American government, medical authorities and media have not been telling American women the entire truth. Although the official message is "don't drink at all during pregnancy", a great deal of recent research and a re-examination of the alcohol-pregnancy issue show that there is no conclusive evidence to demonstrate that moderate drinking during pregnancy can harm the fetus.



According to Doctors David Whitten and Martin Lipp of the University of California at San Francisco, "the campaign against drinking during pregnancy started in 1973 when several studies showed that heavy drinking during pregnancy can cause the condition known as the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. These studies demonstrated that the children of many alcoholic mothers were born with a cluster of severe birth defects. "What the government conveniently chose to ignore" say Whitten and Lipp, is that this syndrome is extremely rare, occurring only 3 times in 100,000 births, and then only when the mother drinks abusively throughout her pregnancy."

Lipp and Whitten, whose "To Your Health" was published in 1995, are among an increasing number of doctors and researchers who feel that pregnant women have no reason to fear drinking a glass of wine every day. As revealed by contributing editor Thomas Matthews in the August 31, 1994 issue of the "Wine Spectator" magazine which was devoted largely to this controversy, "there is even new research that shows that moderate drinking during pregnancy may actually help the development of the child after birth."

No one questions the fact that the consumption of large amounts of alcohol during pregnancy can harm the fetus. It has been well established, for example, that the children of women who drink more than 3 - 4 glasses of wine daily show significant decreases in birth weight and length than those of women who drink 1 - 2 glasses daily, and it is generally accepted that having five or more drinks per day is especially dangerous to the fetus. Here, however, agreement ends, and Genevieve Knupfer of the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley, California says that part of the problem comes about because many of the studies that reported adverse effects on the fetus used imprecise methodology. In several studies, for example, researchers arbitrarily defined "heavy drinkers" as those women who consumed more than one glass of wine daily.

Feeling even more strongly, Dr. Michael Samuels of New York City's Doctor's Hospital says that the data has been "turned around for the purpose of frightening women", and indicates that birth defects of any kind occur in 3 - 5% of babies born in the United States and only 1 - 2% of those can be related to the ingestion of alcohol. Based on the data of Samuels and other medical researchers, it becomes clear that less than 0.1% of all birth defects are related to alcohol, and that more than 90% of the affected children are born to women with a history of alcohol abuse.

More than this, not even one study carried out since the mid-1980s has shown a direct correlation between moderate alcohol consumption and birth defects. One study, of 33,300 California women showed that even though 47% drank moderately during their pregnancies that none of their babies met the criteria for Fetal Alcoholic Syndrome. The authors of this study concluded "that alcohol at moderate levels is not a significant cause of malformation in our society and that the position that moderate consumption is dangerous, is completely unjustified."

Some studies go as far as to indicate that light to moderate drinking may actually improve the chance of successful pregnancies. A 1993 study published in the "American Journal of Epidemiology" by Ruth Little and Clarence Weinberg concluded, for example, that there were fewer stillbirths and fewer losses of fetus due to early labor among women who consumed a moderate level of alcohol. That some alcohol can be protective against preterm birth is also supported by Dr. Martha Direnfeld of Haifa University who points out that when used properly, alcohol is known to stop unwanted uterine contractions, and thus has "saved many pregnancies that might otherwise have spontaneously aborted." More than this, Dr. Robert Sokol of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse in Detroit has shown that it is light drinkers and not abstainers who have the best chance of having a baby of optimal birth weight and in their book "Alcohol and the Fetus" and Doctors Henry Rosset and Lynn Wiener have presented data that shows that children of moderate drinkers tend to score highest on developmental tests at the age of 18 months.


Despite these and many other findings the United States government, the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association and the vast majority of American and English doctors continue to recommend complete abstention from wine, beer and spirits during pregnancy. An examination of why this is true reveals that the issue is as emotional, ideological and political as it is medical. Well respected wine writer Janis Robinson, has declared that "in this our male dominated society, men feel entitled to lecture pregnant women on how they should best discharge their responsibilities to their unborn children." In a similar tone, Katha Pollit, writing in "The Nation" claimed that "all of these warnings allow the government to appear to be concerned about babies without having to spend any money, change any priorities or challenge any vested interests."

No one argues that there are no risks whatever in alcohol consumption during pregnancy, even at sensible levels, but as Thomas Matthews stated in the Wine Spectator, "it is important to ask: risky when compared to what?" In her recently published book "The Myths of Motherhood", Shary Turner indicates that alcohol is far from the only risk factor pregnant women are warned against. Other items on the list include caffeine, chocolate, raw oysters, unpasteurized cheese, tropical fruits, drugs that alleviate cold symptoms, nail polish, suntan lotion and hair dye, all of which in some amount may harm the fetus. Turner's conclusion is that "the only risk free pregnancy is one that is meant less to benefit the baby than to imprison the mother in anxiety and self-reproach."


In the absence of 100% certainty about the issue, many continue to insist that abstinence is the best advice to give pregnant women. Others, however, see this attitude as illogical and have concluded that the risks and benefits associated with light to moderate regular wine consumption compare quite favorably with most other activities of daily life. Doctors Whitten and Lipp write that "light, regular wine consumption, or one or two glasses of table wine per day can be part of the healthy lifestyle for most people, including pregnant women." Israeli gynecologist-researchers Howard Carp and Martha Direnfeld also feel that women who were drinking healthfully before pregnancy are not putting their fetuses in danger if they go on drinking in the same way during pregnancy. Dr. Carp states that "an occasional glass of wine or any other drink is fine, no problem at all, and those women who drink a glass of wine once or twice a week with their meals should not feel any guilt or fear at all." Like Dr. Carp, Dr. Direnfeld acknowledges the harm of drinking in excess but feels that "a reasonable amount of alcohol, say a glass of wine per day, will not harm the baby."

It is true that all of the evidence has not yet been gathered, but it is difficult not to see the logic of the conclusion that when it comes to drinking, evidence demands interpretations and decisions require judgment. Women are capable of choosing for themselves.

_________________________________________________

Daniel Rogov is the Wine and Food Critic of HaAretz newspaper in Israel. He is also the author of Rogov's Guide to Israeli Wines and a regular contributor to Tom Stevenson's Wine Report and Hugh Johnson's Pocket Wine Book. His wine and gastronomy internet site and forum can be found at http://www.stratsplace.com/rogov/home.html

Don't Sell Your Sisters Down the River

Editorial: Don't Sell Your Sisters Down the River
Jan Tritten
© 2000 Midwifery Today, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Editor's note: This editorial originally appeared in Midwifery Today Issue 55, Autumn 2000.]

The Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA) has always been an inclusive organization, a place for all midwives. MANA's whole foundation has been one of acceptance and unity. I was shocked, therefore, when I heard that the board had proposed that only licensed, certified professional midwives (CPMs) or certified nurse-midwives (CNMs) could be voting members. This proposal reeks of a witch hunt and will cause even worse separation in our already divided movement.

Midwifery was bruised and nearly broken in New York state in the mid-1990s when direct entry and lay midwives were outlawed, then replaced, by only those midwives coming out of an "approved" direct entry program. Is MANA planning this scene for the whole country? Will MANA members simply stand by in complicity? If so, another midwifery uprising will occur, bringing forth a new surge of lay midwives who are willing to serve women in a way that we can't. The flow of the river is carrying us in a direction we will soon be unable to resist. Midwifery will be back where it was several years ago, with a strong, illegal lay midwifery movement acting as a powerful undercurrent. The midwives of MANA will represent the status quo. We will have colluded with the patriarchal medical establishment so that it is against the law to practice anything the whim of medicine decides midwives should or shouldn't do. We will be limited soon by protocols that will hamstring us into practicing watered-down midwifery and will rob women of their birthing rights.

Remember, we are all in this together—mothers, families and all midwives who promote and maintain the midwifery model of care. The movement also includes—needs—the associated helpers, physicians, doulas, childbirth educators and activists. As a movement, we must be careful not to be self-promoting in a factional manner. The further we get away from this concept of a unified movement, the more self-promoting we become.

Midwifery knowledge really belongs to the people. Professions seek to exclude others from the closely guarded knowledge of their members. This sort of exclusive professionalization should not become the pathway of midwifery. Our movement must continue to recognize that birth belongs to families.

Otherwise, we are building our own trap. Even CNMs can't practice unless a physician signs for them. Will we, as non-medically trained professionals, get more privilege than CNMs? Don't bet on it. The current is sweeping us along. What we get by with now will change later. Let's open our eyes and wake up. We have to protect the future as well as the present. Today midwives are still allowed multiple routes of entry, but tomorrow we may be required to enter via an “approved” school, probably steeped in the medical model. The medical culture in this country exists cradle-to-grave and is strong. Midwives are the still, small voices advocating for women and their babies. Scream! Don't let your mouth be gagged by the MANA proposal.

Are you worried about safety at birth? Then focus your worry on what is happening to motherbaby during pregnancy and birth in medically based practices. If you call yourself a midwife, then protecting motherbaby from harmful procedures and substances is your first job.

The idea behind the MANA proposal is not culturally sensitive. Midwives are now engaged in birthing a global movement to honor and preserve traditional midwifery. We have some of the best traditional midwives right here in the United States, yet this proposal undermines them. Gladys Milton was a wonderful granny midwife who fought the state of Florida for her ability to practice—and won. We were all incensed when this happened to her, but it appears that we are willing to turn around and take the ability to practice away from our sisters.

Right now, empirical midwives in the United States still have the most autonomy of nearly any midwives anywhere. Yet we are slowly sacrificing that autonomy with our licensing requirements. I realize that the current MANA proposal addresses voting privileges only within the organization. However, voluntary licensing is available only in Oregon and Minnesota. The rest of the states that have adopted licensing require it. Although licensing might be an unfortunate necessity in some states, taking the vote away from our unlicensed sisters is simply not acceptable. Licensing is a double-edged sword that limits women's choices. The more rules we have, the less we can use our intuition and knowledge. The less autonomy we have, the less we can really serve women. Instead of serving the motherbaby, we begin to serve the Western medical patriarchy.

As midwives, aren't we capable of something different and more feminine than thinking in a Western, hierarchical, patriarchal manner—the “we are in, you are out” thought style? I believe we are. Our midwifery model is planted in a holistic model. The midwives' role is planted squarely on the shoulders of our sisters Shiphrah and Puah. In the story of Moses, they disobeyed Pharaoh; so must we.

Take a look at Robbie Davis-Floyd's work on open and closed thought systems in her book Authoritative Knowledge. The closed thought system evident in the MANA proposal tromps on my freedom of religion as well as my inherent right to the pursuit of happiness. As Ina May Gaskin said, birth is “a sacrament.” Birth is a holy event of God sending a baby, a new human being, to this life on Earth. I have the most freedom to enact this sacrament my way if I can choose with whom, if anyone, I will birth. More women already are choosing unassisted homebirth, and as midwives lose their freedom to serve the women who want unmedicalized homebirth, there will be a lot more.

The damage this impending rift will cause in our fragile movement is immeasurable but huge, with a ripple effect that will be felt forever in our herstory. If we sell our sisters downriver, will the river change course? A popular song from the ’70s said “freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.” But that's not true. Freedom is our heritage and goes deep into the American soul (see my editorial in Issue No. 52).

Midwifery Today seeks to have a loving midwife available to all moms. Let's let the families who want midwives to attend them choose whom they want. Let's provide these families a wide variety of choices.

The MANA proposal likely will have the unfortunate side effect of outlawing lay midwifery all over the United States in spite of the organization's once-stated goal to decriminalize midwifery. MANA might consider rejoining the fight to decriminalize rather than going after certain midwives whose practices aren't stamped and approved by the medical patriarchy. Remember, diversity is our strength. Let's find ways to work out our needs without excluding others.

Note: Issue 56 is on building birth communities. I invite you to respond with your ideas for building strong communities with a sense of unity and responsibility that we owe to each other. The concept “Save the Midwife” includes all of us.


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Midwives 'losing' breech birth skills

Most breech labours end in Caesareans

Midwives are losing the skill to carry out breech births because so many women are having Caesareans, health experts have warned.
Jean Robinson, a former General Medical Council (GMC) and Patient Association member, said better midwife training would give pregnant women more choices.

She said: "Women are losing the opportunity to have vaginal births and those that are being carried out are being carried out by obstetricians.



Women are supposed to have a choice. At present only those who can afford a private midwife are likely to get a midwifery breech delivery

Jean Robinson

"In the days when a large proportion of our births were home births, midwives were able to deliver babies, twins, small babies and very large babies as well as breech babies."

A "breech baby" is a baby who is not positioned in the birth canal with his or her head down. Instead, the legs or buttocks appear first.

Ms Robinson said fewer and fewer midwives were being offered the chance to carry out such births and so were losing vital skills.

"They would not have the skills or the confidence to deliver them vaginally. More and more breeches now mean a routine Caesarean."

Ms Robinson, a current honorary officer for the Association for Improvements in Maternity Services (AIMS), raised her concerns in an article in the British Journal of Midwifery.

Complications

She said: "Whether working at home or in the hospital, midwives are going to find themselves coping unexpectedly with a breech arrival.

"Transferring the woman before the birth or getting an experienced doctor quickly is not always an option.

"Some of the births in transit might have been better managed by delivery before transfer, but I suspect the midwives could not, or dare not, do it.

"Women are supposed to have a choice. At present only those who can afford a private midwife are likely to get a midwifery breech delivery."


Midwives need to learn how to do breech births


She said women should be offered vaginal births wherever possible to avoid complications during surgery or in future pregnancies.

Independent midwife Mary Cronk agreed.

She said breech deliveries were not recommended but women should, where possible, be offered the chance to have vaginal breech births.

"I think many of us have lost the skills. And many who trained in the 80's and 90's never learnt the skill," she said.

Midwives who could carry out breech births were being inundated with calls from mothers anxious to avoid surgery, she added.

"In the last 48 hours I have had three calls from women with breech births and all the women told me that they had been told they would need a Caesarean."

'Unnecessary surgery'

She said midwives needed to be given better training and education to cope with breech births.

A spokeswoman for the Royal College of Midwives said they were aware of the need for health professionals to update their skills to avoid unnecessary surgery.

"Obstetricians and midwives need to update their skills to successfully manage vaginal breech birth once more," she said.

"The RCM has run practice based seminars for midwives on the management of breech vaginal births as part of our ongoing continuing professional development programme for midwives."

But she said that a Canadian study comparing the outcome of planned Caesarean section with planned vaginal birth for breech presentation at term suggested that planned Caesarean section was better for the baby than planned vaginal birth."