by Susan McCutcheon, 2017 (1984, May 1996, June 2017)
Adam recommended this book. He listened to it while on the way home from Alaska. He and Danette own a copy of it. It was where he learned about how X-rays were done on fetuses and it took 20 years or so before this completely unnecessary practice was stopped – it was causing children to have leukemia! But because they thought they could find too small pelvises and do C-sections and save the baby – all completely unnecessary – it became common practice before it had even been tested, and once it was common practice, it was extremely difficult to end. “Along came Dr. Alice Stuart in the 1950s. Leukemia and other malignant tumors in young children had increased significantly (by 50 percent) and no one had a clue as to why this had happened. Dr. Stuart looked for anything that might be a common denominator and she found it! By a rate of 2 to 1, the children who died of leukemia had mothers who were X-rayed in labor.”
The author is an experienced birth coach in the Bradley Method – completely natural childbirth. It advocates this because it is the easiest, safest, and ultimately best way to have a baby. I am convinced. Even the IV drip they put in you routinely should not be allowed. Here’s the couple of paragraphs on that:
“After the nurse hooks up an IV, she will often say, “You may notice your contractions slowing down.” Isn’t it just common sense that dripping fluid into an open vein is going to dilute the bloodstream that carries oxygen and nutrients around the body, as well as the hormone the body produces to make the uterus contract? No wonder an estimated 30 to 40 percent of women in labor have so-called uterine inertia or dystocia and then need some artificial hormone added to the IV to force the uterus to contract. Having caused the problem with the intervention of a routine IV, it is necessary to solve it with a drug that has numerous known side effects and risks.”
She advocates a high protein, nutritious diet, and not to worry about gaining weight. She advocates certain exercises to aid in the natural childbirth. She explains about the stages of labor and how it can vary from woman to woman. There are Speedsters and Putterers, and other variations – some where the water breaks before labor, and even then, you don’t fly to a hospital, you wait (sometimes days) for actual labor to start. For first time mothers, she recommends not going to the hospital until contractions are a minute long and 3 minutes apart. Going to the hospital too soon is a sure way to foil your attempt to have a natural childbirth. There are emotional stages of labor – the first is excitement – do not go to the hospital yet. The second is Seriousness and you can go to the hospital if you are definitely in the serious stage and your contractions are a minute long, 3 minutes apart. You measure from its beginning to the peak of its strength. Then you time several of them and take an average because they will not all be the same.
There are 6 needs of the laboring women: Darkness and Solitude, Quiet, Physical Comfort (ice chips or water, back rubs, pillows to maintain perfect sideways position – everything supported in a line from head to foot, a bathroom nearby, being asked to turn over from side to side about every hour), Physical Relaxation (the coaches job to ask her to release tension everywhere), Controlled Breathing (the Lamaze method of breathing is wrong, wrong, wrong!), the Appearance of Sleep and Closed Eyes.
It’s too bad some of the things our medical system has done in regards to childbirth. Just about all of the interventions that routinely occur are not only not necessary, have caused damage (Episiotomies are one example, they actually cause damage and more tears than the possible little tear that would happen maybe without one. If the doctor knows to tell the woman to stop pushing when the baby crowns, so the baby can turn naturally and slip out, there is usually not even a tear).
Ultrasounds, page 34: “Ultrasound takes a picture of your baby by bouncing high-frequency sound waves off him and translating the echo into a picture. We don’t know what the long-term side effects of these sound vibrations (“anywhere from 20,000 to millions of vibrations per second”) might be. We do know that, in the short term, cells behave abnormally after just one diagnostic ultrasound exposure. Their shape changes temporarily and their movement becomes frenetic.” (Dear God, please save our baby girl from adverse effects of ultrasound because she has already had nearly 20 of them!)
This is where Adam learned about the Cochrane Review which analyzes all the studies and comes to conclusions. The best studies are RCT – Randomized Control Trials. Page 37: “The Cochrane Collaboration is a global network of researchers, scientists, health policymakers, and consumer advocates. More than 28,000 people in 120 countries provide their time and expertise. This is a highly respected, internationally recognized source.”
When a baby is born naturally, it picks up the mother’s microbes as he passes through the birth canal that are specific to that child to “jump-start” his immune system and help him with digestion. The woman in labor is the only one that has those particular microbes.
Page 76, the importance of Kegel exercises. I should be doing these – she does them at stoplights – it’s recommended to contract them 300 times per day. If you feel your abdomen or buttocks involved, you’re flexing the wrong muscle. Once you have it down, progress to intermediate Kegels – flex 36 times a day but hold to the count of ten, 12 in the morning before you get out of bed, 12 times in the afternoon, and 12 times at night before going to sleep. The intermediate Kegel is flexing progressively up the vaginal barrel and then releasing back down 12 times a day.
It’s possible I didn’t try Kegel exercises long enough to fix my incontinence. She recommends 3 months of them and then ongoing all your life.
This from a Cochrane Review: “The review of trials found that pelvic floor muscle training (muscle-clenching exercises) helps women with all types of incontinence although women with stress incontinence who exercise for three months or more benefit most.”
The three stages of birth are: opening the cervix (contractions are what do this), pushing out the baby, and expelling the placenta.
As regards the cord and the placenta, after the baby is born, the natural way is to immediately give the baby to the mom so the baby can nurse and leave the cord attached. The cord is still pumping valuable blood and nutrients into the baby. Once the cord is white, it can be cut. Also, don’t rush the placenta birth – let it happen naturally, too. It usually will come out with one contraction about a half hour after birth. If you try to get it out too soon, it can tear the uterus. And the baby should be allowed to stay with Mom for 2 hours minimum right after birth. All the weighing, etc. can wait. This is valuable time. Colostrum is important if the baby is going into the nursery at the hospital, especially.
Relaxation through the contractions is the key and she spends a lot of time explaining how to relax. A coach is important throughout this process. It can take a long time, too – 15 hours sometimes.
Page 192 – “A newborn’s brain expects faces: Even when they are less than ten minutes old, babies will turn toward face-like patterns, but not to scrambled versions of the same pattern.” (Don’t be looking at others and thanking them at this time – look at your baby – make eye contact.)
Page 215-216, our country has one of the highest rates of preterm birth in the world. Doctors were doing early inductions at 37 weeks or so. Insurance companies saw that they were hemorrhaging money – going to NICUs. There was a direct correlation between early induction and the NICU. One strong administrator, Dr. Brent James, chief quality officer at Intermountain Health Care, started sending women home and then calling the obstetrician to let them know their patient did not meet the criteria for a high-risk pregnancy. The last few weeks are so important for fetal development of the brain and lungs in particular. There’s a movie called Money and Medicine. I requested it from the Library.
She talks about the routine late-pregnancy ultrasounds, given for no particular reason, but find low-amniotic fluid or some such thing and that ultimately cause inductions and c-sections, etc. Her advice is don’t agree to them in the first place, or if you do, don’t take the results as alarming. They haven’t been shown to be necessary. Babies who appear to have low amniotic fluid and are not induced are born healthy and vigorous naturally a few weeks later, when it was time.
To avoid unnecessary Cesareans, don’t go to the hospital too soon. If you are not 4 centimeters dilated and the baby is well, go back home and do as much as the labor at home as possible. Once you get to the hospital, you become their patient and they want things to progress according to their often incorrect time-tables. One of the things that causes unnecessary Cesareans is the electronic fetal monitor. This is where straps are placed around the mother and an electrode is screwed into the baby’s skull. Then they start getting data and it leads to wrong conclusions that the baby is in trouble which leads to an unnecessary C-section. A stethoscope is an easy, unobtrusive way to monitor the baby’s heart rate.
Inductions are also done when a woman goes past her due date. The doctor thinks her placenta is going to deteriorate. This has also been proven false. One case study of a woman who was told she needed to be induced, and she ignored it, had a healthy 6 pound baby girl at 42 weeks. The placenta was just fine, too!
Forceps and vacuum extractors end up being used on babies of induced mothers, drugged mothers, because they can’t push any longer (if a C-section isn’t done). These cause damage to both baby and mother. Since C-sections are coming under scrutiny for increasing maternal mortality rate (2014), forceps are starting to be used again.
There are times when a C-section is necessary – bleeding is one of them, of mother or infant. Or if the cord is coming out first – it can get pinched and baby will not be able to breathe. And true fetal distress. And maybe if baby is breech (feet-first) but even then, that is not always necessary. And herpes, and CPD – the pelvis too small for the baby’s head, but that is extremely rare.
Her last chapter is about breastfeeding and how important that is – how much easier, less tiring, and better for baby. The first three weeks are hard so don’t expect it to be smooth and easy.
Excellent book! Very easy to read! Very disconcerting, though, to learn how BAD and WRONG our medical establishment is and how hard it is to change things once they go into practice, even when PROVEN harmful to mother or child. Wow – what a world!