Re: A letter to doctors about childbirth
From: Michael J. Wolpmann, MD (elvisdoc@comcast.net)
Sat Jul 13 06:37:04 2002
<<<<Who am I to you- some "nut" on the Internet>>>>
Bingo.
Michael
At Fri, 12 Jul 2002, Stephanie A Coleman wrote:
>
>>From http://www.birthlove.com
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>Dear doctors,
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>
>On my lower belly is a cesarean scar. It formed there 10 years ago after
>a needless cesarean. To this day, touching it makes me shudder. Hair
>doesn't grow on it; it is without sensation- a white, bumpy, ugly dead
>strip.
>
>The child who came from it is the only one of my seven children who has
>ever sucked his thumb, or needed a security blanket.
>
>On my back are little pinprick scars from epidural catheters. They are
>little bland bumps. I am one of the women who have lifelong back pain
>from epidural anesthesia; and one of the few women for whom epidural
>anesthesia doesn't even work. (I had spinal anesthetic though my epidural
>catheter for the c-section. My husband's idea in the OR, by the way...
>one of the few times in our five hospital births where he was listened
>to, and not treated like a fourth class citizen.)
>
>My daughter was hurried through my vagina with a Pitocin drip. She has
>some behavioral difficulties that many children who were born through
>Pitocin tend to have- almost autistic in nature. Autism is now linked
>with Pitocin use (see end).
>
>My fourth child was induced at 40 weeks, my shortest pregnancy ever. I am
>supposed to have ten month pregnancies, as my last two births, sixth and
>seventh, have shown me. My fourth child is my only violent child; he
>causes so much heartbreak in my family. Every day he has hurt his younger
>brother. I wonder if he would have been a bit more gentle in his life if
>his birth had been more gentle- if he had been allowed to gestate as long
>as my body requires. (Incidentally the younger brother he beats up was
>born through a Prostin smearing on my cervix. He was lucky my VBAC uterus
>didn't rupture. So am I.)
>
>I always thought there was no other way for me to give birth- that I was
>a birthing failure; incapable of birthing without an induction jumpstart
>or a surgical incision. For five childbirths I always "needed" my doctors
>to create my birth experiences for me, and to save me from my own
>birthing inefficiency and hopelessness. (I was actually addicted to their
>"helping" me, and was always effusive in my gratitude for their efforts.)
>But then with my sixth, I just couldn't do it again- I couldn't go back
>to another hospital to give birth... I was just too hurt and broken
>inside.
>
>I found a lay midwife, and had the beautiful, easy birth that I am
>intended to have. I finally gave birth as a full, luscious woman- all my
>own hormones, in my own safe place- with no fingers in me, or straps on
>my belly. (Or knives in my belly.) I simply pushed my baby out and went
>to bed.
>
>This birth healed me... it fulfilled me, enraged me, and propelled me to
>begin writing and to help heal birth for other women- help them see that
>the childbirth theories of men in white lab coats are wrong. I created my
>website (birthlove.com), and soon discovered that millions of women feel
>just as I did- hopeless; inept; incapable; less-than fully female; not
>deserving of gentleness or birthing bliss: and that there is no other way
>to give birth. Millions of women bear terrible scars of the body, soul
>and psyche from processed, assembly-line birth... millions of women are
>heartbroken from the loss of what could possibly have been the most
>beautiful moment of their lives.
>
>What seems to you like a routine day of work impacts entire lives-
>decades are affected by what happens in the few hours of giving birth.
>Later drug addiction comes with one's own drugged childbirth; an
>increased risk of later violent suicide comes with one's own violent,
>painful childbirth. (See references to Bertil Jacobson's work below.)
>Terrible infirmities come to women who have had cut, manipulated
>childbirths... I know women who can't control their bowel movements
>because of episiotomy cuts. I know women for whom hemorrhoids cause
>lifelong pain and severe loss of freedom because of their vacuum
>extractors and forceps deliveries. I know women who are suicidal in their
>awful depths of self-hatred and worthlessness: they have a despair that
>ricochets through their souls from being strapped down like meat to be
>palpated and probed by anyone who wants to touch their bodies in
>childbirth. I know women who never realize their full potential as women-
>as artistic, sentient, feeling women- because they have not given birth
>powerfully and joyfully.
>
>I know of women who are not even living anymore because of their
>hazardous hospital births... I know of the doctors who are not held
>accountable for their deaths. I also know of doctors not held accountable
>for babies' deaths.. and I know of thousands of women who have been lied
>to by doctors, and told that their difficult births were somehow their
>own fault- that they were too disproportionate, incompetent, or failures
>at progressing for birth at all without medical assistance (the same
>meddling, intimidating assistance that stunted their spontaneous birthing
>in the first place).
>
>How can I tell you to stop hurting families? How can I tell you that
>giving birth matters? How can I tell you that your procedures cause more
>harm than good? Why would you believe me? Who am I to you- some "nut" on
>the Internet who will impact as deeply and personally as a passing,
>uneventful comet? The women still come to you. They fill up your waiting
>rooms with their passiveness, endless patience and willingness to follow
>your orders. They think you know best- they think you are the expert in
>human childbirth. But how can I tell you that you're not? You won't
>believe me; your medical degree and your years of managing childbirth in
>hospitals may suggest to you that you deserve the position of societal
>expert of childbirth.
>
>But listen: the birth you know is incorrect. The birth you have studied
>and mastered is false; how most women give birth today- with unproven
>interventions and invasive, humiliating procedures being the norm- is
>wrong. The birth that doctors see and understand is caged birth; free
>birth resembles nothing of the stop-and-start, bizarre, agonizing births
>of the hospital LDR. Birth as it is meant to be given is as
>straightforward and obvious as any other act of elimination. And as are
>other eliminatory acts, birth is best given in absolute privacy. (Never
>flat on one's back with spectators and bright lights.)
>
>Birth is also the ultimate act of reproduction. It is transcendentally
>sexual- like a big, luscious orgasm: wild; uncontrollable once you get to
>the point of no return. That is... if you're able to get to that point of
>no return... reaching this state of wild animal release- the optimal
>state of mind/being for birth- can only come if no one is disturbing you,
>and if you feel secure and are free from harm. If there is no external
>schedule imposed on your own intrinsic orgasmic schedule. This is how
>birth is- highly sensitive to external stimuli; becoming erratic, stunted
>and pathological if a woman senses her environment isn't safe and
>accepting of her own unique way of opening up for birth (equate opening
>up for birth with ecstasy/release). And this is why so many hospital
>births "need" doctors' drugs and intervention- because of how sexually
>constipating the hospital birth environment is.
>
>Women are increasingly understanding the true nature of childbirth every
>day... due to the Internet, we are rapidly learning that the medical way
>of giving birth is false. Every day, thousands more women are becoming
>alerted to how senseless routine procedures truly are. And once a truth
>of this magnitude is understood, all of our paths as women are changed-
>we all become committed to going to the ends of the Earth to help other
>women heal birth for themselves, and their friends and daughters. We are
>taking back the roles of wise women and teachers in our communities.
>
>Doctors: there is a powerful movement happening in the women of the
>world; it is one of dignity, power and love of birth. It is a movement
>that will move women out of your waiting rooms and back into their own
>homes to give birth. It is massive, and unstoppable. You can either
>respect this movement- acknowledge it, and reassess your practices and
>make them more humane- or you can battle this healing force with your own
>cruel arsenal: even more birth interventions for women's "own good". But
>be warned that such ugliness will only shame you, and render your souls
>as vacant as your waiting rooms and ORs will be.
>
>You will have a choice in your obstetrical career. A choice about whether
>to be a gentle protector of birth, or to be a butcher of birth. Any time
>an OB performs a needless section or an episiotomy, he is performing an
>act of terrible violence. This is not so well understood now, but in
>twenty years, this will be the mainstream belief. Learn this well now, so
>you can have a busy, humane practice in years to come.
>
>You say you are for the rights and health of women and babies. If you
>are, please learn to leave us alone. Leave the umbilical cord attached to
>the placenta until the placenta is delivered, and allow the mother's own
>hormones to determine the timing of the placenta's expulsion (see the
>article excerpted below). Stop separating women from their newborns. Stop
>using so many drugs on women- what seems like a good idea now causes
>terrible harm throughout entire lifetimes. Stop cutting episiotomies!
>Learn from lay midwives abut how to best attend normal childbirth instead
>of attacking them. Have more water tubs in hospitals, and learn about
>water in lieu of drugs for pain relief. Stop thinking fingertips can
>assess how a birth is progressing! Learn more about prenatal nutrition,
>especially about how high-quality protein intake drastically reduces high
>blood pressure. Encourage women to take birthing positions they
>instinctively will go in. Read the inserts in drug packages to see if the
>drugs are recommended for use in pregnant women, and don't use the
>medications if they're not. Please stop inducing women because of
>"postdates". Stop performing routine amniotomies.
>
>Have medical students learn to do pelvic exams on volunteers- never on
>birthing women. Look at pregnant women and not fetal monitor strips! Be
>mindful of how it feels for women to be utterly at their doctors' mercy
>in childbirth; buy a copy of my book (see end) if you want to learn what
>it feels like to be a patient. It doesn't feel very good. There are so
>many ways you can make birth better for the women who know of no other
>way to give birth than with you in attendance... learn these ways now,
>before the women stop coming to you altogether.
>
>Understand that birth matters. It is the most important moment of a
>woman's whole life- one that she recalls every day of her life spent
>loving her child; one that makes her the women she is intended to become.
>And a child born gently loves in gentle ways throughout his whole
>lifetime, too.
>
>No, I'm not one of "those" women who want pleasant and flowery but
>hazardous homebirths. I trusted doctors with five of my births, and they,
>in every single one of them, put me and my babies at needless risk
>through interventions. I had no idea that their own fear of litigation
>and kowtowing to peers' expectations made it impossible for them to allow
>me to birth in any way other than that of the accepted standard of care
>in my area. And while I accept full responsibility for the outcomes of
>all birth choices, it will always be heartbreaking to me that my doctors'
>own fears were more important for them to address than the sanctity of my
>skin, bladder, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries and postpartum
>experience. I'm so sorry that my children have had to suffer for my own
>ignorant birth choices... and I'll do all I can for the rest of my life
>to prevent such uninformed births from happening to others.
>
>I don't know what else to say to you. There is just too much, and I don't
>know if you care... but know this: birth is as easy as women allow it to
>be. Birth is trustworthy and safe; birth knows how to create the best
>outcomes for women and babies. Your carefully-taught ways of obstetrics
>interferes with birth's own instinctive, ingenious ways of creating
>excellent outcomes. The birth you understand is wrong... birth is as easy
>as a heartbeat; as obvious as a large, smooth bowel movement. It truly
>is. Simple, yes- but also sacred. Birth is sacred. "Sacred" as in
>inviolable, and capable of generating fantastic emotion and spirituality.
>
>Healing; animal; exponential in its capacity for either harm or ecstasy;
>female. Birth can be trusted. Birth should be revered. Birth must be left
>alone. Birth is as safe as life gets.
>
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>Autism linked with Pitocin use
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>An excerpt from a Newsweek cover story.
>
>"Dr. Eric Hollander of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine noticed
>several years ago that 60 percent of the autistic patients in his clinic
>had been exposed in the womb to pitocin, the synthetic version of a brain
>chemical (oxytocin) that helps induce labor. That could be significant,
>since only 20 percent of all births are assisted by pitocin. Or it could
>be a meaningless coincidence. In the hope of finding out, Hollander is
>now tracking 58,000 kids whose mothers' treatments were monitored during
>pregnancy." Read it here.
>
>Autism- an Overview, by Lewis Mehl-Madrona, M.D., Ph.D. This article has
>many good references.
>
>And see "Interview with Professor Jaak Panksepp"
>
>Bertil Jacobson's work
>Jacobson, B; Bygdeman, M. Obstetric care and proneness of offspring to
>suicide as adults: case-control study BMJ 1998;317:1346-1349 View the
>study here.
>Jacobson, B. et al. Opiate addiction in adult offspring through possible
>imprinting after obstetric treatment. BMJ 1990;310:1067-1070.
>
>Delaying cutting the umbilical cord
>The following paragraph is excerpted from "Cord Closure: Can Hasty
>Clamping Injure the Newborn?" by George M. Morley, MB., CH. B. (July
>1998, OBG Management)
>
>..."Normal blood volume is not produced by a cord clamp. The newborn and
>placenta reach physiologic, hemodynamic equilibrium without interference,
>The placental transfusion is massive, silent, and invisible, but as
>normal and physiologic as is crying at birth. An adequate blood volume is
>needed to perfuse the lungs, gut, kidneys, and skin that replace the
>placenta's respiratory, alimentary, excretory, and thermal functions.
>During the third stage of labor, a large portion of placental blood is
>shifted to these organs, While the normal, term child tolerates immediate
>clamping, lack of placental transfusion increases morbidity in "at risk"
>births. Many neonatal morbidities such as the hyperviscosity syndrome,
>infant respiratory distress syndrome, anemia, and hypovolemia correlate
>with early clamping. To avoid injury in all deliveries, especially those
>of neonates at risk, the cord should not be clamped until placental
>transfusion is complete." For the full document, go here.
>
>Apprenticeships
>Doctors can contact the online midwifery community for help in finding
>local midwives who may help them become better equipped to attend births.
>Go to Midwifery Today's website. http://www.midwiferytoday.com Midwives-
>contact me if you are interested in setting up apprenticeships- doctors
>can learn a lot from you. {email:leilah@birthlove.com} This could be a
>valuable, effective means of humanizing and normalizing childbirth
>worldwide.
>
>One excellent reference for learning what birth is supposed to mean for
>women (and their men) is my book, "Resexualizing Childbirth". Learn about
>it and order it online here. http://www.birthlove.com
>
>Stephanie Coleman
>Mama to Hannah, 2 yrs, csec, and Michael, 8 mo, HBAC
>Chapter Leader, ICAN of North Texas http://www.ican-online.org
>
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Michael J. Wolpmann, MD, FACOG, FACS
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