Ladyrebecca’s Musings and Ramblings

Due to my husband working weekends to cover for an airmen caught doing something stupid, he no longer gets informed of drills until he shows up without the required things.

The shop had a bag drag today. For a bag drag, he is supposed to bring in this bag that shows how ready he is to deploy. So many socks, pairs of underwear, t-shirts, uniforms, razors, laundry detergent, etc. Of course, before he can actually deploy he will need to buy new uniforms because starch and/or fabric softener (I can’t remember which) causes the clothes to glow like lanterns in Night Vision. So, this is basically a big chance for those higher up to exercise their power over the day to day lives of those lower down. It sucks and they should have called. A phone call to the guys who work weekends. How hard is that?

Of course, for all my complaining, they do some things right. I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to get my mouth looked at (more about that later) and I can’t find a sitter, it being such late notice. But Israel can take an hour or two off to watch Jael so I can see the doctor without company. That’s very nice and it’s not something we’ve ever been able to do at any other job. I don’t know that it makes up for the headaches we experience but it’s not all that bad.

Okay, the mouth sore. A week or so ago, I had what I thought was a bit cheek. You know, the spot that you keep biting and it keeps being swollen so you keep biting it, so on and so on. This was way back on my cheek, beside my wisdom teeth, which I’ve not had removed. It’s so far back that I can not just move my cheek out of the way to keep from biting it. I have to puff out my cheek with air or actually hold it away from my teeth with my fingers. This makes eating awkward, messy and not very attractive. My teeth are also hurting. I don’t know if they are hurting because I’ve been clenching them to keep them closed to keep from accidentally biting my cheek, or because they are doing weird stuff which caused this sore to develop in the first place. I don’t have dental insurance. So I’m going to the doctor who will hopefully be able to tell me if it’s a flesh problem or a tooth problem. If it’s a dental issue, I am hoping that a referral to a dentist will mean that it’s covered by TriCare. *crossing fingers*

So that’s what’s going on today. All of this happened after I had to drive Israel in to work because he couldn’t find his ID (there’s no blame there. I wouldn’t be able to find my butt if it weren’t attached.). So I had to wake Jael up at 6 am. Then drive back to pick him up again and then be home with no car. YUCK!

Oh, and the humidity today…100%.

What else is there to say? One hundred freaking percent.

Last Tuesday I watched a movie which I’d been waiting for for over four years, although I didn’t know it.

Six years ago, I began researching birth, labor, and everything else those two subjects entail. I began this study because I wanted to have a homebirth and my husband was not convinced. He asked me to convince him that it was safer, healthier, and overall better than a conventional hospital birth.

We were both surprised at how the evidence stacked up. Homebirth or midwife assisted birth was by far the safer and healthier option for most pregnancies and births. Indisputably so, though of course, many did dispute it. My husband was even called a murderer for risking his wife’s and child’s life for such a hedonist act. And yet study after study supported homebirth advocates’ claims that homebirth was the better option.

While reading books and articles from medical journals, I would experience feelings of rage and impotence as I realized the magnitude of the average person’s ignorance in things of birth. The American medical establishment purposefully misrepresents information or simply does not give information to expectant mothers. The information they do give them they present in such a way to inspire fear. Fear of this. Fear of that. Fear. FEAR.

The end result is the majority of women are afraid. They are afraid of the pain (which, while in fact painful, is not insurmountable, and I know; I was in labor for over two days). They are afraid of themselves dying or their babies dying, both of which are less likely in a midwife assisted birth than in a doctor assisted birth. They are afraid their baby won’t be healthy (higher apgar score from midwife assisted births than doctor assisted births).

Basically, the less the hospital, doctors and interventions are involved in a birth, the better the outcome and yet, no one know this. When I would tell people we planned on a homebirth, not only were they adamantly against it, they were completely ignorant of the issues involved. I could site sources until I was blue in the face but the simple fact is that most people do not understand or believe things unless they see them on their TV.

Fast forward four years from my daughter’s birth. A friend tells me of this movie called “The Business of Being Born” (for those who can’t run their trailer, here’s a YouTube link) and asks if I want to see it with her. We drive up to Hattiesburg where it is being shown on a college campus for free.

The movie was phenomenal. There were some technical difficulties with the movie and the equipment in the auditorium but we got to see about 95% of the movie. The movie is a lot more about women having choices in the birthing experience than an apology for homebirth. There are no judgments made. They simple state the nature of the problem. The U.S. has the second worst birth stats of industrialized countries. Midwives attend between 70 and 80% of the births in the other countries and the U.S. “stands alone,” having only about half of a percent of births attended by midwives. And yet more babies and more mothers die in the U.S. from birth related causes than anywhere else. Why?

The answer is simple. Money. What costs more, a simple birth with no interventions and no medications or a traumatic birth that results in days and weeks of hospitalization? A healthy baby or one that requires a day or two in the ICU? A routine vaginal delivery with no interventions or a surgery through the abdominal muscles and the uterus and the subsequent days of recovery?

“But…but…but…,” I hear you cry. At first I don’t believe this. Insurance companies wouldn’t stand for this. They want the cheapest labors and births as possible, right? Wrong. They want it complicated and expensive for mothers or else they wouldn’t keep paying the insurance companies. If birth was simple and at home, most mother’s could afford to pay their midwives out of pocket.

The insurance companies, the hospitals, the AMA, and doctors themselves have a vested interest in birth being traumatic, hospitalized, and filled with interventions. It’s job security. They are fighting for their continued existence and these are the people most women trust to tell them the truth about what they need for a healthy pregnancy and birth. Yikes!

(I can cite sources for all these claims but see no reason to look the info up again if no one reads this or cares. If you want to know, just ask and I’ll provide the source documents. Also, I realize there are exceptions to this. There are doctors out there who are great advocates of natural birth but they are the exception and not the rule and hospital policies do not generally support these doctors.)

Okay, I happened to run across this study while researching other things relating to home birth and I thought I’d post it. It confirms everything I’ve said here, regarding home birth being as safe with fewer interventions than hospital birth. While it is only one study it contains links, in the references section, to many more studies.