Your Intuition is.....Yours

A beautiful bulging belly, the image of fruitfulness and love, sat before me.  Her eyes were brimming with the life growing inside of her, a life which would soon burst through her heart and shatter it into thousands of droplets filled with colors and light and make a rainbow of her soul.  There were other feelings there, in the pools of her eyes: fear, insecurity, doubt.  A wise man once told me, “God gives children to the most inexperienced people" - truth.  Here was a woman turning mother, wondering how the never-ending nine months could have flown by so quickly.  Ready or not (as all parents learn, firmly “not”), this baby is coming and coming soon.

She was my client and her question seemed simple, though her voice was anxious and taut,  “what do you keep in your home medicine cabinet?  I want to make sure I’m prepared.”  Being a leaning-towards-hippy-and-all-things-natural midwife who was also raised in the rurals of Northern California by a saintly woman with solid nutritional, herbal, and medicinal values, I should have had a ready-answer.  But, being a real life mother, there was this rush of panic, self-consciousness, and insecurity.  Who was I to tell answer this question for her?

This is not about what’s in my medicine cabinet.  It’s about stepping into the wardrobe behind the medicine cabinet and choosing who to trust in a wide and unfamiliar world where you are the monarch responsible for taking care of little lives.  You discover during pregnancy that everyone feels the freedom to tell you what you just have to know and just have to do and just have to…  And then you wade (or drown) into parenthood and there are even more voices telling you what you should do or think.  How and who do you believe? How do you choose who to trust?  What do they know, anyhow?  Pretty soon you’re requiring everyone’s credentials, background, and philosophical position on modern medicine before you lend them an ear. And THEN you realize that you’re not one bit closer to making a decision and really everyone is out to confuse you and how, oh how, can there be so many opinions about every tiny piece of parenting? (If you don’t believe me, just speak the word “immunizations” publicly and experience the torrent of opinions that follow).

In my professional opinion, there are things that a pregnant/laboring/breastfeeding woman should do (eat well, drink plenty of water, stay active…) and shouldn’t do (smoke, drink diet soda, run a marathon after 36 weeks…).  Everyone agrees, these things are sound and smart and will always be true.  Science is not what we as moderns tend to think it is – it is not static or infallible or universal.  Wisdom, however, is.  We need both, but not equally.  Wisdom is a gift; science is learned.  Wisdom is unpalpable; science is experimental.  Wisdom is unprovable; science is theory proved to law.  Wisdom emanates from the Creator who alters scientific “law” upon His whim (or request, sun standing still and all).  Wisdom transcends us yet is deeply personal, piercing to our conscience and ordering our ways.

When someone says something like, “you should try using essential oils when your child has a fever and you’ll never use Tylenol again” or “you really shouldn’t give any vaccinations before your child is one year old, my 5-month old had a terrible reaction when we vaccinated,” this is confusing wisdom for science and making intuition a universal law.  I am, you are, responsible for the little lives given to our stewardship.  For an indefinite amount of time, they are ours.  Mine are not yours and yours are not mine and the woman in Target or at church or at playgroup does not know what is best for your family.  We need community, we crave input, and it’s good to seek advice from a couple trusted people, but both the decisions and consequences of our family’s health are responsibilities given to us as their parents.

I am not saying to trust your intuition and throw all else to the wind.  I am encouraging you to do your research, talk to others, ask questions of professionals, soak these things in and seek wisdom.  Attach yourself to your mom/aunt/grandma or to an experienced mom you respect - ASK THEM INSTEAD OF GOOGLE.  Do not be driven by guilt or insecurity, there is no shame in having (or not having) Benadryl, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, homeopathy or any other medicine/non-medicine in your cabinet.  Vaccinate or don’t vaccinate based on research or trusting your care provider.  Don’t make these decisions from fear, for in parenting the fear threatens to run deep and cloudy through all things, marring joy and stealing peace. You have the intuition for your family. Incline your ear and learn to trust.  

America! Maternal Mortality on the Rise

The United States is one of eight countries where Maternal Morbidity is on the rise.  In fact, our rate of maternal mortality has tripled since 1980.  Defined as "maternal death that is associated with pregnancy or childbirth", America now has the highest rate of maternal mortality amongst developed countries.  What a thing of horror.   

There are several reasons that this is occurring, including an increased number of surgical deliveries (which are three times riskier than a vaginal delivery), complications from augmented labors, and dietary deficiencies leading to a rise in preeclampsia and eclampsia.  This is only part of the list that we can see and study.  But the particular issue I want to address today is that of rural healthcare, as maternal death is disproportionately high in rural areas.

Living in a very isolated area, I can attest to the state of rural maternal health in America today.  The nearest hospital is 15 minutes away, a larger one is 40 minutes away, and the nearest urban hospital is an hour and a half drive.  Due to the increasing cost of obstetric services in the US, the closest hospital had to stop offering them a decade ago.  This has left people in my community with the option of driving 40 minutes to a hospital where OB services are offered by on-call family practice doctors OR drive the hour and a half to the "city" where there are in-house Obstetricians.  Add into the equation that 5 months out of the year our area is shrouded in beautiful but dangerous driving conditions.  

This situation leads women into a few undesirable predicaments:

• delivering on the side of the road, back of an ambulance, in a  rural unequipped Emergency Department OR
• arriving at the hospital in early labor to find they are 2-3cm dilated and being admitted (they can't very well be sent home!).  Subsequently, for every hour they spend in the hospital during early labor, their chances of interventions and surgical delivery increase.

Let us not forget that rural areas are often very impoverished areas.  Many of these women cannot afford to travel the distance needed to receive prenatal care.  This leads to missed visits (particularly at the end of pregnancy), and therefore, missed diagnoses of possibly fatal conditions such as pre-eclampsia (one of the big killers of mothers), hypertension, and fetal mal-position.

This is a serious problem.  Thankfully, the gravity of this issue has caught the public eye:

• NPR recently teamed up with ProPublica to research and write about Maternal Death
•  AmnestyUSA has published a fantastic piece called "Deadly Delivery"
•  International spokespersons are searching out solutions (such as Linda Robinson, who has an impactful TEDx talk on this topic).

The World Health Organization (WHO) has been one of the forerunners in offering possible solutions to Maternal Mortality.  Along with AmnestyUSA and countless other respectable organizations, the WHO has offered that an increase in midwifery care will improve outcomes for mothers and babies worldwide, particularly in rural areas.  Indeed, they have said that, "Increasing the number of midwives by 25% will reduce maternal mortality by 50%)."  Properly trained midwives are a very feasible and effective solution to the problem of Maternal Morbidity.  As French Obstetrician, Dr. Odent, has said, 

“If we want to find safe alternatives to obstetrics, we must rediscover midwifery. To rediscover midwifery is the same as giving childbirth back to women.” 

We, as Americans, need to re-evaluate maternal healthcare in this country.  For most, birth is normal and natural, not a condition needing treatment. Do not for a moment imagine that interventions are conveniences without consequences. 

 For the 15% of women in this country who have high-risk pregnancies, I am deeply grateful for a medical system equipped to save lives.  But for the 85% of women who are low-risk, having a baby is the epitome of wellness. Whether you deliver in or out of the hospital, be aware of the benefits and risks of both.  We live in a country where we have many choices, be thankful for them and make wise decisions that are the most comfortable for you.  This is your body and your baby and you have been given the intuition to care for both.  Listen to your instincts, don't ignore them even if medical professionals do.  Find care providers that you can trust and that trust you.

“Experiences have clearly shown that an approach which 'de-medicalizes' birth, restores dignity and humanity to the process of childbirth, and returns control to the mother is also the safest approach.” -Dr. Odent, MD, OBGYN

This Thing Called Maternal

“No, you may not slide down the stairs with the scissors in your hand, honey” slipped easily and calmly from my lips.  This was spoken to the same child who put his now 4-year-old hands on my shriveled stretch-marked postpartum belly and laughingly jiggled while singing, “shake the belly, shake the belly.”  What a fun new game for us…

Supported by my dear husband, my mother, my grandma, my oldest child & my midwife-sister, on October 26th I was delivered safely through childbirth for the fourth time.  I am always overwhelmed with gratitude as I lay in my bed staring at this complete human who just came out of me.  Somehow, I grew this thing, waited 40 weeks for the magic to happen, labored through the longest three inches of life and popped out a human.  The world is a wondrous place.

In the past twelve years, I’ve been a part of the miraculous emergence of over 400 little ones. Women are amazing creatures.  The journey of bringing a child into this world is one of surrender and intuition. From the first waves of nausea to the last surge of contractions, we are learning to embrace the uncontrollable storms of motherhood.  The 9 months of pregnancy are simply a concentrated form of our redefined existence.  This thing changes us. These little people have heard our heartbeat from the inside and then we continue to give that heart to them as they tromp around with it on the outside.

I sit and think on the wonder of it all.  I offer thanks for the joy of life.  I hope that the delight I have now, during nap time, I will have the strength to preserve from 6-8pm (mothers of toddlers, past or present, will know what I mean).  Today I will embrace the now of rosy cheeks and tantrums and made-up games and sleeplessness and little giggles and mopping twice a day and Dr. Seuss.  Today I will bask in this blessed life I dwell in.

Reposted from Dec 26, 2015