Fact Sheet: Implementation of the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza
I’m glad the government is gearing up for the next pandemic, I think this effort is long overdue. However, in reviewing the materials, the focus from these professionals is, as far as as I could tell, almost exclusively on pharmaceuticals for prevention (vaccines) and treatment (antibiotics).
While I am sure this focus is thrilling for our friends at Big Pharma, for those of us not interested in using drugs or vaccines for our health care needs, yes, even during a world wide pandemic, all the effort, mitigating, and planning is much ado about nothing.
And as far as I can tell, nobody is talking about birthing women. Over at the Mass Medical Care with scarce resources web site – go here the most recent report includes information on:
The circumstances that communities are likely to face in an MCE.
Key constructs, principles, and structures to be incorporated into the planning for an MCE.
Approaches and strategies that could be used to provide the most appropriate standards of care possible under the circumstances.
Examples of tools and resources to help States and communities in their planning process.
Illustrative examples of how specific health systems, communities, or States have approached various issues in their MCE-related planning efforts.
While I am thrilled with the efforts put forward, no one is talking about the one million babies that could be born in American during a three month flu pandemic. If the hospital is over run with sick people, healthy women will not want to give birth in a hospital. America does not have enough trained midwives to help with those births.
The answer for that scenario is for parents to take personal responsibility for their own births, and to that end, Freebirth fits the bill. The last pandemic happened while most babies were still being born at home in 1918 and an infrastructure was in place to enable those women to birth at home. That structure has been carefully and systematically taken down in America and is also being replaced all over the world. Did you know that 50% of Chinese babies are born by c-section today?
I wish someone in the Government would start thinking about this topic, and instead of using precious resources to make loads of money for the makers of drugs and vaccines that probably won’t work anyway, use those dollars to educate the American People in Provident Living and Pro-active realities around survival living.
Home Childbirth is one of the most important skills that families could realistically master ahead of time for mitigating against a flu pandemic and the harsh realities that would soon present to the birthing mothers of America as people start dropping like flies from a deadly virus.
But ACOG would have problems with that….wouldn’t they…..And we don’t want the doctors to get upset….so much lovely money and power is at stake.
Jenny Hatch