Premature babies….

Everyone in the medical profession is always scratching their heads wondering what is up with all these preemie babies….
They used to scream…Every woman needs prenatal care…then this problem will be solved. If only all women would come to us for help, this prematurity problem would simply disapear!
Know what? More women than ever get prenatal care in this country, according to the CDC in 2003, 84% of women in America received first trimester prenatal care, and only 3.5% of women received late or no care. And yet the number of babies being born early still continues to climb.
I was one of the women in 2002 who received little or no care. I saw my MD once in the 7th month of my pregnancy. For the rest of my “care” I provided myself with what I believed would give us the best outcome. This was mostly care in the form of eating the Brewer Diet PERFECTLY, and getting prenatal massage, which we paid for out of pocket.
My therapist would come to my home, set up her table in my bedroom and give me a 90 minute massage. She had been specially trained in prenatal massage and was supportive of our decision to birth alone and at home. It was a treat to work with her during my pregnancy. No shaming, no guilt, no fear, and no paranoia.
I did work with some exceptional doctors during my first three pregnancies, and they were kind people who were working hard to help babies thrive, but not once during my many prenatal visits was I EVER asked what I was eating.
The Medical Professionals have a vested interest in parents remaining ignorant about proper nutritional needs for pregnant women. If parents were truly educated on prenatal nutrition, the whole system would collapse and tens of thousands of people would be out of work.
If you are interested in this topic, please take a few minutes to peruse the blue ribbon baby web site that the late Dr. Tom Brewer put together before he died last year. For some interesting reads go here, here, and here.
“It is a fact that nobody knows why Karen developed MTLP; not a soul in her own hospital. They could only chide her: “Why Karen, you had one of the worst cases of pre-eclampsia we’ve seen in this hospital in months.” And her baby ended up with RDS, a patient in her own neonatal intensive care unit!
What will it take to bring light into this darkness of USA obstetrics? The role of protein-calorie deficiency in etiology of MTLP was clearly recognized by Ross at Duke and Strauss at Harvard in 1935. Yet U.S.A. obstetrical and nutrition scientists rigidly reject this thesis in favor of the “NOTHING IS KNOWN’ position. We must let the people know!”
Tom Brewer, M.D.

What Is A Good, Nutritious, Balanced Diet?
Every day of the week, you and your baby must have:
One quart (4 cups) of milk. Any kind will do: whole milk, low fat, skim, powdered, or buttermilk. If you do not like milk, you can substitute one cup of yogurt for each cup of milk.
Two eggs.
One or two servings of fish, shellfish, chicken or turkey, lean beef, veal, lamb, pork, liver or kidney.
Alternative combinations include:
Rice with beans, cheese, sesame, milk
Cornmeal with beans, cheese, tofu, milk.
Beans with rice, bulgur, cornmeal, wheat noodles sesame seeds, milk.
Peanuts with: sunflower seeds, milk.
Whole wheat bread or noodles with: beans, cheese, peanut butter, milk, tofu.
For each serving of meat, you can substitute these quantities of cheese:
Brick 4 oz. Longhorn 3 oz.
Camembert 6 oz. Muenster 4 oz.
Cheddar 3 oz. Monterey Jack 4 oz.
Cottage 6 oz. Swiss 3 oz.
One or two servings of fresh, green, leafy vegetables: mustard, beet, collard, dandelion or turnip greens, spinach, lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, kale, Swiss chard.
Five servings of whole grain breads, rolls, cereals or pancakes: wheatena, 100% bran flakes, granola, shredded wheat, wheat germ, oatmeal, buckwheat or whole wheat pancakes, corn bread, corn tortillas, corn or bran or whole wheat muffins, waffles, brown rice.
Two choices from: a whole potato (any style), large green pepper, grapefruit, lemon, lime, papaya, tomato (one piece of fruit, or one large glass of juice).
Three pats of butter.
Also include in your diet, in addition to the above (i.e., don’t count one food in two categories):
A yellow- or orange-colored vegetable or fruit five times a week.
Liver once a week, if you like it.
Table salt: SALT YOUR FOOD TO TASTE
Water: Drink to thirst.
It is not healthy for you and your unborn baby to go even 24 hours without good food!
Misinformation
I was a certified Bradly Childbirth teacher for eight years and so I am biased towards this method of childbirth prep and I believe if a couple will take the time and the energy to learn this form of childbirth, read the books, practice the techniques, eat the Brewer Diet, and give birth at home, they will have an amazing experience welcoming a large healthy child, born at 40+ weeks and large enough to care for from day one without any professional help.
Many of the women I know who are into this lifestyle have the issue of those babies not wanting to be born at 40 weeks. They are so happy gestating, they don’t want to leave the womb. My longest pregnancy was 45 weeks! Andy just wanted to stay put and cook a few weeks longer!
The bible has an interesting scripture on this topic. When Jacob was blessing his children before he died at the end of the book of Genesis, he gave Joseph a wonderful promise. He said in Genesis 49:25 “Even by the God of thy Father, who shall help thee; and by the almighty, who shall bless thee with blessings from Heaven above, blessings of the deep that lieth under, blessings of the breasts, and of the womb.”
I believe the greatest blessing from Heaven are blessings of the breast and of the womb.

Ben one week old, born at 42 week and 3 days after a six hour labor of love AT HOME!
Heavenly Father can give mighty miracles in regards to healing the sick, especially if complete faith in Jesus Christ is exercised, but Jesus Christ told us faith without works is dead, I believe if Mothers will take on the “work” of nourishing their bodies properly during pregnancy, they will experience the great blessing of building a healthy child and then having the reserves and resources to breastfeed that child.
Jenny Hatch
UPDATE:
Chat at Free Republic on this topic

My herb garden is growing really well this season, and yesterday I steeped up my first cup of Fresh Raspberry Leaf Tea. It was yummy!

You only need a small handful of leaves to make one cup of tea

Distress the tea leaves by crushing them in your hand and then tearing them into a tea mug

Pour boiling water over the tea and enjoy when it has cooled!

First raspberries of the season!

Raspberry leaves next to my herb planter

My two favorite cooking herbs – Rosemary and Basil
When I was expecting my oldest child in 1988 I read about the marvelous effect raspberry tea has on labor. I steeped up a concentrated thermos full of this wonderful tea and added in a couple tablespoons of honey for use as a labor drink while giving birth to my daughter. When I arrived at the hospital the nurses would not let me drink anything for a couple of hours. (I sadly had chosen to give birth to my daughter Michelle at a high risk detroit hospital that had a 50% c-section rate in the late 80’s) When my doctor arrived at the hospital he was mad at me for not allowing the staff to do contuous fetal monitoring. My labor was stalled and I had been fighting with the staff for hours on various issues.
When I asked the doctor for permission to drink my tea, he said, “oh she can have her tea…sure”.
And in reverence to all of the medical gods, the nurses bowed down low and “allowed” my husband to take my very strong, very powerful tea out of our bag, heat it up in a microwave, and hand it ceremoniously to me. I glugged down a quart of this tea, and then….stand back people this first time Momma is GIVING BIRTH!
Within a couple minutes of drinking the tea, I was in transition, then smoothly moved over to a couple hours of pushing, and what the heck do you know? My eight pound nine ounce daughter Michelle was born magically without induction, no epidural, no forceps, no episiotomy, and NO PAIN!

Expecting Michelle in 1988
I could feel the change that came over my body when the nutrients in that tea started moving through my system. I have been drinking the tea ever since. I asked a friend in my ward if I could have a couple raspberry starts from his amazing garden a few years ago and started my own raspberry patch by our back porch. (Thanks Brother Allred!)
Jenny Hatch

Every once in a while I like to go into the Web site for the CDC (Center for Disease control) and read up on their birth statistics.
The people at CDC do an excellent job of tracking all of the vital information in our country and then covering for the Medical Profession and pharma companies by telling us how fat we are as Americans, the skyrocketing diabetes rates, and that we like to sit on our bums, and watch television and eat junk food.
Nobody at CDC ever seems to connect Anti-depressant use as a potential cause for the diabetes outbreak in our nation, or that obesity is a “connect the dots” reality for those who gum up their systems with the toxic chemicals that form the ingredients for anti-depressants. No, what we get from the government is the green light for anti-depressants to now be manufactured generically, which will ensure many more Americans start to wend their way down the obesity, heart disease, diabetic, and lethargic side of the path.
The reason I go into the Birth section of the site is simply because I am often curious to know what’s up with the birth trends. It has been the habit of the CDC for the past few years since its web site really started to rock n roll, to publish preliminary data on birth, oh, usually a couple months after any given years stats are compiled.
The final report for 2002 was published in December of 2003.
The final report for 2001 was published in December of 2002.
The final report for 2000 was published in February of 2002.
My questions is, why has the CDC failed to publish a preliminary report on 2005???
We are well into the 2006 season for birth in America, and in the recent past, 2002 and 2003, not only was the preliminary report released within 12 months, but the final report was released as well.
The CDC released the preliminary 2004 data in December of 2005, but it is now seven months later and we still have yet to see a final report.
I wonder why this is?
The CDC didn’t seem to have a problem releasing preliminary data on the 2002 statistics within six months. I can only assume the computers today are faster and more equipped to process this sort of data in a timely way. Question is…Why the delay? Why the delay in the final report being published for 2004? And why the delay for the preliminary data being published for 2005?
My gut feeling is simply that they are racking their brains trying to come up with some logical no fault reason that the C-section rate has gone up yet another 4 or 5 percent in the past year. (Or did it go up a shocking 8 or 9 percent and they have no idea what to say?)
Lawsuits and evil trial lawyers? No we spun that in 2002. Women want them and are too posh to push? No, that was the message in 2003.

See, Hear, and Speak No Evil
Uh… doctors, nurses, and hospitals want them?? And every single company that has a financial tie to women having C-sections want them??? Ding ding ding, I think we have a winner.
Think about it. If you were a nurse, would you like to sit monitoring a woman in labor for 12, 18, or 24 hours? Or would you prefer to help that same mother schedule a C-section and have the baby out in less than an hour if a planned section, or less than a minute if a crash section?
If you were a doctor would you like to schedule 6 to 10 sections on any given day, or wait for those same women to spontaneously give birth with the many stops and starts of a natural labor? Perhaps disrupting your family life or golf game?
If you were a hospital administrator would you like to have the thousands of dollars a c-section magically produces in less than an hour, with dozens of staff members happily employed doing what they do best, and all those beds in the NICU filled with babies, momma resting nicely for a couple days while she recovers from a knife to her belly? $$$ cha ching $$$ cha ching…the money just keeps rolling in.
This is simply a no brainer from the medical perspective.
Recently I was talking to a fellow Bradley Childbirth teacher at a track meet. Our daughters were competing while we reconnected and chatted for a half hour or so. We both taught Natural Birth in our homes in the early 90’s here in Boulder County where I live, and became friends through our local teachers support group. I stopped teaching ten years ago in 1996 and focused all of my energies on writing and online promotion of Unassisted Childbirth. She is teaching childbirth at a local hospital. I asked her what she thought of what’s happening in birth right now.
She told me the biggest change in the past few years has been the level of fear. The couples are really afraid to give birth. She also told me that the nurses she works with are “excited” for the C-section rate to go up. Some experts are predicting the section rate to double in the next generation.
“Why are they excited?” I asked her.
“It makes their work easier,” was her reply.
And it does. The question is, what will be the repercussions on our society if most of the babies in America are born under an anesthetic haze? And what impact will this drugging of American Mothers and Babies right at the time they are supposed to be lovingly bonding with each other mean for our connectedness as families?
The Apostle Paul desribed the perilous times of the latter days in 2 Timothy 3:3 as modern families being without Natural Affection.

Do we really understand what is lost when we casually cut into the belly of a new mom and extract her child from her womb?
I believe if we did, our society would stop at nothing to promote what is normal and natural in childbirth.
Jenny Hatch
UPDATE:
ICAN – Coerced surgery major cause of rise in C-sections