Click HERE to listen to this podcast at Blog Talk Radio. 
Or Click Below!
Buy My Book A Mother’s Journey HERE on Amazon’s Kindle!
I was so pleased to have Birth Educator and Founder of Ancient Art Midwifery Carla Hartley on my Radio Show! Here is the complete interview.
And a ten minute You Tube Clip:

To listen to another one of Jennys Interviews with the movers and shakers of Birth Activism Click HERE for her interview with Laurel Wilson, author of Your Best Birth Ever!
Did you listen to the show with Carla?
What do you think about what we said?
Reducing Infant Mortality from Debby Takikawa on Vimeo.
Take ACTION!
What can YOU do to
Reduce Infant Mortality and Injury
and Improve Infant Health?
1) Send this video to your legislator to encourage health reform in that supports mothers and babies.
2) Write your legislator.
3) Spread the word. Send this website link to your email list.
Listen to Obstetricians, Doulas, Neonatologists, Midwives, Psychologists, Pediatricians, and other Physicians explain how our health care system is failing babies and mothers and what we can do about it.
The only thing I would add to the advice from the experrts in the film is that mothers and fathers themselves can learn ALL of the skills, information, and principles of making a healthy baby. They have the ability to do their own prenatal care, birth the babe, and nurture it in the womb and during the early years of life without any expert help.
Here is a wonderful testimonial from a woman who gave birth to a premature baby and saved its life with a snuggle… (H/T to Amy Philo)
Mother’s Last Skin-to-Skin Goodbye Saves her 20 oz Baby
Sometimes a preemie doesn’t need to be hooked up to 10 different machines to be given the chance to survive.

When Carolyn Isbister put her 20oz baby on her chest for a cuddle, she thought that it would be the only chance she would ever have to hold her.
Doctors had told the parents that baby Rachel only had only minutes to live because her heart was beating once every ten seconds and she was not breathing.
Isbister remembers:
I didn’t want her to die being cold. So I lifted her out of her blanket and put her against my skin to warm her up. Her feet were so cold.
It was the only cuddle I was going to have with her, so I wanted to remember the moment.” Then something remarkable happened. The warmth of her mother’s skin kick started Rachael’s heart into beating properly, which allowed her to take little breaths of her own.
We couldn’t believe it – and neither could the doctors. She let out a tiny cry.
The doctors came in and said there was still no hope – but I wasn’t letting go of her. We had her blessed by the hospital chaplain, and waited for her to slip away. But she still hung on.
And then amazingly the pink color began to return to her cheeks. She literally was turning from gray to pink before our eyes, and she began to warm up too.
The sad part is that when the baby was born, doctors took one look at her and said ‘no’.
They didn’t even try to help her with her breathing as they said it would just prolong her dying. Everyone just gave up on her,” her mom remembered.
At 24 weeks a womb infection had led to her premature labor and birth and Isbister (who also has two children Samuel, 10, and Kirsten, 8 ) said, “We were terrified we were going to lose her. I had suffered three miscarriages before, so we didn’t think there was much hope.” When Rachael was born she was grey and lifeless.
Ian Laing, a consultant neonatologist at the hospital, said: “All the signs were that the little one was not going to make it and we took the decision to let mum have a cuddle as it was all we could do.
Two hours later the wee thing was crying. This is indeed a miracle baby and I have seen nothing like it in my 27 years of practice. I have not the slightest doubt that mother’s love saved her daughter.”
Rachael was moved onto a ventilator where she continued to make steady progress and was tube and syringe fed her mother’s pumped breastmilk.
Isbister said, “The doctors said that she had proved she was a fighter and that she now deserved some intensive care as there was some hope. She had done it all on her own – without any medical intervention or drugs. She had clung on to life – and it was all because of that cuddle. It had warmed up her body and regulated her heart and breathing enough for her to start fighting.
At 5 weeks she was taken off the ventilator and began breastfeeding on her own. At four months Rachel went home with her parents, weighing 8lbs – the same as any other healthy newborn. Because Rachel had suffered from a lack of oxygen doctors said there was a high risk of damage to her brain. But a scan showed no evidence of any problems and today Rachel is on par with her peers.

Rachel’s mom tells us, “She is doing so well. When we brought her home, the doctors told us that she was a remarkable little girl. And most of all, she just loves her cuddles. She will sleep for hours, just curled into my chest. It was that first cuddle which saved her life – and I’m just so glad I trusted my instinct and picked her up when I did. Otherwise she wouldn’t be here today.”
When a parent holds their baby on their chest, skin-to-skin, it is referred to as Kangaroo Mother Care.
The benefits for all babies of KMC are that they stabilize faster with skin-to-skin care than in an incubator (very few stabilize in an incubator well during the first six hours of life). KMC babies also have stable oxygen rates and breathing thanks to the steady regulation of Mother’s respiration. The heart rate is stable (mother’s heartbeat regulates baby’s heartbeat). The temperature is most stable on the mother – in skin-to-skin care mothers chest automatically warms to warm a cold baby, and mothers core temperature drops if her baby has a temperature.
Sleeping within an arm’s reach of baby (as long as a parent does not smoke) also regulates all of his physiological needs in the same way ~ they are kept steady thanks to Mom’s warm, even-paced body. We lose far fewer babies to prematurity, irregularity of breathing or heartbeat after birth, and SIDS all with the natural help of skin-to-skin holding, or Kangaroo Care.
Read More About skin-to-skin benefits for ALL babies (full term and premature) here: kangaroomothercare.com
I loved this movie! Watch it and then share it with your friends and family!
Jenny Hatch

Benjamin Johnson Hatch – 2 hours old after being born at home into his Fathers hands. I did my own prenatal care, birthed him after a six hour labor of love, and he was born Lotus style (we did not cut the cord) and let it fall off naturally six days after his birth. October 25th, 2002
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“According to the guidelines of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the organization “strongly opposes” any birth not performed inside a hospital. A spokesman for the ACOG has a one-word assessment of freebirth: “dangerous.”
I have just one message for these doctors, and it is this:
“Physician, heal thyself“
“The moral of the proverb is counsel to prove your trustworthiness with your own affairs before attempting to tell others what they should do.” Continue reading “Freebirth: A Message to Obstetricians from Jenny Hatch, “Physician Heal THYSELF!!””

I have been taking a blogging break for the month of May, just too busy, but a headline announcing plague at the denver zoo caught my eye yesterday and I thought I would repost an entry I did in September about the Thieves Blend of Essential Oils. It is below:
Here are a couple of highlights from the past few weeks.
Paul and I were part of the Denver WestWord Article on Unassisted Childbirth last week. Here is the link.
Laura Shanley has a round up of the various Unassisted Childbirth Media Stories from the past few weeks on her blog. Go Here.
And Here are the Links to all of the Freebirth articles: (This outpouring of Media Interest in UC Birth has been extremely gratifying to those of us who have been promoting it for many years!)
The Independent 3-20-07 (UK) – Oh, baby!
Guardian 5-9-07 (UK) – Going it alone
Marie Claire 5-10-07 (UK) – The women having ‘extreme births’
Globe and Mail (Canada) – 5-15-07 – DIY delivery
Channel 2 News (Alaska) – 5-15-07 – Great Expectations This video clip contains the UC Birth of Twins at home alone, one was a footling breech.
Reuters – 5-22-07 (UK – London)- Freebirthers dismiss fear and bring babies home
The Age – 5-27-07(Australia) – No doctor, no midwife — women go it alone
Same family, different story from Australia – A ‘relaxed, beautiful’ entry for Carter
And here are the links to the various online versions of the many UC Birth articles that have been written in the past month: Bornfree web site.
And here is a quick overview of some headlines for parents, so many different voices and opinions. Mothers and Fathers really need to just follow their hearts and not listen to all of the fear mongering about babies.
The Global Baby Bust
Having large families is an “eco crime”
Children “bad” for planet
Vegans sentenced for starving their baby
Stay-at-home mother’s work worth $138,095 a year
California Midwife Under Fire
Navelgazing Midwife – Oh, The Homebirth Debate Blog – Insights into the psyche of the fraud named Amy Tuteur MD (Pseudonym for a couple PR guys from Eli Lilly out to destroy and shut down the debate around home birth with statistics!!!). Go Here
Marsden Wagner’s new book Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First – Go Here
Unassisted Childbirth forum at Mothering – Go Here
Here are a couple of links used in the various debates that I engaged in at Salon and the NHS Blog Doctors comment sections.
The website of the Pre and Peri Natal Psychologists – Go Here
Tips for ten month Mamas
A Declaration of the Rights of Childbearing Women
Monty Python Birth Sketch: And people wonder why we don’t want to have a hospital birth?








