Meridian Magazine: Healthcare, Throwing off the cords that bind us

Meridian Mag Healthcare Column
This excellent analysis by Dr. David Deardeuff covers many issues around the health care debate that are near and dear to my heart.
Here are a couple of quotes: (highlights are mine)

“Recently I sat down and knocked out, in rather short order, 23 reasons that socialized medicine is a bad approach to healthcare. When I looked over the list, it became clear that most of my items stemmed from two primary objections: lack of agency and lack of accountability. Many of the problems inherent in socialized medicine may, unfortunately, already be seen in our current insured, Medicared health care system.”

“When we lived in England, which has a socialized medical system, and my wife was going to have a baby, a doctor told her that if he delivered the baby, he would do everything possible to earn more money from it, even including doing an unnecessary Caesarian section so he could get an extra £4,000 from the government. He was honest enough to recommend we use a midwife.

Actually, it’s not all gravy for the doctor either. In exchange for their loss of agency, their charges may be heavily discounted by the insurance companies, and it can take a long time to get paid. We have had a payment delayed for two years in our office, and someone who works in a hospital accounting office once let slip that it takes a year to receive a Medicare payment. I can’t confirm that, but I don’t have any reason to doubt it.”

“…Eat simple foods that don’t have a whole list of artificial additives. President Ezra Taft Benson, as President of the Quorum of the Twelve, said, “In general, the more food we eat in its natural state and the less it is refined without additives, the healthier it will be for us.”(6) Eat fresh food, not canned or processed. Support natural, organic growers. Organic costs more, but you could make up for that by eating less — we all could. And you’d get more nutrition and less junk to insult your body and create illness.

I have seen over and over again how effective it is to “cleanse the inner vessel” according to natural methods as a vital first step to health and vigor, eat wisely according to the Word of Wisdom, and to use gentle, natural, non-intrusive methods in case of sickness — herbs, mild food, essential oils, chiropractic, acupuncture and so on. In addition, a skilled practitioner can even elicit true emotional healing — all without the need for symptom-suppressing drugs. It’s a better way to live healthy and to shake off the ever-strengthening cords of socialism.

Many of our illnesses can be prevented by healthy living. I urge you to break free of the strong cords of socialized bondage and look around at the alternatives. Live the way the Lord has counseled. Stop fighting illness and, instead, create health!”

I wholeheartedly endorse the good doctors article. Dr. Deardeuff is the co-author of the book:
Inner Transformations Using Essential Oils
Jenny Hatch

Freebirth! My friend Kirsten gave birth to her daughter this past week!

My beautiful friend Kirsten emailed this past week with the news that her new daughter was Freeborn at Home into the hands of her Father!
She sent an email titled “She’s Here” and shared the happy news!
I’ll post pictures and the birth story in a couple days!
UPDATE: Kirsten sent some pictures today. Some were taken from the video of the birth:
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Jenny Hatch
Previous entry

The True Face of Birth Blogger shares her journey to Unassisted Childbirth

She shares links to the Formative Words that helped her down the path to Freebirth.
This is a really great post.
Jenny Hatch
My comment on Rixas Blog in response to her post:
One of the things that surprised me the most about doing my own prenantal care was how very seriously I took the job at hand.
I had thought during my first three pregnancies that I was particularly proactive and worked hard to make a healthy child, but until I took it upon myself during my fourth pregnancy to do the whole pregnancy without seeing anyone for anything, my own definition of personal responsibility took a swerve up into the clouds.
In the past twelve years friends who discover that I gave birth alone are very surpised, but they are completely gobsmacked when I tell them I did my own prenantal care.
The ripple effect into a family is powerful. I continue to observe friends who do so much for older children that they are completely capable of doing for themselves.
My own children seem to feel the spirit of Freebirth in our home. They are so proactive on so many levels of their lives. Not claiming they are perfect mind you, but the sense of “I can do it myself” is very, very strong in our home.
Currently I am enjoying my four year old Ben as he gradually weans from our Family bed, and attachment breastfeeding. He is so confident some days. He wants to sleep in his own bed, nursing is for babies, and he is the MAN in little boys body.
Yet he has moments of complete surrender to his needs as a little person, and happily reverts back to a mommas boy for nursies, naps, and snuggle time in bed with mom and dad. He is my first child that will self wean, I had to use extreme coersion with three previous babes to get them off the breast. My daughter stopped nursing at 4 and a half, not because she was ready but because momma was tandem nursing during a pregnancy and could not do it anymore.
My next two boys were both weaned on third birthdays, although they were also not ready. I tried to wean Ben on his third birthday for consistencies sake, but he moped around for a week and was so sad, I did not have the heart to do it.
I find it no accident that this child who was Freeborn Lotus Style, who has such acute intuition to his own needs as a preschooler that he regularly informs me in direct and very clearn language exactly what his needs are in the moment, I find it no accident that this pattern of internal confidence to know his own needs continues on.
During his pregnancy I would regularly talk to him to ask what he needed from me in terms of exercise, nutrition, etc etc… And he guided me through my dreams, my mothers intuition, and spirit to spirit to know exactly what he wanted. Up to the second he was born, I was being guided, mostly by him (and his assorted guardian angels).
This perfect guiding is SO MUCH more powerful that an outside paid hireling giving his or her “expert” opinion on the various issues of pregnancy.
I challenge all women to take on the task of growing and birthing the baby all by themselves. It will change everything in your life.
Jenny Hatch
WWW.NaturalFamilyBLOG.com

Blogger Alias Mother – funny funny funny

This is what she meant, right?
My favorite ice cream before I gave up chocolate last year was Ben and Jerrys Peanut Butter Cup. I ate a whole pint of that regularly during the past few years. Yeah, I think that is what she meant…..ha ha….
Jenny Hatch

Fox News: Government Report: U.S. Women Dying in Childbirth at the Highest Rate in Decades

Government Report: U.S. Women Dying in Childbirth at the Highest Rate in Decades

“U.S. women are dying from childbirth at the highest rate in decades, new government figures show. Though the risk of death is very small, experts believe increasing maternal obesity and a jump in Caesarean sections are partly to blame.

Some experts note that a change in how such deaths are reported also may be a factor.

“Those of us who look at this a lot say it’s probably a little bit of both,” said Dr. Jeffrey King, an obstetrician who led a recent New York state review of maternal deaths.

The U.S. maternal mortality rate rose to 13 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2004, according to statistics released this week by the National Center for Health Statistics.

The rate was 12 per 100,000 live births in 2003 — the first time the maternal death rate rose above 10 since 1977.

To be sure, death from childbirth remains fairly rare in the United States. The death of infants is much more common — the nation’s infant mortality rate was 679 per 100,000 live births in 2004.

Maternal deaths were a much more common tragedy long ago. Nearly one in every 100 live births resulted in a mother’s death as recently as 90 years ago.

Some health statisticians note the total number of maternal deaths — still fewer than 600 each year — is small. It is so small that 50 to 100 extra deaths could raise the rate, said Donna Hoyert, a health scientist with the National Center for Health Statistics.

In 2003, there was a change in death certificate questions in the nation’s most populous state, California, as well as Montana and Idaho. That may have resulted in more deaths being linked to childbirth — enough to push up the 2003 rate, Hoyert said.

Some researchers point to the rising C-section rate, now 29 percent of all births — far higher than what public health experts say is appropriate. Like other surgeries, Caesareans come with risks related to anesthesia, infections and blood clots.

“There’s an inherent risk to C-sections,” said Dr. Elliott Main, who co-chairs a panel reviewing obstetrics care in California. “As you do thousands and thousands of them, there’s going to be a price.”

Excessive bleeding is one of the leading causes of pregnancy-related death, and women with several previous C-sections are at especially high risk, according to a review of maternal deaths in New York. Blood vessel blockages and infections are among the other leading causes.

Experts also say obesity may be a factor. Heavier women are more prone to diabetes and other complications, and they may have excess tissue and larger babies that make a vaginal delivery more problematic. That can lead to more C-sections. “It becomes this sort of snowball effect,” said King.

The age of mothers could be a factor, too. More women are giving birth in their late 30s and 40s, when complications risks are greater.”

CDC final death report for 2004
A More in depth version of this same article at the Huffington Post: Go Here
Is anyone who has been following the childbirth scams of the past few years surprised by these statistics???
I’m not.
Jenny Hatch
People are talking about this article on the web:
Here are three conversations:
Digg
Mothering Magazine Discussion Forums
Denver Post
My Comment at the Post:
As a Bradley Childbirth Teacher and Mother of Five:
I have been watching the unfolding childbirth drama in America play out over the past 18 years.
It has been horrifying to watch so many gains from natural birth activism just melt away the past ten years as several different factors came into play. Soaring C-section and induction rates, increased drug use during pregnancy and labor, and systematic outlawing of home birth. This is a complex issue, but for me the bottom line questions are these:
With more mothers than ever getting prenatal care and more using allopathic (Drugs and surgery) infrastructure for birth, why is the maternal death rate going up? The preemie rate going up? The infant mortality rate going up? And why isn’t anyone in the press yelling about this travesty???
Articles like this do indeed link the c-section rate to the higher mother mortality rate. Yet, it feels like one big fat defense for Obstetricians.
The women are fat.
The women are old.
Lots of head scratching going on, “I dunno”.
Where are the real investigative journalists in our country, those who are willing to do an in depth story on Cytotec, a deadly drug used to induce labor??? The real story on Maternal Mortality and Morbidity??? The real story on the impact all of these drugs and surgery have on our children???
We are living in a land of Obstetric Terrorism and my message has been consistent to the mothers in my sphere of influence for the past ten years.
RUN FROM THE BIRTH MACHINE!
I’m tracking the debate on my blog: Go here to read the round up.
http://www.naturalfamilyblog.com/archives/cat_diy_homebirth_debate.html
I was not surprised by these numbers, and when the 2005, 2006, and 2007 numbers finally show up in a couple years, don’t be surprised to learn that EVERYTHING will have degraded even worse.
It is open season on Mothers in the delivery rooms of America.
Jenny Hatch, Birth Activist
WWW.NaturalFamilyBLOG.com
Louisville Colorado