Search This Blog

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Ultrasound Uses that Prove it is unsafe for Pregnancy

This is a great guest Blog by Missie Strong.  Ultra Sounds are one of the most commonly used medical interventions during pregnancy with some women having as  many as 4-6 ultra sounds during their pregnancy. 

This is scary when you consider that Ultra sounds are an almost untested technology with vast differences between apparatus and technical training.  As I wrote in Are They Safe? The Risks of Prenatal Ultra Sounds
An editorial in Lancet, A British medical journal, stated: "There have been no randomized controlled trials of adequate size to assess whether there are adverse effects on growth and development of children exposed in utero to ultrasound. Indeed, the necessary studies to ascertain safety may never be done, because of lack of interest in such research".
On top of that, there are no national or international standards for the output characteristics of ultrasound equipment. The result is the shocking situation described in a commentary in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, in which ultrasound machines in use on pregnant women range in output power from extremely high to extremely low, all with equal effect. The commentary reads, "If the machines with the lowest powers have been shown to be diagnostically adequate, how can one possibly justify exposing the patient to a dose 5,000 times greater?". It goes on to urge government guidelines on the outut of ultrasound equipment and for legislation making it mandatory for equipment manufacturers to state the output characteristics. As far as is known, this has not yet been done in any country. Safety is also clearly related to the skill of the ultrasound operator. At present, there is no known training or certification for medical users of ultrasound apparatus in any country.
Another brilliant article that every pregnant mother should read before deciding to have a prenatal ultra sound is "Ultra Sounds: More harm than good?" by Dr. Marsden Wagner- former Director of Womens and Childrens Health for the World Health Organization.


Ultrasound Uses that Prove its unsafe for Pregnancy

by Missie Strong on Sunday, 31 October 2010 at 03:04
did you know they don't let pregnant women swim with dolphins because the untrasounds they emit aren't safe

did you know they use ultrasound to erase fine lines and wrinkles in cosmetic procedures?

did you know they use ultrasound to warm and melt away scar tissue and warm to treat arthritis?

did you know any midwife or OB that uses ultrasound will tell you those aren't the same machines?

did you know 'ultrasound' is labeled based on the frequency of the sound waves?

when asked for links I posted these:

(I had a midwife actually tell me that it was different when I was pregnant with my twins in 2006) I knew it was bullshit already.

http://www.chiisland.com/ultrasound_beauty/articles/ultrasound-therapy.shtml
New and current uses of ultrasound include facial and body skin rejuvenating treatments, reduction of stretch marks, treatment of contracture and scar tissue such as around breast implants, and the pre- and post-operative treatment of plastic surgery patients to accelerate healing and recovery after procedures such as face lifts, tummy tuck, and liposuction. Ultrasound applied over certain creams contributes to greater effectiveness through deeper and more thorough penetration of the products.

http://www.ob-ultrasound.net/joewoo3x.html

here is a link to an article about bones 'healing' faster.. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/8048527/Ultrasound-device-helps-bones-heal-faster-and-stronger.html

oh a new reason to say no to ultrasound:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/judithpotts/100054974/how-heat-helps-in-cancer-treatment/
How heat helps in cancer treatment – Telegraph BlogsSeptember 24 2010 | Judith Potts | NewsHeat – whether from a carefully created and controlled fever or from hyperthermia delivered by microwaves, radio frequency or ultrasound – is increasingly being used as a cancer treatment.

In Henrietta Callum’s case, the Evita Slimsonic (0844 7009975,www.slimsonic.co.uk), a small home lipo system that uses ultrasound waves called, has tackled her thighs.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/wellbeing/7995126/Smoothe-away-your-spot-fat.html

However, new research shows that intensive ultrasound therapy matches the 92 per cent cure rate of traditional treatments - but dramatically reduces side effects.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/men_shealth/5713460/Prostate-cancer-treatment-more-successful-than-surgery-claim-British-scientists.html

http://askville.amazon.com/Pregnancy-swimming-dolphins-prohibited/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=4508520
Furthermore, this blast is delivered through water, which is 60 times more efficient than air for sound transference, to a body that is three-quarters fluid. It is believed that ultrasound resonance within the cerebrospinal fluid is especially important due to the fluid’s key influence on the brain and spinal cord

A deep tissue heating modality reaching underlying tissues as deep as 1 to 5 centimeters, it is used to treat musculo-skeletal injuries, back and joint conditions, limited range of motion, soft tissue injuries, and chronic conditions.

http://www.jointrehab.com/therapeutic-ultrasound.htm
Treatment is administered directly which penetrates the tissues, increases blood flow, relaxes muscle spasms, repairs damaged tissue, and dramatically speeds the healing process. It creates permanent, physical changes and repairs both hard and soft tissues problems.

all the following come from this one link:http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/general/ultrasound.html

Contraindications For Use:

As ultrasound is thought to affect the tissue repair process and so it is also highly possible that it may affect diseased tissue tissue in an abnormal fashion. In addition the proposed increase in blood may also function in spreading malignancies around the body. Therefore a number of contraindications should be followed when using therapeutic ultrasound:

Do not use if the patient suffers from:

Malignant or cancerous tissue
Acute infections
Risk of haemorrhage
Severely ischeamic tissue
Recent history if venous thrombosis
Exposed neural tissue
Suspicion of a bone fracture
If the patient is pregnant
Do not use in the region of the gonads (sex organs), the active bone growth plates of children, or the eye.

that should be enough to get you started.. and maybe hungry enough to start playing with search terms =)

Friday, October 29, 2010

Winning the "breastfeeding prize".... can you guess what it is?

I just read this guest blog on PhD In Parenting, and before I was even 1/4 of the way through steam was venting from my ears!!!!

Short version: mom busts her ass to exclusively breastfeed her baby, at 4 weeks post partum appointment she's told congrats for exclusively breastfeeding: she wins a prize!!!

.... wanna guess what it was?!?

A lovely bag with bottle nipples, assorted baby paraphernalia, and of course, a great big can of baby formula!!

Who's formula was it you ask?  I'll give you three guesses but I think you'll only need one.

Nestle
GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!

...and people still think that they are giving away all these freebees for the greater good of the world?  That they are doing it out of the goodness of their hearts?  NO people.  They do this to undermine breastfeeding mothers where ever they can.  Do you really think they WANT you to breastfeed?  This one mother figured out exactly why Nestle gives out these "freebees" and more importantly learns that Nestle/Gerbers "helpful" breastfeeding information is full of lies, and designed to sabotage breastfeeding.

A booby-trapped breastfeeding prize




....“I got this really cute, sporty black diaper bag full of all kinds of stuff. There were Nuk bottle nipples, some breastfeeding pamphlets that look to be full of lots of information, and, oddly enough, a huge can of formula. I mean, I won’t use that… no clue why that’s in there, but the rest seems cool. Can’t believe I got a prize!” she giddily reported.
“Laura, do you remember what brand of formula it was?” I asked.
“Oh, sure. It was Good Start, I think,” she replied.
Of course it was.
It was at that moment that I had to explain Booby Traps to my best friend, and I had to let her know that she had been handed one of the worst Booby Traps I’d ever heard of- a Nestle/Gerber sponsored diaper bag filled with formula, disguised as a “prize” for a mother who has busted her ass to exclusively BREASTFEED her son for the past 4 weeks.....

.....It also includes several pamphlets of information. The back of each one lists a 1-800 number for a line staffed by “registered dieticians” to discuss “breastfeeding and infant nutrition.” The main number is 1-800-811-7500, the Spanish number is 1-800-511-6862. The website given on the back is www.gerber.com.
The pamphlets are titled “Breastfeeding Basics,” “Gerber Generation Health Record,” and “Gerber Generation Nutrition Guide.”
I didn’t have time to discuss the content of each one with her, but we did go through the last one, “Gerber Generation Nutrition Guide,” pretty thoroughly because I was interested to see when they suggested parents begin babies on solids. This pamphlet is dedicated to discussing feeding “stages,” though they don’t break down the stages by assigning an actual age to each one. Instead, they break them down into Birth, Supported Sitter, Sitter, Crawler and Toddler.
The first mention of introducing solids (rice cereal) is made in the Supported Sitter section, specifically stating, “by around the middle of the first year almost all babies can start solid foods…Breastfed babies need certain nutrients from food to compliment breastmilk, such as iron and zinc. These nutrients can be found in fortified infant cereal. Zinc can also be found in pureed meats.”
There is also a handy chart in this section titled, “Transitioning From Breastmilk To Formula,” and breaks it down, eliminating a nursing session and adding a bottle of formula each day over a course of 14 days.
In the Sitter section there is an interesting bit about nursing strikes, titled “If Your Baby Loses Interest In Breastfeeding.” It states, “It may be weaning time if your repeated efforts to get your baby re-interested in breastfeeding don’t succeed. It may be that she’s ready to give up nursing.”
In the Crawler section breastfeeding isn’t even mentioned except on the food groups chart where it recommends 24 oz of breastmilk or formula a day or on demand. It goes on to also recommend 1 oz at 2 times a day of grains and cereal, 1/2cup of veggies, ½ cup of fruit and 1 oz of meat or beans.
Throughout the entire pamphlet there is a lot of emphasis put on the importance of iron, and it states over and over that iron can be found in their formula and iron fortified cereals.  Laura even remarked, “As an uniformed consumer of formula, and all around new parent, the impression I get is they are really trying to push the extra iron in their foods and formulas, and make me feel like breastfeeding won’t provide enough (iron).”
I guess I can’t say I’m surprised, but I sure am disheartened to see something so blatantly underhanded given to a good friend who is doing everything in her power to ensure her own breastfeeding success. I’m glad we had the chance to chat while her little boy was nursing. I’m glad I had the opportunity to tell her all about Booby Traps. And though she may have felt a little embarrassed at first, she is empowered and informed now. She’s even taking the Nestle Boycott to heart and anxious to learn more about it… when she comes up for air (a.k.a. when her son starts sleeping more than 3 hour stretches).


HERE to read the entire article on PhD in Parenting

It's Halloween weekend, so don't forget to boycott Nestle


For more articles and information on the evils of Nestle:


 

Baby in Worcester MA needs breastmilk donations

Peaceful Parenting writes about another baby in need of donated breastmilk!  Please share widely!!

Worcester, MA Baby in Need of Donor Milk

Baby Kareem is thriving by the power of mothers' milk

A two month old Worcester, Massachusetts baby is in need of some loving mothers to donate milk or serve as a wet nurse (nursing him when they are able). His momma, Kelley, is the founder of MilkShare - a location where parents can connect with one another to donate and receive human milk for their babies. Sometimes, however, even founders of monumentally helpful sites need a gracious hand of support as well.

Kelley writes, "I have a congenital anomaly called hypoplastic breasts that prevents me from making enough milk. I make a tiny bit - perhaps 10% - of my children's overall intake. And, to continue to produce, I feed exclusively with an SNS. I am currently tandem nursing my newborn and five year old (who was also donor milk fed via a Lact-aid and still refuses to quit even though I can nurse only on my right side)."

Kelley is a homebirth midwife, single mom, and lactivist who says she "prays that I can continue to receive enough milk for my youngest baby." She currently resides near the Worcester, MA area.

HERE to read the entire article on Peaceful Parenting

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Home Birth Midwife Imprisioned in hungary!

Please read and share this information widely- and PLEASE send a copy of the letter via email to the addresses below!

How YOU can help Agnes Gereb

Dr. Agnes Gereb, Hungary's most prominent home birth midwife, also an obstetrician of 17 years, was imprisoned on October 5th, 2010 for providing assistance to a woman who showed up to her birth center in the advanced stages of labor. Dr. Gereb was teaching a childbirth course at the time to a number of couples at her birth center. She had previously declined attending this woman's birth because she had pregnancy complications that made her birth a high risk category. So Dr. Gereb advised the pregnant woman that home birth for her would be too risky, but agreed to perform the pregnant woman's prenatal care. On October 5th, this pregnant woman appeared at Dr. Gereb's birth center in advanced stages of labor, and her baby was born very quickly. Unfortunately, the child's respiration collapsed shortly after birth. Dr. Gereb and her team immediately called an ambulance and continued their resuscitation measures for the baby. Shortly after the ambulance, the police also arrived, and took Dr. Gereb into custody for reckless endangerment and for causing death in the line of work.

Dr. Gereb has been under preliminary arrest since October 5th. She is confined to her cell. She is denied fresh air exercise, access to the library, visitors, and even pain medications. When she is taken to court, she has to wear not only handcuffs but foot shackles as well. Dr. Gereb is a frail woman of nearly 60, with nearly 3500 births under her belt. Her infant mortality rate is less than 1 in 1000, which is better than Hungarian hospitals.

Home birth in Hungary is not illegal. A woman has the right to choose her place of birth, but since the government has failed to create the regulations governing home birth, anybody who assists a woman in a home birth may be prosecuted.

Here is how YOU can help Dr. Gereb:

1. Send an email to Hungarian authorities!

Copy the following text into an email, sign your name under it

****

I OBJECT to Dr. Gereb's arrest and the manner of her imprisonment. Criminalizing home birth midwifery because of the government's FAILURE to provide regulations is NOT ACCEPTABLE. Dr. Gereb's imprisonment is UNLAWFUL, and the manner of her imprisonment is a HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATION. I demand that Dr. Gereb be set free immediately, that all home birth midwifery cases in Hungary be decriminalized and moved into the realm of civil (malpractice) suits, and that international and/or Hungarian experts with experience in home births be invited into the process of crafting home birth regulations in Hungary.

TILTAKOZOM Dr.Geréb letartóztatása ellen, és a fogvatartásának körülményei ellen. ELFOGADHATATLAN az otthonszülésben segítő bábák munkájának kriminalizálása azért, mert az állam ELMULASZTOTTA a szabályzás megteremtését. Dr. Geréb bebörtönzése JOGTALAN, és a fogvatartásának körülményei EMBERI JOGAIT SÉRTI. Követelem, hogy Dr. Gerébet azonnal engedjék szabadon, hogy az összes magyarországi otthonszülésben részt vevő bába elleni pert vonják ki a büntetőjog alól, és helyezzék át a polgári jog hatáskörébe, és továbbá hogy olyan nemzetközi és/vagy magyar szakembereket vonjanak be az új szabályozás elkészítésébe, akiknek van tapasztalatuk az intézményen kívüli szülésben.

(signature)

****

and email it to any or all of the following people:

Dr. György Vókó, head prosecutor in Dr. Gereb's case voko.gyorgy@mku.hu
Office of the Prime Minister 1357 Budapest Pf. 2 lakossag@meh.gov.hu
Tibor Navracsics Minister of Public Administration and Justice 1357 Budapest Pf.2 lakossag@kim.gov.hu
Office of Parliament Committee on Human Rights, Minorities, Civil and Religious Matters 1358 Budapest, Széchenyi rkp. 19. emb@parlament.hu
Miklós Réthelyi, Minister Ministry of National Resources (incl. Health) 1054 Budapest, Akadémia u. 3. info@nefmi.gov.hu
László Kövér FIDESZ President (leading political party) 1088 Budapest, Szentkirályi u. 18. fidesz@fidesz.hu
Sándor Pintér, Minister of the Interior 1903 Budapest Pf.: 314 ugyfelszolgalat@bm.gov.hu
Dr. Tamás Kovács, State Prosecutor State Prosecutor’s Office 1372 Budapest, Pf. 438. lu@mku.hu


2. Sign the petition for Free Birth Choices in Hungary here: 

http://www.petitiononline.com/szul2010/petition.html  


3. Contribute your time, energy, expertise, or services.

If you want to become more involved in Dr. Gereb's case, please contact Donal Kerry  at free@birth.hu


4. Donate

Visit www.freegereb.org to see how you can donate towards Dr. Gereb's legal expenses.

Mothering Magazine Free for 6 months

I just got a heads up about this promotion from a Facebook friend.  If you enter this code: CDIGM you will receive 6 months of Mothering Magazine- digital- for free. ...I think, lol!!   I just subscribed and it worked, so I thought I'd pass the news along to my readers!


To Subscribe to Mothering Magazine click HERE

Monday, October 25, 2010

Big Pharma strikes out at Hylands

Hyland's Teething Tablets


On the 23rd of October, the FDA made the grand sweeping announcement that it was recalling Hylands Teething tablets.  Within an hour of this announcement making an appearance on Facebook I was bombarded by questions from several people. 
At first I was shocked and worried that it was a case of contamination with some terrible biological buggy or something equally horrifying- I mean, I'd given my 8 month old son 2 of Hylands Teething Tablets just a few hours before reading this news.  I quickly went directly to the FDA website to read the information, and immediately sighed in relief.  No danger- just the usual meddling by the FDA and Big Pharma into the business of the little guy.

But I'm really pissed about this now!!!  What if this puts Hylands out of business?  What if the FDA manages to have the teething tablets banned?!?  Now what the hell are we suppose to give our poor teething babies?!

Let me back up for a moment.  Do you know what "Hylands Teething Tablets" are?  They are a homeopathic remedy for ... you guessed it: teething.  They are an awesome product that I have used on all of my kids when they were cutting new teeth. (along with another homeopathic product by Boiron called "camilla"). To read more about Hylands homeopathic preparations for children you can visit their website.

In response to the FDA announcement Hylands has made this response:

Working with FDA, Standard Homeopathic Company Voluntarily Recalls Hyland’s Teething Tablets to Address Manufacturing Process
Los Angeles, October 23, 2010 – Standard Homeopathic Company, in consultation with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is voluntarily recalling its Hyland’s Teething Tablets. The company is initiating this recall in an abundance of caution due to an FDA investigation of its manufacturing facility. Hyland’s Teething Tablets are manufactured in the United States and distributed throughout North America.
The Hyland’s Teething Tablets UPC codes included in the recall are:
1. Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 125 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75041
2. Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 250 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75042
3. Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 125 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75066
4. Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 50 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75044
5. Hyland’s Teething Tablets, 145 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 75121
6. Hyland’s Teething Tablets, Clip Strip 6x125 tablets, UPC # 3 54973 35109
Adverse events have been reported but the FDA has said that a conclusive link has not been determined. The company, in working with the FDA, has identified manufacturing processes of Teething Tablets that can be improved to ensure uniformity in dosage. As a homeopathic product, Hyland’s Teething Tablets have a wide margin of safety that protects consumers from harm.
After in-depth analysis, a comprehensive review of the company’s adverse event report log, and more than 85 years of safe usage, the company is confident that Hyland’s Teething Tablets are safe for infants and toddlers.
In addition to the product recall, Standard Homeopathic Company is refining its production, packaging and testing protocols. Throughout the process, Standard Homeopathic Company will continue to closely monitor and evaluate the situation and consult with FDA.
Consumers that are concerned about the safety of the product may contact Standard Homeopathic Company for instructions on a refund or replacement product. For these instructions or information regarding how to return or dispose of the product, consumers should log on to www.hylandsteething.com/recall or call 1-877-496-5044 (Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Eastern Time, and Saturday-Sunday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time).
“We initiated this voluntary recall to ensure our consumers know that their families’ safety and health are our top priorities,” said Mark Phillips, PharmD, President and Chief Pharmacist of Standard Homeopathic Company. “We are committed to maintaining and deserving the trust they have placed in Hyland’s. We have worked for 107 years to build relationships with our consumers. We intend to preserve that tradition of trust.”
Hyland’s Teething Tablets is a homeopathic product intended to provide temporary relief of teething symptoms in children that is sold over-the-counter (OTC) in retail outlets.
No other Standard Homeopathic Company products are affected by this recall.
Consumers who have medical concerns or questions should contact their healthcare provider. Any adverse reactions may also be reported to the FDA’s MedWatch Program by fax at 1-800-FDA-0178, by mail at MedWatch, FDA, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20852-9787, or on the MedWatch website at www.fda.gov/medwatch.
With over 100 years of experience in providing families with access to safe, natural, reliable medicines, Standard Homeopathic Company and its division, Hyland’s, Inc., have many symptom fighting products consumers have come to trust. For more information on their line of products, visit www.hylands.com or www.facebook.com/Hylands.Health.
About Standard Homeopathic Company
Standard Homeopathic Company develops and manufacturers lines of homeopathic medicines, including its top-selling Hyland’s brand. Hyland’s homeopathic formulas are manufactured with the highest quality natural ingredients following the strictest standards of preparation. With over a century of commitment, Standard Homeopathic Company’s tradition of excellence consistently provides quality and integrity in every product. From Hyland’s Teething Tablets to Hyland’s Calms Forté, Standard Homeopathic Company cares for your family at every stage of life. Consumers can trust Standard Homeopathic Company’s products to be natural, gentle, effective and safe for the entire family.

Dr.Iris R. Bell, MD PhD  writes about Hyland's Teething Tablets Safety Information HERE

I wrote my own letter to  Hylands and will post their response here when/if I get one.

So, they (the FDA and Big Pharma) are forcing the recall of a natural homeopathic product... big shock.  Big Pharma doesn't want anyone using an alternative therapy and especially doesn't want us to useing a product that they are not making money off of. 
Grrrrrrrrrrr

But Heidi Stevenson of Gaia Health writes it all out for us in her excellent article 

FDA Bans Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tablets

The FDA is stealing your right to use safe products. Remember, the FDA says you have no right to health—and they mean it.

by Heidi Stevenson

The FDA's goal of making the world safe for Big Pharma is made obvious by their attack on a product for which the possibility of harm is so far-fetched that it's laughable: Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tablets. Well, it would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that an exceptionally safe product that's been used by thousands to ease their children's teething pains is now gone.
I was alerted to the ban on Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tablets by JacQue Hawkins-Howard, who hoped that it wasn't true. Sadly, it is. JacQue's unsolicited testimonial for the product—"I use Hyland's products and their teething remedy. It was wonderful!"—isn't the FDA's concern. Their concern is that safe and effective products like it interfere with the sales of pharmaceuticals and the profits of doctors, because they don't see as much money from JacQue and other patients who successfully manage their own health.

Proof of the FDA's Dishonesty

In its attack on Hyland's, the FDA clearly stated:
The FDA has not evaluated Hyland’s Teething Tablets for safety or efficacy.
So, without any proof of any sort—not even an attempt to find any proof—the FDA decided that Hyland's Teething Tablets should be banned. They don't even provide any estimate as to the amount of the product that would have to be ingested to cause harm. That, of course, is because they don't care.
Not one shred of evidence is given that the product is dangerous, which isn't surprising, because it would take an incredible quantity to cause even the mildest adverse effect. Yet, the FDA panders to fear by suggesting that parents consult with a "health care professional if their child experiences symptoms such as seizures, difficulty breathing, lethargy, excessive sleepiness, muscle weakness, skin flushing, constipation, difficulty urinating, or agitation after using Hyland’s Teething Tablets.
They imply that children have been harmed because they've "received reports of children who consumed more tablets  than recommended". Notice that they don't say how many, nor do they even try to indicate whether they've found any connection between the tablets and the possible symptoms. Here's why:
It would take ingestion of at least a thousand tablets by a ten-pound child to see even the first hint of a negative response. That's at least six bottles—and even this is an extremely conservative figure.

The FDA's Targeting of Belladonna

Many pharmaceuticals utilize a Belladonna derivative, atropine, as an antispasmodic. A typical potency is 0.4 - 0.8 milligrams per pill(1). In this form, it can be effective, but it also carries serious risks. In contrast, the amount of Belladonna in the Hyland's formulation is a mere 0.0002 milligrams per pill. A single pill of the pharmacy formulation is 2,000 to 4,000 times stronger!

Hyland's Homeopathic Teething Tablets Ingredients

Here is the full list, quoted from Hyland's website, of the banned product:
Formula: Calcarea Phosphorica 3X HPUS - supports dentition
Chamomilla 3X HPUS - for irritability
Coffea Cruda 3X HPUS - for wakefulness and diuresis
Belladonna 3X HPUS (0.0003% Alkaloids) - for redness and inflammation
In a base of Lactose (milk sugar) NF.(2)

Available in bottles of 125 quick dissolving tablets.
Calcarea phosphorica, Chamomilla, Coffea cruda, and Belladonna are all homeopathic preparations in the 3X (US scale) homeopathic potency. That means they have been diluted so that there is less than 1 molecule of each substance per thousand molecules of the solvent—and they're even less concentrated in the final product.
All of these ingredients, when taken at a high enough dose, can be poisonous. However, at this homeopathic potency, any suggestion of poisonous qualities is beyond absurd. One is more likely to die from drinking too much water than to suffer the tiniest amount of harm from this teething remedy.

FDA's Methods

The FDA's first method is intimidation. In the case of Hyland's Teething Tablets, they simply issue a warning to the public. They claimed that the product contains a "potentially toxic" agent, implied, without evidence, that it has caused harm to children, and claimed that an inspection showed "substandard control of the manufacturing operation", though they don't say what was wrong.
Most companies cannot afford the costs involved in fighting the FDA, so most do what Hyland's has done: They acquiecse. Naturally, they're hoping that will be the end of it—but history has not shown that to be the case. As has been happening to raw milk producers and distributors, once the FDA has you in their sights, your chances of survival are slim.
That, of course, is why the FDA goes after small companies and single products. For the most part, each action manages to slip under the public's radar, and most companies simply don't believe that they could be the next target. As a result, a mass movement against the FDA hasn't started...yet.

Another Attack on Your Health Freedom

Obviously, this is yet another attack on your health freedom. The FDA is targeting individual companies, picking them off one by one. Your health is the last thing on their agenda.
If your health were their concern, the FDA would go after the makers of products like the fake butter flavoring of most popcorns, which causes brochiolitis obliterans, a disease that steals people's breath, in employees of factories that make it. They took months to take any action against the battery egg manufacturers who poisoned dozens, and those two companies are still practicing without obstruction.
Instead, the FDA goes after raw milk and a harmless homeopathic compound that soothes teething babies and eases the stress it causes their families. There can be no doubt that the FDA is serving its masters, Big Pharma. The idea that the people are their masters is just so...quaint.

HERE to read the article on Gaia Health's website

 


Friday, October 22, 2010

The First Hour of Life: The Baby Bond

   

This is a long article so I'm not going to write a long intro, lol.  Guest Writer Janel Lou Martin Miranda MA, LPC (IL)  of Infant Parent Healing, & The Other Side of the Glass  writes an amazing article about the effects of bonding and attachment on baby and parents- through labour, delivery and birth and beyond-and the importance of healing. I was especially awed by her information about babies and the breast crawl. I wrote about the importance of Skin to Skin contact between baby and mother and father in "In the Pouch: Kangaroo Care for Newborns" , but Janels article goes into so much more detail.  Please take the time to read this amazing article and pass it along to every expectant parent you know.
Be sure to visit Janels website for information on her upcoming movie "The Other Side of the Glass"!
*Editing note: Due to the limitations of Blogger I struggled to get the photos aligned as they are in the original text...but alas, my technical abilities are greatly lacking.  So please excuse the lay out problems with the photos.... I tried, really I did!


Self-Attachment in the First Hour of Life:
A Biologically Programmed Process and
The Foundation for a Happy Life
By Janel Lou Martin Miranda, MA, LPC
When baby and mom are unmedicated during labor and birth, and when left in the arms of his mother to rest, to gaze into her eyes, and to smell her and feel her loving touch, he will begin to crawl to her breast when his biological impulse guides him. With only his mother's touch and support, he will smell her nipple, lick at it, and attach himself to her breast. This process completes a significant sequence in the baby's nervous system. 

Physiologically, this Self-Attachment process is the completion of a biologically programmed process that begins with the baby's initiation of labor (via his hormonal signal to the mother.)   Scientists know that the human baby has a biological impulse to begin his or her labor and birth, and that this process completes with the baby attaching to the mother's breast. This process of labor, birth, and meeting and reconnecting after separation from the womb will forever define the mother-child relationship; negatively, unless we consciously repair it. 
   
Above: Baby has self-attached at the breast after a very calm, peaceful birth at home. Right: Later, mom and baby are resting in bliss.
Self-Attachment is supported by the last decade of brain development and the ground breaking research by Lennart Righard, MD, a pediatrician and researcher in the field of birth and breast-feeding (The Lancer, 1990. Volume 336; pages 1105-07), and by the work of pioneers in the Pre and Perinatal Psychology field. 
Dr. Lennert published a study in 1990 “that looked at two groups of newborns. In the first group the infant was placed on the mother’s abdomen and within fifty minutes most infants and self attached to the breast and were suckling correctly. In the second group the newborn babies were removed from the mother’s abdomen, bathed, measured, and replaced on the abdomen. The infants in this group from an unmedicated birth self-attached but half of them had a faulty suckling pattern. Most of the infants from a medicated birth were too drowsy to be able to suckle at all.” (From the cover description of the video, “Delivery Self-Attachment”, produced by Lennert). Purchase video at: http://www.geddesproduction.com/self.html
Jack Newman, MD, Canadian breastfeeding guru and author of, encourages the process of self-attachment within the first six weeks to assist babies in latching and breastfeeding. The six-week window for completing the self-attachment reflex corresponds with the Baurer's and Stepping reflexes of the newborn. Infant Self-Attachment by Teresa Pitman, colleague of Dr. Newman and co-author of, The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers. Read the article at www.lalecheleague.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDecJan03p123.html.
The forty years work of prenatal and birth trauma healing pioneers, Emerson, McCarty, and Castellino now show us that this critical need in the central nervous system for self-attachment can happen at any age. And, with their pioneering work with babies and adults, we know now that the unresolved trauma from labor and birth must be addressed IN ORDER to complete the self-attachment process.  
In twenty-five years of work with infants, children, and adults, my teacher, Dr. Raymond Castellino (www.beba.org) has discovered that the Self-Attachment process of reconnecting outside the womb is a crucial event that must happen in order for optimal ability of a human being to attach to his or her parents and for the parents to bond with the newborn.  He has found this to be a basic biological need of the human being.  The critical break leads to a multitude of human issues seen in our culture.  In his model of prenatal and birth healing, he has discovered that the biological impulse and need for the self-attachment is a universal and an biologically, physiological impulse. When one does the birth trauma healing the impulse is for the human to spontaneously pursue self-attachment. This is true at any age. I personally have experienced this at age 46 and I also facilitated a seventy-year old woman to do her own self-attachment process.  
She heard me speak at a woman's group in Nevada City, CA and came up to me afterwards to make an appointment. She wanted to heal the life-long difficult relationship with her daughter.  When her daughter was born she yearned to breast feed her baby and her body produced the milk to do so.  Her husband was in Europe in the war and she was staying with her mother, a nurse.  Her mother was against breast feeding and along with the doctor, she forced the new mother to bind her breasts to stop milk production. Ironically, this had also been done to the grandmother when this older woman of seventy had been born. This woman had had a total mastectomy several years prior to my session with her.  Several days later her granddaughter phoned her. Was this "out of the blue?" Or coincidental?? Or did the change in the woman's own nervous system -- releasing her guilt, shame, and anger about her own experience as a baby being denied the breast AND being denied to breastfeed her own daughter -- effect her energetic being? Dr. Lipton's book, "The Biology of Belief" explains this phenomenon as well as how prayer works.

 Above:  Left - My daughter and grandson after Andrew completed Self-Attachment -- even though it had been exactly an hour before hospital staff completed their routines and "allowed" her to nurse her baby.  Her tears here are tears of joy and healing as she tells her baby how much she loves him. Right: Meeting her first son after being separated for hours after a cesarean birth. Both are still obviously affected by drugs. Many babies separated for hours are given supplement or glucose and are not hungry or able to effectively breastfeed. Glucose is given for pain relief for shots and interventions without regard for the imprint in the brain of connecting taking sugar/glucose with pain relief.  Mainstream science is not looking at the connection between this and sugar addiction in children, obesity, diabetes. The first feeding in breast feeding has a special effect of priming the intestine, necessary for lifelong health.

In the first moments of life outside the womb, the baby's brain and body undergo monumental changes in order to become an individual being, dependent upon his body to survive.  Prior to these moments in this new world, his or her mother is the only person the baby has physically known.  He or she knows the mother through the umbilicus, through her voice, her heartbeat, and through sensation. He only knows the world and others in her environment through her experience and perceptions. Their bodies are symbiotic and he is surrounded and held by her uterus in warm safety.  For nine plus months the baby's umbilical cord is his or her life line in many ways, and it is the connection to his only womb companion and life source  -- his or her placenta. 
Labor, birth and first moments collectively are one monumental process in which a baby goes from being a water-breathing being to being an air-breathing being.  Labor and birth are relatively short in time compared to gestation, but is nonetheless monumental, as this is the process adjusting to life outside the womb.  In moments, the human baby goes from being symbiotic with her mother to being and individual. Every organ and system must perform. Birth involves much force and maneuvering and happens with extraordinary hormonal and physiological precision, in a beautiful orchestration during mother and baby.  Birth is ancient. Truly, this biological process has not changed. 
Our biology is ancient. Birth is so ancient. Midwifery is the oldest profession in the world. Women's bodies know how to give birth. As far back as humanity goes -- women have known how to give birth. The mechanisms to create the attachment that makes the mother fiercely love her baby are biologically programmed, and are ancient.  Modern birth --with drugs, noise, people, and interventions -- is dictated more by malpractice issues, than by science, logic, or spiritual needs, and, interferes with the most defining moment of the human being.
In those first moments of life outside the womb, separated from the umbilicus and placenta, all the baby's body systems must do their biologically planned and intended work.  There is no moment in the brain's development and life that is not critical. Prenatally, women are told to be nourished, hydrated, drug-free, and stress-free.  During labor and birth these "science-based" admonishments are ignored. We logically and now scientifically know that the baby's brain is also experiencing, responding to, and recording this event -- just as it does every other moment of life from conception. It's called fetal programming by the biologists and imprinting by the pre and perinatal psychologists.
A baby's long-term survival depends upon his successful reconnecting with his mother and he'll forever view and experience the world through this early brain imprinting.  Whether he is safe and protected, supported and nourished will be his first experience of the world.  He or she is totally dependent on a caregiver (who is drugged and violated) for every aspect of survival. The more connected this caregiver, the greater the baby's survival; and importantly, the greater the quality of his or her life will be.   Humans are known to be resilient, and so the violating way babies are treated is somehow justified by society (acknowledgement always requires inner change in relationship to the acknowledged one).
While babies surely do survive physically in amazingly deprived situations, and most of us do ok in our life and relationships, most people yearn for greater love and connection. We know something big is missing. Many disrupt their lives in multiple ways in attempts to have it. (Mine hand is raised!)  How we do this will be a reflection of our labor, birth, and attachment experience with our mother.  It's imprinted in the brain. Am I loved? Am I wanted? Am I worthy? Am I safe?
Healthy connection in the first hour of life ensures a healthier, happier life. Born in a situation experiencing  safety, being wanted, knowing one is loved, and seen as worthy by those who provided the biological tissues that made us will create the foundation for healthy, happy relationships. Modern birth in the 21st century should be about using the best of the ancient wisdom of birthing and using our technology to create the highest human potential possible. It should not be about control of pain at any cost, with no regard for the effects on the baby, and not for other people's schedules and malpractice. It should be about a societal effort to truly support parenting -- both mothers and fathers.
 
Above: Baby Adam, like many, are left alone, naked, and distraught to wait for their mothers in an other room.  Throughout childhood he had great difficulty with his mother being out of his sight and it was very challenging whenever he enters new settings. He was kept in the nursery while his mother was kept on the surgical floor because there was not a bed for her on the labor and delivery floor (and why is that with a PLANNED cesarean?) His father finally raised such objections as to get the OB nurse to sneak the baby up to surgical floor "against regulations".  Notice the color difference between his head and body.

The case against medical birth disrupting birth that leads to attachment and health issues is clear and thanks to the proliferation of brain, cell, and physics research since the late 90's, attachment theory is very based in science.  Applied to birthing, it goes back to basic Anatomy 101; "for every structure there is a function."  No where in medicine is this ignored more than in obstetrics.  Routine inducing of labor is clearly detrimental when considers the baby is meant to start this process hormonally. Another example, early cord cutting before the cord stops pulsing is known to be related to jaundice in newborns and to lead to life long respiratory, circulatory, and other issues. The reasons for doing these interventions is purely ritual, historical, and self-serving for the needs of the medical establishment.  Now, the collective work of an inter-disciplinary group of scientists supports the long denied belief that  --- prenatal life and the experience of birth create the foundation for all emotional and physical health or dysfunction, including cardiac, blood pressure, diabetes, and mental illness.  Medical birth is dangerous to our health and wellness.
We are more than physical; we are spiritual beings who come into a physical presence in those first seconds. I believe separation from the inner world of the womb (and mother), from our umbilical cord, and from our placenta has profound spiritual implications for the lifetime. Could the placenta be the "other" that we humans seek at such great costs throughout the lifetime? Research in Europe shows that when the placenta in another room is touched, the baby responds. Psychology has yet to explore this vast frontier.
The process of leaving the mother's womb, separating from the placenta, and reconnecting with the mother in a whole new way is disrupted by drugs and interventions, and the people (their needs and feelings, noise, etc) who are present in labor and birth. During the first moments of life only those who love this baby should touch him or her. Only their soft, cooing voices should be heard.  A baby's first touch should be his mother -- no one can touch a baby with as much love, concern, and tenderness as the mother.   Touch by anyone else should be minimized for as long as possible. Some women birthing at home are doing so in part in order to minimize contact by others. Some are staying in for the first seven or so days of life because of the vulnerability of the baby.
The first hour of life is for bonding and attachment WHILE transitioning environments. It is NOT the time for weighing, bathing, diapers, clothing, cheering, lights, noise, chatter, shots, eye ointment, etc. Clothing and swaddling interfere with skin-to-skin contact. 
Any interventions, touch, and resuscitation should be done with baby in the mother's arms, or father's if she is unable.
 
Above Left: Father holds baby skin-to-skin at a home birth while mother is being cared for --- after baby did Self Attachment.  Right: Father connects with baby (VBAC) while separated from mother because of "potential risk" from meconium. Staff refused to do interventions on baby in mother's arms. Below Left:  Father connects with baby after a cesarean birth. Mother and baby did not meet for 13 hours. Right:  Father holds baby nearby mother while waiting for her to be able to sit up after a cesarean section.

All of the settings above are different -- and there is no standard of care for newborns.  Protocols vary and are decided by individual hospitals and caregivers on different shifts.
Protocols that are developed only based on staff needs are the priority, not science-based. They are for time control and liability, not to protect and support the need for mother and baby to reconnect in the first moments of the baby's life.  Mother and baby are routinely separated (even if in the same room) while the baby endures traumatic interventions.  Sadly, this is considered "normal birth" and scientifically sound in our society, even with abundant research showing that even sick or seriously ill babies respond to treatment better when they are in their mother's arms. 
Mother's are more in touch with their baby than anyone - her body has built this baby. Her uterus has provided skin-to-skin contact for over nine months. Her body knows every detail of this baby. Her body is her unconscious (science is now explaining old, nebulous psychological theories, such as the Unconscious). Intuitively, a woman has the ability to know the whole gamete of her baby's needs (in the womb, during labor, and at birth and beyond) when she knows how to trust her own instincts.
Theoretically,  a woman who trusts her own instincts and judgments and makes her decisions with people who love her and support should not be plagued by guilt.   Obstetrics is the least scientifically based medical specialty and the treatment of women (denial and violation) in medical birth is the source of great wounding and anger.  This is the root of mother's guilt.  Women are choosing homebirth instead of hospital birth and it's disempowerment. It is one huge step towards taking back their power and protecting their baby from traumatic interventions.
Medical caregivers doing shift work -- never before seen by the mother and her baby (who experiences and knows everyone she knows during the nine months in the womb) are strangers.  These people are strangers to the baby. Their medical expertise is very polluted by their own fear of birth in which they are trained. Birth is a potential medical crisis, protocols must be followed to prevent litigation. Fear of birth, fear of women's bodies, and even the sounds women make during labor and birth dis-empower women.  They bring their own traumatic birth experiences, through which they have perceived their professional training, to the birth of every baby whose birth they attend.
Babies should be treated with respect and told what is happening and why.  This true at any time -- one hour, two days, four years, or forty years old. A baby wants and needs to be treated just as we would wish to be treated.  We would not someone to give us shot in the leg without warning, or to scrub our face with a rough cloth.  Never is this more the case than in those first moments in this new world.
 
Above: Against his wishes, Father is forced to take baby to nursery for measurements and cleaning -- just after he intervened with the neonatal physician who was scrubbing the baby's chest so hard that the skin was rubbed off. He wanted his son to stay with his mother in recovery, but the nursery nurse insisted that the baby be taken to the nursery. The nurse was angry that the father refused to put his baby in a cart and had insisted on carrying the baby in his arms.   The nurse asked the doctors, "Can he do that?"  Another nurse said, "Its his son."  In the nursery the nurse kicked me out for "being germy" when I backed the father's wishes during a "second tug 'o baby". Nurse was forcefully trying to pull baby from his arms to put on scales and the father was insisting that he did want not to weigh the baby yet. She said, "It is hospital protocol." I said, "It's not what the baby needs right now."  I gained a little time for the father -- time it took the nurse to kick me out of the nursery that was right off the hallway with extensive foot traffic by the public.  Left:  Then, between interventions Father is supporting baby, gently holding his head and telling him what is happening, and he is gently holding his son's head telling him, "I am sorry, I am here."  Baby's head had significant molding and father wanted to hold his son's head gently and not be roughly measured. The baby had moved posterior and had the classic head shape of laboring of posterior. The head has to be extremely sensitive to touch.   Right: The nurse is literally trying to pry the father's hands away from his baby as he is asking her to please slow down.  The other birth companion and cousin of the mother taking photographs was kicked out of the room at this point for speaking up.  Later the parents were threatened with DCFS intervention for not allowing eye ointment (a big interference in attachment as the eye contact between parent and newborn is what triggers certain hormones and brain activity) and observed closely when they insisted that the baby room with the mother and would not allow the baby to be in the nursery.
This father is the exception because he was prepared. He participated in healing his own birth experience during the prenatal period and he participated in every aspect of the prenatal period.
Most men are also disempowered in their baby's birth -- it is a learned experience from their own births. Birth IS the baby's birth. Where else in this society -- besides in labor and birth and hours after -- does a man stand by powerlessly watching his wife and child being drugged, coerced  into things she said she didn't want, manhandled and not become an aggressive protector? Where does he have to process his shame and guilt about his "failure" to do what he is biologically meant to do -- protect -- especially in a society that does not honor and respect the bodies of women and babies? He acts it out in addictions (including work) and it is believed in pre and perinatal psychology that the experience of modern birth is a major contributor to failure of marriage.
Birth in modern society is no longer considered a normal and sacred event; rather, it is a medical event to be managed. Women no longer believe that God made their body with an amazing capability to bring forth life. Society does not apply scientific logic and heartfelt compassion to the first hour after birth. Not only is it a sacred time, it is a "critical period" in the continuum of brain development that began at conception and never ends until death.  The first hour of life is when physically, emotionally, and spiritually the human being's biological impulse and primary need is to meet and reconnect with his or her mother outside her womb.

Natural, empowered  birth can be exhilarating, intense, and loud -- sounding and looking much like love making and orgasm. Natural labor and birth are sexual and medicine, religion, and psychology fear birth.  (One of the reasons I suspect the medical machine works so hard to drug and suppress women, and to control birth is to control women. Women and their partners gain their power and their voice in birthing their babies on their terms. Earthly, sensual, natural women are powerful and scary to the status quo. Men who support their partner and protect their baby in birth are engaged fathers and partners.)
Self-Attaching:
During the first twenty minutes after birth the mother's instinct is to rest and allow her baby to rest; meanwhile, she will touch, smell, lick, and caress her baby, look into his or her eyes, and coo loving words. Like lovers do.  Baby will look for his or her mother's face and her eyes, and respond to her. This eye and physical contact will set off the biological cascade of hormones, known as “the love cocktail.”  They are meant to fall in love with each other -- the new human being's survival depends upon it. 
When the baby is ready and begins to crawl, his or her mother's instinct is to never to force the baby to the breast. Her biological impulse is to maintain visual contact, and quietly and gently support him or her to find the breast. Working together mother and newborn accomplish their biological and emotional need to re-attachment, a process that is crucial for attachment and bonding.  
This impulse for self-attachment and completion of this sequence is virtually unheard of in most modern births; yet it is a biologically programmed impulse. This is crucial for the foundation for the mother-child relation and every other relationship.  A newborn wants nothing but to be with his mother.
In the first hour of life a baby's flailing, wailing, and resisting interventions are his way of communicating his objections, but well-intended caregivers are not conscious of this.
 
 Above: First moments of life after a planned cesarean. Highly trained, well-meaning professionals do not see the fighting, crying, and flailing -- in noisy room with masked strangers, rough handling, bright lights and cold air -- as communication.   "PUT ME BACK!!" perhaps, or "LEAVE ME ALONE!", or maybe just, "WHEEEERE'S MY MAAMA!?!?"  The latter, by the way would describe his primary emotional concern in the first six years of his life.
For the baby above and 90% of babies born in the US in the past 100 years, the clear message is "Welcome to the mean, cruel world, kid" as he or she is accosted by loud  masked strangers gloved in latex.  Ancient cultures reserved this treatment for those babies destined to be warriors.
NO WHERE else in our current society would anyone, and especially not parents, watch while their baby is treated so violently; sometimes, after they explicit instructions not to.  How could we believe he is not feeling and won't remember this? But, we believe that baby does remember the mother's loving touch and voice and we now KNOW that babies in the womb feel and hear. 
What is this little baby boy above (my grandson) feeling? He looks scared and to be fighting.  Does anyone else notice how odd and incongruent it is for adults to be smiling (at best) as they do this, or just loudly, roughly doing their routine protocols on the baby while oblivious to the emotions and needs of this new life in their hands? When we fail to protect our babies in birth, how could we not be creating the foundation for fear and distrust? Don't we teach them this by not protecting them from strangers? How does a baby ever know appropriate boundaries after violation in the first hours of life? HOW does a baby know that this is a peaceful world? Or, is it?
Induced birth with epidural are known to lead to malpositioning for baby which leads to cesarean with devastating results for baby (below) and Mother.  Above Left:  Mother waited an hour while resident and attending argued over whether to do cesarean. After hours of Pitocin labor, the resident wanted "to pump up the Pitocin and get the baby out." Mother refused, knowing something was wrong, and she wanted a cesarean.  Right: Baby and mother meet for first time thirteen hours after her birth by cesarean section. (Naval hospital originally with nurse midwives until emergency cesarean was necessary.)
Below: 
The baby was induced and this almost always leads to using epidural anesthesia because of intense labor, which is known to lead to abnormal positioning of the baby, and this leads to cesarean.  Her face shows she was obviously seriously hurt in her labor and birth and that her mother's instinct was right. Baby was obviously repeatedly ramming her face against pelvic bone. Hospital caregivers did not even acknowledge or speak of her injuries. Her injuries were ignored, not acknowledged, and not addressed medically by hospital staff. This is likely because they don't want to admit their wrong-doing, and frankly, as we all know, that injuries are often disregarded by medical field because they don't know what to do, and so we're told, "It won't effect you and it'll just go away." Sure the bruising or pain eventually does because our bodies are mean to survive, but the memory of the experience is still in our body. Our medical and psychological systems shrug their shoulders and say "It seems to go away in a few days," "Take a pill, get a steroid shot, but don't believe in complementary methods.") and in doing so, promote their nonsensical science -- denying that the birth experience is recorded (remembered); denying that brain of the birthing baby remembers birth. In psychological world of addiction recovery, this would be called "Going down the river DENIAL" which just simply allows one to continue to do what they are doing and not be responsible for it. Research shows that epidural anesthesia is strongly associated with abnormal fetal position (occiput posterior) at delivery and may help explain the high rates of operative delivery observed after administration of an epidural. (Obstetrics & Gynecology 2005; 105: 974-82). Scientific research is showing that babies do remember birth and it gets acted out throughout life. Physician heal thyself.

Your brain is receiving, processing, and acting upon environmental information from conception beyond. During gestation everything is filtered through how mom feels and views the world.  It is imprinted in your developing brain and body, and your body holds the memory. The body is the unconscious according to new scientific understandings of cell behavior according to Bruce Lipton, PhD (www.brucelipton.com). Your labor, birth, and re-attachment experience become your template for being in the world. It is communicated through our body language and mainstream psychology even says that 75% of communication is NON-VERBAL. We know in Pre and Perinatal Psychology that those times when we just can understand why we do what we do, why we can't get past this certain issues, etc, it is the PREVERBAL period of brain development. As children and an adult, you have learned to put words to experiences and feelings and created an understanding of the world that becomes part of your neocortex -- the thinking part of the brain. The preverbal, nonverbal is clearly known to the body. For this reason, effectively changing our issues, dysfunction, pain, relationships can not logically or scientifically be resolved unless we use a Mind-Body type of healing modality. 
Perhaps, medicine, psychology, and religion will soon consider that the human brain is a living, growing, during labor and birth as it is known to be at EVERY OTHER STAGE OF LIFE before and after birth.  Sound, touch, taste, smell, moments after -- for both mother and baby.  We have to change what we do during labor and birth, and first hour of life, to the most vulnerable.  You, the adult, were once that vulnerable baby.
Some research shows that the baby follows the smell of his and his mother's combined body fluids on his hands; therefore, immediate scrubbing of the baby interferes with his ability to do so (and is mean). One of the current obstacles to not roughly wiping the baby is the mother's abhorrence to her own and her baby's fluids. This is a learned response and a consequence of the modern, sterile, hospitalization of birth.
Self Attachment Ecstasy and Falling in Love
Above:  Left. Baby completed Self-Attachment after Cesarean birth. The hormonal bliss is obvious on her face. The father and I supported her and the baby to come together. Later, as always, the baby initiated doing the process again in our conversations as the parent's processed their feelings about the birth.  The entire pictorial will be here soon. Right. My daughter and grandson gaze into each other's eyes after he did the self-attachment. 
The indoctrination by medicine that birth is to be feared, and our bodies denied has also lead to a denial of the consciousness of the human baby. Medicine, religion, and psychology all  ignore the real science (that could unite the three) that shows us that the labor and birth and attachment experience form -- in the BRAIN!  Our relationship with our mother at birth IS the template for all future relationships.  The human birthing baby remembers everything that she or he experienced -- prenatally and during birth.
No More Mother's Guilt
This may seem like "bad news" to most moms and your  feelings of guilt and hopelessness may be triggered for how your little one experienced birth -- no matter how old that child may be. Let me say, I am very sorry for whatever experience you had that interfered with your attachment with your mother or with your children. The "good news" is if you got the previous paragraphs you will also feel the stirring of hope. You can, no matter what age you and your child, whether present in your life or not, you can heal what happened to you -- in your own nervous system.
You can heal this break in your relationship with your child -- at any age. Even when drugs are used, when birth is by cesarean, and when baby is removed from the mother for interventions (as in the majority of births), a baby can do this process later.
Above:  "Creative Opposition"  -- a technique to address a multitude of behaviors, such as frustration and anger -- with a mom and eleven year old. Laboring babies work with the mother during natural labor using their feet.  Mother's uterus and baby's feet work together in a way that becomes their pattern of relating.  Drugs during labor interfere with the process. This young boy's labor was forced by hospital staff. It was Sunday morning and "it seemed like the doctor had somewhere to be." Mom was not allowed to make any noise. She was given Demerol without her consent. Later, when the baby was unable to awaken to breast feed nurses poked at his chin repeatedly trying to awaken him to get him to attach. His mother recalled this suddenly as he was repeatedly and forcefully poking at her chin.  This is how therapy works -- mother and baby both sharing and telling their experience of birth, from their own perspective. In telling their story, children and parents can experience working together physically, gently, respectfully while hearing the child's perspective of the birth, usually through behavior. Right:  Mother and child come together. This process of sharing and validating, making eye contact, working through where baby was blocked creates new neural pathways for relating.
Currently,  medical and psychological establishments denies that we are energetic beings. It is reported that it takes about seventeen years for new research to make it in to medical education and practice.  This is the case in obstetric medicine. Scientific facts of human biology and the brain development needs of our birthing baby lead medical care providers to insist on inducing or refuse to keep our baby in our arms to do malpractice dictated interventions. You can, while we wait for them to catch up, no matter happens, still find a way to support the baby to complete the Self-Attachment process. Even children who are adopted can experience leaving the birth mother to attach with the adopting mother.  
To do so, a woman will need to process her feelings about her experience of birthing her baby, and just as important, hear and acknowledge her baby's perspective and story of his or her birth experience.  Otherwise, one can spend their life time trying to tell her ("You just don't understand me!!"), connect with her, be acknowledged, supported, felt, and seen by her.  Biting, hitting, head banging, hyperactivity are all communication. Coming to the mother for nurturing or when hurt, and then pulling away from her is communication about how it was at birth. Acknowledgement of that is really all any of us want and we look for it in the ways we were wounded.   Some of us look for it in the most difficult of places and people. This is how we continue to draw the same difficult, pain-producing people and situations into our lives. We look for connection with others until we go within to find it within.  Drug addiction, domestic violence  - why one does it and the other always comes back -- can be explained and healed at the prenatal and birth level.
Above left:  I am resolving my own cord trauma (2-1/2 times around my neck) with colleagues in my training with Castellino (www.castellinotraining.com).  I learned that cord trauma was a cause of many of my lifelong issues related to motivation, movement, and follow through. Cord trauma effects one at a core level because of the tendency for a lack of oxygen during the monumental task of leaving the womb.  EVERY baby born with the cord around his or neck ought to have prenatal and birth therapy.    Right:  My partner and dear friend, Gene, and I are doing "Creative Opposition" dealing with the resistance and anger (blocked biological impulse) and powerlessness I experienced in relationship after relationship because of a forced birth (with low oxygen due to cord wrap) with forceps resulting in broken clavicle (unrecognized). He is "meeting me" -- not forcing, pulling, or pushing me, just letting me feel my deepest wounding in safety. Forceps and vacuum extraction create a need to look for resistance in one's life.  Visit www.emersonbirthrx.com for info on psychological and personality traits that result from cord trauma, forceps, and cesarean birth.
Above left:  Kitty and Gene, classmates, who were parents in reimprinting my prenatal and birth imprints (being gestated in their relationship dynamics) that lead to my umbilical cord being around my neck (from my reactions to events in the environment). All a newborn baby wants is to be in her mother and father's arms and to be held and seen by them, to be the joy of their union, not a conduit for their issues. I have what we call "amgydala eyes" -- when the brain is lit up with love hormones.  An experience such as I had, regardless of age, creates the neural pathway for a new way of relating. With no other effort or counseling, and without "trauma and drama", my relationship with my mother and father dramatically improved.  It's quite amazing work.  Above right:   I am working with my 75 year old mother who has also participated with myself and two other siblings in birth trauma healing sessions.  At one point, she leaned over and whispered to me, as if someone in authority (doctor or nurse) might over hear, "I believe we women have been robbed." This made more sense to me when later she told me the story -- for the first time in 45 years -- that when I was born she had been watching me through the nursery window and she witnessed the nurse being abusive to other babies as she "cared" for them. My mom said she wanted to tell the doctor, but didn't tell anyone, because "I was afraid the nurse would just  get in trouble and then take it out on you."  Say, whaaat? How AWFUL is that!?!? for a mother and a baby?!? For a mother to not be able to protect and her nurture her newborn, an severely injured one at that, but to witness and be scared to tell of mistreatment of a newborn, and then be fearful of her baby's safety?  Lord o' Mercy!!  We are brainwashed to believe we are safer in hospitals than in our homes with a supportive, trained professional -- and it's been done with generations of mistreatment (control).  
THIS MYTH of hospitals as safest for birth is our country's mis-belief and LEGACY -- and we see the effects of violation and fear during the labor, birth, and attachment sequence being acted out in our society.  The Burden of Society's Guilt is carried by MOTHERS! We have the ability to turn it around -- if we only choose to.
We women have so much guilt that originates in own own birth experience and in the experience of birthing our own babies. Women have hurt and victimized and unwilling, uninformed, and unknown subjects in one long experiment -- medical birth. Ninety percent of us were born and we also gave birth under the influence of drugs.  Historically, these drugs - ether, scopalamine, Demerol, epidural narcotics -- have never shown to be safe for our babies. We were forced to go without food and water and confined to our backs to give birth in the worst physical position possible -- on our backs.  I was tied down with my first child's birth because scopalamine makes a birthing woman nuts. Our entire emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual lives as women is defined by our birthing experience that is violent, disempowering, and shameful. We women bear the guilt that results and our hearts break when our children hurt and we can't find the answers.  Men also experience the guilt and shame from not protecting their wife and baby and watching hours of violation.
We women who gave birth in conditions that disempowered us and harmed our children can do our own healing at any age. We can face the shame, guilt, and anger and support and hold one another to do so. We can forgive our self, and those "who know not what they do." We can see our children, whatever their age, as acting out their story -- in relationship to us. We can heal our own early birthing experience (brain development) and having created new neural pathways, we change. We don't have to look for change outside of ourselves -- drugs, surgery, or others --  to be who we want.  We can become advocates for birthing women and babies; and, we can expect society to stop violating women's bodies and souls. We can stop the insanity by choosing wisely. We can allow men to be the protectors in their baby's birth. We can support our children to birth our grandchildren differently.
Left: I am supporting my daughter and grandson, Andrew, to do the Self-Attachment.  Right: Father and I are supporting mother and baby to do the Self-Attachment after cesarean section. Babies born under the influence of drugs and their mothers need more support.
It is an extraordinary journey for a woman to go within to heal the wounds from birth and to face the disempowerment, guilt, and shame from her birthing experience.  We can do it only with support and in relationship with others who are willing to go within to witness their own earliest wounding. Sometimes,  it is as simple as holding witness for the baby and mother by the doula, friend, husband, or grandmother who was present and then supporting them to re-experience birth the way they wanted to.  In order to do so, one must also be able to see and hold the baby who experienced the trauma and separation from his or her mother.  Doing so will create new neural pathways in the baby and mother's brains. Most often those who love the woman and her baby who were present are also traumatized, and most often the mother has not resolved her own Self-Attachment wounding in her own birth.  Professional assistance is often needed.
Supporting and facilitating self-attachment is a primary objective of the Prenatal and Birth focused CranioSacral Therapy -- at any age. 
You can do this if your mother or child is not living; or if you are apart because of adoption or relationship issues. We can do this in individual sessions or group sessions. You can do the Self-Attachment healing even if you can not be in contact with the other who is alive, but unavailable or not safe to be with.  You can do so because it is about working WITHIN THE SELF, in one's own nervous system, rather than in the external world that looks for an outer source (medicine, psychology) to either change us or look to others to do the changing.
Attachment and the mother-child relationship are critical in brain development and the interference during birth is a national tragedy.  It's no coincidence that we live in a world where humans are desperately trying to survive by all the wrong, external means -- blaming others, blaming government, using drugs. Malpractice crisis in the US is a consequence of this mindset of the outer world is the answer.
To begin to change the ills of our society, the first simple step is to change what we do to babies in the first hour of life.  Policies, procedures, protocols meant to manage time and to protect doctors, nurses, and hospitals, can be easily changed.  We could create human beings who are focused on love, not fear because they were protected and nurtured in their first moments of life. When we are conscious of the needs of the newborn and self-attachment, we will treat babies differently and we will change the world.
We can heal Earth by healing Birth.
Janel Lou Martin Miranda, MA, LPC
copyright, January 14, 2006
Special thanks to my dear children and friends with whom I have been blessed to participate in either their birth or their healing. The babies who shared their pictures and stories are:
Janel with DB closeup
David, above, is one of my amazing teachers and I was blessed to be at his birth and a part of his healing with his mother, father, and brother afterward. Right: My baby, Mariah, a most amazing girl. Her birth induced and with epidural and our healing has taught me how to sit with women in the deepest of dark places of guilt about choices that hurt our babies. Every time I work with a baby and mother with induced and epidural, I honor her and appreciate her father, an obstetric trained physician, for our life experiences together that led me  to my work. (see my article "Beware and Be Aware:  When your doctor says, 'If you were my daughter or wife, this is what I'd recommend," it doesn't necessarily mean it's scientifically based!
 http://www.infantparenthealing.com/parentsknow/doctorsays.htm
 
Above left:  My very special friend and teacher, Caleb, and I are doing "Creative Opposition." Right: Baby Elijah, an amazing baby with extraordinary courage a and beautiful heart. Both babies' are on the homepage and their mother's have shared their stories.  Elijah and his sister were featured in a newspaper story about my work. 
 
Above left: Daniel, the homebirth baby who did Self-Attachment -- here at two weeks. Seriously, he's only two weeks old. Isn't he amazing?  Right: Jasmyn and her daddy have a special relationship -- Jasmyn is the baby whose face was so bruised and her daddy supported her during the separation from her mother.  Seems like she likes her hand near her daddy's mouth. Hmmmmm. And "they" say babies don't remember birth -- the good times and all.
Thank you to the people with whom I have done my own prenatal and birth trauma healing:
Left:  My "Womb Surround" in the Castellino Prenatal and Birth Training. They are my teachers and  my spiritual family with whom I learned so much about who I really am and how to be in relationship.  Right: Gene, me, and Ray. They are such nice men.
Some of my very special teachers, some little, some big.
Saying good-bye to my friend, Janessa, above left. She is a very special, beautiful little girl I met at The Farm in Tennessee when her mother and I were studying with Ina May Gaskin and midwives. On the right, above, Farm Midwife, Pamela, me, and Ina May. I express my gratitude to Ina May with a kiss.
By the way, whether you are now pregnant, planning to be, and/or only have time to read one book, read Ina May's book, "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth." 
Click here to go to my story - introduction below:
My son, Andy, was born April 8, 1975. He is one of the most decent human beings I know. He’s a respectful, trusting, successful, funny, and a well-liked man. He is a wonderful husband.  So, why is his birth story so important to share? My story about his birth includes trauma, but our story is more about hope and healing. While I don’t share it here, it is about his struggles with “symptoms” of motivation as a child and what is now grossly misdiagnosed as ADHD. I began this as a short birth story for a parenting publication and it has become a tapestry of stories. My birth and his birth are the main threads woven in with my journey as a young girl giving birth and "trauma bonding" with my son, which I am still healing. It is about my personal healing, my intention for our family healing together, my work as a prenatal and birth therapist. It is about pre and perinatal psychology, birth in our society, and issues for birthing women.  My lifelong work has been in empowering women within the systems. It is about how healing my own wounds as a birthing baby and a birthing woman lead me to empower myself.
Our story is about the generations of violent birth, fear, drugs, homebirth versus hospital birth, preparing for birth, making choices, valuing a woman’s body, creating support for women to birth naturally, and the need for social acceptance that babies are aware in the womb and at birth. Sharing his story is an honoring of him and is a testament to his development into the person he is today. He is truly a wonderful man. It is meant to share that the “bad news” that birth in this country is traumatic and the interference with mother-baby relationship is the reason for our dysfunctions and pain. At the same time, and more so, it is to share the “good news” of the ability of the body, mind, and soul to be healed. Motherhood does not have to equal Guilt.