Archive for the ‘Parenting for Peace’ Category

Will You Keep Pace? Birth Technology That Goes “Ping”

knocked up HeigleFor centuries, birth has terrified us. Everything in our culture, including scenes from movies and television shows, portrays and reinforces our  fears, and then soothes us with the promise of salvation through birth technology — epidurals, Pitocin drips, fetal monitors, episiotomies, and C-sections. Ironically, our U.S. infant and maternal mortality rates are some of the highest in the developed world.[i]

The fear of mothers dying in childbirth is nestled deep in our shared cultural psyche, and right behind it is the fear of giving birth to a dead baby. Both of these do occur, but extremely rarely. Nonetheless, childbirth and death have been unjustifiably entwined in our collective unconscious for many centuries; just think of all the legends, fairy tales, and movies featuring “The mother died in childbirth.”

This fear of dead mothers and dead babies has been conflated into vague and not-so-vague fears of the birth experience itself, and in an age when we have eradicated so many other fears it would seem self-evident that we could tame our birth demons through research and technology. But we set off to do so with one gloved hand tied behind our back, so to speak.

The field of obstetrics rests on a younger foundation of research evidence than do other medical specialties. The gynecological territory of the female anatomy in general was the poor stepchild in the world of medical research a couple hundred years ago, and obstetrics was particularly neglected, since pregnancy was the awkwardly prominent evidence that a woman had <gasp> engaged in sex, which was taboo. We painted ourselves into a medically ignorant corner with our cultural sanitization of pregnancy (as in, “She’s expecting”).

Birth Technology Follows the Money, not the Mother (or Baby)

In the mid-20th century, atop our pretty meager understanding of birth physiology came the desire of hospital administrators for cost efficiency in tending to laboring patients. In 1955 arose the notion of “active management of labor” when Emmanuel Friedman developed the partograph — a chart that allowed obstetrical attendants to determine whether the progress of their patients’ labor conformed to an ideal mathematical curve: the infamous yet all-hallowed Friedman’s Curve.

Labors that lagged behind the ideal could be made to keep the prescribed pace with the use of oxytocic drugs (such as Pitocin, a synthetic form of the body’s own oxytocin, the hormone of human connection and contractions). Friedman’s Curve is designed to help physicians keep labor advancing along a “normal” route. A woman who fails to fall in step is considered to be having an “abnormal” labor, which can be made “normal” again with Pitocin. Feminist author Alice Adams sees this as chillingly similar to LaboringMonitoredMomthe “disciplined and docile bodies” in sociologist Michel Foucault’s analysis of military regimentation.

Electronic fetal monitoring (EFM), Pitocin induction, and cesarean section were designed for use in a very small number of cases, when extraordinary measures were called for (and they are indeed a blessing in this small percentage of cases). But once the equipment was bought, paid for and sitting in relative disuse, there came the irresistible impulse to begin using it routinely, for all pregnant women and in all births, which is where the trouble began.

Monty Python‘s send-up of this whole situation would be hilarious if it weren’t so eerily spot-on — not just the birth technology but the attitude to the mother, whose question, “What do I do?” is answered, “Nothing, dear — you’re not qualified.”

Routine use of the machine that goes ping (EFM) was begun in the 1970s, even though there was no proof of its clinical effectiveness. EFM has in fact never been shown to do what it set out to do, which was to improve birth outcomes. In 1987 the prestigious medical journal Lancet reported that the routine use of EFM “had no measurable effect on death or illness of infants or mothers” and even worse, that it “was associated with a higher rate of Cesarean deliveries, which increases surgical risks to mothers.”[ii]

Yet twenty-six years later, in the absence of any new evidence to contradict this damning conclusion, the vast majority of births in America involve electronic fetal monitoring. And in response to the obvious question, “If EFM doesn’t work, why haven’t obstetricians abandoned it?” birth educator and author Henci Goer notes that doctors and hospital administrators aren’t exempt from our cultural fascination with high tech equipment. They are as susceptible to slick marketing of the latest innovations as any other gadgetry enthusiast: “EFM is expensive, scientific, and complicated. It simply had to be better than putting a stethoscope or even a Doptone — the little hand-held ultrasonic device — to the tummy.”

So we as consumers need to ask ourselves if we are as enthusiastic about birth gadgetry. (I have to wonder how many of you — like myself when our son was born in 1987 — realize that the internal form of EFM requires that an electrode, in the form of a tiny screw, be stuck into your baby’s scalp?) Some think that our loving embrace of EFM taps into our 21st century delight over anything we can see on a screen or a monitor!

Finding & Honoring Your Own Pace

Whether birthing at home or in a hospital or birth center, it helps to understand what facilitates labor and what can arrest labor. Obstetrician and researcher Michel Odent suggests that the best way to join forces with birth is to remember that we are mammals, and the need of all mammals to birth smoothly and successfully is the same three things we (like other mammals) require to fall sleep: safe privacy, quiet, and low light.

The most common way to disturb birth is to do too much talking (even the most supportive “coaching” affirmations). When the neocortex (the area of the brain that processes language) is engaged, many aspects of the physiologically brilliant birthing process are blocked. Why? Because thinking actually requires adrenaline, which prevents the necessary levels of oxytocin required to dilate the cervix. How many cases of “failure to progress” (i.e., casualties of Friedman’s Curve) are caused simply by too much talking, even the most well-meaning of inquiries such as “How are you doing?”

I mean, imagine you’re trying to fall asleep, and your partner — even in the most loving, whispery, “supportive” way — were to start saying, “You’re doing really good, hon…how it is feeling, are you almost asleep?” Instead, a partner’s true task is to cocoon the laboring mother from phone calls, texts, tweets, visitors, and all other contact — anything that is characteristic of the “modern human” (especially lights and language). All such stimulation brings adrenaline to your system and can put the brakes on labor.

Your higher thinking centers need to be “excused” from the situation, and you need to be allowed to go to that inner space of your deepest primitive callings, where your bodymind’s instinctive knowing can do what it knows how to do — birth your baby!

If you do find yourself leaning into the siren call of technology, remember that the Parenting for Peace principle of simplicity presides over birth in a way that is evidence-based: the governing bodies of the professional obstetrical societies in both the U.S. and Canada have found that intermittent listening with a handheld device is as or even more effective than electronic fetal monitoring.[iii]

More Ideas for EMPOWERing Birth coming next…

EFM image by miguelb, used by its CC license


[i] Datablog. “Maternal Mortality: How Many Women Die in Childbirth in Your Country?” Guardian.co.uk, http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/apr/12/maternal-mortality-rates-millennium-development-goals. The U.S. ranks an abysmal 41st on the World Health Organization’s list of maternal death rates, behind South Korea and Bosnia—yet we spend more money on maternity care than any other nation; Friedman, Danielle. “Why Are So Many Moms Dying?” Daily Beast, http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-24/why-are-so-many-moms-dying/.

[ii] Prentice, A. “Fetal Heart Rate Monitoring During Labour: Too Frequent Intervention, Too Little Benefit?” The Lancet 330, no. 8572 (1987): 1375-77.

[iii] Gaskin, Ina May. Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. New York: Bantam-Dell, 2003.

The Childbirth – Autism – Erection Connection

OdentLast fall I sat riveted in a Honolulu conference room, listening as obstetrician and primal health researcher Michel Odent declared that women are losing the capacity to give birth. Odent makes the compelling case that this is happening thanks to the systematic (yet unconscious) disuse — and thus, atrophy — of our human oxytocin system over the past few decades. He draws stunning parallels between the decline in physiologically normal births, the increase in autism and (forgive the pun) the rise in male erectile dysfunction. Those all rely on the same system: without oxytocin there is no physiologically normal birth, no human empathy, and no intercourse!

Over many years Dr. Odent has applied a revealing lens on a range of mental health issues: zeroing in on a central feature of conditions such as autism, criminality, suicide, he has cast it rather lyrically as “an impaired capacity to love.” When he used this novel perspective from which to survey a broad spectrum of supposedly unrelated research–on juvenile violent criminality, teen suicide, autism, anorexia, obesity and more–he found something striking: “[W]hen researchers explored the background of people who have expressed some sort of impaired capacity to love–either love of oneself or love of others–they always detected risk factors in the period surrounding birth.”

I spotlighted a few of Odent’s perspectives in my report on the new findings on the connection between induced labor and autism risk. This week it so happens that I’m working on a textbook chapter on “Pre- and Perinatal Influences on Female Mental Health,” and here again, Dr. Odent’s prescient insights emerge as key points. Here’s one example (and sorry — please excuse the textbook-y language!):

Given the gender gap of depression and the fact that twice as many women as men suffer from major clinical depression–one woman in eight experiences at least episode in her lifetime–it is relevant to include Odent’s observation that the rate of college students reporting they’ve been diagnosed with depression has risen from 10% to 21% in just eleven years! Acknowledging the complex causal tapestry involved in depression, he urges us to consider that in that same decade, 2000-2011, “it was a time when the number of women who were able to give birth to their baby and to the placenta thanks only to the release of their natural hormones dramatically decreased.” He reminds us that depression is related to how stress-axis “set points” are established in the pre- and perinatal period, pointing out the myriad brain areas showing altered activity in depressed subjects that have an important phase of development and “set point” adjustment during the period surrounding birth.

An Audience with Michel Odent

I was privileged to have the opportunity to be one of a small number of people at that breakout session of Michel Odent’s Mid-Pacific Conference on Birth & Primal Health Research. Now, thanks to the recent release of his important book Birth and the Future of Homo Sapiens…and the fact that his London book launch event was videoed…you have the opportunity to listen firsthand to this visionary thinker talk about these oh-so-important topics!  Provided you can understand him (the author of this excellent UK Telegraph article writes that Odent’s French accent is “as thick as a ripe Brie”), it is a master class in visionary thinking about the future of humanity.

OdentBookLaunch

Odent cautions us (with respect to our tendency to anguish over studies like the new one linking labor induction to autism risk) that when reading about such studies…or listening him talk about any of the conditions he is researching through a primal health lens…you cannot be thinking of your own family, your friends, or your neighbor’s cousin’s autistic son. These are population-based (epidemiological) studies that reach conclusions in terms of tendencies, risk factors and statistically significant differences amongst huge numbers of people. It is not appropriate or valid (although it is always tempting) to apply these autism risk findings to specific individual cases!

Contrary to one of the many vitriolic comments to the Telegraph article, this is the reason he says his new book is NOT meant to be read by pregnant mothers. Too close, too often-bleak. Michel Odent is the first one to promote chronic JOY in the lives of pregnant women.

The rest of us, though, best get our heads out of the sand and look at the big…the really big…unified picture of birth — and autism — and erections — and the future of us all.

Induced Labor & Autism Risk

A new study linking labor induction to increased autism risk was this week’s big birth story. This isn’t about blame, or guilt. With new awareness comes an understandable tendency to veer in the direction of feeling angry, ashamed, and similar negatives that keep us stuck. With new awareness also comes power, which is worth us taking a deep breath, steadying ourselves, and taking our heads out of the sand about autism risk and how we do birth in America.

My colleagues like Michel Odent and Sarah Buckley have been writing about this concern for years, and I reported on it in Parenting for Peace (see excerpt below). Dr. Odent cautions us (with respect to our tendency to anguish over these reports) that when reading about such studies, you cannot be thinking of your own family, your friends, or your neighbor’s cousin’s autistic son. In his latest book Childbirth and the Future of Homo Sapiens, Odent emphasizes that these are population-based (epidemiological) studies that reach conclusions in terms of tendencies, risk factors and statistically significant differences amongst huge numbers of people. It is not appropriate or valid (although it is always tempting) to apply these autism risk findings to specific individual cases! {Please read the rest at mothering.com} (more…)

Gurmukh’s Postpartum Wisdom

When I was pregnant with our daughter, I took prenatal yoga with the renowned Gurmukh Kaur Khalsa. Gurmukh’s wisdom encircled and empowered me through my pregnancy, and nourished me through the tender postpartum period — inviting us to engage an ancient wisdom prescription: cocoon at home for forty days.

gurmukhWe closed each class by singing a Kundalini farewell blessing (originally lyrics from an Incredible String Band song):

May the longtime sun shine upon you,
all love surround you,
and the pure light within you
guide your way on.

Isn’t this perhaps the highest aspiration we can hold as parents — to nourish, protect and support that pure light within our children, as it guides them on their singular life paths? Call that light what you will: spirit, soul, singular personality and temperament, unique intelligences. It is indeed all of these things plus infinite others that weave the human mystery. (more…)

Breastfeeding for IQ — Really??

NursingECUDon’t get me wrong — I’m a huge fan of breastfeeding. I devote swaths of print in Parenting for Peace to the reasons and ways it contributes to raising a peaceful (i.e., empathic, innovative, flexible, self-regulating, and yes, intelligent) generation. But I frankly get annoyed when media trumpets the connection between breastfeeding and IQ, when it is social intelligence we desperately need for the survival of our human family! {Read more at mothering.com}

Image
myllissa
on flickr

Staying Connected After Birth: A Peaceful Beginning

Postpartum-Mama-Baby-Sleep

My life explorations as an adopted person and my studies of the foundations of human wellbeing have consistently turned up a key element of health: the experience of and capacity for connection. Birth presents us a momentous opportunity to foster connection. It is also important to understand the costs of not staying connected after birth — whether it is due to adoption, NICU confinement, health issues in the mother, or other circumstances preventing mother-newborn connectedness. This is not about guilt or blame, but the empowerment that comes with understanding what happens with neonatal separation. {Read the rest of this post at mothering.com}

Image
footloosiety, Flickr | Creative Commons

Slowing the Pace of Life in Summer

Slowing the Pace of Life in Summer | Marcy Axness, PhDWe humans are rhythmic creatures. At least that’s how we’re meant to be. It’s why Rhythm is one of the seven Parenting for Peace principles. It is a gift for our children and ourselves to embrace life’s ebbing and flowing. Summertime offers us a luscious opportunity for slowing the pace of life.

“As biologists have learned in the past decade,” writes author Jennifer Ackerman, “time permeates the flesh of all living things — and for one powerful reason: We evolved on a rotating planet.”[1] She observes the many ways in which we carry inside us a model of the cosmos. Our entire being is steeped in various rhythms: respiration, circulation, digestion, elimination just to name a few.

So no wonder we find rhythmicity so nourishing. The young child most especially thrives on rhythmic routine, consistency and predictability. It weaves a sense of security into the fiber of his very cells as they are busy building brain and organ tissue. Ideally, rhythm permeates the child’s daily, weekly and even seasonal life. Meals and bedtimes are consistent and regular. Activities at home as well as outings take on the predictability of ritual, which the child can count on and keep a sort of internal beat to: “This is when we eat, this is when we nap, this is when we have play time… Tuesdays we go to the park, Wednesdays we go to the Farmer’s Market, Sunday we visit Grandma… and summer is beach time! {Read the rest of this post at mothering.com}

 


[1] Ackerman, Jennifer. Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007, pg. 8.

Image:
Petrov Escarião under its Creative Commons license

10 Things to Stop Saying to Your Kids (And What to Say Instead)

Girl and dadI include many guidelines about what to say and what not to say to your children in my book Parenting for Peace, but have never gathered them into one user-friendly post. And yet many parents find this level of specificity (“Say this, do not say this”) to be the most helpful of all. It is often the “way in” to a deeper understanding of the nuances and philosophy underlying the seven Parenting for Peace principles. (Yikes — I just realized that in a year of blogging since my book came out, I’ve yet to write a post just about the seven principles. Hard to believe! That will be coming soon…)

Immediate honesty: I didn’t write this post! I’m still in recuperation mode from my NY family trip so figured this was a way to hook you up with excellent content while still getting my suitcases unpacked, my daughter’s UPS boxes stored away, and my INbox whittled down. This is a post on Lifehacker by Shelly Phillips that I heartily endorse. I would like to have written it! And not only is the post itself excellent, but the discussion following is a little mind-blowing. Some of the comments…! Perhaps I should stop wishing for more comments to my posts, or else I’ll get some like these. (I know it’s great to have lively dialogue, but puh-leeze…!) So here you go:

10 Things to Stop Saying to Your Kids (And What to Say Instead)
by Shelly Phillips

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faustlawmarketing on morguefile

Parenting for Peace Primer 3-Pack (w/ videos)

Marcy Axness on kidsinthehouse.comLooking for more parenting peace and harmony? Less stress, fewer meltdowns and more joy? Look no further…but do look, because this features videos!

Our children learn first and foremost by example — our example. The latest brain science reveals that the circuitry of children’s social brains wires up to mirror their parents’ social-emotional brain functioning. This begins in a very direct, biological manner in infancy, and continues through adolescence.

For this and many other reasons related to the potent teaching power of models, a fruitful question to ask yourself, ideally beginning even before you have a child, is “Am I worthy of my child’s unquestioning imitation?” Daunting, yes. But it’s best to realize early on that whether or not you can answer “Yes” to this question, what you see in the mirror is to a great extent what you will see in your child. And, most likely in your child as an adult.

But don’t despair: Nature seems to have built in a special mechanism that allows us to give our children a fighting chance to surpass us. If our children’s potential was constrained by the limitations of our own accomplishment, we’d be doomed! We’d have to wait until our sixties, seventies, eighties — or maybe never — before we’d feel prepared to be parents. Nature has brilliantly built into the system that our children most powerfully respond to our inner life, and especially to the mental force that results when we continually strive to be more connected, sane and centered. (more…)

The Function of Joy in Pregnancy

Mothers, some of the most potent parental influence you will have on your child takes place while he or she is still in your womb — so let’s hope that most of your days while pregnant are Happy Mother’s Days! While you are pregnant, your baby’s organs and tissues develop in direct response to lessons they receive about the world. These lessons come from your diet, your behavior and your state of mind — thereby hinting at the function of joy in pregnancy.

If there is chronic stress in pregnancy, if a pregnant mother’s thoughts and emotions are persistently negative, if she is experiencing unrelenting anxiety, the internal message — delivered to the developing baby — is, “It’s a dangerous world out there,” regardless of whether or not this is objectively true. The baby’s neural cells and nervous system development will actually mutate (adapt) to prepare for the unsafe environment it perceives it is going to be born into. {Read the rest of this post at mothering.com}

Images:
emilianohorcada under a Creative Commons license