Declare Your Independence in Birth Choices

4thOfJulyBabyAs long as our country remains so low in the world rankings on neonatal and maternal health, I will continue to run this article every year on America’s birthday. It is sad enough that the U.S. has just dropped five slots in the infant mortality rankings — down to 30 — but a new report from Save the Children reveals that we have the highest first-day infant death rate in the industrialized world.

As we celebrate our nation’s independence from oppressive rule, I want to explore a more subtle, insidious form of control: the status-quo of today’s culture — media, medicine, education — exerts tremendous pressure on well-meaning parents to make choices that simply aren’t good for kids. This is where some knowledge can be a very empowering thing! The more we know about where our decision-making blind spots are, the more we can free ourselves from the prevailing fear-based group-think, and become capable of making positive choices that are in the true best interests of ourselves and our children. {Read the rest at mothering.com}

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