This has been a dismal week for Women’s Health. Thankfully there has been some light, but unfortunately the War on Women has reared its ugly head this week and it’s time for me to get political.
P.S. Since there has been some confusion, simply click on the title of each headline to view the respective article.
Miracle Baby Found Alive In Morgue
News of a Argentinian family whose stillborn baby was later found alive in the morgue has captured attention all over the web this week. Their miraculous story is filled with joy, love, and horror. Not only is it heart wrenching to think that such a tiny baby essentially spent a week in a freezer and everything her mother has gone through, but it has been reported that the baby girl, named Luz Milagros (meaning light and miracles), has suffered cardiac arrest and is currently in critical condition. She is now receiving her mother’s breastmilk which will hopefully help with her stability. I truly hope this family receives the support they need.
U.S. Ranks 41 In Global Childbirth Deaths, Behind Many Developing Countries
“The USA spends more than any other country on health care, and more on maternal health than any other type of hospital care. Despite this, women in the USA have a higher risk of dying of pregnancy-related complications than those in 49 other countries, including Kuwait, Bulgaria, and South Korea.This is not just a public health emergency – it is a human rights crisis. Women in the USA face a range of obstacles in obtaining the services they need. The health care system suffers from multiple failures: discrimination; financial, bureaucratic and language barriers to care; lack of information about maternal care and family planning options; lack of active participation in care decisions; inadequate staffing and quality protocols; and a lack of accountability and oversight.”
Mitt Romney Slams Stay-At-Home Moms In New Book, ‘No Apology’
“And it conditions the children of nonworking parents to an indolent and unproductive life. Hardworking parents raise hardworking kids; we should recognize that the opposite is also true.” Yes he really wrote that and yes, his own wife Ann is a stay at home mom. I can’t help but laugh at Mitt Romney. Mostly because he’s a fucking idiot, but also because I’m trying not to imagine what our world would be like if he were elected president, because that is a terrifying place.
Uzbekistan’s Policy of Secretly Sterilizing Women ~ via BBC
“…evidence gathered by the BBC suggests that the Uzbek authorities have run a program over the last two years to sterilize women across the country, often without their knowledge. “Every year we are presented with a plan. Every doctor is told how many women we are expected to give contraception to; how many women are to be sterilized,” says a gynecologist from the Uzbek capital, Tashkent. “There is a quota. My quota is four women a month,” she says. Two other medical sources suggest that there is especially strong pressure on doctors in rural areas of Uzbekistan, where some gynecologists are expected to sterilize up to eight women per week.”
Babies Are Needy – Does That Bug You?~ via Psychology Today
“Human baby helplessness increased over the course of human evolution as humans shifted to bipedal walking. So much so that humans are born 18 months early compared to other primates. It’s really important to get straight on what babies need before having one. For some reason, U.S. society seems to have forgotten what babies need to grow good bodies, brains and minds. We need to get our minds around the needs of babies. Here is a short list of those needs.”
Slings and Heroes by Mayim Bialik ~ via Psychology Today
“It’s especially important to learn your child’s signaling in the first weeks of life. The mother-infant relationship around 3 or 4 months—how responsive the mother is—predicts all sorts of child outcomes later. Responsive care leads to better health, intelligence, social smarts and compliance with maternal wishes. This really makes sense. Why should a child be compliant with someone who has ignored their signals? And how reliable does the child learn the world is if people can’t pick up its signals? It makes for a lot of confusion and misplaced energy for self-protection that is otherwise used to build intelligence and social skills.”
New Study: How Long Can Labor Safely Be?
“… labor averaged even longer in the physiologic groups without doing any harm to the newborns. … the midwifery data blow active management concepts, now enshrined in partograms, out of the water. Setting 1 cm per hour as the threshold for abnormally slow progress—which allows 6 hours to go from 4 cm to 10—means augmenting first-time mothers dilating faster than the average rate! The CSL investigators point out that half the cesareans in the entire CSL cohort were performed for “failure to progress” or “cephalopelvic disproportion” and reference another study of the cohort finding that “a large percentage of women” had cesareans prior to active-phase labor… Among first-time mothers with spontaneous labor onset who had cesareans for delayed progress, more than a quarter of them (28%) had the surgery at 5 cm dilation or less. Among induced labors, the percentage soared to half (53%)”.
Community-Based Doulas: A Good Investment In The Future ~ via HuffingtonPost
“The Community-Base Doula Program has produced some amazing results including c-section rates nearly half the national rate and breastfeeding initiation rates 25% greater than the national average. It’s harder to quantify parental bonding, but we listen to what the young mothers in the program have to say. “I don’t really have a support system anymore,” says one girl, “but I can always call my doula because she still comes around and helps me when I need her.”
Melinda Gates Calls For Universal Access To Birth Control
“one of the simplest and most transformational things we can do is give everybody access” to birth control… Sub-Saharan Africa and poor regions in South Asia have the largest need for contraceptives. She called for a goal of “universal access to the birth control that women want,” which requires “rich and poor governments alike [to] make birth control a priority… We are talking about giving women the power to save their own lives and their children’s lives — and to give families the best possible future”.
Teen Birth Rate Has Reached Lowest Point Since 1946, CDC Report Says
I also find it interesting to note that the 10 states with the highest teen birth rates are also states that are known for being the most conservative and religious (AL, AZ, AR, DC, KY, LA, MS, NM, OK, GA). Its unfortunate that our uptight-ness and strict religious ideals (influencing the prevalence of abstinence-only sex education) is affecting our children in such a way. If you don’t think inadequate sex education is the culprit, take one look at Yahoo Answers or The Virgin Diaries. Hell, go ask a teenager on the street about safe sex… and prepare yourself to be appalled.
Like I said before, this week has not been a good one for women’s health. Regardless of your political party and who you plan to vote for, this election is crucial for our future and I so wish that everyone who is actively involved in unjustifiably limiting our bodily autonomy (which includes everyone who supports these ideals) soon wakes up and realizes that without our participation, they wouldn’t exist and neither would anyone else. While in an unfortunate and backward way, we as women have the opportunity to vote on our bodies and freedoms that no man should have the authority to vote on, so make your vote count for yourself and your daughters.
And now for some positivity, This Week’s Birth Stories!
A Spiritual HBAC (Home Birth After Cesarean) – via Mama Birth
Hypnobabies mom, “bored with her Braxton/Hicks pressure waves”, finds out she is 8-9cm!
A Painless Birth ~ via Mama Birth
The Homebirth of Leila Maree ~ via Invisible Midwives
The Birth of Zen ~ via Blossoming Woman
As Mom describes, “The Birth of Zen … or in other words, my blissful, orgasmic, euphoric, sensual, unassisted freebirth waterbirth homebirth lotus birth of our little boy”
A Harder Second Birth ~ via Mama Birth
I love this story because it shows that all women are different and the way our bodies bring our babies into the world are just as unique as each one of us.
Musings of a Moongazer 