The Role of Intuition in Childbirth

[BlessedJess]

There are some people who feel I should not talk about my latest UC (6th homebirth) like a success story. I free birthed a 3.5lb 36 week baby who turned complete breech after my waters ruptured early the same day. He's healthy, in case you are wondering. Now he's over 14 weeks and about to triple his birth weight. He's developmentally sound, doing all the healthy normal things a full term little baby would do, not showing any signs that he suffered for being so small.

Another interesting factor. I personally found myself drawn to information about small, early babies. I also bought an entire book devoted to breech birth. Those were the things I found myself focusing on. It's true, I suspected twins. I think that was just the intellectual bait God used to prepare me for the birth, or I did have twins at some point, either way God used this belief to help me justify my intuition.

I do not tell people they should do what I did. In fact, I stand with many other self proclaimed pro-UC people when I encourage mothers to listen to their own intuition regarding place and time of birth. I do not say that if all milestones of normalcy are met that a UC is automatic. I tell women that if they feel intuitively they should go get help - then that's what they should do, no matter what the "facts" are telling them.

Yet I sense that this is not good enough for certain individuals. So let me ask you all, what is your opinion about intuition? Is it an important factor for you to consider? How important?

[MeepyCat]

One of the things I find most frightening about the uc forum is the focus on intuition, the belief that you'll magically know what you need to know, that things will always be alright. It's especially alarming when mothers with symptoms of potential problems are told to trust intuition and not seek testing. If your intuition (assuming you have any) conflicts with evidence, surely you owe it yourself to check things out.

Your story is a case of someone getting very, very lucky. Your baby was very small, and could easily have had jaundice or breathing difficulties requiring a lot of assistance. I'm glad for you that everything turned out well, but I see it as a story of preterm labor and imminent placental failure in which, miraculously, it all turned out okay in the end. Those were big risks. I wouldn't recommend anyone else take them.

[prescottchels]

Super duper important for me!! Intuition ranks right up there at the top of the list for how I make decisions in all areas of my life and I think those that think intuition isn't good enough probably haven't spent time developing their intuition so don't trust it and don't understand how others could.  That's just me, though...and the circles I travel in. If someone gets "caught" not trusting their intuition we all want to know why, and what the heck is the matter w/them 

ETA: When a person is in the flow of intuition from their higher self/God/Universe everything you need to know is right at your fingertips. (It has nothing to do with magic or luck). Sometimes that will include seeking information from medical professionals and sometimes it won't and the beautiful thing about UP/UC is that we know that, live that. Many of us live lifestyles that allow us more freedom from Western Culture than is the societal norm. We take radical responsibility for our lives, for raising our children, for bringing in income...To live a life so disparate from the rest of society is to strike out as the pioneers once did for something they intuited was going to better suit them, not everyone else. 

We don't (most of us, anyway) go down this path blindly. We educate ourselves and we trust our intuition to guide us to what we need to know or do to get to the end of the path healthy and safe. There will always be people that think we're insane and I'm ok with that. Stay in your cities, in your 9-5 jobs, birth in hospitals and put your babies in day care, and leave the rest of us alone to work our voo-doo magic. geesh. 

Edited by prescottchels - 2/5/13 at 9:55am

[Banana731]

I think that being familiar with your own body is important. I think that we can recognize when something is amiss when we are attentive to our health. I think that it's possible to "intuit" that something is wrong, in that sense. I think we have intuition about situations we find ourselves in and people we meet, because our environment and the actions of those people give us subtle clues that our brains process faster than we can think about them. I think it's something that helps us and other animals survive.

I am not person of faith, other than the faith that we are are the product of hundreds of thousands of years of birthing excellence and that our bodies are completely capable of birthing 99% of the time. I didn't come to UC from the same place as the OP. I believe in prenatal care (yes, much of it can be done by you at home), I believe in monitoring the baby's HR in labor, and I think it is likely ultimately safer to have an attendant at birth who has O2 or something stronger than herbs to deal with PPH if necessary. But I made a rational and well thought out decision that I was more comfortable with the slight increase in the risks that come with an unattended homebirth over the types of risks that come with a hospital birth. And I think that decision is completely acceptable. I think you have every right to UC for any reason. I think if you want to eschew all prenatal care and any intrusions of the physical process of birthing and "give it up to god" then that's your right, but there are risks of associated with that, and to deny that is disingenuous. I don't think the OP is doing that though. She did have a "sense" that something was not quite right, or you could say that there was outward evidence that her pregnancy was not progressing normally. Had that been my situation, I would have sought out more thorough prenatal care. The OP decided to do more research on potential difficulties that can be encountered in birth and have faith. She had every right to approach it that way, no matter what I think about it.

And ultimately, IGUR (if that's what baby was suffering from) goes undiagnosed even in cases where mom and baby are getting mainstream prenatal care. I happen to agree that the OP was very lucky and that things could have gone differently. I'm not sure that is relevant to her question though. I think people of faith are going praise their god, even if things go wrong, for keeping it from being worse. Or if it's much worse, for giving them the strength to go through it. it's just the way spirtuality seems to work.

So for me, intuition (other than what I've mentioned above) is not a huge part of UC for me. I support it because I believe in our inherent capability to give birth, It's that I think "birth is as safe as life gets," it's that i think that birth typically goes best when mom is allowed to follow her own instincts, it's that US mainstream maternity care and birth practice is often not evidenced based, it's that I find the risks associated with birthing without attendants to be personally acceptable.

That's fair, no?

[BlessedJess]

Originally Posted by MeepyCat 

One of the things I find most frightening about the uc forum is the focus on intuition, the belief that you'll magically know what you need to know, that things will always be alright. It's especially alarming when mothers with symptoms of potential problems are told to trust intuition and not seek testing. If your intuition (assuming you have any) conflicts with evidence, surely you owe it yourself to check things out.

Your story is a case of someone getting very, very lucky. Your baby was very small, and could easily have had jaundice or breathing difficulties requiring a lot of assistance. I'm glad for you that everything turned out well, but I see it as a story of preterm labor and imminent placental failure in which, miraculously, it all turned out okay in the end. Those were big risks. I wouldn't recommend anyone else take them.

With me, there is no belief in "magic" unless you consider normal everyday human characteristics, including spirituality "magic."

How about hypnosis - do you feel hypnosis is mumbo-jumbo? Do you believe "voodo death" or "nocebos" are real, as are placebos? Have you read the book The Anatomy of an Illness?

Furthermore, for clarification, I would not tell a mother to not seek testing, but I would remind her of the potential complications such tests can contribute to the situation. There is a time and place for testing and I feel that not only are the outward signs important but the inner knowing. I also share my personal birth stories as a way of explaining how I perceive the limits of technology and standards of care. I believe my home births defy the typical expectations of a healthy pregnancy and birth, proving that our general western knowledge of birth is still primitive.

I would not have been "lucky" under an OB. I would have been managed to the point of induced/surgical delivery before he was even ready to be born. A doctors suggestion that my pregnancy was in danger could easily have become lodged in my brain causing self defeating chemistry in me to take over if I trusted his advice, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. And if my son had been induced to be born extra early, he would have had his cord clamped prematurely, would have weighed even less, and could have suffered brain bleeds, infections and even death as a result of the over-reactions.

I did not make myself uninformed. Right or wrong, I believe that part of intuition includes self education.

Placentas are never programmed to last forever. They would fail if the baby was not allowed to come on his time no matter what. They are incredibly resilient and adaptive organs, however, as my son's birth testifies. Other babies have been born with their placentas partially dead and falling apart or filled with granules and yet still came out alive and well. My baby's placenta was thick, oval, healthy and firm. It took 3 hours of transition-like labor for it to unstick from my uterus, actually. It was very atypical that way, too. But my intuition kept telling that everything was fine. I had no motivation to do anything but continue laboring until it finally plopped into my hand. Perhaps I let it go so slowly because I hoped/wished the contractions were another baby coming. (going back to hypnosis, autosuggestion) but it didn't harm me to have that experience, either.

As far as breathing problems go, I did my research, including reading a book for multiples. That book suggested that babies born after 35 weeks would need minimal intervention and would likely not suffer any long term consequences of an early birth. I also scoured my textbooks for midwives on the subject. Frye suggests that 34 weeks is the absolute cut off point for intentional home birth. We prepared ourselves and even got a neonatal resuscitation bag/mask, and my husband is a veteran combat medic as well, with experience treating critical patients. He was not going to be helpless and clueless if there was an issue.

[BlessedJess]

Originally Posted by Banana731 

 I think if you want to eschew all prenatal care and any intrusions of the physical process of birthing and "give it up to god" then that's your right, but there are risks of associated with that, and to deny that is disingenuous. I don't think the OP is doing that though. She did have a "sense" that something was not quite right, or you could say that there was outward evidence that her pregnancy was not progressing normally. Had that been my situation, I would have sought out more thorough prenatal care. The OP decided to do more research on potential difficulties that can be encountered in birth and have faith. She had every right to approach it that way, no matter what I think about it.

And ultimately, IGUR (if that's what baby was suffering from) goes undiagnosed even in cases where mom and baby are getting mainstream prenatal care. I happen to agree that the OP was very lucky and that things could have gone differently. I'm not sure that is relevant to her question though. I think people of faith are going praise their god, even if things go wrong, for keeping it from being worse. Or if it's much worse, for giving them the strength to go through it. it's just the way spirtuality seems to work.

So for me, intuition (other than what I've mentioned above) is not a huge part of UC for me. I support it because I believe in our inherent capability to give birth, It's that I think "birth is as safe as life gets," it's that i think that birth typically goes best when mom is allowed to follow her own instincts, it's that US mainstream maternity care and birth practice is often not evidenced based, it's that I find the risks associated with birthing without attendants to be personally acceptable.

That's fair, no?

Exactly... IUGR is not usually detected. Some have even been labeled as that without there being any growth issues. Babies who are smaller due to stresses during placental formation will prepare to be born earlier.

I don't know if they would have caught the IUGR. But regardless, my family is a bunch of tiny deviants. My eldest child is almost done growing. I don't know where she's at now, but last I checked she was 4'4" and already menstruating, at only 80lbs. She's 6 inches shorter than me. I stopped growing at 13-14 and my big growth spurt was only an inch or two, so she'll be lucky to be 4'8". And this is her little brother we are talking about. ALL my children are below average stature. Mike was not only 3.5lbs, he was 15 inches long! I didn't know it was possible to have a baby be essentially full term and be 15 inches. Especially since he doesn't have dwarf length legs or anything.

Until mainstream medicine can stop overreacting and abusing, which we will notice when they stop the 30%+ rate of cesarean sections... I don't think they can compete with intuition. manipulate it, perhaps, but not compete.

[MeepyCat]

I don't think that a higher power is going to put out "intellectual bait" for me.  I think the belief that higher powers act that way is magical thinking.  I'm an atheist.  I don't think that there's some current that runs through the universe that I can tune into.  I just don't think the universe is that organized.

I think most hypnosis is mumbo jumbo.  I have no idea what you mean by "voodo death" or "nocebos."  I believe in placebos just fine - as in I'm currently participating in a double blind study, in which there is a 50% chance that I am receiving treatment and a 50% chance that I am receiving a placebo.  I have certainly experienced placebo effects, and I think they're a testament to the effects that our minds can have on our bodies - but if someone really needed treatment, I would not be wasting time with anything I didn't reasonably believe had a non-placebo effectiveness.  I have not read The Anatomy of an Illness.  I don't plan to - I am in ongoing treatment for a serious health problem, and I find works on alternative medicine are often infuriating.  (Actual alternative medicine has sometimes been helpful for particular symptomatic concerns, but the things people write about it make me want to scream and throw things.)

Furthermore, for clarification, I would not tell a mother to not seek testing, but I would remind her of the potential complications such tests can contribute to the situation. There is a time and place for testing and I feel that not only are the outward signs important but the inner knowing. I also share my personal birth stories as a way of explaining how I perceive the limits of technology and standards of care. I believe my home births defy the typical expectations of a healthy pregnancy and birth, proving that our general western knowledge of birth is still primitive.

I think that when someone asks if she should seek testing, and you remind her of the potential complications, the person who asked is likely to feel that you are telling her not to seek testing.  Your emphasis on inner knowing tends to give the sense that you do not value more quantitative sources of information.

When you say things like your next paragraph, it sounds even more like you discourage testing (emphasis mine):

I would not have been "lucky" under an OB. I would have been managed to the point of induced/surgical delivery before he was even ready to be born. A doctors suggestion that my pregnancy was in danger could easily have become lodged in my brain causing self defeating chemistry in me to take over if I trusted his advice, thus becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy. And if my son had been induced to be born extra early, he would have had his cord clamped prematurely, would have weighed even less, and could have suffered brain bleeds, infections and even death as a result of the over-reactions.

I only know one of your birth stories, and it strikes me as a testament to the statistical nature of what we know about birth.  Sometimes we can take big risks and have everything come out fine. 

Personally, I suspect that testing, in your case, would have resulted in close watching for signs of IUGR and placental failure, possibly culminating in an induction shortly before you went into labor anyway, possibly simply culminating in the pre-term labor you had, during which your son's heart would have been closely monitored for signs of distress, and after which a neonatal team would have been available in case any of the many problems that pre-term babies (especially boys) are prone to had arisen.  Yours is an alarmist scenario, mine is maybe optimistic (I live in a city with a large number of teaching hospitals, and I speak 'doctor' fluently - these are positions of privilege which greatly increase my odds of having a positive experience with the L&D ward).  We can never know for sure what might have happened.

[BlessedJess]

Meepy -

Do you believe that pain can be actually eliminated in receptive people via hypnosis? What do you think of hypnobirthing?

Voodo death is the hypnotic suggestion that death will occur resulting in death. For example, years ago I learned about about a prisoner who volunteered for an experimental surgery. During that surgery the only tool used was a piece of ice that had a sharp edge. The patient was never cut into. The surgical team was prepped before hand to act like the experiment went wrong and the patient was bleeding to death. The inmate died with symptoms typical of blood loss shock, despite never being cut.

My general concerns about testing do not have to do with voodo death but the provable fact that misdiagnosis result in stress. Stress has been scientifically linked to birth complications when they happen in the first and third trimesters. But if you generally have the impression that doctors will hurt and not help, it is not logical to seek their assistance until you have changed your perception or the situation changes to help you accept help (such as undeniable threatening complications). I tend to feel that doctors are less helpful in birth than they make themselves out to be. The lack of trust means I would have a nocebo effect before a placebo effect from their services. And I know that a lot of women who are here have been abused or mismanaged already and have very little confidence in doctor opinions.

"I think that when someone asks if she should seek testing, and you remind her of the potential complications, the person who asked is likely to feel that you are telling her not to seek testing.  Your emphasis on inner knowing tends to give the sense that you do not value more quantitative sources of information."

I accept that this is your impression of my words. However, I do not think that this has to be the way my words are interpreted. I have repeatedly said that I support intervention and diagnostics where needed or even FELT appropriate. If a person desired help or had an intuitive feeling of needing help my words would only encourage their choice to get intervention. I also am not boxing myself into a UC each and every time, unless it really seems appropriate to me at the time. I just need sufficient justification.

"Personally, I suspect that testing, in your case, would have resulted in..."

Do you think any of those things would have helped the outcome? Is it possible that they would have hurt the outcome in any way? What about our breastfeeding relationship and my other 5 children? Do you think I could have been as able to serve them all with a baby stuck in a NICU waiting to reach the "ideal" 5lb weight? Do you think he would have gained so quickly with all that "just in case" intervention? I think it's interesting that the creed of physicians used to be "first do no harm" and that's all I seek to do with my births. I don't fix what ain't broke.

"Yours is an alarmist scenario, mine is maybe optimistic"

Your scenario seems optimistic to me because it forgets that my baby would have been stuck in a hospital for weeks. With my home being 4 hours away up in the foothills tucked up against the wilderness. (added detail I didn't mention in this thread, but important) It would be alarming to have my family all split up like that. So maybe that makes me sound alarming, but just picture it. Days spent away from my babies at home, me run ragged, frightened for my child stuck in a supergermy NICU, lonely for holding, my husband begging God for sanity managing the 5 kids, me coming home finally with a baby, all stressed out and depressed as a mother - and that is scientifically proven to alter a baby's genetic expression, paving the way for future tragedy like diabetes and heart disease.

Also, I think you are overly optimistic about when they would have induced. I recently read a case where twins were induced at 30 weeks and the smallest baby was not even expected to live, they told the parents. She lived anyway, but that's an example of how happy they are to induce (or how frightened they are to wait and see) when they think growth has stalled. Maybe they did the right thing in that case. My point is that if the pregnancy was supervised by ultrasound they would have been eager to induce the first time growth stalled with a baby so small as mine already was. Even if that was 30 weeks. And they could even be wrong that growth had stalled, when you are talking about ultrasound guessing. A slow growing baby could easily have set them into panic mode early on.

[BlessedJess]

Meepy, I would also like to point out that the type of birth Mike had was very gentle. It was 20 minutes from going into active labor and holding him in my arms. The rest of the time only 1/3 of contractions were intense and they were very spaced out. That would never have happened in a hospital. Only intuition, experience or hindsight could tell me that the labor would be safer and easier at home. (I am very familiar with my quickie gentle labors having done it now half a dozen times)

[MeepyCat]

As it happens, no, I don't believe that hypnosis can eliminate physiological pain.  It might ease stress, or help a susceptible person pull off a bio control technique that reduces fear, tension or fight-or-flight responses.  I looked into hypnobirthing when I was pregnant and mostly noticed that the material I had started out with a truly staggering set of racist ideas, and plain out untrue statements about African women (they do not all have painless, uncomplicated, easy births with no need for assistance).  The techniques involved may help some people tolerate labor.  I couldn't get past the racist crap enough to try the CD. 

If the voodo death thing actually has nothing to do with your point, I have no idea why it's here.  It was a piece of torture, which, if performed, told us a thing that we've known *at least* since the Spanish Inquisition - you can freak someone out enough to put them into shock and kill them.  There was also nothing hypnotic about it.

I know that stress has physiological effects, but I'm finding your take on those effects to be overblown.  I'd love to see citations for the claim that stress during the first and third trimesters (but not the second?) has been linked to birth complications.  I suspect that I'd have issues with them on the basis that correlation is not causation.  It's my general belief that people choose to become parents knowing that the process of having and raising children is likely to involve pain, stress, uncertainty, ambiguity, and worry.  I even think that we generally know where our own pain, stress, etc. fit in the larger picture of human suffering.  Yeah, I had a really stressful pregnancy and I hated the heck out of that.  I'll give sympathy and casseroles to anyone in a similar situation.  In the larger picture, I know that my stress was pretty trivial, even if it was the biggest thing in my life and the hardest thing I'd ever been through at the time.  Women have come through worse - women *are* coming through worse right now.  In that broader picture, I have trouble believing that the worrying test results level of stress makes any difference to a baby at all - it used to be quite common for women to spend their pregnancies worried about dying in childbirth.  That has to have been worse then increased maternal stress from misdiagnosis or worrying test results.

[eabbmom]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/15385704/?i=2&from=/11065043/related

Maternal stress primarily in the first trimester effects the placental clock.

[MeepyCat]

The study you link strikes me as underpowered (282 women), and there is really not enough data in the abstract to evaluate the researchers' methods or findings.  What did they consider to be a high level of anxiety?  What was an elevated level of CRH?  How many women in the sample delivered pre-term?  What stress levels did those women report, what hormone levels were observed in those women, and were there other factors that might have contributed to either stress, pre-term delivery, or both?  Were all labors in the study cohort spontaneous?  How were women recruited for the study?  How were stress levels quantified?

ETA: The study you link also says nothing about the first trimester at all - anxiety and hormone levels were tested at 18-20 weeks gestation, and again at 28-30 weeks gestation.  It doesn't say anything about placentas either.  Is this the study you meant to link?

High-risk pregnancies have a tendency to result in both pre-term delivery and stress, so this is a case where correlation and causation are hard to untangle.

[Alenushka]

How do you know everything is normal? Did the baby have complete physical?

[eabbmom]

The hormone tested, CRH is made the placenta (so it doesn't need to say it) this is one of many studies discussing maternal stress, CRH and the placental clock. Google scholar it, its also widely accepted.

[BlessedJess]

Originally Posted by MeepyCat 

As it happens, no, I don't believe that hypnosis can eliminate physiological pain.  It might ease stress, or help a susceptible person pull off a bio control technique that reduces fear, tension or fight-or-flight responses.  I looked into hypnobirthing when I was pregnant and mostly noticed that the material I had started out with a truly staggering set of racist ideas, and plain out untrue statements about African women (they do not all have painless, uncomplicated, easy births with no need for assistance).  The techniques involved may help some people tolerate labor.  I couldn't get past the racist crap enough to try the CD. 

If the voodo death thing actually has nothing to do with your point, I have no idea why it's here.  It was a piece of torture, which, if performed, told us a thing that we've known *at least* since the Spanish Inquisition - you can freak someone out enough to put them into shock and kill them.  There was also nothing hypnotic about it.

I know that stress has physiological effects, but I'm finding your take on those effects to be overblown.  I'd love to see citations for the claim that stress during the first and third trimesters (but not the second?) has been linked to birth complications.  I suspect that I'd have issues with them on the basis that correlation is not causation.  It's my general belief that people choose to become parents knowing that the process of having and raising children is likely to involve pain, stress, uncertainty, ambiguity, and worry.  I even think that we generally know where our own pain, stress, etc. fit in the larger picture of human suffering.  Yeah, I had a really stressful pregnancy and I hated the heck out of that.  I'll give sympathy and casseroles to anyone in a similar situation.  In the larger picture, I know that my stress was pretty trivial, even if it was the biggest thing in my life and the hardest thing I'd ever been through at the time.  Women have come through worse - women *are* coming through worse right now.  In that broader picture, I have trouble believing that the worrying test results level of stress makes any difference to a baby at all - it used to be quite common for women to spend their pregnancies worried about dying in childbirth.  That has to have been worse then increased maternal stress from misdiagnosis or worrying test results.

"As it happens, no, I don't believe that hypnosis can eliminate physiological pain"

It has been used for many kinds of surgery. Even open heart surgery on delicate patients. Here's a breast surgery. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867432,00.html

"If the voodo death thing actually has nothing to do with your point..."

I'm saying in that paragraph that there's more than one point. My case against testing because of stress is one point. The power of hypnosis as it applies to pregnancy, birth and health is another. I was trying to clarify their difference by saying how one thing was not like the other, yet both are factors in my mind.

"I know that stress has physiological effects, but I'm finding your take on those effects to be overblown."

First consider this about pregnancy stress and outcomes; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628181739.htm

Then try this link to a study on genetics and family relationships in the first years of life. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/12/parents-depression-and-stress-leaves-lasting-mark-on-children-s-dna.html

[MeepyCat]

- CRH is also secreted in the hypothalamus, so specification between maternal and placental CRH is sometimes handy.

- An abstract of a study involving less then 300 patients, with no analysis of the number of preterm deliveries, or the apparent causes of those deliveries, does not prove anything.

- If you have a study in mind that tackles the correlation vs. causation problem, I'd love to see it.

- I think preterm delivery is multifactorial, and stress alone is unlikely to cause it (or there are entire centuries when I am shocked that any baby ever made it to term).

[BlessedJess]

Originally Posted by Alenushka 

How do you know everything is normal? Did the baby have complete physical?

What exactly are the criteria for a healthy child, in your mind? What would you say qualifies as a true complete physical? Should all people get one before they declare themselves healthy?

When you have happy personality, good sleep patterns, healthy weekly weight gain, symmetrical features, normal developmental milestones or better, eyes that focus and ears that hear, whites of the eyes are white, strength of a normal baby, good diapers, etc, do you really need a complete biophysical profile by a specialist to recognize health when you see it?

Are you saying an experienced mother's intuition means nothing in this respect, either?

[MeepyCat]

Originally Posted by BlessedJess 

"As it happens, no, I don't believe that hypnosis can eliminate physiological pain"

It has been used for many kinds of surgery. Even open heart surgery on delicate patients. Here's a breast surgery. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,867432,00.html

So, I have half a paragraph on that - because that's how Time's archives work.

It's from 1956.

I would love to know what the patient's opinion was.  How did she feel about her pain relief?  What were her other options?

And somehow, in the 66 years since this article was published in the popular media, they haven't perfected this hypnosis technique for more general use?  It would save tons of money - you'd need so much less insurance, and you could skip all that pesky anesthesiologist training.  Never mind the savings in drugs. 

I can dig you up Fanny Burney's account of her double mastectomy (half a glass of wine, a handkerchief over her face, and a couple guys to hold her down), but I wouldn't hold it up as an example of the efficacy of wine and handkerchiefs.

"If the voodo death thing actually has nothing to do with your point..."

I'm saying in that paragraph that there's more than one point. My case against testing because of stress is one point. The power of hypnosis as it applies to pregnancy, birth and health is another. I was trying to clarify their difference by saying how one thing was not like the other, yet both are factors in my mind.

"I know that stress has physiological effects, but I'm finding your take on those effects to be overblown."

First consider this about pregnancy stress and outcomes; http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120628181739.htm

Then try this link to a study on genetics and family relationships in the first years of life. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/12/parents-depression-and-stress-leaves-lasting-mark-on-children-s-dna.html

I will keep that Science Daily article in mind when considering the effect of tropical storms on pregnancy.  If you are equating worrying test results with the effects of living in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, I think you should reconsider.

The Daily Beast article doesn't reference anything suggesting that parental stress during pregnancy has an effect on children's DNA.  This is a study involving preschool aged children.  Nor does it describe the level of stress observed in conjunction with these epigenetic changes.  It mentions "top 20%," but what does that mean?  Are we talking about more hurricanes here?

[amlikam]

Questions: to MeepyCat

How do you not believe in nothing. What quanitates your non-existence of a greater force?  "I'm an atheist.  I don't think that there's some current that runs through the universe that I can tune into.  I just don't think the universe is that organized." Where do you find your foundation of not believing in a current? What about electicity/matter? I am curious do you have any studies to show that nothing exists? The foundation of our thought, even when backed by science is an assumption of something we choose to believe it.

While I am a deep believer in intuition/cosmic truth/and so on, I am also a believer that within the scope of what we are capable of knowing in this moment that "science" can be a fantastic aumentation to our inner knowing. (For me denying either is like throwing the baby out with the bath water) Intuition for many is recalling the patterns and systems we have known/learned in our life and for others it may also including calling on what they might identify as a source beyond themself (cosmic force.. so on.)

Science is only fact for the time in which is discovered, indeed there is much more we DON’T know than what we actually DO know. At one point it was believed having babies in a sterile environment with little human interaction was beneficial (and at the time backed by “evidence.”) Spirituality/intuition, “science” and “evidence” all have one vital thing in common; they all require someone to believe them to be true, through their own experience and/or research. Furthermore, I would argue that successful natural childbirth (or heck most births) requires spirituality/intuition to enter the experience.

When it comes down to it I believe in something greater than myself. But more so, I believe in myself because I am the primary source for my human experience. I don't as a matter of course seek validation outside myself though I will look to see if I can find resources to help me navigate places I am unsure of. These resouces might even be scientific data or spiritual guidance. That is what is right for me.

Additionally I believe intuition is vital in pregnancy and labor. I substantiate this based on my own experiences primarily because personally I don't feel I need to explain how I expereince life for it to be real or valid for me. However I can state some of my experiences that my intution was not backed by science and my inclination ended up being "right".....

When I was at 33 weeks I felt something was off with my pregnancy and called my midwife they said nothing seemed wrong. At 35 weeks I really felt off, I called again and they resigned to see me. I went in, they only took vitals- no palpations or internal... nothing they said. At 36 weeks I had a regular appointment and said I really feel like I have dropped and have been having real contractions. The midwife decided she would do some palpations to guess size and said she didn't feel like I needed an internal exam and sent me home telling me I was fine and wont have a baby for another 4 weeks and the baby would be huge. Imagine her surprise when I showed back up then next night with PROM and even getting the hospital/midwife to believe me that my water broke was a feat of its own. My intuition told me to get up and move, the hospital staff told me to stay in bed and rest... so many more things I was told wasn't right but intuitively I felt was true. I could also go into what I knew I was losing my 1st baby and all the Drs didn't believe me and their receptionists all told me "that sounds normal, we can see you in 3 weeks." Finally I called a provider 1.5 hrs away who said what I was experiencing did not fit their model of normal and they would see me anytime I showed up in the office and not to bother with an appointment, just show up. And guess what, the pregnancy was releasing from my body....

Also I would just point out even the March of Dimes suggests that some stress including worrying about your pregnancy can cause issues in pregnancy. From my understanding (sorry I will refernce the whole science thing just on the surface here) stress causes cortisol which can interact with safety hormones and can relase erratic patterns of oxitocin especially if a woman is not countering the stress with oxitocin in a more consistent way (affection, lovemaking, massage....). My basic understaing of cortisol and oxitocin is from this book I read - I will do my best to find it to reference- my brain is a bit fuzzy with the name but I know what the cover looks like and where I keep it at home.

I am also unsure someone might post in a Pro UC forum when in general they don't support it. Most women who make the choice to UC do so after really researching the topic and I don't know of any who don't take the responsibility of their care seriously. For me personally I don't feel UC is the model for me and my family, but I fully support any woman who choses this route.  

We all make choices based off of what we know and have access to in any current moment. Sometimes our choices don't seem like a valid option to others (I know people freaking out I am having a homebirth) ....

Just my many cents.

[BlessedJess]

Meepy wrote about the hypnosis article on surgery that I shared - "It's from 1956."

Try 2008. http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500165_162-4033962.html

As to stress and it's effects in pregnancy;

I am frankly surprised that you do not see how stressed out pregnant women worried about their babies would not have a different outcome. The first trimester is when the placenta is doing most of it's formation, that's a fact. The last trimester is a time of rapid growth and high demands on both mother and child. And it's a fact that adrenal hormones alter the ability of the mother and child's body to function at peak efficiency. It's so self evident I'm shocked I even have to prove it to you. But the good news is I don't have to prove it to a lot of the mothers reading this.

However if there is a chance I could help you understand this better; stress depletes magnesium and b vitamins along with other vital nutrients and hormones, magnesium and those other nutrients are required for maintaining a healthy pregnancy. Look those two facts up and put them together. Start with the magnesium/stress connection.

As for the idea that genetic expression is not changed by the environment of the child and your objections to my article references -

Quoting the article;

Child abuse and even maternal depression, studies show, can do to people what neglectful rat mothers did to their pups: silence the stress-hormone receptor in the brain.

 

...

 

After applying a rigorous statistical filter to make sure any “hits” were not random flukes, they found that mom’s high stress during the children’s infancy altered 139 genes, while dad’s stress during the children’s pre-school years altered 31 genes.

The idea behind the article seems elementary. Researchers have found that stressed mothers change infant gene expression and older children get a similar effect from stressed fathers.

Epigenetics is the study of the environmental effects on genetic expression. I encourage all the readers to familiarize themselves with epigenetic science. There is a lot to learn as a parent and a human being from that field of study.