Hi, new and nervous!

[arwenevenstar]

Hi,
I am new to this forum, not new to MDC. I am just finding some time now to blog as I have been studying and mama-ing full time (well, still doing it, but now the hols are over, I am hoping for a couple of hours a week to start writing!).

I am getting an article published in a UK magazine called "The Mother" in issue 20 (winter) if that counts, but I would not call myself a particularly eloquent writer - I just tell it as I see it !

Other than that, I have just started researching for a new idea I have and I am blogging and photographing!

I have really enjoyed reading your stuff and will post my "essay" when it is published!

This is my appalling attempt at blogging so far www.newenglandpondlife.blogspot.com

I am open to feedback.......my skin is fairly thick!

[BelovedK]

Fist of all, you're getting published That is great! congratulations. I think you need to have a bit of confidence in yourself. I couldn't get to your blog btw. I don't think anything would be an 'appalling' attempt, just an attempt, well, not even an attempt but an entry.

Please post your article, I'd love to read it

Kelly

[arwenevenstar]

Okay, the blog was a typo!! I have corrected it now - that is an excellent start!!

Technology……..a saving grace?
A comparison of the technocratic and holistic models of birth

All over the world, since time began, women are having babies. The process is the same, from conception through pregnancy, so why is it that birth can be so different between cultures, across nations and worldwide? How has birth changed from being a natural, organic process to being a machine controlled, “genetically modified”, and mutated, clinical operation?? How have we turned something that is a celebration of life into an illness, requiring hospitalisation and medications?
In the extreme, birth in many US and some UK hospitals today will consist of a woman, “the object” delivering “the passenger” with assistance from the technician wearing a headlamp, reminiscent of a coal miner, and a field of technology: flashing lights, bleeping monitors, lines and drips, lights full blast, legs in stirrups and wearing a gaping gown with an open back (despite the fact that her baby is actually positioned at her front!!). This has not been a sudden change, but has gradually materialised over time. As man refines his machines, so he comes to rely more heavily on them, soon will come the time when man will be taken over by the machine, a victim of his own development.

In birth, the technocratic model stems from the minute the woman makes her first appointment with her care giver. A bit like the IV, she will be drip fed information that will have her doubting her own body and ability to birth. She will be offered ultrasounds at the earliest possibility, sowing the seed of doubt in her mind that, although she feels well, she will not actually know if the baby is healthy or viable without having a machine confirm this for her. She will have to have a series of blood tests, urine tests and more scans throughout the course of her pregnancy. Her date of her pregnancy will not be finalised until a scan has given the true date, regardless of a woman’s ability to know her own body charting or awareness of conception. She will be given a “due date”, one day, and from that point over, she will be classified as “overdue”, like a guilty late fine payer or a drying, overcooked turkey, obstetricians will tut and tap their watches and calendars until finally she is reminded that it is in the “baby’s best interests and safety” for her to be induced as soon as possible after her “due date”, her body is obviously not going to manage on its own so therefore technology needs to intervene and take over.
In the holistic model of birth, women will be relied upon to give the information based on their knowledge of their own bodies. In this model of birth, the female body is seen as a healthy organism, working to build a nutritious, safe and warm environment for her growing baby, rather than being seen as a defective machine that needs constant vigil or reparation. A woman’s dates in a holistic model of birth will span from two weeks before to around 2 – 2.5 weeks after 40 weeks gestation, and this will be worked out from the woman’s last menstrual period and her emotional knowledge. Intervention will not happen until all the natural cards have been played.

On return to our “dysfunctional” pregnant woman, she will engage in the mechanical process of labour either by rigid timing of her contractions, which will be the key for her to know exactly when she will be expected at hospital, or by her water breaking, in which case she may well be required to go straight to the hospital in order for the machines and the chemical tests to decide whether she and the baby are “safe” or need “saving”. However, the mother labouring holistically will be using her instinct, the knowledge or her feelings or experience and her midwife’s guidance to work with her body’s natural desires to labour.
The technocratic model will call for the charting of lines and time spans to indicate when her “involuntary muscles” are contracting. If they are within the required time span then all is well and good, too far apart, and she may need rescuing or speeding along with pitocin. All the while her “natural” labour relies on how much time she has left as the sand drips through the timer. It always strikes me as odd that in medicine, so much reliability is given to straight lines. Where in nature is there ever a straight line? When working with a natural process, why is there this paradox?

“In every country where I have seen real progress in maternity care, it was women’s groups working together with midwives that made the difference.”
Marsden Wagner, MD, MSPH

The caregiver of the holistic birth will be a midwife; she will remain the care provider for the duration of the labor and birth giving a continuum of care. This woman will be surrounded by her family, perhaps a doula. The care of the technocratic model will be undertaken by a team, operated and manoeuvred by the word and direction of the obstetrician. This team will be continually reminding the mother that labour is going to hurt, she will be asked more than once if she “needs pain relief yet?” as if she needs to determine her ability by her requirement for pharmalogical rescue. For the mother labouring with her midwife, she will be assisted in finding comfortable positions or environments, she will be able to embrace the pain as a “good” pain rather than retract and tense from it. She will have learned that she can use her own body’s natural coping mechanisms such as breathing, moving, standing and allowing gravity to help,. Her care provider will be as much catering for her experience as for the outcome of her birth, this woman will most likely be labouring at home or in a midwife led birthing center, without being surrounded by the reminder of technology and machine guided implements. The home hospital environment is a pure fallacy.

“Mens agitat molem” et “Mens sana in corpore sano”,

One of the most fundamental differences between holistic and technocratic birth is that in a holistic birth, mother and baby are one, they are a unit, whereas in a technocratic approach, the foetus is seen as a separate entity to the mother, ensuring that a baby is delivered promptly within the 26 hour time limit even if it means a caesarean section against a mother’s inner desires. The delivery of the baby is seen as unattached to the mother’s emotional well being. In a technocratic birth, emotion and well being are also separate. Whereas in any form of holistic therapy it is common knowledge that emotional and physical wellbeing are deeply intertwined. If a mother is nurtured emotionally then she is able to mentally prepare for her contractions, free from underlying distractions. She will then in turn work with her body and her baby’s needs. In a clinical environment, this vital connection is sadly overlooked or ignored.

Medicine and technology has its place. We would not be without the life-saving treatments that are offered in the modern world; life support, neo-natal units, and there is even the place for caesarean section, when it is used under the direct heading of “life-saving”. However, until the “technocrats” accept that birth is not an illness and that there is no need to intervene until birth becomes threatening; that each birth is totally different, running it’s own course, duration and outcome; and until women become confident again that they can birth naturally and do not need to rely so heavily on the saviour of modern medicine, this goal will remain distant..

It is a small eco friendly, natural parenting gree mag, bit like Mothering but on a smaller scale! and i just sent this to see if she would be interested, and she was!!!:

[BelovedK]

No doubt she was interested, that was very well written ans so true. I enjoyed the read and think it is good info.

[marsupial*mama]

I know The Mother well! You get a free one year subscription for your article so good for you!

Welcome to the mothers writers group. I liked your article!