My neighbor/friend would not have pushed for 8 hrs after meconium was visible had the birth of her son been attended properly.

No this does not constitute data, however, it is a very clear example of a situation where a minimally attended home birth nearly cost someone (dear to me) the life of her child.

This isn't about the beautiful birth she wanted v. yucky hospital people, it's about life and death.

Laura Shanley's baby did have congenital defects which the coroner concluded might have resulted in death even had she given birth in a hospital - but. Read ALL the information. She gave birth prematurely. Then:

The child's skin was gray and it wasn't breathing. She breathed into the newborn boy's nose and it began to cry. Two hours later, he stopped breathing. David called the paramedics, but it was too late.

So, after given birth prematurely, instead of taking her obviously very ill child to the hospital immediately, she kept him at home until after he died. She had no way of knowing whether his congenital problems were incompatible with life or not; she is not a doctor and had no way to diagnosis the congenital heart condition. She neglected to get care for a sick baby. That it might or might not have died even if she had gotten care is beside the point - once again, she had no way to know that and lacked the medical knowledge to decide the baby couldn't be saved.

Having read this information, I'm not quite sure why she wasn't charged with negligent homicide.

Anyone out there who, on giving birth to a baby who was grey-skinned and not breathing, would sit around for two hours doing nothing instead of seeking professional help?

I really get annoyed at this whole idea of childbirth pain is "all in your head." It's an idea that is both false and insulting. It carries a subtext of "if you were a *real* woman, you'd not feel the pain," which is decidedly antifeminist.

Childbirth hurts. Loooooong before we had pitocin, epiural and c-sections, we were told that childbirth could be painful. The Old Testament of the bible states that Eve would bear her children in pain. Now, I'm no Bible-thumping "God said, therefore it's true" Believer, but, given that this text is over 5000 years old, we can hardly assume it's because of medical intervention.

I agree that the more medical intervention there is in early labor, the more likely labor is going to require more medical intervention. And of course I see the mibd-body connection. There are ways to manage pain in child birth without medicine. Being fit, being healthy, using visuilization, square breathing, birthing balls, walking, gravity, and the presence of a loving usband or supportive doula can minimize the pain. Not being afraid of the process clearly hels the body relax, and therefore perform more optimally.

But give me a break. A woman's cervix dilates from 0 to 10cm in a matter of hours. Her pelvis slides open wider to accomadate a baby's head. Her muscles, skin and birth canal are stretched, sometines torn, in the efforts to get a baby out. This is not like getting a massage, no matter how "powerful" you are!

I have birthed two babies in a hospital. I did it wih minimal medical intervention (some monitoring, an ultasound, perinneal massage, and of course, a medical team to assist with delivery). With each kid, I was in active labor for less than 8 hours, and pushed for less than 10 minutes. I needed 3 stitches with the first birth, none with the second. These were "easy" births. But easy doesn't mean they were "painless" births. The contractions were painful. But they were "good" pain: I knew my body was supposed to do this,and I knew I was getting a baby when they were done. The clearest illustration of "no pain, no gain" in my life.

I do not understand why some women need to turn child birth into some macho pissing contest. It's hardly empowering to tell a woman if she's experiencing labor pain, she's not doing it right. And to apply that women in Africa as a group have less pain (or no pain!) in labor is not only patently false, it's pretty biggoted top boot.

There is no doubt that birth pain is one of the worst pains a women can suffer, and no wonder the majority of women need some relief.

However, the research carried out in the last five or six years shows that a woman who has an anaesthetic is predisposing her future adolescent to the possibility of becoming addicted to chemical addiction.

This research was carried out in Sweden because Sweden has extensive birth records which show home births where women did not experience anaesthetic and hospital births where women did.

Of those women who experienced an anaesthetic their children were five times more likely to become addicted to drugs than mothers who did not experience an anaesthetic. These births were all attended and recorded by a fully qualified midwife.

In 1964 when I was researching chemical free anaesthesia for an unrelated research project, I came across an interesting study carried out by a Professor Leduc in 1902. He was trying to find a chemical free anaesthesia for humans that could be controlled more easily than chemical anaesthesia.

He used a square wave pulse generator which passed a weak current into the head via electrodes on the scalp. As this was only successful on 80 percent of his patients he dropped this work and I decided to experiment as it was ideal for my purpose. He used a fixed frequency, but I used a variable frequency which worked very much more effeciently.

While carrying out this research I discovered to my surprise that there had been no research studies at all on the possible long term negative affects on the newborn. Short term, yes, but long term, as too how if any effects could be detected after 18 to 20 years. No.

This was quite unique as any drug or narcotic was always subject to analysis and fairly long term research. I suspect that this was a situation where physicians were only to relieved to have something to relieve the quite drastic and extreme pain of childbirth in those early years. Somehow no physician had queried or questioned using quite toxic drugs where there is a relatively susceptable third party to be considered. Imprinting was unheard of then.

I had of course realised that women would still need some form of pain relief if anaesthesia was found to have long term deleterious effects. As Neuro-stimulation would take many more years to be tested and would no doubt upset the pharmaceutical companies, not to mention the drug pushers I decided to drop that line of research and try to find some methods of ensuring relatively pain and distress free birth.

What came to mind was a system whereby birthing rooms would be attached to a hospital where a laboring woman would go in to without seeing hospital staff. She would be accompanied preferably by a family member who would not stimulate the fear, fight or flight reflex. In the birthing room would be a camera that would be monitoring the laboring mother. In the midwifes station there would be a bank of monitors at which midwifes would sit monitoring the birth and giving advice if needed to the companion who would hsve attended the classes for assisting in the normal birth.

Of course, prenatal examinations and testing etc., would have been carried out well before the birth and if any woman was suspected of having some pathology present she would be advised to have a midwife in constant attendence. If birth does not proceed normally and pain is experienced, then a fully qualified midwife backed up by physicians and the well equipped hospital facilities would be immediately to hand, thereby ensuring the safety and well being of mother and neonate.

I will post the other means of ensuring a safe, and relatively painfree and comfortable means of giving birth in my next post.

I will also post some references do that you don't have to take my word for it.

Rayner