Ina May Gaskin And The Safe Motherhood Project

Hillary, please don't read this post.  You don't need to be thinking about these issues right now.  

I've been digesting Ina May's lecture slowly.  Because it was profound and heartbreaking.

I've known since I began to study midwifery, that the United States ranks about 41st in maternal and infant mortality rates in the world, according to The World Health Organization.   But last night Ina May broke that down for me.  She put faces and circumstances to the statistics.   I had gotten blowzy about that number.   Unconsciously, I think I had decided the number was mythical.  Because I don't know any women who have died in childbirth or directly postpartum.    Then again, most of the women I know use the midwifery model of care, a profoundly safer choice.   The number is not mythical.  It is political, racial, and a feminist nightmare. 

Oh, there is too much to say.   Let me break it down to the quick.  It is dangerous to have a baby in the hospital.  They do not want you to know this.  But it is dangerous.  Cesareans are not casual, despite what women are currently taught.   Consider that maternal death reporting is not mandatory.   Consider that women die of amniotic fluid embolisms, meningitis from epidurals, and complications due to cesarean that are not even counted as maternal deaths.  Why?  Possibly because if they were counted, no one would want to have their babies in hospital.

In response, Ina May started the The Safe Motherhood Project and she is sending packets of information to all state legislators.   

I used to think I was supposed to be a midwife.   Unlike the national average of 35%, the cesarean rate for most midwives hovers well below 3%.   The mortality rate for women in the United States who choose the midwifery model of care is lowest; the countries with the lowest maternal and infant mortality rates all employ the midwifery model of care.  But now, I think doula work may be more important.  Because most women in the United States don't question the medical model of care.   And, Lord God Almighty, they have no clue how dangerous it is to walk through those doors.  


*In this report, maternal mortality ratios are based solely on vital statistics data and are underestimates because of misclassification. The number of deaths attributed to pregnancy and its complications is estimated to be 1.3 to three times that reported in vital statistics records (6). Misclassification of maternal deaths occurs when the cause of death on the death certificate does not reflect the relation between a woman's pregnancy and her death. In addition, the inclusion of deaths causally related to pregnancy that occur between 43 and 365 days postpregnancy can increase the number of maternal deaths identified by 5%-10% (6).~ CDC report on Maternal Mortality from 1982-1996

Streamline Production, Distribution, Consumption.  ~ North Carolina Miscellany

I am a graduate of Sage Femme Midwifery School.  I was a doula for several years.  Then I had my own children and couldn't live on call any longer.  

Last month my little sister told me she was pregnant.  And during the course of that conversation, she learned that I am a doula.  Because I am almost 20 years older than she is, while I was in California living with the director of Sage Femme, going to homebirths, and then working back home as a doula, she wasn't really aware of my life.

She didn't know I am a doula.  This is searing to me.  It showed me, not that my sister and I aren't close so much as, I've been so busy mothering, my identity as a midwifery student fell away.   Because I didn't continue to choose birth, life chose different for me.   This conversation happened the week I brought my cow home.  It rocked me to the core.  I am not a doula?  I am only a cowgirl?  But that is absurd.

In fact, I am a doula.  I do need to catch up on current literature.  I need to do lunch with a few midwives and re-up my association dues.  But I am a doula.  I can be a cowgirl and a doula.  Because:  ta da!  My kids are getting bigger.  They don't need me so much anymore.  I am free to expand my reach.   I can choose for myself, thank you.   Where life so kindly thought to choose for me.   

Today an old friend and I began discussion of opening a new doula service.   Its like being struck by the sweetest lightening.  Of course.  That's what I am.  That's what she is.  Of course, this is what we should do.   And sitting here thinking of what the business would entail and what I need to review, I feel the power of my years.  I am older.  I am less current on the research.  And deeper on the understanding.  I see now, what I didn't then.  Birth is more about psychology than heart tones and complete blood counts.  Seeing it, articulating it, knowing it to my core, I am so ready for this.  "Let the wild rumpus begin!"

The last time we had a decent snow around here Riley was this age.   And Henry was this big.

Maybe we can get some real snow this year?

"If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need."  Cicero

Since converting to raw milk, my desire for bread and sugar have dropped precipitously.   We eat homemade bread around here, so I'm talking about seriously good bread.  And these days I can take it or leave it.  If we have fresh butter...well, bread was invented for holding butter.  But the bread part doesn't move me like it used to.  And I only notice this when I'm eating.  I'll be chewing through a sandwich or a good ham and cheese biscuit or toast and think, eh, that's enough of that.  Enough Of That?!  I've caught myself pulling the top piece of bread off and throwing it to the dogs. I'm almost never craving sugar.

This is odd.

We had to treat Elderberry with penicillin for mastitis.  So I'm out of milk for the week.  And what I notice I am craving is milk.  I've never craved a glass of milk in my entire life.

Is this what its like to be well nourished? 

The milk sings into the bucket every morning.  Just like Ralf Moody said it would.  And about the time she lets down I notice my hands facilitate the milk to the bucket more than squeeze.  And rhythm sets in.  And the sun crests over the trees and through the fence and around her tail.  It back lights the animals grazing hay in the trough to my left.  I lean my head on her leg and I keep milking for what feels like a timeless amount of time.  I get tired.  Then its over.  I clean her stall.  Pitch bales of hay.  Rinse buckets.  I go home with food for my family.  I make butter and hot chocolate and creamed spinach.  I make quiche.  I fill my children up with this food.   I half the amount of sugar in the cocoa and no one notices.  In fact, its better.

Then we go to the library.

After barn chores this morning we went out for breakfast and then on to grocery shopping - we can do both in our little home slice grocery co-op.   I chose a ham and cheese biscuit because I'm smart like that.  The kids chose a delicious tub of full fat vanilla yogurt to share.  After eating a while Henry asked Riley, "Is this tub half full or half empty?"  Riley paused and then answered with a shrug, "It's the same either way."

Which, okay, is so totally obvious.  But I've never heard anyone give that answer before.  That answer warms the cockles of my Buddhist soul.  It suggests a person who sees life clearly, accepts reality, and is willing to enjoy what is.  Henry and I just looked at each other across the table and smiled.  

In case no one has noticed, I love these people.

A rainy day in your lean-to, napping under the herbs you've put by and snuggled in a warm nest of leaves.

Body Condition Score of Dairy Cattle - trying to learn

Elderberry when she arrived here last month.  (Sorry I don't have better.)

Elderberry today.

All bcs estimates or thoughts appreciated, here or on the forum.  Thanks y'all.

I'd bust off them mud daubers and re cane that rocker if they'd give me half a chance.

We are in a drawing club that meets outside once a week.  The kids run and play and draw as they wish.  Yesterday, one mother pulled out watercolors and set to work sitting on her blanket.  Later, I looked over my shoulder and she was surrounded by 10 kids - including both of mine.  In another hour I was ready to leave.  I looked over my shoulder and those kids were all still there, heads bowed over paper, engaged, still, earnest, working.  They worked until they were ready to stop - I had long since been ready to go. They worked independently but together, without competition, grades, or thoughts of time.  Later, they called it fun.