Archive for the 'Rants' Category

PG13

Published on July 22, 2008 in Parenting and Rants. 2 Comments

“PG-13:Parents Strongly Cautioned. Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13.”

 This is the explanation of the MPAA’s PG13 rating for movies.  After what I witnessed on Sunday, I think perhaps we should develop a new rating system to try to figure out which parents need the guidance. 

I went to see “The Dark Knight” with a friend of mine on Sunday evening.  If you like this kind of movie, it was really pretty good.  Heath Ledger’s performance was all it has been hyped to be and even better.  It is a VERY dark movie, and his portrayal of The Joker really crawled inside my head at times.  There were even a few times I leapt out of my chair a bit or turned my head for a moment.  I am a wimp.

The movie was about 3/4 of the way through when my friend and I both looked at each other at the same instant.  Had we really heard what we thought we just heard?  Yup.  The soft little yelp of a scared little girl.  My friend and I both noticed parents about 5 rows below us with two small children sitting on their laps.  The girl could not have been more than 5 and the boy 6 or 7!  Every few moments the kids would turn their heads into mom or dad’s chest during a scary moment. 

I found it difficult to enjoy the rest of the movie, because I was really concerned for these kids.  I can only imagine the nightmares these children are going to have.

I have noticed we seem to get all up in arms generally as a society when nudity is seen by our young children, but violence seems to be less of an issue.  Upon examination, if I was forced to choose between showing my young child nudity or graphic violence…well, there is no contest.  I think graphic violence shapes so much in a young child.   At least nudity is “natural” (plastic surgery aside…:-)), and someday he is likely to encounter the nude feminine form.  (A LONG, LONG time from now Aidan buddy….like 25 years or so!)

I felt really disturbed when I saw these kids at the movie.  The little girl, so obviously scared…that image will be with me for a while.   For those of you that have seen this movie…is there any way you would take a child of 5 or 6 years to see it?  Am I the one losing my mind?

One of the best rants ever

Published on July 19, 2008 in Funny, Pregnancy, Prematurity and Rants. 2 Comments

Julie, over at A Little Pregnant, wrote one of the best rants I have ever read.  For anybody who has ever suffered from infertility, miscarriages, prematurity, or complicated births only to have above harrowing experiences minimalized by a clueless granola cruncher…this post is a MUST read. 

The measure of a mother

Published on February 28, 2008 in Pregnancy and Rants. 3 Comments

Now that I have been in the blogosphere for a while, I have had the opportunity to stumble across a lot of different blogs.  One blog I like links to another blog and so on.  I have read a fair number of blogs recently that are authored by midwives or mothers who are anti-cesarean and pro natural childbirth.  Mostly these blogs talk about a more natural approach to childbirth.  No problem there.  I think a more natural approach is a wonderful goal.  I had that goal myself. 

I have two major objections to some of what I have been reading.  The first is the idea that all cesarean sections can be avoided. 

The cesarean rate in the US is too high at nearly 31%.  I doubt I could even find anybody that would dispute that.  I am not even sure there is a way to figure out what an expected cesarean rate would be if only medically necessary cesareans were performed.  I guess a rudimentary place to start would be to begin with the fact that 1 of 8 babies born in the US is premature.  I wonder how many of those babies were medically necessary cesareans.  Half?  A lot of preemie moms I know went into labor that could not be stopped.  But I also know a lot who developed severe pre-e progressing to eclampsia or HELLP.  And mothers whose babies were in severe fetal distress and needed immediate delivery.

In my case, my death and my son’s death without a cesarean on the night he was born was not only a possibility but a certainty.  I had developed Class I HELLP syndrome.  My liver was enlarged and threatening rupture.  Aidan was starting to have some decelerations.  The lab tests run on my blood even after Aidan was born were alarming…my liver values were through the roof and my platelets were all but nonexistent.  This is a classic case of a necessary cesarean.  I was only 28 weeks pregnant and waiting for an induction of labor would have killed us both.

The second objection to some of what I have been reading is the ridiculous notion that having a cesarean section means you didn’t give birth.  A quote taken from a blog I recently read stated the following, “Cesarean section surgery (notice I do not call it “birth”) is the number one surgery performed in the United States, and that number is growing. ”

I felt hurt and angry as I read this and other similar statements on other blogs.  What on earth is the purpose of saying something like this?  Is it to give some women a “wake-up call” regarding unnecessary cesareans?  If it is…I am not sure it will really do the trick.  You see, I think any woman who has an unnecessary cesarean is either uninformed or coerced.  I am not sure you fix either situation by guilting a mother regarding the way her baby came into the world.  Most women would be more persuaded by hard data, such as the fact that lung issues are more prevalent in cesarean babies.

What you have done for sure when you make such a ludicrous statement as “a cesarean is not birth” is to further damage the psyche of women who really needed cesareans.  I think the thought that really stuck in my head as I read these ridiculous statements was this:

Why do other women feel the need to marginalize the birth of my son?  Or the birth of any child?

Is it a superiority complex?  Do these women really believe that the way our children came into the world reflects on our mothering abilities?  Is it the feeling of being supermom because they had an all natural birth?  I would like to believe they just never stopped to consider the feelings of mothers in situations such as mine. 

I applaud any woman who has the strength (and good fortune not to have a medical need for a cesarean) to give birth to a child with little to no intervention.  But, ladies, birth is only a snapshot in the lives of our children.  We have countless opportunities to don our supermom capes throughout our children’s lives.  I didn’t get to be supermom by having a natural birth.  I had a much more medicalized birth than I ever would have dreamed possible for myself.  My child had a much more medicalized beginning.  I have had countless other opportunities to prove what I am made of.  I supported my son through a 105 day NICU stay.  I protected his fragile health when he came home.  I pumped day and night for 9 months to get my son breastmilk.  I took him to physical therapy to watch over his development, to the pulmonologist to get the best care for his lungs, I quit my job to stay at home.  I could go on and on. 

I measure myself as a mother not by the WAY  my child came into the world, but the fact that he is here and thriving.  He is a boy full of laughter and curiosity.  He is fiercely attached to both Brandon and me.  We have had complete strangers comment on his love for us.  He amazes me each and every day of his life.  We didn’t get a normal or optimal birth experience.  But if I have learned anything in the last 2 1/2 years it is that there was never a truer cliche in my life than this:  “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it.”

Of course I gave birth to my son.  I prepared my body to sustain his existence.  I took immaculate care of myself.  I carried him to viability when many women with my condition miscarry.  I listened to my body and approached my doctors when things didn’t feel right.  I dismissed every moment of discomfort I had on hospital bedrest to provide more time for my son to gestate.  I sacrificed for him up until the moment of his birth.  I was willing to allow myself to get sicker and sicker so long as it provided him more time in my womb. 

I have every right to be proud of the birth of my son.  When I talk to him about the day of his birth it will not be with regret and shame.  I have nothing to be ashamed of.  I did everything humanly possible for the well being of my child.  I do this every day.  This is the measure of a mother…..not just the birth experience. 

Blame the mom

Published on February 26, 2008 in HELLP, PIH/Preeclampsia, Prematurity and Rants. 14 Comments

I stumbled across a claim on another blog recently that got my blood boiling.  Not much sends me into hyperactive research mode now that I am a stay at home mom.  But I haven’t forgotten how to do it. 

There is a diet that claims to prevent 100% of preeclampsia and HELLP.  My sniffer went into overdrive.  100%?  There is almost nothing in medicine that can accurately have the word 100% attached to it.  I did some reading about this diet and started becoming enraged.  I found many sites that spout the claim found on the diet’s website.  Their claim follows in blue…word for word from the homepage of the site.

“Toxemia. Pre-Eclampsia. HELLP Syndrome. Premature birth.
Low birth weight. Intrauterine growth retardation.

It’s not genetics. It’s not random. The cause is NOT unknown. Toxemia CAN be stopped. PreeclampsiaA-toxic-condition-developing-in-late-pre... CAN be stopped. Best of all, YOU can stop it!

HOW? All the scientific research being done on toxemia and preeclampsia these days is focusing on treatment, and none of it is promising. But the research has already been done, many times and many ways in the past 50+ years, and we know that you can PREVENT this from happening to you in the first place, no matter what your personal history may be. The simple answer? GOOD NUTRITION.”

 

Oh, gosh!  Why the hell didn’t I think of that?  Good nutrition?  Guess it is my fault my son was a preemie! 

Except….except that it’s not my fault.  You see I followed this diet.  I clicked on their sample diet and I can tell you….that is what I was eating.  Yet, I still developed Class I HELLP. 

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I believe nutrition and protein intake play a huge role in pregnancy.  It is this idea that pre-e and HELLP would go away if we all followed the diet.  But it won’t.  You see, preeclampsia is a syndrome.  (ie. a disease that may be triggered by several independent factors that leads to a common situation (compromised placenta)   In my particular case, I was in ridiculously good shape going into pregnancy.  My resting heart rate was in the low 60’s, my baseline BP was 105/60, I worked out and taught classes at the gym 6 days a week, and (as I recently discovered) I ate this site’s recommended diet. 

When the underlying reason for your pre-e and HELLP syndrome IS actually genetic, diet manipulation can only go so far.  In my case my homozygous MTHFR c677 was my problem.  Following the diet to the letter would not have saved me from pre-e or HELLP.  Knowing prior to conception that I had this thrombophilia might have….heparin could have been given from early on.

I think there is even a bigger picture here.  It is the “Pregnancy is not a disease” movement.  For most women….it isn’t a disease.  It is a natural part of life.  But there are those of us that fly in the face of that fanciful notion.  Those of us (and our babies) who need medical intervention, sometimes drugs, and science to intervene throw a huge monkey wrench into that movement.  So what is the solution to explain us outlyers?  That the bad things that happen to us ~5% of pregnant women must be OUR fault.  That is essentially what this diet is purporting. 

This is not only grossly inaccurate but emotionally damaging to women who have done everything right and still ended up with pre-e, HELLP, and/or a premature baby.

I love it when I see that new research is uncovering more of the mystery behind pre-e and/or HELLP.  All that I ask is that before some well-meaning soul tells me about it, writes about it, etc, that you actually check to see what kind of research is being touted.   Is it peer-reviewed? Randomized?  Double blind?  Placebo controlled?  Prospective or retrospective?  The answers to these questions matter.  You see this is the benchmark to which I was held every day of my professional life.  I worked for a pharmaceutical company and whenever I presented a study to a physician these were the criteria they asked about.  When a “study” didn’t meet all of these criteria, it was treated with great skepticism.  I have searched extensively for studies done on this “diet” that meet the above criteria.  Surprise!  ;-)  There are none.

This theory makes me angry.  It makes me sad.  I wonder how many former pre-e or HELLP sufferers have read information about this “miracle diet” and felt their heart sink and then blamed themselves.  It is this kind of misinformation that further damages already traumatized women.

There is a wonderful thread I found on the Preeclampia Forum website that has numerous links to peer-reviewed studies that will dispel the notion that “Mommy could have prevented it.”

http://www.preeclampsia.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9742&whichpage=1&SearchTerms=%2Cbrewer%27s%2Cdiet

 I also wanted to send a shout-out to my MTHFR/HELLP/preemie mom pal Kathy, who I just discovered as I was editing this post, wrote about this very issue.  She makes some excellent points as well.

I think moms spend enough time playing the guilt game in their own heads without adding unsubstantiated fuel to the fire.