Natalia Mae Lilly

I'm working my way through my personal blog to find the old posts that led me to create Skeptical Healthcare Consumer. I am realizing that my transformation into a skeptical healthcare consumer has been gradual. Little items. Step by step. And it's not as if the medical mainstream has been so bad to me or to my family. In fact, here's a story where the conventional doctors saved our daughter's and first granddaughter's life--for which I am unspeakably grateful.

And I want to acknowledge that.

At the same time, it's also true that I'm not willing simply to take whatever a doctor says as "gospel truth."

The following was originally posted 23 July 2008 on my personal blog. I reposted it here on Skeptical Healthcare Consumer on 26 July 2011.

Natalia Mae Lilly was born at 4:07 p.m. by emergency C-section. 21.5" long. 8 lbs. 11.2 oz.

Isn't she beautiful?

Daddy and baby bonding skin to skin.

I loved seeing the sign over Dave's head. And I was happy to capture a picture of their midwife as she coached him a bit. --None of us were permitted to attend the surgery itself. So we contented ourselves with holding Natalia.

*******
The story: a blessing from God.

With no warning, Jonelle started bleeding profusely this afternoon at about 2:05. By 2:15, we had her to the hospital, and by 2:35, we were being told it didn't look good AT ALL for a vaginal birth. Home birth, which she and her husband Dave had been preparing for, was almost assuredly out of the question. With no contractions and virtually no dilation or effacement, the placenta was 25% torn from the uterus. They were hoping, maybe, the bleeding would subside.

But over the next half hour or so, further bad news: her blood pressure was very high; she was suffering from pre-eclampsia. So in the space of little more than an hour, Jonelle and Dave went from expecting a normal, low-pressure home birth to facing the possibility of an emergency C-section. There was still a small chance--infinitesimal--that maybe things would turn around, but by 3:40, as she began bleeding even more rapidly than at the start, and with no signs of birth pangs or any movement toward regular delivery, Jonelle and Dave had to sign appropriate release forms and she was wheeled off for emergency surgery.

About 4:20, Natalia Mae made her appearance "out in public" and I was able to begin shooting photos.

Jonelle didn't reappear until well past 6:00, and I was not permitted to see her other than for a quick glimpse as she was being wheeled by, pasty-faced, to her room. . . . We thank God that neither baby nor mother died or was seriously injured. And we pray, now, for Jonelle's speedy and full recovery.

Affirmations of life

Real health, full health, means life. The following was originally posted 23 July 2008 on my personal blog. I reposted it here on Skeptical Healthcare Consumer on 25 July 2011.

My son pointed me in the direction of Jennifer F, a woman who says she was a contented atheist until 2005 but became a Christian and joined the Roman Catholic church in spring 2007.

I'm not Roman Catholic and I have no interest, honestly, in becoming Roman Catholic. But I sure feel a common bond with Jennifer as I watched and listened to and read the following items from her Jennifer's Favorite Links blog!

First, a video that I expect will bring you to tears from the beauty and the challenge--whether you are a religious person or not. --You'll need to read the subtitles quickly at points:



And a pro-family "public service" message from Germany. (Read quickly on this one, too!)



And then, on Jennifer's thought-provoking "Et Tu?" blog: "How I became pro-life," especially her series of "four key memories that give a glimpse into how my understanding of sex was formed":

• When I was a kid, I didn't have any friends who had baby brothers or sisters in their households. One friend's mom was pregnant when we were twelve, but I moved before the baby was born. To the extent that I ever heard any of our parents talk about pregnancy and babies, it was to say that they were happy that they were "done," the impression being that they could finally start living now that that pregnancy/baby unpleasantness was over.
   
• In sex ed class we learned not that sex creates babies, but that unprotected sex creates babies. After we were done putting condoms on bananas, our teacher counseled us that we should carefully decide when we might be ready to have sex based on important concerns like whether or not we were in committed relationships, whether or not we had access to contraception, how our girlfriends or boyfriends treated us, whether we wanted to wait until marriage, etc. I do not recall hearing readiness to have a baby being part of a single discussion about deciding when to have sex, whether it was from teachers or parents or society in general. Not once.
   
• On multiple occasions when I was a young teen I recall hearing girls make the comment that they would readily risk dangerous back-alley abortions or even consider suicide if they were to face unplanned pregnancies and abortion wasn't legal. Though I was not sexually active, it sounded perfectly reasonable to me -- that is how much we desired not to have babies before we were ready. Yet the concept of just not having sex if we weren't ready to have babies was never discussed. It's not that we had considered the idea and rejected it; it simply never occurred to us.
   
• Even recently, before our marriage was validated in the Catholic Church my husband and I had to take a course about building good marriages. It was a video series by a nondenominational Christian group, and in the segment called "Good Sex" they did not mention children or babies once. In all the talk about bonding and back rubs and intimacy and staying in shape, the closest they came to connecting sex to the creation of life was to briefly say that couples should discuss the topic of contraception.

"Sex could not have been more disconnected from the concept of creating life," she concludes.

I'd have to say I agree with her.

Quite strange, isn't it, when you think about it?

AMA and ACOG: Concerned for health or concerned for profits?

This was originally posted 23 July 2008 on my personal blog. I reposted it here on Skeptical Healthcare Consumer on 25 July 2011.

I'm astonished that less than three weeks after first having the idea even brought to my attention, I bump once more into the issue of home birthing and abortion: where, we realize, the same people who promote abortion oppose home births.

Jennifer F blogs,

American Medical Association comes out against homebirth

Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetric[ian]s and Gynecologists are speaking out against homebirth. The ACOG is very concerned about the safety of newborns, when they're not supporting their brutal murders (see excerpted quote [concerning D&X abortions] towards the middle at that link).

We hear about the treatment our home-birth-bound daughters are receiving from their midwives. We also hear about the treatment that our daughters' more conventionally-oriented friends are receiving from their obstetricians.

Now, I have nothing against qualified, compassionate and diligent obstetricians. But after hearing about--and seeing--the kind of treatment our daughters are receiving at the hands of their midwives, I think there is no reason for the ACOG or AMA to be going after these diligent, compassionate, and highly-qualified midwives, either . . . except and unless their (ACOG's and AMA's) primary concern has to do with erecting and/or maintaining a virtual monopoly on the care of pregnant women and their babies.

Where did the Hippocratic Oath go?

This was originally posted 4 July 2008 on my personal blog. I reposted it here on Skeptical Healthcare Consumer on 25 July 2011.

Doctors used to swear to uphold the Hippocratic Oath: "I swear . . . I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. . . ."

It seems that oath is less and less in anyone's mind these days.

Our daughters are both pregnant, both expecting in the next couple of weeks, and both planning home births under the care of licensed and experienced midwives.

Today, as we gathered for a family 4th of July/Independence Day celebration, they got talking about their experiences.

They began by raving about the wonderful care they receive at the hands of their midwives. No junk food for them! No! Their midwives are almost martinets in the demands they make and the disciplines they require of them. But, boy! Are our daughters healthy. And they expect to bear healthy babies.

They compared their experiences with those of friends they know who are also pregnant: the foods their friends eat, their weights, the blood pressure issues these others are facing, and so forth. Likely because of their poor habits during the course of their pregnancies--or because it is simply becoming more and more "policy" among a lot of Ob/Gyns--a few of their friends expect to have C-sections.

Of course, all of that kind of care is paid for by their health insurance.

And our daughters? Both (together with their husbands, of course!) will have to pay for everything (unless they are transported to the hospital because of some emergency, last-minute complication). Their insurance doesn't cover services by midwives.

"Oh!" said one daughter. "But I was looking at our company's health policy. They do cover abortions. . . .

Oh. And then I just read that, in Britain at least, there is a significant push to permit nurses to perform abortions, no medical doctor required to be present. (Medical doctor "supervision" is sufficient, apparently.)

. . . So the Western world moves more and more toward the denigration of life and the preference for death. . . .

Oh. And concerning that Hippocratic Oath, again.

I had forgotten that it continues beyond the brief portion I quoted above. The next two paragraphs continue:

To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.

Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion. . . .