Dear Friends:
 
Just when I thought that hospital birth couldn't get any more disconnected  
from physiology, another woman comes to my office for CST with her baby.
 
When early labor started, she went to the hospital. She was a  fingertip 
dilated. In the old days, she would have been sent home and told  to have a glass 
of wine and take a bath and make love and go for a walk and get  some rest.
 
Nowadays, these women are kept at the hospital. Because she was anxious and  
unsettled at being in a hospital, they not only gave her an Ambien, but also  
"some sort of gas" (direct quote from husband). When labor started the next 
day  (driven by Pitocin), she was still hung over from the sleeping drugs. The  
cascade of interventions continued and she ended up with a cesarean section, a 
 complete "lack of joy" in her birth, and feeling terrible about not wanting 
to  respond to her crying baby because she was exhausted, drugged and in pain. 
 She finds breastfeeding also without joy, and is worn out from following all 
the  rules for breastfeeding (wake baby every 2-3 hours, guide every latch, 
monitor  diapers, constantly check latch to make sure "it is right").
 
Our visit was the longest I've ever spent with a woman. The time passed  
quickly in my office and we were both shocked to learn how long we'd worked  
together.
 
My suggestion was that she go home and have a babymoon, keep baby s2s and  
discover each other. She hasn't done that yet; doesn't know her baby and can't  
understand whar her baby is communicating with its body language.
 
Now Ambien is deemed relatively safe for babies by LactMed, but untoward  
effects and impact on lactation are unknown. And what about that gas?
 
What is going on? How divorced from emotion can birth be?
 
warmly,
 
Nikki Lee RN,  BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI
craniosacral therapy  practitioner
_www.myspace.com/adonicalee_ (http://www.myspace.com/adonicalee) 



**************Psssst...Have you heard the news? There's a new fashion blog, 
plus the latest fall trends and hair styles at StyleList.com.      
(http://www.stylelist.com/trends?ncid=aolsty00050000000014)

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome