I gave birth 20 years ago at a free standing birth center with a midwife.
The practice was to put the baby to breast "to deliver the placenta". Same
thing 10 years ago at home with my son. I work as a private practice LC with
almost all hospital births, and across the board, the mothers have never
heard of breastfeeding right away "to deliver the placenta"; they almost all
have pitocin during the labor and virtually all have the IV in for the
placenta delivery, with an extra dose of pitocin. Often they really don't
know what's in the IV; sometimes the dad knows.  I've learned; listen to the
dad, the mom doesn't know the details.
There's something really wrong here. I feel very bad about the changes in
deliveries, and I have a lot of trouble remaining cool, calm and
professional.
What will our daughters and daughters-in-law believe, or be told?
There was a front page story in the New York Times awhile ago about a
shortage of pitocin in area hospitals.  Oxytocin is produced in women's
bodies and we've allowed it to be appropriated by pharmaceutical companies.
Of course, if there is bleeding you would use drugs, but what's wrong with
nature's plan? So economical; baby feeds, mother moves to the completion of
her birth. So beautiful, really, and replaced with a semi conscious mother
on an IV that she doesn't control the contents of.
Sorry to vent, but I know there are other natural childbirth dinosaurs on
the list. Maybe even some young women who know how a natural birth works?

Kate Sharp
LC in NYC
[log in to unmask]

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

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html