Thank you, Kermaline, for sharing that story about the mother who had an
epidural and whose baby was born without her even realizing it.
It made my blood run cold.
Is this what we are coming to? That our new *ideal* is to numb out
bodies, minds and souls to the extent that we are mere onlookers in one
of life's greatest miracles? Whatever happened to *active participation,*
let alone joy?
When my second child was born in 1977, I was the first mother in that
hospital ever to have been awake and aware during the birth. They laughed
at me when I said I wanted to walk to the recovery room instead of being
in a wheelchair, and when I got there, they panicked because nursing on
the delivery table had contracted my uterus to such an extent that they
could not find it manually. I was an oddity in 1977. What a terrible
thing that I would be an oddity today too. It makes me want to weep.

hugs from norma, who also remembers a workshop she attended where Doris
Haire was drumming up support for a Pregnant Patients' Bill of Rights.
She turned down my suggestion of adding that every mother be entitiled to
breastfeed her baby soon after birth as being too contraversial.


Norma Ritter, IBCLC
private practice in Big Flats, NY
[log in to unmask]

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