Nikki,
I think there is sometimes healing power in naming things what they are. We do not under any circumstances have a health care system in the US. We have a disease-care system. In a health care system, one would care for health, focus on health, make health the priority--we would see the big picture, see the many aspects of living a healthy life and protect them at all levels of our culture. We, all of us, get what we pay attention to. In this country, we pay attention to disease---people's needs are ignored if they are well and want to stay that way. Insurance companies do not pay for keeping people well. We pay when people have disease--not to heal the disease, of course, but to "treat" it. 

I knew a mom who was feeling very emotionally stressed and sought mental health care. She was put on a waiting list, even though she said that her need was urgent. She was told that if she placed her children in danger or was using illegal substances, she could get help right away!! So, she took a lot of pills and suddenly, she was hospitalized against her will and separated from her children and under investigation by DCF, blah, blah, blah. Then she went to a nutritionist and was able to stabilize herself with supplements and foods--you know, health care. 

IMO, disease-care will always fail us. IMO, if life "begins" in the hospital, we will never make any real progress. Home is inherently a place to care for one another--health care in all of its facets. Hospital disease-care culture erases the depth of human experience, peels away the layers of our humanity and diminishes us in so many ways (not only patients, but also practitioners). And this might be acceptable, if we just need to set a broken bone, b/c we can come through such an experience intact. OTOH, I do not see how we can come through major life transitions intact in the midst of a disease care model. In Robbie Davis-Floyd's book "Birth As An American Rite of Passage", she talks about how much of ourselves and our children we give away when we experience birth in the midst of an institution's rules and "needs". 

I, too, am optimistic. I am optimistic that the disease-care model cannot sustain itself and that it will fall away, leaving the opportunity for something based in wholeness and an underlying trust in the innate health of the human being. That is why I do not believe in working within the system--I don't want to give it any of my attention, any more power than it already has. I want all of my energy to be focused on health care, b /c that is the paradigm I believe in and want to create. 

Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA


Intuitive Parenting Network LLC



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