In a message dated 7/30/2006 8:23:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Could the  people that have identified this as a 
problem please tell us the number of  hospital assaulted women you see in a 
year and the total number of clients  you see in a year? 

Dear Friends:
    What an amazing question..............and I have no  idea how to answer.
    Clinically, I don't encounter many women that have  articulated feelings 
or described assault. Maybe 5 a year will actively  volunteer such details.
    However, nationally, I think we need to look at  things like postpartum 
depression and limiting size of families as passive  manifestations of 
reactions to assault. Rowe-Murray and Fisher in Australia  described a connection 
between depression at 8 months postpartum and not holding  the baby after birth. 
There was a study published in MIDIRS about 8 years ago,  and there have been 
more published since, where women have changing their  childbearing plans after 
an operative delivery.    
    Our culture in the USA embraces denial as a  cultural norm. How else to 
can it be alright for one woman in 3 to have her baby  cut out of her, which is 
the national rate today? The US can get everyone to put  babies 'Back to 
Sleep' in 2 years, and we can't get more women to breastfeed  longer? Give me a 
break! Hospitals giving out formula samples? What better  example of denial can 
there be than that.........except maybe the AAP taking  money from the formula 
companies?
    Years ago, Diony Young (or was it Doris Haire?)  talked about the 
presence of NICUs as a sign that hospital birth is risky.  The March of Dimes 
identified that induction was a leading cause of prematurity  in 
2001................where is the outrage about that?
    And that Lieberman study, looking at 1280 dyads and  discovering that the 
mean time from epidural placement to maternal fever was 5.9  hours, and that 
if the maternal fever went over 101, the baby was more likely to  have a 
seizure in the nursery. The conclusion of that study was to propose  investigation 
of neonatal seizures.............are they are problem? How  outrageous, how 
blatant, how denying can we get???
    Women in hospitals may not realize they have been  denied their natural 
process and rights as they unable to labor and birth  spontaneously, at their 
own pace, nor able to eat and drink and move at will.  (Name me one other 
setting where competent adults are denied food and drink and  mobility. And don't 
tell me that they "need" to be starved and thirsted!)  Because the common ways 
to birth today are technology-driven  (induction, medication, a host of 
machines, and strangers wandering in and out  of the birthing environment) women 
have no standard of reference upon which to  even consciously realize how they 
have been assaulted.
    However, the energy of the assaults show up in a  variety of other ways: 
choosing not to commit to breastfeeding being but one.  Women can say no to 
something finally, they can't say no to induction or  cesarean section, so they 
choose to wean or not even get started.
    Postpartum depression is another consequence of  assault. Katherine 
Dettwyler posted something on LACTNET years ago that I always  remember: she 
thought that not breastfeeding told the body that the baby had  died, and that 
postpartum depression could stem from that missing of natural,  physiologic 
process. Now what a thought!!
    Disconnection from the baby is another way.
    I am sure we can think of many others.
   warmly,

 
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Lactation Consultant,  Philadephia Department of Public Health
Maternal-Child Adjunct Faculty, Union  Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human  Lactation
www.breastfeedingalwaysbest.com

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