I have had the privilege of working with a number of wonderful midwives in the last years during my midwifery training. Among the many things that I have learned, I hear one of Valerie El Halta’s sentences running through my head at births. Val teaches the difference between an intervention and an intercession (which I…
In answer to a question about VBAC: (when the doctor says it was a good thing they did another cesarean, because the scar looked thin) If the scar has held up until and during labor it has most probably proven its integrity. This was discussed in my first book Silent Knife in some detail. Also,…
The woman who called me today told me that when she mentioned to her OB that she was leaving her practice and going to have a home birth, the doctor looked as if she was going to blow a gasket. “Those aren’t safe!” she almost screamed to this woman, who set up an interview with…
I was at the hair salon today reading the magazine on the top of the pile on coffee table in front of me while I was waiting to have my hair cut. I was so glad to read that Sandra Bullock is doing well and quite relieved to learn that Justin Bieber doesn’t have to…
I went to the weekly “Ring Ding Sing-A-Long” program for children at the library today with Anna (the light of my life, almost 16 months). There was a woman there with a stroller that held three little ones, approximately six months each. She promptly put them on the floor on blankets and it did appear…
(a letter from Nancy in reply to an impassioned e-mail from Greece) Oh Bernice, I am crying right along with you. You were given such bad advice every step of the way. I am so sorry. It appears as if the addiction to do unnecessary cesareans is not only confined to the USA. Three weeks…
Ouououou….now you can not only get soft toilet paper, but you can get ultra soft toilet paper. We are so used to thinking that ultra means better…. and so it would stand to reason that ultra-sound would be better than just plain sound, right? Most women have no idea that the little machine with the…
A woman wrote to me just today. She said she is staying home to birth. As far as I’m concerned, she has the best possible chance of avoiding a c-section that way. She’s already had four – I’d say that was enough for anyone, wouldn’t you? If the incision holds up to term, it has…
My clients drink little or no milk. We are the only mammals that drink another mammal’s milk. Once weaned, all other mammals refrain from drinking milk. Cow’s milk is really not for humans (hence all that lactose intolerance – or is it all the chemicals that are now put into milk that make it a…
Our ancestresses didn’t use them. Lightweight as they are, they would have perhaps been somewhat cumbersome to carry out into the fields, where many of our ancients had their babies. I ask my mothers not to sit on them until we are absolutely certain that the baby has its head in the correct position. In…