Day 188 - Girls

Thought of the day: I just watched the documentary "The Business of Being Born".  The movie explored the birthing process and how a natural process had been turned into a business and treated routinely as an ailment and emergency by medical professionals.  When I was still pregnant with Lila, I read the excellent book "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" which delivered similar messages.  The information provided by doctors and by nurses who taught childbirth classes in a hospital setting was often one-sided and incomplete and only helped perpetuate the myth and disinformation of the birthing process.  The other side of the story is told by Ina May's book, this documentary, midwives, doulas and women who have had the natural, or alternative as regarded by some, birth experiences.  Sadly and inexplicably, not every pregnant woman has access to all the information that she is entitled to when she needs to make the important decision of how and where to give birth.  As a result, it's more likely for her to end up in a hospital and for the doctors and nurses to impose their wills on her and take control of the birthing process to make it more lucrative, convenient, and lawsuit-free for them.  That would help explain the rise of cesarean rate, which is currently at an astounding rate of 1 out of every 3 births in this country.  This has reached the level of an epidemic.  Right around Lila's birth, I distributed Ina May's book through a bookstore and other entities to pregnant women because I felt compelled to share the information.  Apparently that activity had not created enough impact as the cesarean rate kept on rising!  And it's rising in many other countries too, especially in China, where the cesarean rate is at a whopping 46%.  As a civilization, we are getting too technologically advanced to respect our body and too incentive driven to remember our soul.  We see the consequence of that in every area of our lives and the unnatural birthing process is just one of them.  Will we reach a turning point and reverse course?  I hope we will, and will soon.

Photo of the day:

My girls lying on the floor exhausted after some fun play in the house.  I love them more than what can be expressed in words.  I hope they will grow up in a world that's healthier in many ways than the one we reside in right now.