http://www.birthlove.com

A letter from Leilah McCracken

Dear doctors,

On my lower belly is a cesarean scar. It formed there 10 years ago
after a needless cesarean. To this day, touching it makes me shudder.
Hair doesn't grow on it; it is without sensation- a white, bumpy,
ugly dead strip.

The child who came from it is the only one of my seven children who
has ever sucked his thumb, or needed a security blanket.

On my back are little pinprick scars from epidural catheters. They
are little bland bumps. I am one of the women who have lifelong
back pain from epidural anesthesia; and one of the few women for
whom epidural anesthesia doesn't even work. (I had spinal anesthetic
though my epidural catheter for the c-section. My husband's idea
in the OR, by the way... one of the few times in our five hospital
births where he was listened to, and not treated like a fourth class
citizen.)

My daughter was hurried through my vagina with a Pitocin drip. She
has some behavioral difficulties that many children who were born
through Pitocin tend to have- almost autistic in nature. Autism is
now linked with Pitocin use (see end).

My fourth child was induced at 40 weeks, my shortest pregnancy ever.
I am supposed to have ten month pregnancies, as my last two births,
sixth and seventh, have shown me. My fourth child is my only violent
child; he causes so much heartbreak in my family. Every day he has
hurt his younger brother. I wonder if he would have been a bit more
gentle in his life if his birth had been more gentle- if he had
been allowed to gestate as long as my body requires. (Incidentally
the younger brother he beats up was born through a Prostin smearing
on my cervix. He was lucky my VBAC uterus didn't rupture. So am I.)

I always thought there was no other way for me to give birth- that
I was a birthing failure; incapable of birthing without an induction
jumpstart or a surgical incision. For five childbirths I always
"needed" my doctors to create my birth experiences for me, and to
save me from my own birthing inefficiency and hopelessness. (I was
actually addicted to their "helping" me, and was always effusive
in my gratitude for their efforts.) But then with my sixth, I just
couldn't do it again- I couldn't go back to another hospital to
give birth... I was just too hurt and broken inside.

I found a lay midwife, and had the beautiful, easy birth that I am
intended to have. I finally gave birth as a full, luscious woman-
all my own hormones, in my own safe place- with no fingers in me,
or straps on my belly. (Or knives in my belly.) I simply pushed my
baby out and went to bed.

This birth healed me... it fulfilled me, enraged me, and propelled
me to begin writing and to help heal birth for other women- help
them see that the childbirth theories of men in white lab coats are
wrong. I created my website (birthlove.com), and soon discovered
that millions of women feel just as I did- hopeless; inept; incapable;
less-than fully female; not deserving of gentleness or birthing
bliss: and that there is no other way to give birth. Millions of
women bear terrible scars of the body, soul and psyche from processed,
assembly-line birth... millions of women are heartbroken from the
loss of what could possibly have been the most beautiful moment of
their lives.

What seems to you like a routine day of work impacts entire lives-
decades are affected by what happens in the few hours of giving
birth. Later drug addiction comes with one's own drugged childbirth;
an increased risk of later violent suicide comes with one's own
violent, painful childbirth. (See references to Bertil Jacobson's
work below.) Terrible infirmities come to women who have had cut,
manipulated childbirths... I know women who can't control their
bowel movements because of episiotomy cuts. I know women for whom
hemorrhoids cause lifelong pain and severe loss of freedom because
of their vacuum extractors and forceps deliveries. I know women who
are suicidal in their awful depths of self-hatred and worthlessness:
they have a despair that ricochets through their souls from being
strapped down like meat to be palpated and probed by anyone who
wants to touch their bodies in childbirth. I know women who never
realize their full potential as women- as artistic, sentient, feeling
women- because they have not given birth powerfully and joyfully.

I know of women who are not even living anymore because of their
hazardous hospital births... I know of the doctors who are not held
accountable for their deaths. I also know of doctors not held
accountable for babies' deaths.. and I know of thousands of women
who have been lied to by doctors, and told that their difficult
births were somehow their own fault- that they were too disproportionate,
incompetent, or failures at progressing for birth at all without
medical assistance (the same meddling, intimidating assistance that
stunted their spontaneous birthing in the first place).

How can I tell you to stop hurting families? How can I tell you
that giving birth matters? How can I tell you that your procedures
cause more harm than good? Why would you believe me? Who am I to
you- some "nut" on the Internet who will impact as deeply and
personally as a passing, uneventful comet? The women still come to
you. They fill up your waiting rooms with their passiveness, endless
patience and willingness to follow your orders. They think you know
best- they think you are the expert in human childbirth. But how
can I tell you that you're not? You won't believe me; your medical
degree and your years of managing childbirth in hospitals may suggest
to you that you deserve the position of societal expert of childbirth.

But listen: the birth you know is incorrect. The birth you have
studied and mastered is false; how most women give birth today-
with unproven interventions and invasive, humiliating procedures
being the norm- is wrong. The birth that doctors see and understand
is caged birth; free birth resembles nothing of the stop-and-start,
bizarre, agonizing births of the hospital LDR. Birth as it is meant
to be given is as straightforward and obvious as any other act of
elimination. And as are other eliminatory acts, birth is best given
in absolute privacy. (Never flat on one's back with spectators and
bright lights.)

Birth is also the ultimate act of reproduction. It is transcendentally
sexual- like a big, luscious orgasm: wild; uncontrollable once you
get to the point of no return. That is... if you're able to get to
that point of no return... reaching this state of wild animal
release- the optimal state of mind/being for birth- can only come
if no one is disturbing you, and if you feel secure and are free
from harm. If there is no external schedule imposed on your own
intrinsic orgasmic schedule. This is how birth is- highly sensitive
to external stimuli; becoming erratic, stunted and pathological if
a woman senses her environment isn't safe and accepting of her own
unique way of opening up for birth (equate opening up for birth
with ecstasy/release). And this is why so many hospital births
"need" doctors' drugs and intervention- because of how sexually
constipating the hospital birth environment is.

Women are increasingly understanding the true nature of childbirth
every day... due to the Internet, we are rapidly learning that the
medical way of giving birth is false. Every day, thousands more
women are becoming alerted to how senseless routine procedures truly
are. And once a truth of this magnitude is understood, all of our
paths as women are changed- we all become committed to going to the
ends of the Earth to help other women heal birth for themselves,
and their friends and daughters. We are taking back the roles of
wise women and teachers in our communities.

Doctors: there is a powerful movement happening in the women of the
world; it is one of dignity, power and love of birth. It is a
movement that will move women out of your waiting rooms and back
into their own homes to give birth. It is massive, and unstoppable.
You can either respect this movement- acknowledge it, and reassess
your practices and make them more humane- or you can battle this
healing force with your own cruel arsenal: even more birth interventions
for women's "own good". But be warned that such ugliness will only
shame you, and render your souls as vacant as your waiting rooms
and ORs will be.

You will have a choice in your obstetrical career. A choice about
whether to be a gentle protector of birth, or to be a butcher of
birth. Any time an OB performs a needless section or an episiotomy,
he is performing an act of terrible violence. This is not so well
understood now, but in twenty years, this will be the mainstream
belief. Learn this well now, so you can have a busy, humane practice
in years to come.

You say you are for the rights and health of women and babies. If
you are, please learn to leave us alone. Leave the umbilical cord
attached to the placenta until the placenta is delivered, and allow
the mother's own hormones to determine the timing of the placenta's
expulsion (see the article excerpted below). Stop separating women
from their newborns. Stop using so many drugs on women- what seems
like a good idea now causes terrible harm throughout entire lifetimes.
Stop cutting episiotomies! Learn from lay midwives abut how to best
attend normal childbirth instead of attacking them. Have more water
tubs in hospitals, and learn about water in lieu of drugs for pain
relief. Stop thinking fingertips can assess how a birth is progressing!
Learn more about prenatal nutrition, especially about how high-quality
protein intake drastically reduces high blood pressure. Encourage
women to take birthing positions they instinctively will go in.
Read the inserts in drug packages to see if the drugs are recommended
for use in pregnant women, and don't use the medications if they're
not. Please stop inducing women because of "postdates". Stop
performing routine amniotomies.

Have medical students learn to do pelvic exams on volunteers- never
on birthing women. Look at pregnant women and not fetal monitor
strips! Be mindful of how it feels for women to be utterly at their
doctors' mercy in childbirth; buy a copy of my book (see end) if
you want to learn what it feels like to be a patient. It doesn't
feel very good. There are so many ways you can make birth better
for the women who know of no other way to give birth than with you
in attendance... learn these ways now, before the women stop coming
to you altogether.

Understand that birth matters. It is the most important moment of
a woman's whole life- one that she recalls every day of her life
spent loving her child; one that makes her the women she is intended
to become. And a child born gently loves in gentle ways throughout
his whole lifetime, too.

No, I'm not one of "those" women who want pleasant and flowery but
hazardous homebirths. I trusted doctors with five of my births, and
they, in every single one of them, put me and my babies at needless
risk through interventions. I had no idea that their own fear of
litigation and kowtowing to peers' expectations made it impossible
for them to allow me to birth in any way other than that of the
accepted standard of care in my area. And while I accept full
responsibility for the outcomes of all birth choices, it will always
be heartbreaking to me that my doctors' own fears were more important
for them to address than the sanctity of my skin, bladder, uterus,
fallopian tubes, ovaries and postpartum experience. I'm so sorry
that my children have had to suffer for my own ignorant birth
choices... and I'll do all I can for the rest of my life to prevent
such uninformed births from happening to others.

I don't know what else to say to you. There is just too much, and
I don't know if you care... but know this: birth is as easy as women
allow it to be. Birth is trustworthy and safe; birth knows how to
create the best outcomes for women and babies. Your carefully-taught
ways of obstetrics interferes with birth's own instinctive, ingenious
ways of creating excellent outcomes. The birth you understand is
wrong... birth is as easy as a heartbeat; as obvious as a large,
smooth bowel movement. It truly is. Simple, yes- but also sacred.
Birth is sacred. "Sacred" as in inviolable, and capable of generating
fantastic emotion and spirituality.

Healing; animal; exponential in its capacity for either harm or
ecstasy; female. Birth can be trusted. Birth should be revered.
Birth must be left alone. Birth is as safe as life gets.

Autism linked with Pitocin use

An excerpt from a Newsweek cover story.

"Dr. Eric Hollander of New York's Mount Sinai School of Medicine
noticed several years ago that 60 percent of the autistic patients
in his clinic had been exposed in the womb to pitocin, the synthetic
version of a brain chemical (oxytocin) that helps induce labor.
That could be significant, since only 20 percent of all births are
assisted by pitocin. Or it could be a meaningless coincidence. In
the hope of finding out, Hollander is now tracking 58,000 kids whose
mothers' treatments were monitored during pregnancy." Read it here.

Autism- an Overview, by Lewis Mehl-Madrona, M.D., Ph.D. This article
has many good references.

And see "Interview with Professor Jaak Panksepp" Bertil Jacobson's
work

Jacobson, B; Bygdeman, M. Obstetric care and proneness of offspring
to suicide as adults: case-control study BMJ 1998;317:1346-1349
View the study here.  Jacobson, B. et al. Opiate addiction in adult
offspring through possible imprinting after obstetric treatment.
BMJ 1990;310:1067-1070.  Delaying cutting the umbilical cord

The following paragraph is excerpted from "Cord Closure: Can Hasty
Clamping Injure the Newborn?" by George M. Morley, MB., CH. B. (July
1998, OBG Management)

"Normal blood volume is not produced by a cord clamp. The newborn
and placenta reach physiologic, hemodynamic equilibrium without
interference, The placental transfusion is massive, silent, and
invisible, but as normal and physiologic as is crying at birth. An
adequate blood volume is needed to perfuse the lungs, gut, kidneys,
and skin that replace the placenta's respiratory, alimentary,
excretory, and thermal functions. During the third stage of labor,
a large portion of placental blood is shifted to these organs, While
the normal, term child tolerates immediate clamping, lack of placental
transfusion increases morbidity in "at risk" births. Many neonatal
morbidities such as the hyperviscosity syndrome, infant respiratory
distress syndrome, anemia, and hypovolemia correlate with early
clamping. To avoid injury in all deliveries, especially those of
neonates at risk, the cord should not be clamped until placental
transfusion is complete." For the full document, go here.
Apprenticeships

Doctors can contact the online midwifery community for help in
finding local midwives who may help them become better equipped to
attend births. Go to Midwifery Today's website. Midwives- contact
me if you are interested in setting up apprenticeships- doctors can
learn a lot from you. This could be a valuable, effective means of
humanizing and normalizing childbirth worldwide.

One excellent reference for learning what birth is supposed to mean
for women (and their men) is my book, "Resexualizing Childbirth".
Learn about it and order it online here.  Return to top of page
Copyright  1998~2005 BirthLove-Leilah McCracken. All of the material
in this website is copyrighted. If you wish to republish any of the
materials contained on the site please contact us for permission.