Do we still get angry or experience hurt or disappointment? Yes. We are only human with human emotions. And with emotions we can change them as quickly as we can change our appearance or hair color. More on that later.
I was returning from a teaching trip in Vancouver, Washington at SW Washington Medical Center where they have instituted a waterbirth program and have expanded it to include the department of Family Practice Medicine. Three of the doctors who train residents joined us for the day with the intention of incorporating waterbirth into the training of Family Practice residents. So, I have to thank Dr's Cooper, Reid and Liu for their attention, suggestions and entheusiasm. I was greatly inspired and grateful for their participatation.

Overcoming adversity and accepting delays or what appear to be set backs in our lives. That was a topic of conversation on one of my flights today.
My answer to this woman was that we can chose in the moment to be in fear and see whatever it is as an obsticle or we can look at it a divine preparation time. Seeing everything through a heart of love - through G-d's heart - gives us the ability to not only live in the moment, but to accept these challenges as a tool for building compassion. I reminded her that the quickest way to heal a negative situation is to pray for the other person with love in our hearts. As difficult as that might sound it works amazingly quickly.

Do we still get angry or experience hurt or disappointment? Yes. We are only human with human emotions. And with emotions we can change them as quickly as we can change our appearance or hair color. More on that later.
I was returning from a teaching trip in Vancouver, Washington at SW Washington Medical Center where they have instituted a waterbirth program and have expanded it to include the department of Family Practice Medicine. Three of the doctors who train residents joined us for the day with the intention of incorporating waterbirth into the training of Family Practice residents. So, I have to thank Dr's Cooper, Reid and Liu for their attention, suggestions and entheusiasm. I was greatly inspired and grateful for their participatation.

2009 a year of travel and talk

It has been quite the year of travel and presenting workshops in all parts of North America. I sat down and counted my saved boarding passes a few weeks ago and realized that I had sat on 57 separate flights since January. I always look forward to the flights because I never know who I am going to be destined to meet and engage. I call my seat mates "divine appointments." This year I have had interesting appointments, to be sure. The conversation when we are cruising at 35,000 feet usually revolves around childbirth in the US. Most people are completely unaware of the state of maternity care in our country, but always in complete agreement that the birth process and immediate post partum care plays a role in shaping the relationship between mother and baby and future behaviors of the child.

I recall a woman from North Carolina crying in the middle of the night as we flew from San Diego to Charlotte, when she realized the impact that birth could possibly have played in the lives of the kindergarten children she has been teaching for the past 20 plus years. She recounted that she had home births, quite by chance, in the Chicago area in the 1970s with Gregory White. The depth of our conversation struck her on the heart level and that is what led to her tears. We prayed together in the darkened cabin with lightening flashes in the sky as our only illumination. There was also a business man from New York on a flight from Chicago to Atlanta who vowed to let every pregnant woman, and every woman thinking about having a baby, know that they needed to investigate their choices and consider a home birth or waterbirth.
The common thread that binds us all to this message is that people understand immediately that there is a connection between the way we are born and the way we develop in our psyches.

The impact of birthing practices on future health and well being becomes obvious to everyone when having quiet personal conversations.
The travel has taken me back to Oregon from my new home in Ft. Lauderdale, to California, Kansas, Ontario, Canada, North Carolina, Arizona, Illinois, Tennessee, Georgia, Bermuda, Washington, and different parts of Florida.
As the fall conferences begin, I look forward to my "divine appointments" and to meeting the wonderful, genuine women and men in each conference and workshop who desire to change the way we welcome babies into the world.

What We Do in Pregnancy and Birth Matters

What I see is just the covering
The most important is invisible....
From the Little Prince by A. de Saint-Exupéry

This question came in this morning and I decided to make it a separate topic.

"implying that children, and adults, are different than they would have been had their mothers had different "experiences." This seems an extraordinary claim. Have you any proof of this?"

Yes, there are ever increasing volumes of proof scientifically, both retrospective and prospective, as well as observational, that lead scientists, researchers, behavioral psychologists, cellular biologists and neurologists to the same conclusion. WHAT WE DO IN PREGNANCY AND BIRTH MATTERS.......AND affects the way we live life.

I will post a comprehensive bibliography on my website in a few days that will give you the actual scientific references. The research in this area has been going on for almost fifty years.

The mind of the child - what are the influences? What are the memories? Do we make decisions at birth and before that effect our relationship with the world?

Memory before 3 years old is intrinsic - always there, present, taking everything in and storing the memory in the brain for future reference. It is on a cellular level, flavoring and coloring all our responses.

Bruce Lipton, PhD, a medical school professor and author, states in his book, "The Biology of Belief" that humans are not, as was previously believed, victims of our genes, but that the environment and things that go on in our environment, including pregnancy and birth, has a direct effect on our DNA.
He goes on to explain that the activity of cells reacts to the environment, but more specifically, our perception of the environment directly controls the activity of our genes.


Dr. Joe Dispenza, an expert in neuro-biology stated in a recent interview, "There is scientific proof that the mind state of a pregnant mother affects the growth of her baby's brain. Dr. Dispenza elaborated, "A mother who is relaxed and in an environment in which she is able to cope adequately - rather than one that causes her chronic stress - is going to encourage the development of the fetus's forebrain, the area that allows us to reach logical conclusions, control our impulses, and successfully navigate our emotions." Inadequate development of the forebrain has been suggested as a possible explanation for aggressive and anti-social behavior in children, potentially leading to violent behavior, criminal offenses, and higher rates of drug abuse later in life.

Researchers conclude that the mother who is relaxed and free from stress during birth gives birth much more easily, sometimes painlessly and with a totally different attitude. And the baby who is placed on her chest immediately and left there skin to skin for many hours receives a message of love, attention, completeness, welcome and perceives infinite possibilities. Not true for the baby whose mother gives birth in pain, stress, with drugs that the baby also receives, and is immediately separated. A painful or traumatic birth can be overcome with remedial work and an acute awareness of what the baby is trying to communicate after birth.

A stressful, painful birth is not a prescription for psychiatric problems for the rest of ones life, nor is a gentle birth a guarantee that a child will have an easy peaceful life, but.....there is a connection. This connection is virtually ignored by the medical community and is only now being addressed publicly in films, books, and in the press. I'll write more on this topic in future posts. A very good film to watch is, "What Babies Want: A Exploration of the Consciousness of Infants.

Dr. Joe Dispenza, famed neurologist featured in the film, What the Bleep Do We Know, will lead a presentation that addresses the biology of the infant mind at the first Gentle Birth World Congress and Whole Baby Expo, September 27 – 30, 2007, at the Portland, Oregon Convention Center.

ACOG Conference in San Diego

Thank you, everyone, for your comments about the physician that has been present and lurking ready to pounce on everyone and everything about the "natural childbirth movement." There have been multiple suggestions that we bring this person to our Gentle Birth World Congress, but I am not interested in creating that kind of energy. We are, after all, discussing how and why to make birth a more gentle experience for both mother and baby. I really don't think our esteemed guest speakers, most of whom are physicians, want someone defaming them.

I am excited this year to be attending the American College of Obstetricians conference in San Diego, where I will be discussing waterbirth with doctors who actually see the benefits to baby and mother.

I attended last year and felt that our presence had a very big impact on physicians, especially medical students. Out of the 1000+ booths in the exhibit hall, we were one of the very few that were actually discussing birth and birth outcomes...AND we were the ONLY booth showing films of birth. There were doctors that teared up watching waterbirth videos. I signed up for this year's show before the end of last years.

One of the most surprising revelations were the results of an impromptu survey that I took at the booth. One out of three physicians was leaving OB practice for one reason or another - the most prominent reason being huge increases in malpractice premiums. What obstetricians were saying was, "it is just too difficult to rationalize the long hours, low reimbursement - especially medicaid - with such high malpractice insurance premiums." The quote that I heard most was, "I really enjoy sleeping at night."

The sleep that obstetricians are enjoying is from no threats of malpractice as well as being off call.

I was glad I went to ACOG last year - a bit intimidated at all the drug money that puts on this show. Some companies spend as much as $250,000 just for the space rental, not to mention the cost of their display and personnel to run it. I have been exhibiting at birth conferences for twenty years and it all pales in comparison to the vast fortunes that run the show at ACOG and other hospital association shows.

If you are in San Diego the first week of May, come to the Convention Center and look for our little 10X10 booth promoting the Gentle Birth World Congress and showing waterbirth films.

Waterbirth In Iran

This doctor from Tehran, Iran, Ali Akhlaghi, has been promoting waterbirth in his country. A very difficult task in a country that has seen the cesarean section rate rise to over 80% in the past five years.
Have a look at his website even if you don't read Arabic. www.iranwaterbirth.com
In this photo we are in a meeting at a hotel in Istanbul, Turkey. He cannot get into the US and I cannot get into Iran, so Istanbul is a great place to meet and discuss birth. He has even designed his own birth pool that was used in a randomized controlled trial. His scientific paper is waiting to be published.