Happy [insert commercial occasion here]!

The breastfeeding Madonna and Angel. Correggio.

 

Before I had children, Mothers’ Day was mostly just another of those manufactured occasions in retail world. When I worked the fragrance counters of David Jones and Grace Bros (you young people will know the latter as Myer nowadays which we ex Melbourne people quite enjoy having in the centre of Sydney) Mothers’ Day was a lead up week of packaged specials and desperate young people looking for generously priced cosmetic encounters for their mothers and Fathers’ Day was way bigger in terms of sales. Interesting, no? Now I am a motherless daughter, and a daughterless mother though, and Mothers’ Day has taken on more complex hues.

My mother died in 2002 from lung cancer. My non smoking, healthy, fit mother who probably contracted her cancer from the kind of HRT she was taking after her non emergent hysterectomy to “treat” her menopause, was always given a phone call, sometimes a card, sometimes a present, depending on which city I was living in at the time. When her mother was alive, Mothers’ Day often meant a trip to my grandparents’ house. My sister, whose birthday sometimes coincides with Mothers’ Day, was always considered by our mother to be a great Mothers’ Day present, indeed surely a new babe would be a truly poetic gift for such a day? Perhaps if mum’s birth experience with her hadn’t been a caesar under a general, it may have had more resonance but growing up we didn’t understand the significance of birth.

I was in a new relationship when mum died and I love my (now ex but still present and loved) mother-in-law but back then we weren’t close and I think I remember my then partner ringing his mum from time to time for MD (I can’t keep typing it in full!). My first MD I was in the height of the PTSD, close to the time I was suicidal and I remember every ad on tv feeling like a taunt to someone who grieved not pushing her baby out. My mother-in-law kindly sent me a card because it was my first; she’s lovely like that. I think I took to ringing her for MD around then too since I missed my own mother and she’s always been a bit of a substitute. In some ways we’re closer than I was to my mother, she’s certainly been an amazing support over the last few years even after I separated from her son.

As the years moved on from my first birthing experience, and the PTSD lessened, and I had a baby at home who was born as we both needed, I found MD less painful. I’m still not really a commercialised occasion person but as the kids grew, they were more appreciative of the occasion and that was fun. Then my daughter died, not terribly long before MD in the scheme of things. That first year was a constant sting from the junk mail to the ads on tv, to bus shelter ads, to all the other stuff around me. All the images of happy mothers surrounded by happy children, none of whom appeared to be missing, were like having my heart twisted and stomped on. Like lots of Occasions that year, I just closed my eyes and tried to move through it unconsciously, hoping to go to sleep before it and wake up after it. It was not to be though and ex partner kindly provided gifts, as usual, and the world did its thing and then it was over for another year.

Since then I feel mostly ambivalent. I’ve been grateful in some ways that my mother hasn’t been around to witness the storm over her grandchild’s death because I think after losing a baby herself midpregnancy with little support and acknowledgement that it may have been particularly painful to her. During the inquiry, it was my mother-in-law who came to be with our other children, and who held me as I sobbed on the floor after the first day in court. So many reasons I have to be grateful to her. I know I challenge her in lots of ways but she keeps her heart open to me in all my oddities and outside the mainstream ways and I love her.

Last year on the weekend of MD, I took the children away for a few days so their father could begin to pack and move out of our shared home and relationship after eleven years together. This year I’m wondering if I couldn’t have timed it slightly better so neither of us have that mass media reminder for the rest of our lives of that weekend apart. Sadly, commercialised occasions don’t rate highly in my plans so I obviously missed that it was even happening at that time until it was too late. I had several days by the beach, that weekend, which were really lovely albeit complicated and sad as well. The kids and I watched their new movie several times, took lots of baths in the 25 person spa (well, five, probably but it sure seemed huge!) in our room, went out for meals and tried to work out what to wear to the beach when the sun beats down from a distance as it does in Autumnal Sydney.

At the same time, one of my dearest friends was going through massive trauma as she had not long before left her husband and he was thoughtfully bringing court action against her to punish her for it. That was her MD along with her own mother dementing. Other friends with fertility struggles, sole parenting against great odds, missing their mothers, missing their children, living the reality of the mothering trope in an anti-woman society, are all living with the complexities that MD tips off in many of us. I struggled to achieve my first pregnancy and had two miscarriages and over two years of hard work on it to have my son. I remember the pain of MD then too as I tried to become part of a club I thought existed.

I wonder if we can reframe and reshape Mothers’ Day so it becomes a time of deeper reflection and less about the consumerism that drives these occasions? What about my friends who happen to be lesbians and who parent but are stuck with iniquitous laws denying them the rights others take for granted? Let’s think of those mothers today. Let’s think of those who mother the earth but may never have grown so much as a cell in their wombs. Let’s think of the mothers locked up in immoral gaols in Australia for the crime of wanting to give their children a life without war. Are women in detention centres even aware that we have those occasions? What might they make of it as women behind bars?

So many women I know will be grieving the empty place at MD lunch from a babe who has died. Stillbirth is so common in Australia and yet so denied. Women facing treatment for fertility issues will be feeling the sting of it seeming that everyone else in the world conceives and carries babies to term. Let’s hold the missing and wanted babes and their mothers in our hearts today. Women whose children have been killed or taken are living with that empty place today and such grief, compounded with a lack of that thing poets now call closure, must surely be a living hell. I will hold each of you in my heart and thoughts today too.

Let us think of women whose babes were forcibly taken because they were birthing too young, minus a husband, in a time when women were sluts or wives and the punishments dished accordingly. Let us think of adoptive mothers, biological mothers, mothers raising babies born to other women, the layers of love, complexity, pain and joy involved. Let us think of the generations of mothers whose children were ripped from their arms over the centuries in Australia because racism and genocide go together. Let us think of women accessing reproductive technologies of all kinds, their pain, their heartache, their commitment and the children they bear, and don’t bear, as a result. Let us think of the women experiencing trauma around birth in this moment, the next moment, the previous moment, and beyond. Let us think of women giving birth handcuffed to beds for this is how we treat women in gaols all over the world. Much love to you all.

Since Mothers’ Day falls in what I’m told is Doula Month, and right after International Day of the Midwife, maybe we could also think of it as the day for birthing women? There is, after all, no day devoted to those to whom birth really belongs. This strikes me as sad but indicative of our attitudes to birth which always put those of us who birth right at the bottom of the ladder of importance at such a time. MD also falls in Masturbation Month. I’ll leave that to you to consider.

As I live through another Mothers’ Day this year, the loss of my daughter seems closer than usual given the recent inquiry which is still not over. I’m also more aware than usual that the white plastic box containing her ashes is not complete because parts of her body will be kept forever by the Department of Forensic Medicine. This pains me. My children will probably be with their father that day and I know in his thoughtful way he’ll have considered a gift for me, as I do for him at birthdays, Christmas and Fathers’ Day. He too will be missing his younger daughter as he does every day. I hope that however you spend Sunday 13 May this year that you will have peace and find a place and a way to do the day in a way that speaks to you, whatever that is.

Posted in feminism, parenting, reproductive justice | Tagged | Leave a comment

I am sorry for your loss.

Imagine this: you are being given an opportunity. When a woman tells you her child died, now is your chance to make a difference. A lot of the time, a woman whose child has died is ignored, sometimes shamed, sometimes punished for her loss but now you have a chance to make a difference. All you need to say is, “I am sorry for your loss.”. You don’t need to ask how, why, where her child died, you just need to express the sorrow you can imagine you’d feel if your child died, or a child close to you died, or someone else you love died and you missed them a lot.

She understands you find it confronting that she said her child died. She finds it confronting that her child died too and a lot more so than you who have only to look from the outside in this brief moment. But in this brief moment you can make a difference to that woman’s life by being kind and by acknowledging her loss. You don’t need to say, “Good thing you have other children!” if you think she does because children like snowflakes are unique unto themselves and like your partner wouldn’t be replaced or your loss healed by simply meeting another partner, neither is this woman’s loss healed by the existence now, or in the future, of other children. She lost that child, that irreplaceable being, that drop of water in the ocean of humanity who is never to be seen again.

You don’t need to offer a comparison. No, it is not the same as your experience of loss and that’s ok. It’s a moment about this woman and her dead child, at this time and all you need to do is be present in it with her. For a moment.

You don’t need to say silent because you are scared of saying the “wrong” thing. Authenticity and kindness are never wrong. But if you need a prompt, remember this from me and simply say: I am sorry for your loss. Because it might be the one time she hears that in a day, a week, a month or a year and you will be offering something kind like a little beacon in a world where we offer lip service to grief instead of acknowledging the howling gale of it in our lives and bodies.

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But why beauty, at all?

But why beauty at all?
I see lots of images of women’s bodies with suggestions for reframing the changes that age and childbearing can make to our bodies like stretchmarks described as tiger stripes. Each one suggests that these are beautiful. Sometimes it’s headed ‘real women’ as if there are fake ones among us.

What puzzles me though is why we need to hitch our star to the beauty wagon?

If being looked at and judged is problematic, why simply shift the parameters of looking and judging?

Why do we need to be beautiful? Why take a label that reduces us to what we look like and apply it more widely? Why can’t we do away with needing to be anything and just be? Why can’t we stop worrying about beauty and accept the body we’re in, love the feel of the body next to us whatever the number of limbs or their mobility, revel in the capacity of human bodies to breathe, eat, digest, eliminate and procreate?

Aren’t all those things the real miracles of bodies, not what the outside looks like?

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Some Great Australians also happen to breastfeed, David

Not very discreet. Tsk tsk.

This is not about an opinion. This is about a law which says discrimination against women engaged in feeding little humans is wrong. How can this possibly be so contentious unless maybe, just maybe, it’s really not about that at all?

Can you imagine a week long raging national discussion, including newspaper polls, about fathering and how it is publicly performed? Can you imagine a week of pundits and folk of the broken spell check club (Hint: discrete. It does not mean what you think it means.) tossing around jokes about how much flesh men should reasonably show at public events? If you can’t imagine those then you can be pretty sure that a conversation about “the personal choice” to publicly provide normal nourishment to babies and children isn’t really about breastfeeding at all. It’s about the desire to control women’s performances as political entities in a western culture which is beyond obsessed with how women dispose of their own bodies. Plus there are a lot of people out here with boundary issues.

Western culture is based around the assigning of characteristics to women and men, called gender which is a performance based way of expressing to other people what we think we are, what we want them to think we are and hopefully letting them know what we think they are too. Bluntly, sheilas are sheilas and cobbers are cobbers and ne’er the twain shall meet. We police these boundaries an awful lot, possibly more than other English speaking places like, well, England, for instance.We could hypothesise that this is linked to the inherent instability of living in a (former) colony. In a colony, where the very surrounds of our society are moveable, impenetrable (ha!), dangerous and likely to swallow us up (please look up all those 19th century stories involving Lost Children in the bush.) it can become all the more vital to cling on to what we think we know: the identities we’ve attached to our genitals since those genitals are unlikely to alter despite this rough terrain. I sometimes suspect that we cottoned on to this early and have developed our public discourse into the blood letting sport it has become as a result. I have also watched the pornographying of the world in a remarkably short span of time since the early 90s and how that supports and promotes the belief system that women as public property can be discussed, defined, analysed, carved up and particularly importantly: never. right. no. matter. what.

When I read (reading seems rather too dignified for some of the worst baying and its attendant spelling) (Yes, I have issues with poor spelling and I have the freedom of speech to say so, so shut up.) the bizarre self righteous ramblings of those desperate to preserve something they call “freedom of speech” because a privileged white cobber earning a mere mill per day had his attention drawn to how he is encouraging those who break the law around anti discrimination policies, I find it the same sad, disconnected rambling attached to all the issues of the day. And when it first started, I found myself rather taken aback having only recently reconsidered Kochie in the wake of some fine stuff he wrote about asylum seekers and how poorly they are treated in Australia. You can read it here.

He also wrote this rather sweet piece personalising those who’ve come to Australia to live from other places. Nice. I’m going to borrow a little of it.

Perhaps it would be nice if it read like this:

The reality is that refugees mothers contribute a hell of a lot to our country, both economically and culturally. Not only is accepting them the compassionate thing to do, and the right thing to do. It’s the Australian thing to do. We have a great country built on multiculturalism acceptance of others. Why is everyone scared of a few hundred desperate people women running for their lives breastfeeding?

Let’s stop looking at refugees women as numbers objects. Lets start looking at refugees women as real people.

I so agree, David. Let’s stop looking at people as numbers and see them for who they really are. (Although the numbers around breastfeeding tell their own story about how poorly we support women in that too.) I could tell some utterly stand out stories about the women I know both personally and via community networks who spend many hours of their lives caring for not only their own babes and children but other women and their children too. Just quickly:

milk donors
milk donation facilitators
breastfeeding peer support
communities of women who breastfeed and share support informally
Women who donate milk to babies whose mothers have died or been incapacitated, or who are physically unable at this time to produce milk.
Women who staff, without pay, hotlines offering advice and support for breastfeeding.
Women who run groups like Human Milk 4 Human Babies.
Women who collect and drive milk to and from others at their own expense.
Women who express milk into a cup in the car to make sure a baby won’t go without.
Women who feed babies they didn’t birth to help families in crisis, give a mother a break, provide sustenance to a babe whose mother’s milk producing is compromised.

It is endless.

It is as endless as the stream of milk humanity is capable of providing to our young. And all those things women do for free. Because it’s needed. Because it’s right. And because our society can pay seemingly endless amounts of money to men who play sport (or host day time telly) but we place precisely no value whatsoever on the work of women who support other women. And even less on the feeding of the human infant.

And as boringly ordinary as the capacity of the mammal to produce milk might be, for some reason we still need laws to preserve the right of the human infant to take in sustenance wherever that mother/baby dyad might find themselves. So when someone in a public position, who earns a great deal of money and embodies a great deal of privilege makes comments as ignorant and damaging as those made by Kochie last week, it really really does matter and it really really isn’t just about an opinion. We are all entitled to opinions but we are not entitled to spout damaging nonsense which harms people. It does actual harm to actual people, not numbers, when we try to fashion the lives of others to our own prejudices. And discouraging women from breastfeeding when their baby needs it impacts supply leading to what we hear so often, “I ran out of milk.” We don’t run out of milk – rare physical issues or other crises aside – we fail to support the breastfeeding relationship adequately for it is a 24 hour a day contract and not to be timetabled. Oddly like babies and children.

I would hope that given the capacity of the Koch mind to open beyond the myths around asylum seekers, that the Koch mind would also realise criticising mothering, especially aspects of mothering with legal protection because of this kind of criticism, is of doubtful propriety and apologise. A really actual apology. A real “Jeepers, what was I thinking, I screwed up, I apologise unequivocally, here’s a donation of a day’s pay to the nearest women’s refuge.” kinda apology. Given that earning capacity and continued tv contracts seem to depend upon stirring up the beloved Kontroversy(!!!!) surely to have Kochie say, “Actually we’ve got it all wrong and breastfeeding is just normal.” would score more than the normal knee jerk dull railing about modesty, mummies and muslin. And I would really like to one day see a world where women’s bodies and actions are not considered fodder for entertainment because trying to fit into that iron maiden of classy and discreet laydeedom is like living in the midst of a lot of invisible electric fences. You know they’re there but you never know quite when they’re going to zap you when you think you’re minding your own business, at the pool, seeing that your baby has enough to eat.

Posted in breastfeeding, parenting | Tagged | 11 Comments

Petitioning for our human rights

Tanja Kahl has recently constructed a petition about the human rights abuses in Australian maternity hospitals. I urge you to read and consider signing.

In her own words, this is how the petition came about:

I guess my first birth experience in March 2011 at a private hospital near Melbourne where I was coerced into agreeing to one intervention which led to the typical cascade of interventions and which subsequently ended in a dis-empowering and traumatic forceps delivery which caused me to suffer from PTSD, is not very different to so many other first mums’ birth experience in this country.

I’m not so angry any longer about the way they completely disregarded my choice of a normal physiological birth, how they openly displayed my genitals to a whole congregation of students and doctors alike or how the OB “birth raped” me in the end – what makes me still angry these days is how they took away those precious moments between mum and baby straight after birth which they can never give back to me neither to my first born daughter.

Her sister was very lucky – she was born last year at home in a peaceful environment with the support of two very caring and supportive independent midwives to whom we are forever grateful.

I have written my petition to the Australian Parliament and the Health Minister on behalf of all women in this country who have been abused in one of Australia’s hospital labour wards, on behalf of all women who are going to give birth in Australia and the generations after us who all have a right to choose how, where and with whom they give birth!

Now is the time to unite and hopefully in the wake of the two great documentaries “face of birth” and “freedom for birth” we can get enough public support to bring on change.

You can see and sign the petition here.

Please sign my petition and join me in asking our maternity policy makers to put mums and their babies in front of the profits of large healthcare corporations and the obstetric industry. The extremely high intervention rates in Australia of low-risk births as confirmed by a recent study in NSW supports the need for an independent parliamentary review into maternity care policy. Let us ask the Australian Parliament to reverse the over-medicalisation of birth and to protect the choices and human rights of all women in pregnancy, labour and childbirth!
A maternity care model where women are denied their right to privacy, physical autonomy and informed consent and which encourages very high intervention rates in low-risk births of 85% in private and 65% in public maternity hospitals is clearly not reflecting women-centered, safe and high-quality care as the government states on their maternity health website.
Many new mothers are feeling deeply disappointed, cheated and even violated after they have been processed by the “baby production line” in one of Australia’s hospital labour wards. Research has concluded that 1.5-9% of those new mums are suffering post-traumatic stress as a direct result of the treatment they received during labour and the birth of their babies.
It is my belief that it is every woman’s basic human right to choose where, with whom and how she gives birth!
If we do not speak up now and resign to current government and hospital maternity policy dictating to us how, where and with whom we birth our babies – we, our daughters, granddaughters and generations after them may forever lose our “freedom for birth”.

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Dear Mary

Births, Deaths and Marriages

Sydney, NSW, 2000

Dear Mary,

as per your recent application to register a birth in the state of New South Wales.

I note receipt of your letter dated 26 December ????. Unfortunately BDM is unable to issue your requested certificate until you comply with the following pursuant to the Act in relation to registration of a birth in NSW:

1. ‘A stable’ is not a verifiable address. The alternative provided appears to read ‘under a date palm’ (?) and is likewise unverifiable. At the very least a street name and lot number is required.

2. I note that the father’s name is listed as ‘God’. Under the Act, parents are required to provide both first name and surname. These are usually the same as the husband’s name?

2a. Likewise ‘of Nazareth’ is not considered a suitable surname under NSW law. The alternative names you have provided require verification. A birth certificate plus documents providing evidence of a registered name change, a wedding certificate, current passport and drivers’ license will be sufficient. In answer to your question, we can only issue the certificate in one name so please choose whether it’s to be Mary, Miriam, Maryam or Theotokos. Titles are not usually allowed under the current legislation so we cannot support you in the use of Saint Mary, The Virgin Mary, Mother of God (isn’t he the father of the child? We’re confused.) or any of the alternatives.

3. Possible suitable witnesses to a birth can include registered doctors, midwives or paramedical staff such as ambulance officers. Statutory declarations from royalty arriving post-birth are not acceptable.

3a. Likewise, the statutory declarations signed The Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury, unless they were actually present at the birth, cannot be accepted.

3b. This department does not accept photographic nor painted images as proof of birth. Not even when painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

4. Claims of angels delivering messages to third parties, however fearful, cannot be accepted as proof of pregnancy. A blood test or ultrasound signed and dated by your doctor would be acceptable.

5. Please indicate more clearly the number of siblings. ‘The whole world’ is not recognised by our computer.

I look forward to being of further assistance to you. Merry Christmas.

Posted in homebirth campaign, just for fun | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Morning coffee round up

Crochet motifs by AnnieDesign

For your reading pleasure. I hope you’ll grab a beverage, sit down and spend a little time with me and the other readers. Got something to share that you think others may enjoy? Please feel free to share in the comments!

An unnamed woman has died at Sunshine Hospital during a caesarean. This is the most common way for Australian women to die when birthing. Utter tragedy. I see her family and she are not being named, as is proper for their confidentiality at such a time. I wish the same could have been extended to the only woman recorded as dying after a  homebirth in Victoria. As ever, the double standard means homebirthing families are exposed and vilified and hospital birthing families have their loss covered up and minimised. While it is said to be with the coroner, a surprising fact given how few maternal deaths end up in coronial court from hospitals (100% from homebirths even when those deaths are 15 years apart and not associated with complications), if it progresses to an inquiry, the big questions won’t be asked because they never are. The surgeons will say birth is very dangerous, the coroner will nod, agree and praise them for the hard job they do and another woman’s death will slide under the carpet.

Deepest condolences to this family. I hope the babe and family are being held in love and treated with respect.

Read more.

The pink’n’blue divide is so remarkably powerful and prevalent today. It was not, she says mindful of her age, like this in my youth! We girls even got to play with normal lego which had not morphed into something resembling unicorn poo back then in the late Cretaceous.

Jennifer O’Connell, Mom, And 6-Year-Old Daughter Ask Hasbro About Gender Inequality In ‘Guess Who?’

These days, it seems the front lines in the war on gender bias are manned by little girls. Their weapon of choice? Words.

The latest example of this phenomenon comes from a 6-year-old known as R____ who took a board game to task. As R.’s mother, Irish journalist Jennifer O’Connell, says on her blog, her daughter complained to Hasbro UK about the underrepresentation of women in the game “Guess Who?”. Out of 24 characters in the basic edition, the little girl was disappointed that only five are female.

Read more.

 

Yay! Finally instructions I can follow to increase my fuckability rating! Huzzah for patriarchy!

How To Be A Beautiful Woman

Be thin. Not so thin that you actually might look like you have an eating problem, in which case you will be told to “eat a cheeseburger” or called “bag of bones,” but thin. You should be very slender everywhere except for the essential parts of you which have pleasing, soft curves. Your arms shouldn’t show even the slightest fat deposits, for example, but your bust should be full and butt be high and round. If you don’t have these attributes naturally, you can get implants, but they had better look completely natural — if not, you’re going to be a “fake bitch” with “big fake tits.” And no matter how pronounced these curves are, you cannot have even a single pock of cellulite — that shit is gross.

Read more.

 

People caring for themselves has value? Who knew?! Great to see this in the newspaper!

Power to the people

Psychotherapist and meditation teacher, Paul Bedson agrees it is amazing, but is not altogether surprised. In the 20 years he has worked in integrative medicine, he has seen a dramatic shift in attitude towards the approach. An integrative approach, he explains, that takes into account mainstream medicine, complimentary therapies and lifestyle ‘medicine’ such as exercise, nutrition and ensuring emotional support.

 

“An integrative approach is using the best of what’s available,” he says.

Read more.

Do you love a granny square? Get a load of these!

Read more.

How about a red and purple granny stripe tea cosy?! Does it get better than this?

Read more.

And for those who like something a little more subtle, a ripple blanket in unusual colours.

Read more.

This is so amazing it probably should have a whole wiki devoted to it. Meanwhile, make do with a link to 25 crochet techniques to learn. These are astounding!

Read more.

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Morning coffee round up

Gnome Angel crochet

For your reading pleasure. I hope you’ll grab a beverage, sit down and spend a little time with me and the other readers. Got something to share that you think others may enjoy? Please feel free to share in the comments!

 

Yesterday was a big birthday day in my world! The Artist was 44, Soldier of Fortune’s boy was eight, The Cellist’s baby was three years old, my beautiful solicitor had a birthday and Junipah was one. *mushy heart noises* One year since she was born uneventfully at home and has been fed with donor milk since birth as well as mama’s milk. There’s so much for her and her family to celebrate. So enjoy this completely unremarkable entrance to the world and remember this is normal birth. But it makes the world go round and is the answer to all those questions about where love comes from. Happy birthday, darling Junipah!

Read more.

Can you read the signs? It’s never too late to change models of care and just stay home.

Top Ten Signs Your Doctor Is Planning To Perform an Unnecessary Caesarean Section on You

Read more.

 

Breech birth is one of the main reasons for booked caesarean surgery in Australia. Tomfoolery. Breech is a variation of normal and breech babies come out vaginas like head down babies.

Mechanism of breech

Once more I am compelled to write about Breech.  After the  study proving vaginal breech to be as safe as a section  you’d think the whole world would be back on board.  After all it only took a matter of months after the flawed Hannah trial for almost every Obstetrician to be convincing women that a major operation was safer than a normal birth.  But NO.  In Australia at least it is worse than ever and with the NHMRC guides saying that only “singleton cephatic 37 to 42 weeks with no other complications” should stay home, they could not be trying any harder to stamp out normal, unhindered birth in all it’s variation of normal.

Read more.

 

There’s no such thing as freebirth. Birth is birth. Words of wisdom over at The Little Leaf. Just beautiful!

Read more.

 

Support Brenda Capps – California.

Brenda Capps was arrested Thursday, November 15 and was charged with practicing medicine without a license. Please help us raise funds for her legal battle.

Read more.

 

Another of those lost pieces of knowledge around birth is what Kitzinger called “rest and be thankful”. I’ve heard from so many women that doctors and midwives, hospital and home, become anxious at this point and instead of supporting a woman to have a rest or a sleep, will start suggesting drugs, walks around the block, homeopathics or herbs. How about we trust birth and trust that bodies know what to do?

Read more.

 

Some amazing woolly goodness here! I totally agree that the repetition in this kind of work is delightful and delicious, even a bit d’lovely.

Read more.

 

I have to admit, I have quite the thing for rainbows of wool or cotton. What is it that’s so very incredibly amazingly satisfying about rainbows whatever the colours? Drool. Unrepentant drool.

Read more.

 

Another of those things that gives me immense pleasure and satisfaction is the making of dish cloths or wash cloths. I tend to use old, secondhand or recycled cotton because I think of them as money savers but for gifts it would be very tempting to buy some beautiful white cotton and some red…. Or some blue… or something contrasting… See? I get all carried away! How about you?

Read more.

 

 

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(Very) Thankful Thursday

one sheepish girl Crochet Rainbow Cake

Today is a good day. Today is the birthday of one of my closest friends: The Artist. Interested readers met The Nurse a few months ago, back here, well now it’s The Artist’s turn.

The Artist is just as publicity shy as The Nurse which is funny given the abundance of unwanted publicity in my own life so I shan’t be naming her. She and you will have to make do with the reasons I’m grateful for today.

44 years ago today, a baby girl was born. This is good because it means for three weeks out of every year she’s a year older than me. Who doesn’t love that?

I love her for her socialist politics and outrage over social issues. I love her art work. I love her children.

I love her shoe collection, I love her stylish, eclectic dress sense. I love her boyfriend even though he has the least original name evah.

I love that she is 6 feet tall and people once commented that I look like her daughter when she hugs me since I’m 5 feet short.

I love that she can speak more languages than most people both proficiently and perfectly.

I love that she loves my children and has cared for them with such kindness and generosity.

I love that she introduced me to Japanese beer.

So today I wish The Artist the happiest of birthdays, may the old duck live long and prosper.

 

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Morning coffee round up

For your reading pleasure. I hope you’ll grab a beverage, sit down and spend a little time with me and the other readers. Got something to share that you think others may enjoy? Please feel free to share in the comments!

Could this have to do with our detached parenting? Our leaving babies to cry? Our lack of support for parents to be with their babies since the economy must push on at all costs? It’s a frightening statistic. And mostly girls? Misogyny is showing up in childhood now thanks to the sexualisation of girls and the normalisation of pornography.

Self-harm is occurring for children of all ages

THOUSANDS of children – some younger than nine years old – have been admitted to hospitals around the country after intentionally harming themselves, a new report has found.

More than 4200 children aged between 10 and 14, mostly girls, were admitted to hospital after self-harming in the 10 years to 2007, according to a report into child injuries from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Read more.

Women are equal with men in Australia. Except that one of us is killed a week by our male partner. Isn’t that beyond tragic?

Speaking for abused women

The campaign says one woman is killed every week by a current or former partner.

Read more.

Monbiot argues children are cut off from nature and thus do not learn its value or that it’s worth protecting. What do you think?

Children must experience nature in order to learn it’s worth saving

This, I think, reflects a second environmental crisis: the removal of children from the natural world. The young people we might have expected to lead the defence of nature have less and less to do with it.

Read more.

The death of a woman in Ireland at the hands of the hospital she asked to save her life has provoked outrage, anger and hopefully some soul searching around the world. Could it happen in Australia? Did you know that abortion is still a crime in most states of Australia? Did you?

Would Savita’s plight have been different in Australia?

A young woman goes to an emergency department after being raped. She fears she may be pregnant and asks for an emergency contraceptive pill but is denied one.

She persists and asks for a referral to a rape crisis centre where she can obtain one but is also told no.

Another woman’s foetus dies. She asks to have labour induced for fear that if it remains in her body too long she will develop blood poisoning and die. But the hospital tells her no. It is the only hospital in the woman’s rural town. No one told her that the policy of the Catholic hospital is not to perform sterilisation, abortions or to provide emergency contraceptives.

The cases – recounted to Leslie Cannold from Reproductive Choice Australia – both happened in Australia.

Read more:

Oh my! Tiny explosions of granny square colour all joining together to make a vest? Does it get better than that? Or more doable at home?! What are you making at the moment?

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And in the theme of tiny granny squares, get a load of this!

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If this rainbow granny blanket doesn’t cause you to drool, you should see a doctor. Or perhaps a cranial osteopath. Or a homeopath.

Read more.

Today over at Hoydens, they’re sharing a Moscow flashmob dancing to “Puttin’ on the Ritz”. I’m not sure popular culture gets a lot better than this!

Read more.

Some more music: the first opera written in English thanks to Henry Purcell. This is the recording I grew up hearing and it never fails to bring forth a tear.

Read more.

And one for your bookmarks if you’ve ever heard or managed an outbreak of mansplaining. Balm for the soul.

Read more.

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Informed choice, informed consent

A few weeks ago, at the Childbirth Rights on the Fringe event, I was fortunate enough to meet the very warm and articulate, Bashi Hazard. Among other actions she is working on at present, is a petition she has constructed to be presented to RANZCOG about women’s right to information in pregnancy and birth with which to be making informed decisions about our birthing and babies.

Bashi says:

Women of Australia,

In response to the “horror intervention rates” story published in the SMH a few weeks ago, RANZCOG issued a statement saying that women have never been better informed about their choices in pregnancy and birth.

Do you agree?  Did you know what to expect when you walked into that birthing suite for the first time?  Had your caregiver already discussed the pros and cons of every intervention, including risks, recovery times and impact on you and the baby before hand?

Did your doctor or hospital ever discuss their induction or caesarian rates?  Did you know you would be separated from your baby if you agreed to a caesarian?

It costs nothing and means everything when women are fully informed about their choices in pregnancy and birth.

If you agree, please join me in telling RANZCOG at https://women.good.do

My warmest regards,
Bashi Hazard, solicitor

You can like her work on Facebook.

You can sign the petition @ Informed choice, informed consent – for all the women of Australia

Thanks, Bashi!

Posted in consumers' rights, reproductive justice | Tagged | 1 Comment