Fuel for the Fire!

This article was just as upsetting or maybe even more than the other articles I’ve been posting recently. Chris and I just finished watching “Happy Valley.” For those who haven’t seen it, I’d recommend you do so! Again…let me reiterate. I find it EXTREMELY scary the amount of personal power we give to so many different people and/or things around us. Be it doctors, pills, drugs, food, alcohol….you name it! We’re all looking REALLY hard to find that emotional escape. Or as the Native American’s say we’re all “chasing a good day to die.” If life isn’t going the way we want it….we just pop a pill or eat or drink our feelings away. Or if we really want to have a baby, we’re just so sick of being pregnant it’s ok….we don’t have to wait…we’ll just cut it out!

We COMPLETLEY go agaisnt every part of ourselves that is telling us we can think and act for ourselves. That we can change with the help of true and faithful friends/family. That we can turn our True Source for insight and understanding to forward our need for change and clarity. So…I must ask… Can we all throw down the facade? Can we be honest with each other or more imporantly, ourselves, and make the needed changes to find peace within us? Can we raise our voices to speak our truth and stand up for those things we know bring true happiness? Most importantly, can we turn inward….into our own hearts and seek the courage and strength to ask for help and understanding from our Higher Power and FULLY and COMPLETELY believe that NO MATTER WHAT They are there for us and WANT to BE? I KNOW we can. I have faith in myself, my Higher Power, and HUMANITY!

I was watching a TV show awhile ago (one of the worst shows on birth on cable television I have seen yet) where a woman actually said she was scheduling a C-section for delivery because the “the old ways of having a baby were just too barbaric and we should use the new technology that has been given to us.” I think I’m still in shock that those words actually came out of a pregnant woman’s mouth! Anyway….read and judge your feelings for yourself. I’m so grateful that someone is doing something to bring it to light and expose the fact that things need to change. WHAT A BLESSING! Read on!

Abundant peace to all,

Rachel

Premature births: Utah earns a ‘D’ from March of Dimes study
By Heather May and The Salt Lake Tribune’s news services
Updated: 11/13/2008 08:14:21 AM MST

With almost one in nine Utah babies born too early, the Beehive state is essentially failing when it comes to preventing premature birth, the leading cause of newborn deaths. Utah, like the nation as a whole, earned a D grade from the March of Dimes, which released its first Premature Birth Report Card Wednesday. One cause is women or doctors scheduling deliveries a couple of weeks before the due date without a medical reason. In response, there is a push by Utah doctors to refuse to electively induce labor or perform Cesarean sections unless a woman is one week or less away from her due date. Michael Varner, who helps oversee obstetrics research at the University

(Kristin Schalk, of Tooele, watches Wednesday as her daughter Ashlynn, 3, looks out the Intermountain Medical Center door. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune )

of Utah, has heard the pleas: “They’re 38 1/2 weeks [along] and they’re tired of being pregnant. Their doctor is going out of town. It’s a week before Christmas.” But, he adds, “doctors should just say, ‘No.’ Hospitals should just say, ‘No.’ A spontaneous onset of labor and vaginal delivery is overall the safest.”

Babies born even a couple of weeks early are at risk for respiratory and feeding problems, jaundice, long-term mental disabilities and sudden death, Varner said. A baby’s brain at 35 weeks weighs two-thirds of what it will weigh at a full term of 40 weeks, according to the March

of Dimes. The nonprofit graded each state on its rate of premature births – defined as babies born at less than 37 weeks gestation. Utah’s rate in 2005 was 11.4 percent, compared to the national 2010 goal of 7.6 percent. The U.S. rate was 12.7 percent. Vermont earned the only B grade, the highest mark given. Several states, mostly in the South, got Fs.

(Jessica Anderson, a registered nurse at Intermountain Medical Center, attends to 9-hour-old Jaxon Ottosen in the neonatal intensive care unit. Jaxon was born nearly two months premature, which a March of Dimes report suggests is a growing problem. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune )

“The United States is failing our tiniest and youngest citizens on the very day they are born,” said Amy Hansen, director of the Utah March of Dimes chapter at a news conference in the newborn intensive care unit at Intermountain Medical Center. Utah’s premature birth rate has jumped 24 percent since 1995. Varner said the main reason is the number of babies delivered between 34 and 37 weeks, due to a rise in the number of twin and triplet births and improvements in care that allow doctors to deliver ill babies earlier.

Another reason is the “disturbing” trend of elective inductions or C-sections before 38 weeks, he said. It’s hard to know how often that happens. Counting induced vaginal deliveries and C-sections, about half of Utah’s 52,000 births are scheduled, though some of those are for medical reasons.

Noticing that such late pre-term deliveries lasted longer by several hours and caused more complications, Intermountain Healthcare created a policy a couple of years ago to reduce late-term elective inductions. Before inducing labor, women must be 39 weeks along and their body must be ready to deliver, as measured by a soft and dilated cervix.

In 1999, about 28 percent of all elective deliveries at Intermountain happened before 39 weeks. This summer, it was down to 2.6 percent, and those patients had to get the medical director’s approval. Women shouldn’t schedule their labor as if it’s a haircut, said Janie Wilson, operations director of Intermountain’s Women and Newborn Clinical Program.

A handful of pregnant women at IMC said they had no problem with the guidelines. “You’re asking for more complications. Kids come when they’re ready,” said Wendy Dowdle, who is 36 weeks pregnant. She said her two other children arrived a little more than a week early naturally. Besides reducing late preterm births, there are other ways for women to prevent premature births: stop smoking, attain the right weight before pregnancy, space out pregnancies at least by 18 months and start prenatal visits in the first trimester.