The Insanity of Economy
The economy has become such a burden to the human condition that women are giving up their babies in order to provide for their older children.
American women.
You’re not removed from this – the third-world practices of “lesser” cultures have surfaced in the Land of Opportunity. It’s here, and it’s now, on our home turf.
A recent Chicago Tribune article highlighted the disastrous results of our atrocious economy and the poor decision-making of our lawmakers (http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/health/chi-women-health-economy-10-mar10,0,1083254.story). They include:
- A couple forced to abort their third pregnancy because they could not afford another child – and the husband is stationed on a military base!
- Planned Parenthood announced a record number of abortions
- The Cradle reported an increase in adoption calls
- The number of pregnant women seeking financial assistance has doubled
As one respondent put it, parents can’t even support themselves, let alone a baby. While our politicians enjoy lavish birthday parties (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/03/09/politics/washingtonpost/main4853643.shtml), go on spa retreats (http://www.nbc4i.com/cmh/news/national/national_govtpolitics/article/are_your_taxes_paying_for_democratic_retreat/12543/), and trips around the world (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/politics/elections/sfl-flgoplondon21sbdec21,0,7883162.story), Americans are struggling to do the single most vital thing to everyone’s existence: give life.
Pro-Choice versus Pro-Life has nothing to do with this. It’s one thing to force a person to give life; quite another to force a person to destroy the life of their child.
Women MUST have access to affordable, quality prenatal care. Children MUST have access to proper health care. The government can no longer ignore the insane disregard for human life.
They take away our homes. They take away our jobs. Now, they’re taking away our babies.
Don’t let this happen to you. If you’re pregnant and fear you can’t afford it, contact MaternityHealth.org for information on how you CAN receive affordable prenatal care and delivery, and even find help with your childcare expenses once your baby is born.
The gift of life is too precious to be destroyed by the economy. Don’t be a victim of others’ poor judgment – make a stand for
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Too Busy For Baby?
I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. The number of pregnant women who take birth education (Lamaze) classes continues to decline (http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=10388432&nav=menu1362_2); despite the fact that an already-convoluted medical system continually becomes more perplexing. This puts the uneducated at a severe disadvantage and opens opportunities for hospitals to push unnecessary expensive procedures in the interest of convenience and profit, while leaving Moms in the Middle vulnerable to predatory medical billing practices. Uninsured pregnant women, who often have no one to audit their medical bills, are especially at risk and can be charged as much as 400% more than insured women for the exact same procedures.
Among the reasons given for the decline are busy schedules and a reliance on books and online searches for childbirth education. If you’re an avid reader, you know that online research is one of my all-time pet peeves: For every reliable source, there’s 100 unreliable sources spewing myths and misinformation that threaten the health of mothers and their babies. Unless you know where to look, or who to trust, birth “education” administered via Google searches and potentially-biased books is not in anyone’s best interest.
Think you know what sources are reliable? I’ll bet one of your first choices is the American Medical Association – and I’ll bet you didn’t know that the AMA has proposed legislation that could potentially criminalize mothers and their midwives for delivering at home – despite the fact that studies consistently find home birth to be just as safe (if not more safe) than hospital births.
Birth education has many benefits for mother and child, including:
Natural pain reduction
More comfortable labor
Natural birthing process
No medication side effects
Accurate childbirth expectations
Support partner training
Empowerment to choose delivery environment and pregnancy outcome
Cost savings through intelligent decision-making
Labor preparation through healthy diet and exercise
Birthing option education, including water birth, home birth, and birthing stools and balls
Baby care education, including early breastfeeding techniques
All of these things contribute toward a happy, healthy baby. The question is not whether you need birth education. The question is: Can you spare a little time to protect your baby’s life?
Could Yahoo! and Others Be Liable For The Proliferation Of False Medical Information?
The proliferation of incorrect medical information not only contributes to poor consumer decisions, it can end in disastrous, even fatal, results. Take a look at this Yahoo! Answers question in which a user asks about the safety of drinking alcohol while taking the antibiotic Bactrim (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071019184623AAsptBu). The “Best Answer” says that as long as there is no label indicating otherwise, it is safe.
But this is not true. Not all drug interactions are listed on labels. This information is often contained within the accompanying literature. The sad thing is that some people are likely to read this answer, pop a Bactrim and go on a drinking binge.
Bad idea, according to the Mayo Clinic: “Drinking any amount of alcohol with [Bactrim] can result in side effects such as flushing, headache, nausea and vomiting, rapid heart rate, and shortness of breath.” (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/antibiotics-and-alcohol/AN01802).
Or how about this example, again from Yahoo! Answers, in which the majority of the respondents declare that it is indeed safe to drink small amounts of alcohol during pregnancy (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aui4gyeWKzLaUhUxWKftZpIjzKIX;_ylv=3?qid=20080803101610AAIgvqr). The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly disagrees: “There is no known amount of alcohol that is safe to drink while pregnant.” (http://www.cdc.gov/Features/AlcoholFreePregnancy/).
No one, especially pregnant women, should take medical advice from anyone who is not a properly trained and qualified expert. Doing so puts your health – and your baby’s life – at severe risk.
I wonder if Yahoo! and similar publishers have considered the potential liabilities associated with publishing incorrect medical information?
COBRA Alternatives for Uninsured Pregnant Women
If your pregnant and recently lost your job due to layoffs, you’ve probably been offered COBRA – an opportunity to continue to receive health insurance benefits provided that you pay for them. And, you’ve probably discovered that COBRA is expensive – extravagantly so.
If you’re eligible for COBRA, the stimulus plan has provisions to subsidize 65% of your premium until December 31, 2009. That means that if your monthly COBRA premium is $1,000, you will actually pay $350 – still a large chunk of change, especially when you’ve recently lost your income.
eHealthInsurance.com has instituted a new COBRA comparison tool (https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ehi/health-insurance/cobra-learning-center.html?allid=Com22130) that allows you input your COBRA premium, find out what your subsidized payment would be if you take COBRA coverage, and then offers alternative individual and family health care plans.
WARNING: Watch what you sign up for. While the eHealthInsurance.com tool seems to offer excellent COBRA alternatives (starting at around $50 per month for a 29 year old woman, depending on location and health history), certain factors can turn appealing offers into nightmares laden with shortcomings.
For example, a plan with a $50 premium might sound good, but when you take a closer look you might find that you have a $10,000 deductible, a 20% co-pay, and that the plan DOES NOT COVER PRENATAL CARE OR HOSPITAL DELIVERY. At the end of the day, such a plan would not offer much of a benefit to pregnant women at all; despite the $300/month premium savings over COBRA.
The bottom line is that comprehensive health insurance policies are not cheap – so don’t be fooled by affordable policies that will come up short when you need them the most.
Maternity Healthcare is in Crisis
The Road to Perdition (HELL)
Ok, I understand my blog is about uninsured and underinsured pregnant moms and their unborn babies but I continually keep getting questions about healthcare, our government, the presidential race and most disturbing question is “Who is best going to take care of us?” I am so tired of hearing this. It is time we stand up and take care of ourselves. I also think it is time that we erect a new statue right next to the Statue of Liberty and it needs to be the Statue of Personal Responsibility. (REALLY)
When I think of the office of the President of the United States; indeed, when I think of my country, I think of big things. I think of a nation born out of a quest for freedom. I think of struggles for liberty that include the deaths of 600,000 Americans in order to end slavery. I think of millions of people, considered refuse in their native lands, coming to this nation for a chance to succeed. I think of billions of dollars sent to other countries partly in a bid to protect them and us from socialism and the totalitarian tendencies inherent in that corrupting ideology. I think of the self-sacrifice of thousands of American lives spent all over the world to safeguard the single most precious inheritance we have – liberty.
That’s why I lament the state of our political discourse today. It makes us so – small. It seems we can’t balance our own checkbooks, take out a loan for a house, handle a credit card, keep our own tires inflated, or keep our kids from stuffing their faces into Type II diabetes without the government holding our hands. Listen to the candidates. All too often, that’s what’s implied.
It doesn’t matter what party we’re talking about, although the party of Obama does seem to be the worst transgressor. Still, Texas’s current Comptroller, Susan Combs, a Republican, when she was Agriculture Commissioner, made it her mission to fight childhood obesity. She still makes noise about it every now and then. I mean, come on, I don’t mind if politicians make a little social commentary on occasion. It helps us learn about them and their judgment. But really, is Susan Combs going to appear at our houses like Santa Claus and tell our kids to get their butts out of the chair, stop playing video games, and get outside?
Both of the presidential candidates make sure to empathize with the plights of Americans struggling to pay their bills in the midst of uncertain economic times. During the Democrats’ convention we got to enjoy the spectacle of Joe Biden figuratively sitting down with us at our kitchen tables poring over our finances. Barack Obama spent time instructing us all how we need to learn foreign languages and properly inflate our tires to save gas.
Obama promises to rescue us from the need to save for retirement or health emergencies. Just about everybody is promising to rescue us from dumb and unaffordable home purchases. And, Lord knows we can’t make our own decisions about what to listen to on talk radio. They promise to make us play fair in that arena too, with the reimposition of the so-called “fairness doctrine” in broadcasting.
This is my question, now that we’re into small things. When will the government step in and make sure toilet paper doesn’t rip? Don’t they know that there are unscrupulous toilet paper producers making cheap, shoddy paper that fails to be both absorbent and tough? Others make cheap stuff that can’t get you clean. And, not all toilet paper is rated for septic systems! Some even has perfume that causes allergic reactions in people.
Now that my government is into small things, besides making sure that each of my children has enough to eat along with 100 percent of the recommended daily allowance of vitamins and minerals, perhaps a federal agency could make sure their underwear is clean. I need a haircut. My cars need oil changes.
All this stuff about a war on terrorists, preventing a lunatic regime from getting nuclear weapons, and helping others to gain their freedom. That’s so not now. People are suffering right here, after all.
This is the kind of thinking that frightens me. It’s the kind of thinking that makes it difficult to afford bridges and roads. It’s the kind of thinking that makes it hard to secure our borders. It’s the kind of thinking that makes us all dependent. It’s the kind of thinking that makes us all slaves.
Change
How To Help The Unwilling
With so many pregnant women fighting to get adequate maternity care for themselves and their unborn children, I’m saddened when I read that a mother has harmed herself or her baby. Smoking and drinking alcohol during pregnancy are incredible problems that tug the heart strings; they make me want to reach out and help the child whose mother has no regard. Illicit drug use from crack baby fame is another atrocity that must be stopped.
These things get a lot of media attention, and we vilify those women who partake in such child-dooming practices. But there are other conditions, below the surface, that are not a direct result of addiction but rather obsession. Perhaps you’ve heard of “pregorexia”, a fad term that has made a condition out of women who refuse to nourish their bodies during pregnancy (http://www.earnedmedia.org/remr0119.htm).
The thought is that media hype of pregnant celebrities makes pregnant women try to stay thin during their own pregnancies. These women eat far less than they should, exercise far too much, gain little weight during pregnancy – which means malnourishment, low birth weight and death for their babies.
The problem is even worse for those who are already thin or who have had eating disorders in the past. Because thin women gain more weight, on average, during pregnancy than women who are already at a healthy weight, they become concerned that they are becoming overweight and work to reduce the natural and healthy affects of pregnancy.
NEWS FLASH: Pregnancy is not supposed to be sexy. You’re supposed to be sexy when you’re not pregnant, so that you can get pregnant. This is the natural order of things. Every woman’s body undergoes changes, and women are very beautiful while they’re pregnant. But trying to remain thin during pregnancy is not only disgusting, it jeopardizes the health and life of your baby.
How do you help a woman have a successful pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby if she is unwilling to try?
This is a conundrum many social researchers have faced. Despite the choice versus life debate, it would be very difficult to force a woman to eat right and take care of a child in the womb through legal means. Psychology can help, but is not fool-proof. Public policy and organizations like Maternity Health and Maternity Advantage can only do so much – no one can force feed another human being.
Education remains the key. If you are experiencing issues with pregnancy weight gain, or know someone who is, Maternity Health can lend expert advice for getting help. And if the celebrity image is contributing to the problem, then perhaps it’s time for celebrities to show some humility, take off the makeup and the compression shirt, and show the world what it is really like to be pregnant.
Be proud of your pregnancy. It is your legacy. Show the world that you care so much about the precious and helpless child inside that you’re willing to sacrifice looks on the outside for a few months. You can always watch your diet and hop back on the treadmill after your new bundle of joy is born.
