Hospitals: They kill.

As far as homebirthing is concerned, I'm a fan of certain medical technologies used in conjunction with homebirthing...such as ultrasound technologies.

Ultrasounds can detect certain problems or at least shed light on something that could possibly lead to concern. Tests can then be done to ensure that both mother and baby are safe.

It's irresponsible to NOT take your child's health into consideration when choosing your birthing plan. If testing shows a risk to me or my child, I will take my midwife's advice to birth in a hospital.

Birthing belongs in the place where the mother and child will best be served. If neither is showing any signs of NEEDING help, then start off at home. But if something develops in the course of things, by all means, TRANSFER. Medical technologies are there for a reason, and we should use them WHEN NECESSARY.

Even thousands of years ago, C-sections were performed. So to think them completely unneccessary is ignorant in and of itself.

EDUCATION is the key to a healthy pregnancy and birth. And a lot of women forget that.

 

yes, education is the key. and being educated as to the risks of both hospital and home birth and weighing those risks. it's irresponsible to imply there are no risks involved with hospital birth.

 

Right on sister! I couldn't have said it better

Peace & Love

 

well, yeah! I didn't mean to imply there aren't risks to both. I know the score on what each holds. And that in a normal healthy pregnancy, homebirth is just fine. And that hospitals almost always offer more unnecessary and unhealthy interventions than needed.

But I was making my comment in connection with the mini-comments on homebirthing

 

doctors play god. i don't like them at all.

 

EXCELLENT post on the state of American Health Care, HippyFreek!!!! I couldn't have said it better myself. KUDOS!!!!

(Damn, you are gonna be such a good mama!)

 

HippieFreek, I agree with your analysis, mostly. However, the doctors are part of the American Public. Who is it that's over-prescribing those antibiotics? Yeah, there are incentives for them, but it's their CHOICE, for example, to give out antibiotics for VIRUSES as is so often done. You say it's not their fault, then go on to say that we're all dumb for believing people with degrees just because they have them. Doctors have degrees, don't they? Why do we always listen to them, if it's clear that they're in bed with Big Pharm and Big Insurance? Not to say most doctors are bad, but they do make decisions that help themselves sometimes. Like running useless tests, prescribing useless or unneeded medicines for which they'll get kickbacks and bonuses. Whether they're willing or forced (I know lots of docs are under the grip of various insurance laws, for example), nothing is stopping them from suggesting alternative-style treatments. Example: cancer docs, and nurses (my mom is a nurse, btw), often suggest marijuana for pain treatment. They can't distrubute or even actually prescribe it (here in Michigan) but it's legal to suggest it. Given that herbal, homeopathic, and holistic medicine is NOT illegal, why do they never suggest any of that? I'll tell you why: greed for money.

Of course, doctors are just as brainwashed as the general public with regards to how to heal and treat disease, so we do have to understand that. I just don't understand why they think poisoning the body with toxic drugs (with a few good side effects) or cutting out parts of you is always the answer. Drugs and Surgery, that's all they know. They forget (ignore) the fact that the only healing that is done is done by the body. They are only there to help us along, make the conditons right.

 

First of all, it takes over a decade to really learn just the basics of the medical profession. They have to learn most medications, their uses and dosages, not to mention psysiology and biology of the normal human body AND THEN when it's sick. So, for this centuries old profession and education to have a major rehaul NOW is just unlikely. Most doctors are swamped with cases as is, when would they have time to learn the various homeopathic and natural remedies?

Also, I realise doctors are getting kickbacks and such. But it's human nature to be greedy like that. But it's not human nature to NOT TAKE YOUR MEDICAL HISTORY AND THEREFORE EDUCATION INTO YOUR OWN HANDS! When I go to the doctor, and he prescribes a medication, I let him know I don't feel comfortable taking it if I've had it several times before. If he says I have a virus and then tries to prescribe something, I remind him that antibiotics don't hurt viruses and that it's okay for him to tell me to just deal with it. That's why most doctors over-prescribe. Their patients are so busy looking for quick fixes that they just want a pill, no matter. And if they aren't given one, how many just take it for what it is? How many threaten the doctor to sue?

There are so many flaws in the system, but just blaming hospitals and doctors for the problems we ourselves are creating won't get anyone anywhere. If we, as a society, want a change, shouldn't it start with us?

 

yes, definitely. i think that was the whole point of the thread in the first place.

i've been enjoying the debate from the sidelines: carry on.

 

Doctors are trained in hospitals, where everyone is already sick. They don't learn about health, they learn about the absence of symptoms. That's all they are trained for: find a symptom, then try to make it go away, using only the approved "drugs and surgery." They are taught about the body in parts ("heres the digestive system, and over here is the lymphatic system") which they treat almost as disconnected parts. They see you as a sac of symptoms in various mechanical parts, not as a human being (medically speaking; obviously the doctor isn't devoid of humanity in a general sense).

I don't disagree with you that it's up to us to take our health into our own hands; in general I say the same thing about all problems in society: we ourselves have to change (like with pollution, the consumer is the one driving the demand, even for dirty industry; they vote with their wallet). The problem is, that's almost illegal. Herbalists and other alternative practitioners are FORBIDDEN by law to say their treatments cure or heal. So how can the information get out there in a credible way (besides "so and so said this will cure a cold" methods) if it's illegal to say it? Most people assume the "doctor knows best" and don't give it a second thought because opposition/alternatives are banned or at least made to look like quackery. If the doc says "take this medicine" most people do it, because they're sick and want to get well, and often have no idea what they're even taking. They just do it. If the doc won't give them the drugs they see on TV (it should be illegal to advertize direct to the consumer), the patient finds a doc that will.

What I'm basically saying here, is that I agree in the most part with you, but I'm not going to let the doctors off the hook here. Just like I won't let the insurance companies, drug companies, and government off the hook. This is a truly fucked up system all around, every side of it has a major problem in how they view the human body and health/healing. Maybe this new generation will have a more holistic view of health and won't be brainwashed by medical school. Because really the best road to go by would be a combination of modern medicine and alternative medicine.

 

Good doctors, in good hospitals don't do this anymore. Antibiotic resistance is well know, and most doctors are not only aware of it, but prescribe or don't for this. I can't think the last time I was offered an anibiotic for a viral infection. The reason that some doctors still do this, is because their patients INSIST on antibiotics, yes, GOOD doctors say NO to this type of prescribing, but when one works in geriatrics or other specialties where people are really IGNORANT of medicine, and think they know all the answers, practicing medicine is basically impossible. I am SOOOO glad I don't work in Geriatrics, I'd quit. (What I do is not possible in the geriatric population, so luckily, I don't have to deal with people who get most of their medical information from 30 year old issues of Reader's Digest. )

I work in health care, and BTM, your assesment of how medical personal are trained is really off the mark.

No, you can't make medical claims without REAL proof. Otherwise people would be dying horrible deaths being treated with Laetrile and other quack "medicines."
Have the Homeopaths and herbalsits do DOUBLE BLIND studles and submit them to real medical journals, and more doctor will start prescribing them, IF they work, and are reproducable. Many doctors have no problem prescribing Probiotics, chamomile and valerian for sleeplessness, charcol for gas and the runs ect. They just need real PROOF that the remedy works and won't let the patient get worse, waiting for a uesless product to work, (like the story with Laetrile.) Otherwise, we'd be back in the midevel days, when we were bleeding people, because all that medicine relied on was ANECDOTES. An anecdote is not a form of proof.

 

My friend works in geriatrics. She was a midwife for years and delivered her own grandchildren, but in Virginia you had to be a CNM until last year when CPMs were legalized. She is not happy whatsoever in the nursing home (she is an LPN but not an RN). She is going to become a CPM now so she isn't in geriatrics anymore. I don't see how someone who for years and years dealt with birth can handle death very well, as least like that. I explained that badly, sorry.

 

Well, maybe you work in one of those good hospitals. I still hear of this happening far too often. And I will submit that I am overgeneralizing.

Though, what about the hypocratic oath? If those oldsters insist on getting something that won't help them, will cost them money, and puts the whole society at more risk, they should be told to find a new doctor. Because a doc who gives them out is not only hurting the patient, but society at large by contributing to antibiotic resistant bacteria.

What about the placebo effect? I just read of a study with a comparison between two placebos (fake acupuncture and fake pill), the accupuncture worked better. First, why is there an effect at all (why do peoples' skin get irritated without needles? Why do they heal faster than groups who have no treatment?), and second, why is one placebo better than the other? The main idea the researchers have come up with is that the ritual of healing for accupuncture is more elaborate than taking a pill.

Apply this to our highly technical medical system, with it's own rituals (wait an hour in the waiting room, another 15 in the room (while almost naked), blood pressure, eye/ear/throat exam, etc...) and you can maybe see why modern medicine seems so effective. What if it's more the ritual than those poisonous pills they give us? What if, and I know I'm really reaching here, what if we actually HEAL OURSELVES, and what if our mind is part of us and has it's impact? Impossible, right?

Oh, and hey, I'll say it again, it's not just the doctors. Perhaps they're the easiest to attack because that's who we all deal with, but it's the med schools for sticking to outdated "drugs 'n' surgery" dogma, it's the insurance companies for forcing needless tests, the FDA for pushing drugs over natural stuff (you can't honstely believe the FDA isn't in Big Pharm's pocket, right?). Herbals don't profit enough to make the costly FDA tests worth it, they'd never regain what they spend, because any fool can grow the stuff. THAT'S WHY THE "SYSTEM" HAS BEEN SO SET UP IN FAVOR OF DRUGS AND SURGERY! SO WE NEED THEM, SO WE WILL PAY HANDSOMLY FOR IT! If the ignorant masses (that's you and me) ever figured out they could heal themselves, they'd lose millions!

(please note, I realize that I'm ranting, and it's not really directed at you, this stuff just pisses me off.)

 

source source? come on source?
if you actually read the book instead of brainwashed you would note that it explains why it is hard to replicate the experimetns, in fact in the reading it says "it is hard to replicate the results" because a LOT of it is the person whose doing it too and if they are a critic or not...because that emotional state can taint the experiment!

 

In regards to hospitals and doctors:


Sometimes they are the best thing! Some people have genetic defects (mine is called a deformity on my charts - harhahahaha!). And well, without a certain vascular surgeon, a hospital and a wealth of dedicated (and some not so dedicated) nurses, I would have no right leg, maybe not even be alive! I love them, personally! And this defect is almost for sure what killed my Mom at 50, I'm lucky they found it and are treating it aggressively!

And yes, we all need to eat more veggies and less saturated fat, exercise more, lose weight, drink lots of water, but isn't that generally well known? It's in the doing it for many of us.

 

yes, plants have energy, yes, they feel pain, yes there *is* more to the picture than meets the eye.

i think quantum physics plays into this. schrodinger's cat and all of that. the movie 'what the bleep' touches on these concepts too.

there's a still a lot of controversy in these areas. lots of really interesting ideas.

we know that kids with leukemia who do visualizations (one example i've seen is that the child envisions their immune system as an army battling the 'cancer' army, and in the visualization, the immune system army wins every time) have longer and more frequent remissions than kids who dont. there is a lot of mind over matter type medicine that science still hasnt caught up to yet.

we know that therapeutic touch and reiki work. there have been double blind studies done to prove it. people who recieve energy treatments actually heal faster whether they know they're recieving the treatment or not.

but there are people like maggie, who need to see it written in stone first before they will believe that things like that are real. c'est la vie. doesnt mean that the rest of us cant benefit.

i think we all know of people who have benefitted from modern medicine. hell, i'd be blind in my left eye if it wasnt for the surgery i had. the only problem is that it was a really shitty diet/crappy substandard medical care in the first place that caused the health problems i had, and that our disease management system does not promote health. our system is set up to cause dis-ease. our healthcare providers are totally indoctrinated in the 'cut to cure'/magic bullet paradigm. there's another ~way~ that looks beyond temporary bandaid solutions and actually looks at the root of chronic health problems.

ps, we dont need to eat less fat...we need to eat the correct kinds of fats. every cell in our bodies contains fat, we need it to live.

 

I did read the book. I also know how to do a scientific study, and IF the effect is real, it CAN be replicated. By anyone who follows the procdeure the original experimentor used. The emotional state of the person doing the study can "taint" an experiment? Because they are a "critic?" Oh, please. The critics didn't get the same results, because the author of this book LIED and it was well known that he did. When HE was put into a controlled enviroment, HE couldn't get the results he claimed in the book. For most people with intact logic skills this spells either "Liar" or "quack." or both. Again, Plants don't scream when you cut them. It's been proven. (FTR, I am not "brainwashed." I actually use my logic skills to question. )

BTM, as for acupuncture, some of it actually has been proven to work, and reproducibly, in many studies, for certain conditions. That isn't the same as Laetrile or thinking plants are talking to you. Yes, in some people, in some situations, placebos do work, but, only for a small percentage of the population, in certain "diseases" (oddly, people who think they have "parasites" ect are really suseptible to placebos and for just about anything which they think is wrong with them) but, in many cases, neither placebos, nor certain drugs actually work in many people. I have migraines, Triptans work for MANY migraine sufferers, at a higher rate than Placebos (in about 30 studies) but they don't work for my migrines, what works for me is a different drug, which outweighs any accupuncture, chiro, herb ect. Many illnesses are complicated, IF placebos worked for ALL people, ALL the time, there would never be any reason for medicine to continue to be researched, we would have had ALL the answers in 3000 BC, when people, despte herbs, died of illnesses which are completely curable or treatable now, like, say an infected tooth, or diabetes, or thyroid problems. These USED to kill people, despite "treatments" IF placebos worked for everything, then ALL these people would have been cured, we never would have needed the invention of antibiotics, or injectable insulin, or Thyroxine.

The fact that in MOST people, MOST of the time, neither "natural" cures or placebos work, is the reason we HAVE modern medicine. It was being researched, and real cures being found, for CENTURIES before there was any money in it. Many real healers are like that.

 

Actually, insurance companies would like as few tests and medicines as thy can get away with. They don't want to pay for them, even if they are neccesary.

 

I don't understand what this is supposed to mean. The temperature and locale at which plants talk to you, maybe?

 

do you have a double blind study to prove that?

my reading suggests the opposite, that 'back in the day' people didnt get tooth infections or diabetes or thyroid problems. but i guess i'm looking back a bit further than you are, to about 11000 years ago before the agricultural revolution. when people died back then, it was because of the dangers of their lifestyle (which modern medicine could actually help, i think emergency medicine is just fine. if i ever get attacked by a saber toothed tiger, send me to the emerg! LOL), not because of the degenerative diseases of aging that you're talking about.

ps, the things you mentioned kill people today. we know that root canalled teeth contain pathogens that are linked to heart disease. yes, root canals/tooth infections can kill people. people die from diabetes every day--diabetes caused by an artifact food filled diet suggested to us by our doctors (the food pyramid is ludicrous and is a major contributing cause of so many kids being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes today. well, that and junk food)