So tired? Take heart....

CO-SLEEPING FAMILIES WITH A YOUNG BABY TAKE NOTE TAKE HEART:

I ♥ that my sleeping children sleep so soundly, that we can take them to pee and they go straight back to sleep, that I can move them about, push them over for more room and they stay asleep, that they wake up, know we are not far, feel secure and go back to sleep. I also ♥ that they now sleep through the night.

Vaccination Links

WAVE - Vaccine Ingredients

Vaccine Ingredients - Formaldehyde, Aspartame, Mercury, Etc


How To Win the Vaccine Argument Every Single Time |

Vaccines - Jon Rappoport interview of ex vaccine researcher

YouTube - Vaccines - The Risks, The Benefits, The Choices [complete]

YouTube - Vaccine Nation - FULL LENGTH

Arnica | Natural Immunity | Vaccine Information

Just A Little Prick by Peter and Hilary Butler

From one prick to another

Hepatitis B Vaccination for Newborns: Good Intentions, Bad Science, Worse Policy

A Safe Alternative To Vaccines | Homeopathic Immunization | Organic Life Love

Homeopathic Alternatives to Vaccines. Thinktwice!

Homeopathy & Measles

Naturopathy & Measles

Investigators and Families of Vaccine-Injured Children Released Study Revealing Clear Vaccine-Autism Link Based on Government’s Own Data | Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law & Advocacy

Big Profits Linked to Vaccine Mandates

Mmr vaccine should never have been licenced | What Doctors Don't Tell You

$2bn pay-outs say vaccines are not safe | What Doctors Don't Tell You

Rotavirus Vaccine Linked to Bowel Disorder

Forced Vaccinations, Government, and the Public Interest - NHF

Vaccine Mania: The Relationship between Government and Pharmaceutical Companies | Health Impact News

University of California - UC Newsroom | Study debunks autism as primarily genetic disorder

Vaccine-Induced Asthma

Historical facts about the dangers (and failures) of vaccines

The Herd Immunity Theory - Treating Our Children Like Cattle

Why Don’t Children Regress Before They Turn One? by F. Edward Yazbak, MD, FAAP | Vaccination News

uncovering HPV vaccine cover-up - Cervarix and Gardasil

Mumps outbreak spreads among people who got vaccinated against mumps

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality - Institute of Medicine

Extra-immunization as a clinical i... [Public Health Rep. 2011 Jul-Aug] - PubMed - NCBI

Extra-immunization is associated with receiving immunizations from multiple providers and multiple facility types. | GreenMedInfo | Article | Natural Medicine | Alternative Medicine | Integrative Medicine

Vaccine-Induced Allergies

How Can it be About the Money? Immunizations are Free! Right? | VaxTruth.org

SHEDDING

Morbidity / Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)

Vaccinia Virus Infection After Sexual Contact with  Military Smallpox Vaccinee --- WA, 2010

Weekly July 2, 2010 / 59(25);773-775

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5925a2.htm

Toddler survives smallpox vac reaction

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/18/us-smallpox-boy-idUSN1744524120070518

WA | Fri May 18, 2007 11:02am EDT

(Reuters) - A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report

Transmission of mumps virus from mumps-vacd individuals to close contacts

Volume 29, Issue 51, 28 November 2011, Pages 9551-9556

doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.09.100 | How to Cite or Link Using DOI

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11015428

Man Infected With Smallpox-like Virus Through Sex

http://www.livescience.com/27560-smallpox-vaccine-spread-sex.html

Varicella Shedding  Up to Month After Zoster Vac (3-9-11)

http://www.internalmedicinenews.com/news/infectious-diseases/single-article/varicella-shedding-detected-up-to-month-after-zoster-vaccination/8f6b51d39f.html

Detection of fecal shedding of rotavirus vac in infants following their first dose of pentavalent rotavirus (revised 10 March 2011)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X11004567

MMR Vac Merck Package Insert

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Sibling Transmission of Vac-Derived Rotavirus (RotaTeq) Asst With Rotavirus Gastroenteritis (1-25-10)

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/125/2/e438.full

RotaTeq (Rotavirus Vac, Live, Oral, Pentavalent)

Oral Solution

(Recent major changes Shedding and Transmission (5.4) 09/2010 )

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/r/rotateq/rotateq_pi.pdf

Detection of measles virus RNA in urine specimens from vac recipients

( J Clin Microbiol. 1995 September; 33(9): 2485–2488 )

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/

Polio outbreak sparked by vac, experts say ( updated 10/5/2007)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21149823/

Secondary Transmission of Varicella After Vac

http://www.patientsville.com/vaccines/varcel/secondary-transmission-varicella-varivax-2008.htm

FluMist Shedding Studies; sec. 14.5 MedImmune, LLC Package insert (May 2011)“...vac viruses capable of infection & replication can be cultured from nasal secretions obtained from vac recipients (shedding)...from table 6: last day of positive culture: 28

http://www.medimmune.com/pdf/products/flumist_pi.pdf

Breastfeeding May Transmit Vac Virus

http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2011/02/09/Breastfeeding-may-transmit-vaccine-virus/UPI-70341297298870/

(Excerpt): 

http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/2008/02/24/secondary-transmission-%EF%BB%BFthe-short-and-sweet-about-live-virus-vaccine-shedding/comment-page-1/

MMR PG 5

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Flu (FluMist Intranasal) - Shedding (Section 5.4)

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicalBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM123743.pdf

Chicken Pox (Varivax) - Shedding (Section 5.4)

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/v/varivax/varivax_pi.pdf

Shingles (Zostavax} - Shedding (Section 5.2)

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/z/zostavax/zostavax_pi2.pdf

MMR Shedding (Page 5, Under Precaution)

http://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf

Rotavirus (Rotarix)- Shedding (Section 5.4)

https://www.gsksource.com/gskprm/htdocs/documents/ROTARIX-PI-PIL.PDF

Smallpox (ACAM2000) - Shedding (Section 5.4)

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/biologicalBloodVaccines/vaccines/approvedProducts/UCM142572.pdf

http://m.cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/02/27/cid.ciu105 Outbreak of Measles Among Persons With Prior Evidence of Immunity, New York City, 2011

http://www.inquisitr.com/1801210/genotype-baltimore-mmr/ Baltimore infant receives measles like illness after MMR vac, tests positive for measles

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/13/269 Local public health response to vaccine-associated measles: case report

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(89)91274-9/abstract BROTHER-TO-SISTER TRANSMISSION OF MEASLES AFTER MEASLES, MUMPS, AND RUBELLA IMMUNISATION

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264410X01004959?via=ihub Detection of measles vac in the throat of a vacd child

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1525-1470.2005.22208.x/abstract;jsessionid=A42B77961BF45733771A7CA9E3024796.f04t01 Vac-Assoc“Wild-Type” Measles

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm?mobile=nocontent Measles Outbreak among Vacd

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/ Detection of measles virus

Co-Sleeping Articles

ARTICLES SUPPORTING CO-SLEEPING

JAMES J. MCKENNA

1.    Why babies should never sleep alone: A review of the co-sleeping controversy in relation to SIDS, bedsharing and breast feeding James J. McKenna* and Thomas McDade 2005:

2.    Why we never ask ‘is it safe for infants to sleep alone’ Historical Origins of Scientific Bias in bedsharing SIDS/SUDI ‘Debate’ by James McKenna in the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine and News 2001:

3.    In Defence of Maya’s Mother in Contemporary Paediatrics 2000:

4.    Maternal Sleep and Arousals during Bedsharing with Infants in American Sleep Disorders Association and Sleep Research Society 1997:

5.    Infant-Parent Co-Sleeping in an Evolutionary Perspective: Implications for Understanding Infant Sleep development and the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in American Sleep Disorders Association and Sleep Research Society 1993

6.    RESEARCHING THE SUDDEN INFANT DEATH SYNDROME (SIDS) The Role of Ideology in Biomedical Science 1991

7.    Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives: Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone

8. Breastfeeding & Bedsharing Still Useful (and Important) after All These Years

more

      

Natural Child Project

1.    An Oversight of Our Culture

2.    Babies Need Their Mothers Beside Them

3.    Bedsharing Promotes Breastfeeding

4.    Bedtime Story: Co-sleeping Research

5.    The Con of Controlled Crying

6.    Cosleeping

7.    Cosleeping and Biological Imperatives:Why Human Babies Do Not and Should Not Sleep Alone

8.    Cosleeping Around The World

9.    Is It Time to Abolish Cribs?

10.  Is sleeping with my baby safe? Can it reduce the risk of SIDS?

11.  It's None of Their Business

12.  Need vs. Habit

13.  A Rediscovery

14.  Rethinking "Healthy" Infant Sleep

15.  Should My Baby be Sleeping Through the Night?

16.  Statement on sleeping locations and sudden death in infants

17.  Ten Reasons to Sleep Next to Your Child at Night

18.  When Will My Baby Soothe Himself to Sleep?

19.  Why babies should never sleep alone

20.  Why We Never Ask "Is it Safe for Infants to Sleep Alone?"

1. Shouting For Baby
2. Real Men Sleep With Their Kids
3. Bed of Roses
4. Family Bed Safety
5. Where Oh Where Has Our Sex Life Gone
6. Where Should Babies Sleep at Night?: A Review of the Evidence from the CESDI SUDI Study
7. Solitary or Shared Sleep: What's Safe?
8. Sleep Environment Safety Checklist
9. How the Stats Really Stack Up: Cosleeping Is Twice As Safe
10. The Complexity of Parent-Child Cosleeping: Researching Cultural Beliefs
11. The New Zealand Experience: How Smoking Affects SIDS Rates
12. Bedsharing among Maoris: An Indigenous Tradition
13. Rooming-in at the Hospital: Assessing the Practical Considerations
14. Sleeping Like a Baby: How Bedsharing Soothes Infants
15. Not Designed to Sleep Alone
16. Bedsharing Research in Britain
17. The Family Bed: It's Safe and Here's Why
18. Three in a Bed
19. Sleep with Me: A Trans-cultural Look at the Power--and Protection--of Sharing a Bed
20. Sleep, Beautiful, Sleep: You, too, Can Take a Nap
21. Pillow Talk: Helping your Child Get a Good Night's Sleep 

More articles

The Family Bed – Kellymom.com

Co-sleeping as a window into Swedish culture: considerations of gender and health care. – Pubmed.gov

SLEEPING SAFELY WITH YOUR BABY – ASK DR SEARS

Lower your baby's risk of stress disorders, SID and more by Jennifer Cobrun courtesy of The Compleat Mother

Co-Sleeping vs. Crib Fact & SIDS; Statistic Sheet TheBabyBond.com

Relationship between bed sharing and breastfeeding: Longitudinal, population-based analysis

Not just another midwife. Interventions, Intuition and Timing

Another reiki session with my midwife Alison. Today we did it sitting up straddling a chair and  her hands felt freezing on my back.

We also discussed her and my minimum and maximum intervention levels during labour...so now feeling safer more connected and our trust is building YAY!!

I realised last night one of the reasons I felt Maia's birth stalled and events turned the way they did was in part due to having NO trust or connction to the strange woman who were in my home..one of whom could easily have been the 'drive by leafleting' person.  

Ina May Gaskin in her book Guide to Childbirth, states "A woman needs to be emotionally supported, undisturbed by strangers or people that could make her fearful, free to eat and drink as needed, and freedom to move helping baby's descend into the birth canal"  The all important Sphincter Law takes effect here. (A conversation with Ina may Gaskin here)

Last night, I wrote in my birth questions book: -

"If I have no interventions, are you able to know things are ok?  What is your minimum intervention requirement?"

Which led me to question 'what constitutes an intervention?'  For me, my list was :

Internal - I don't want to feel pressurised into having an internal due to the midwife following protocol or not feeling confident.  So unless one was absolutely necessary(vaginal exams - When are they really necessary by Brenda Manning), I would prefer not to, unless of course my curiosity wants to know too!  During Maia's birth, I felt the fear in the midwives who wanted to examine me and felt like I ought to whereas during Ellie's birth, I felt it was a relaxed request for information and even although I would have preferred not to, I was slightly curious myself.

Temperature - A high temperature in labour can be an indicator of infection.  When I went into early labour at 36+5 with Ellie, I dutifully charted my temperature and her heart rate until I was absolutely convinced that I was indeed in labour and she was definitely coming that day!  with Maia, I kind of did it automatically because she was slightly early too (37+4).  It can be a comforting and not so invasive technique in early labour should the need arise and one that can be done by myself.

Baby's Heart Rate - Which would she be using, a machine or a foetal scope? She prefers the machine simply because it is easier and IS less invasive than the scope.  The scope seems like such a cool instrument to me and makes me think of simpler times when machines were not invading labour and taking over.

Positioning - During labour, there can be occasions when a suggestion to move can be intrusive and unnecessary.  My question surrounding this was WHEN would she feel it was appropriate to make a suggestion? 

Palpating - How often would she feel the need to do this? How much could she tell from this?  I am still at a loss to know how the midwives were not aware that Maia had completely turned the day before (my own knowledge of this was pretty shocking too, HOW could I not have realised that was what had happened?)  It took them nearly 12 hours to work this out.

Feeling - I am not sure now whether I was meaning instinctual feeling that there was something amiss or whether i meant gentle feeling rather than full on palpating but as I also wrote,

Looking - How much can she tell just by observing.  I am inclined to think I was wondering about her level of knowledge and intuition.  Obviously not something that can be sufficiently known or answered in one session.

So, these were my thoughts the night before.  

Funnily, I had completely forgotten that Alison was coming today for reiki but I am very pleased because it meant everything was still fresh in my mind.  Serendipitously, Barry was also off work and had taken Maia out so we had peace and quiet to discuss things.  When I told her I had some deep questions, she was quite open to bringing them up, even though it wasn't our midwife appointment, feeling her role as reiki and midwife were interconnected now.  When she heard the questions, she pointed out that this was usually something she discussed at 35weeks (I am nearly 20) but she could tell I wasn't going to rest easy unless we discussed them!!

Alison's basic modus operandi is to arrive and observe for the next 30-40minutes after which she generally finds her base line information in terms of my blood pressure, my temperature, my pulse.  She will palpate me and the baby and check the babies heart rate.  NICE Guidelines state that these interventions monitoring should be done every 15minutes taking a whole minute to listen to the baby's heart rate.  Alison let me know that I had the option to opt out of these at any time and she would state in my notes that it was entirely my decision (she has a statement prepared).  Also, if a woman has had normal blood pressure throughout her pregnancy, the likelihood of there being issues during labour is minimal, although it can happen for example with Placenta Previa.

Even knowing that this is how she proceeds has alleviated a lot of my concerns and she also made it really clear to me that she is able to garner information simply from observing my movements and body language and listening to the noises I make.

During my reiki treatment, I was regaled with one of Alison's own birth story's (it was fresh in her mind, since it is her son's birthday, another timely occurrence) which opened with statistics of her birth attendances she had had to that point.  She said she had 3 years without a CS and 2 and half years without a transfer. 22 Home Births in a row without transfer! The CS rate of her practice is about 10% ( about 50/50 elective vs emergency). She had been an NHS midwife and was taking a break from the system to have a baby and reassess her needs within the establishment.  They basically illustrated to me that there had been very few 'problem' cases and she was fully knowledgeable of normal births, before and after becoming an independent midwife.  It was also so lovely to hear one of her birth story's and how times have changed and how it helped augment her decision to become an independent midwife.

The upshot is, my concerns and questions were listened to and discussed and we are that one step closer to the birth I am hoping this one to be.

Meltdowns - no one is here!!

Losing the Plot - I'm all alone

Breastfeeding - been thinking about the whole newborn feeding again recently 

Emotive Co-Sleeping Campaign

Milwaukee currently has a campaign to deter co-sleeping

Are you as appalled by these clearly emotive pictures and the completely one sided information with NO mention to ANY safe co-sleeping studies or practices?

Not only does it include couch sleeping and other surfaces in their statistics  which are NOT safe co-sleeping places.  There is NO mention to the fact, as has been pointed out by mental health worker Tasha Wiebusch, that "the statistics for SIDs and co-sleeping include a child who is sleeping with intoxicated parents, over tired parents, and, get this, if the child was in the parents bed at anytime during the night whether or not they died in the parents bed or in their crib is counted as SIDs while sleeping with their parents. They also count children who die sleeping on the couch or a chair with parents."

There are plenty of articles out there to promote and ensure that co-sleeping is done as safely as possible, that it is in fact a biological imperative and there are even statistics out there to show that through sleeping next to your child, incidences of raised temperatures can be detected and reduced (A baby's temperature is most stable on his mother - in skin-to-skin care mother's chest automatically warms to warm a cold baby, while her core temperature drops if baby is too warm and needs to be cooled  and mothers skin to skin contact can save lives, sleep apnoea can be deterred and detected sooner by the mothers own breathing regulating the child's, thus saving more lives.

Jim McKenna is one of the nation's leading academic experts on bed sharing. McKenna agrees bed sharing has its dangers. But his research shows there is one thing in particular separating the safe bed sharing parents from the rest. 100 percent of the cases in Milwaukee County -- all the babies were formula fed. McKenna predicted that, saying his research shows breastfeeding vitally affects both sleep patterns and sleep position. Dr. McKenna is so convinced breastfeeding is the key to safe bed sharing, he would never recommend a parent bed share without it.


I find this campaign to be unscrupulous in using fear scaremongering tactics and as a co-sleeping mother to two, nearly three toddlers, I find it disgusting, biased and shameful.


  

Stressed Some?

Its really hard to do a hypnobirthing relaxation cd with 

Ellie spinning in middle of room saying 'daddy marzipan, daddy marzipan, daddy marzipan' 

over and over.  

Its really hard but I'll still try.

its really hard for me to not be a stresshead
pretty much everything stresses me out
and makes my head spin
which makes it really hard for me to parent in a nonstressified way
in a calm manner
in a gentle manner
in a quiet manner
in a patient manner
in a kind manner
in a loving manner
in a manner that makes me feel good about myself
and makes my children feel good about themselves
Its really hard but I keep on trying

Its really hard to know if its working

It's really hard to know if I am working

It often feels like I should try harder

and so I do

Meltdowns - a few  (but not with me)
Losing the Plot - not today  (easier since they were not actually in the house!!)
Breastfeeding - not just now  (but pondering tandem)