Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients: Wrong persons are on trial

Editor:

I would like to see the public better informed on Third Stage of Labor. I have asked my own Provincial Government, now up for re-election...to put in an Moratorium on Immediate Cord Clamping and interference with the child's pulsating lifeline, its umbilical cord. So far, their medical committes have remained silent on the issue by virtue of their Chief Medical Officer and Advisors.

Midwifery is about choices and informed consent. It has been my experience that it is the Doulas and the Midwivery Associations that are approachable for information. The State Licensed Medical Person's medical practices are largely concealed. Getting information from them is difficult to obtain. This is true unless you are part of their group. Also, little communication between non-pros and the medical associations is encouraged. Their Medical Journals do not deal with concerns of medical practices coming to them by any member of the public. There is no Ombudsman of Medical Practices of concern to the public, nor a Medical Bill of Rights requiring informed consent of any practices done in any Countries Hospitals.

Today, any place in North America, we do not have this necessary written informed consent in hospital births. Daily, in licensed institutions, infants are being put to risk by a form of Russian Roulette that deprives the child of prime health. This is when trained doctors and nurses, licensed by the State, are intentionally causing risk of bodily harm to the infants by the use of drugs in third stage of labor, and by doing immediate cord clamping on the infant's lifeline. It is the pulsating umbilical cord that controls the child's circulation system, after birth, for perhaps 7 minutes. This time period may be longer or shorter depending on the size of the infant, or the situation.

The three choices of management of the infant's umbilical pulsating cord that runs the infant's circulation system, but are not discussed with client by licensed doctors and registered nurses are: No clamping and/or cutting at all. This is the Lotus Method, and more information is available by surfing the Internet. Then there is the full-delayed cord clamping and cutting. It is similar to the Lotus Method, except that after the afterbirth, the placenta, is expelled, the infant's umbilical cord is the clamped and cut. The length of time to wait is individual, but there is no rush to take a child off its pulsating cord. Some doctors, who do the third method that I call the criminal assault method of cord management, immediate or 60 second clamping.

Most doctors and nurses work on a time frame and money is more important to them than the optimal health of the child. Each child who had immediate cord clamping will be damaged differently to the degree their circulation system was deprived of both oxygen and fluids. Sadly, the child is compromised the rest of his/her life.

If we deal with the doc ors and nurses doing immediate and too soon cord clamping on human babies, (and this not a practice seen in animal births), we then could have reduced costs in education and medical care. Ideally, their own medical associations would recommend to the government an immediate Moratorium on the practice of quick cord clamping. But they are pretending they need more research. Nonsense, they have known the risks of bodily harm of immediate cord clamping, tying or squeezing of the cord, fluctuating the flow of blood and circulation to the infant since history, and since written documentation of 1801, by Dr. Eramus Darwin.

Many of the unsolved mysteries of learning disabled children, behavior problematic children, and childhood sicknesses that can include diabetics, leukemias and other cancers in children, will most likely disappear, or noticeably be reduced, when we stop the State authorized pro's from continuing to do immediate cord clamping and other interference on a pulsating cord.

When we do away with competition of medical services, like doulas and direct entry midwifery, by not licensing them, so they cannot practice in home births or in a hospital, the choice being the mother's, we do ourselves an injustice.

It is the mavericks who have informed the public on the internet, that the drugs used in third stage labors harm the infant. They have informed the public that the C-sections that have risen to 25% are not safe.

C-sections are a major operation with many risks and the child is most likely to have immediate cord clamping, then the doctor gets it breathing on its own. C-section babies are the most at risk of being slapped around because they look normal, but they are most likely to be brain damaged. The mavericks have told us about the different methods and the best method of umbilical cord management is full-delayed, or better, the Lotus method of cord management.

Those in mainstream medicine have withheld information to the press media of medical risks of harm to infants. That is what I was told by my own local news media, that until the pro's want to deal with this issue, the story of risk of harm on mismanagement of third stage labor, is silenced. And, the mainstream medicine establishments are failing to set the highest and best practice and least risk of harm. The following medical associations numbering in the 100's of thousands involved in silence are: Pediatricians, Obstetricians, and Gynecologists, the American and Canadian Medical Associations, and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Faculties of Medicine at the various Universities, and the Governments, who have the authority over their agents and agencies. They do not listen to The World Health Organization (WHO) does not recommend immediate cord clamping to be in the best interest of the child, nor to do that method as routine on any birth. Some doctors choose the healthiest and biggest baby to do immediate cord clamping on. Why? To keep their cord stem cell blood. Check it out.

It has been my experience that letters to these associations are not answered. Most have remained silent, and the government too. Immediate cord clamping is now done as routine practice, since the opening of cord blood research labs back in the 1980's. What happens to the infant's blood when the circulation is interrupted prematurely? In some cases, over 1 cup (160cc) is deprived of the infant, has been sent to cord blood banks, or said to have been burned, with or without parental consent.

Many of the associations named have members sitting on the private boards of cord blood banks, where the blood donated or paid to keep for the infant, is researched.

Those that have replied to my concerns, like the BC College of Physicians, said, "We have no policy on these issues of drugs used in third stage labor and cannot help trace drugs used back in the 1960's." They also have set no policy or best practice and least risk of bodily harm practice, on the timing of the clamping of the pulsating umbilical cord. I ask why not...?

It is these medical associations and the government who want to control the ethical midwives and doulas, and keep them from providing an alternative service requested by women who fear the medical commercialized institutions as being unsafe. It is mainstream medical care that refuse to give out information of risks of harm to both mother and child. Governments everywhere in North America discourages a parent's written informed consent on birth plans.

When I review the "Midwives on Trial" websites, I think we have the wrong persons on trial. Put on trial, instead, the Ministries of Health, and their so-called mainstream licensed agents and agencies.

I am for written informed consent put into practice by the ethical doulas and midwives.

I urge you to communicate with your government representatives on written informed consent, a right of the client and consumer of medical care.

Donna Young

Box 504

Dawson Creek, BC V1G 4H4 Canada

Phone/fax: 250-782-9223

Email: dyoung@pris.bc.ca

For medical facts that immediate cord clamping on a pulsating cord is harmful see: George Morley, MB., CHB Doula Notes, Cord Closure: Can Hasty Clamping. Injure the Newborn? Report compiled with over 25 medical references July 1998 "OBG Management." More information from the Web Site: http://www.gentlebirth.org/archives/hastyclamping.html