Natural birth vs. Caesarean delivery?

I just read an article which claimed that "an influential, expert panel" had decided that Caesarean sections were "not necessarily riskier than natural delivery and may be safer in some ways for the mother and baby in MANY cases"! It excused itself by saying they didn't outright endorse the procedure, but didn't see any reason to discourage all the plethora of women clamoring for C-sections these days. Oh they gave plenty of scientific evidence, saying it shouldn't be done until the baby's lungs were mature enough or on women who wanted more than two or three children. They really catered to women in their 40's, which is the new hip age to have a child late in life, don't you know? But what about the marvelous wonder of natural childbirth, the work towards the goal, the labor to bring that life within you forth, and then the instant bonding, the moment you see and hold the little baby that was nurtured in your womb, a part of you for nine months? There are so many natural birthing clinics now, with professional midwives who are medically up-to-date and really know their stuff, and above all, are compassionate and caring. Even in many hospitals now you can have natural childbirth, with a midwife. And this, mind you, is in contrast to Caesarean section, which requires major aenesthesia, and is a major invasive surgery, which opens up your abdominal cavity, no matter what the antiseptic precautions, to bacteria, and trauma. It exposes delicate organs. Of course a woman should discuss her choice of this procedure with her doctor. But proponents of both sides said they expected the panel's report to encourage more women to request C-sections, more doctors to condone them, and of course more insurance companies to shell out for them. The final blow? "More than 1 million of the 4 million babies born each year in the U.S. are delivered by Caeserean." What a cold, brutal truth. What do YOU think, people?

"Now the truth is out, and I want justice."

Well, God bless you, Gina Jones, the mother of brutally slain teen Martin Lee Anderson; you were determined enough to push to get that second autopsy of your poor son, who was kicked and punched by nine guards AFTER he collapsed while exercising on his very first day at that juvenile boot camp. A very handy surveillance video caught the entire act, and the 14-year-old boy died in a hospital sometime the next day. The Bay County (Tampa, Florida) medical examiner had concluded he died from his sickle cell trait, said to be a "usually benign blood disorder". Well, the boy's mother managed to get Hillsborough County Medical Examiner Vernard Adams to do the exam, and Dr. Michael Baden, the same pathologist who reviewed evidence in the murders of Martin Luther King, Jr. and also on a committee for the same about the assassination of President Kennedy, to observe Martin's second autopsy. Baden afterward said it was "clear" that he "did not die from sickle cell trait or from any other NATURAL causes. " " My opinion is that he died because of what you see in the videotape", Baden said." Hallelujah, amen. Of course, channels must be gone through, they must determine the exact cause of death, examine tissue samples, etc. Hillsborough County State Attorney Mark Ober was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush to investigate the case. Now tell me if that ain't clout? And so we end as we began, with Martin's mother's probably weary statement that she was glad, "Now the truth is out, and I want justice."
Comments?

Massacre in Darfur

Wednesday, March 8, I read in our local paper, on the editorial page, an article by a columnist with the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof by name, who had just spent a very eventful, to say the least, three days along the Chad-Sudan border in Africa. What was going on there? He had a word for it: "genocide". In his words, it was the Sudanese militia sending in armed men on camels and trucks to "invade neighboring" "Chadian villages and use machine guns to mow down farming families, whose only offense is that they belong to the wrong tribes and have black skin." The Chadian peasants fled their villages by the thousands, and the Sudanese militia families, called janjaweed, took over their lands. They burned the Chad villages and lands half the time; Mr. Kristof had been to the Darfur region five previous times, but this was his first time seeing the burning within Chad itself. The janjaweed children kept the stolen cattle while their fathers were "presumably off killing people." He even gave an example of one young man and his wife and 3-month-old baby whose village had been attacked: his wife had been beaten so badly that she was still unconscious. The baby was looked at by the Sudanese raiders, and because he was a male, was shot. Chad's army, too small to be of much use, is apparently waiting for help. The entire region is unsafe for U.N. and international aid workers already there, so many people go hungry. Kristof says that Bush seems to be showing a willingness to help Darfur; Sudan's proxy army of Chadian rebels under the commander called Muhammad Nour are doing their best to invade, and who knows when they'll succeed? The French should be doing something about Chad, since they have a military base there, but they are strangely silent. Bush should really get busy with them, according to Kristof, spotlight the issue, attend a donor conference for Darfur, encourage a NATO bridging force to hold the line for U.N. peacekeepers, enforce a no-fly zone, iniate peace talks..... This is all a bunch of great SHOULDS for Bush, but WILL he, that's the almighty question!!! As Kristof ends his article,"ignoring the brutality in Darfur has only magnified it, and it is shameful to pretend not to notice the terrified villagers" and their children, "wondering when they're going to be massacred." I wonder too. I wonder that this state of affairs should exist at all; but look at where we are in Iraq. WE are invaders, even though there are others; we too are killing, bombing. What can we say about ourselves? It's really amazing that Bush can continue to order our fighting in Iraq, and then turn about and say, Well, now, what can we do about Darfur? Some would say, Well, that's why he's the president. I say, That's why some people, like Bush, just happen to have friends in high places. Mr. Nicholas Kristof, Bush will help Darfur if he thinks it helps his public image, and his political agenda. I invite any of you to drop in and comment.

What ABOUT this?!!!

A friend sent me an article in an email titled "Worker Dead at Desk For Five Days"! In it was told about how bosses of a New York City publishing firm were still wondering why no one had noticed that "one of their employees had been sitting dead at his desk for five days before anyone asked if he was feeling okay"! Seems George Turklebaum, 51, a proofreader employed at the firm for 30 years in an open office he shared with 23 other workers, had had a heart attack on a Monday and simply passed quietly away. An office cleaner asked on Saturday morning why he was working on the weekend, and that was how his death was discovered. Seems poor old George was always the first one in of a morning, the last to leave at night, kept to himself, so no one wondered why he was in the same position for so long. No one wondered! I'D like to know why anyone never noticed the SMELL!? But really, what a height of disinterestedness, and coldness! What does that say about our corporate working conditions? What's really ironic is that George was proofreading manuscripts of medical textbooks when he died. The article had a rather terse and cutting moral to it: "Don't work too hard. Nobody notices anyway." How sad. Any other viewpoints on this?