Supreme Court ruling opens doors to drug injection clinics across Canada
This is such a tremendous win!
Breast is USUALLY Best: An Open Letter
To health care professionals, lactation consultants, midwives, doulas, birth coaches, public health workers, and all human beings in the world:
I understand and recognize the wonder of breastmilk and the benefits it confers to babies and breastfeeding women. That said, the “breast is best” campaign is a horrible failure. Here’s why.
“Breast is best” denies that there are adequate non-breastfeeding options to the many many women who can’t breastfeed. Maybe they had an emergency C-section and their milk didn’t come in. Maybe they’re on life-saving medication that prevents breastfeeding. Maybe they have painful mastitis or thrush, causing them to cringe whenever their beloved newborn’s maw comes near. Maybe they have to work three jobs to make ends meet. Maybe, like me, they’re an adoptive parent.
“Breast is best” and the people who relentlessly promote it without listening or compassion make these women feel like failures, right out of the parenting gate. When healthcare professionals and even random strangers make women feel like they’re not trying hard enough, like maybe they’re not so invested in motherhood, like maybe they’re willing to sacrifice their newborn’s good health, they’re doing no good at all. No good at all.
“Breast is best” indicates to adoptive parents like me that we can’t possibly give our children what they need. If there’s no alternative to breast, then we’re bad parents from the start.
“Breast is best” arms the general public with self-righteous ammunition they direct at bottle-feeding strangers, spewing judgment and bad feeling all around.
The thing is, though, that we know as an undeniable fact that there’s a hell of a lot more to parenting than feeding. We know undeniably that there are unknown adults walking amongst us who were, themselves, formula fed from birth and who are now healthy, productive adult members of society.
So how about we lay off the “there is one and only one way to do it” rhetoric and start saying that “breast is usually best,” eh? Because when a parent cries when it’s feeding time and comes to resent her baby for the pain, it may well be best for her to formula feed and properly bond, don’t you think? When an adoptive parent bonds with a child without the hormones of birth urging it along, let’s allow him or her to do it the only way they can, okay?
Okay. Thanks for your consideration.
Yours,
Kim Werker, formula-feeding adoptive parent
Animated health-care reform video explains complicated changes to the American system. After watching it, and getting exactly how much the “reform” relies on capitalist theory to work, I’m even more convinced it’s not the right way to go. Oh well.
[via peterwknox]
(Source: healthreform.kff.org)
"Can't Buy Me Love?" How About for Your Parents?
One of the related issues I think could use a lot of ethical (and public) consideration is the consequence of extending life beyond where it would end without extraordinary (or sometimes relatively basic) medicine. Two beloved people in my life, each over 90 years old, would like to die. They’ve lived long and they’ve lived well, and they do not want to continue existing bed-ridden with 24-hour care. Neither is lacking for human nurturing or support. And all I can think about is that if I live to such an age that my frailty and ill health make me hate my life, that I’ll be allowed to have some control over my death.
At the population level, do C-Sections protect from bad outcomes for mom and baby?
Nope. According to the study authors in this month’s issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology who studied 845,651 patients from 401 hospitals in California and Pennsylvania:
“It likely reflects an overuse of medical care and the performance of unnecessary procedures.”
Obstetricians get paid more for C-sections and think doing them protects them from costly lawsuits when things go wrong with natural childbirth. When there’s no difference in outcome, who suffers? Women who undergo surgery. Who gains? Obstetrician’s wallets.
” Jay Parkinson + MD + MPH = a doctor in NYC: C-section rates as a marker for obstetric care quality
Health insurance wasn’t our motivation but it was certainly a consideration when we got hitched in our living room eight years ago.
Reblogged abbyjean:
Al Franken kicks eleventy-million kinds of ass in health-care hearing - Boing Boing
My favourite part isn’t the sarcasm, it’s his point about cherry-picking statistics.
Awesome explanation of healthcare issues - Healthcare Napkins (via @rww)
Until Medical Bills Do Us Part
Some frightening stats and a story to combat the anti-universal health care crazy.
All the President’s Zombies
I, too, am painfully dismayed by the abysmal quality of debate over health care and the economy. I might even say all the hope I’d had has bled out my ear. Sigh.
