"The world needs troublemakers to stand up for
the issues we all know we need to fight for, but
few of us actually do!"
Jurriaan Kamp


I was just on a month long visit to Copenhagen, Denmark,
where I was born. I had the wonderful privilege of visiting two
different maternity hospitals with two different midwives. I
witnessed several births and was sincerely delighted to see how
mother-infant imprinting and skin to skin contact is initiated
immediately after birth.
I looked around the birthing rooms and asked the midwife where
they washed the babies, noticing that there was no observable
place in the rooms where they might bathe the newborns.
"Oh, we don't wash the babies at all. We just wipe the baby with
a towel as he/she is lying on its mother. When the cord falls off
at home in two or three days, the mother will bathe the child
herself at home.
No tags were placed on the babies that I saw born because
anyone would be hard pressed to take that newborn out of its
mother's arms, where the baby stayed and nursed until the
mother was ready to go home, which was usually after a couple
of hours of recuperation.
The father was always nearby, both helping his wife and
afterwards, enjoying his newborn child...as it should be.
We can do the same thing in America. In fact, we had better
start re-evaluating the importance of the family bond at birth and
making some very needed changes in hospital birthing practices.
How much are American caregivers willing to accept partial
responsibility for the murder and abuse of infants/children at the
hands of their own parents, possibly because of lack of
imprinting/bonding at birth in United States hospitals?
It's a question we need to start asking ourselves!

______________________________

Uva Meiner made the following comment, which touched my
heart and is the essence of true midwifery:
"There are many ways to become a midwife. Do we identify
with the way we came to be a midwife, or with the incredible
honor, responsibility, and blessing to be a midwife. It is the
midwife that counts, who she is and what she expresses in her
work, not so much how she got there. I have met incredible
midwives who don't know how to read or write, and who have a
knowledge and understanding of the procreation process as
vast as the ocean, and others who have studied in famous
institutions for years and know very little, and vice versa. In the
end it will be the families she attends, who can tell us who she
is, by the love and empowering presence she leaves behind."


"If you think you're too small to make a difference, try
going to bed with a mosquito!"
Anita Roddick