Hippie Stuff (Part 1)

Heathen called me a hippie the other night. She said she was surprised that I shaved my legs with all the stuff that I believe in. (P.S. the spelling was not a mistake little roommate)
You see, there have been a couple things on my mind lately. Most of you know that I intend to go to the MCU for grad school and become a midwife. Some of you have not been keeping up on current events and might be thinking, "A midwife? Like in pioneer days?" My little friends, midwives are not dead. Nor are they backwards, backwoods old grannies who have little or no medical knowledge. Midwives have been around for centuries. They have helped women through childbirth when there were no hospitals to go to (by the way, women only started to go to hospitals to have babies around the 1930's). Midwives are regaining popularity and many women are choosing a more natural route as they bring their little ones into the world.
So there are a few things related to natural birth and parenting that have been on the news and have been on my mind.

1. Breastfeeding
My mother has been involved with La Leche League, her two best friends are leaders, and she has breasfed each of us to past two years old. Some of us to three, four, and five. This is a new idea for some. It takes some getting used to. I am not trying to convert you to my ways of thought or belief. However, I have a very large problem with those people who choose to tell a nursing mother that she is disgusting and should only breastfeed in the bathroom. (Excuse me? You go eat in the bathroom! Gross!) I have a problem with Facebook, which has chosen to delete photos and cancel the accounts of proud breastfeeding mothers on the grounds that a picture of a nursing child is obscene, perverse, and pornographic.

2. Home birth
The AMA (American Medical Association) has put forth a statement proclaiming that “the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers" (find this here)
I am not okay with this. It is a woman's right to have her child wherever she may please. I certainly believe that hospitals are a wonderful place, and that any birth with complications needs to be there. But don't try to take away my right to a home birth. I love this statement by Laura Shanely: "I felt like I'd touched the eternal, when you look back at your baby and your hands are the first to touch her." I got the chills when I heard her say this here (not the greatest video, but what do you expect from ABC? I reccommend The Business of Being Born for a btter outlook). Haven't you touched the eternal? Because that first time, your child is eternal. There is nothing more holy, sacred, or so close to heaven than a baby that has just been born.

Okay, this has turned into a super long post, so I will continue some other time.