Articles by Shelley Campbell

Dialogue on Birth and Death

I spotted Maddy sitting in a booth facing away from me in the Italian restaurant where we had agreed to meet for dinner. Her gray, no-nonsense bob and the straight-up way she held her head as she waited fit the impression I had already formed: down-to-earth. I slid into the booth and looked up to meet her eyes across the red checked table cloth. My career with infants and birthing women led me to want more information about her newly-formed foundation. Striking a deeper note we were both mothers who had lost grown children although in very different circumstances. I knew we would have an unspoken understanding which would put formalities aside.

I had seen Maddy speak two weeks previously to several hundred individuals interested in creating reform in how babies are birthed in the mainstream medical community of contemporary America. Her poignant story, which she had told simply and with direct dignity that night to a quiet crowd, had opened our hearts to the human story behind the statistics and wealth of medical information that would consume the balance of the evening.   Maddy's daughter, Tatia, and her unborn granddaughter, Zorah had died in childbirth. Tatia had been 32 years old and her pregnancy one of blooming wellness. At less that 2 weeks overdue (per her doctor's calculations) he recommended labor be induced. He used a drug called cytotec originally created to treat ulcerous stomachs, which someone accidentally discovered worked for this purpose. Although commonly used, the known side effects are potentially dangerous. The human story and the statistics collided, as Tatia experienced hyper-stimulation of the uterus causing it to convulse and then tear. An emergency Cesarean could not save her and she and her unborn daughter died in the operating room. Maddy also had two sons, other grandchildren, but the mother to daughter to granddaughter matrilineal line lay forever ruptured.

After we ordered our pasta I told Maddy of my own son's accidental death at age 29. We shared the arc of grief we had traversed and how the devastation of a broken heart like a deep indigo dye leaks out to stain every corner of daily life.  "I put the salt and pepper in the refrigerator and the milk in the cupboard," Maddy said, describing the disorientation I also remembered well.  "I kept breathing and one breath led to the next and somehow time passed." I added.  As the months turned into years a surprising new certainty emerged for each of us. The only medicine that seemed to have traction was to turn personal tragedy into some small good for others. Our mutual goal of stimulating change in a long-complacent medical community had drawn our paths together. We shared a vision of a future with a new sensitivity to the gift of life and to the life-givers, mothers. We were eager to begin sharing information.

"Your story unfortunately is not unique, I was shocked to discover that according to the World Health Organization the United States is ranked 20th in the world in terms of maternal death," I said. "And we are the richest nation on the earth! How does that happen?"  "Did you know there has not been an improvement in that statistic since 1982?" Maddy asked.  "That sounds like about the time the business side of practicing medicine started getting complicated. Gigantic impersonal health insurance companies calling the shots about coverage, growing fears on the part of physician's about malpractice, HMO's started to take over: those cattle call waiting rooms, no individual attention, and a different doctor each visit, no idea who will deliver the baby," I said.

I knew from my own birth doula clients, the choices seem to get narrower each year. I've had couples locked into health insurance which didn't allow any alternatives; they had to deliver in a predesignated huge hospital governed by archaic rules. It was absurd how everyone pretended that by adding a few homey decorative touches to the Labor and Delivery Floor it created a significant difference in the atmosphere. As if throwing an Early American braid rug on the floor somehow transforms these unwieldy institutions into a welcoming and safe haven for the intimate and vulnerable passage of childbirth. I had become increasingly cynical over time and sadly began to suspect financial profit was the number one motivation for all health care providers.

Maddy shared with me the wealth of information which now came easily to her."The United States rates poorly among industrialized countries using all the standard criteria," she said. "Maternal death is still fully investigated in England by a government agency dedicated to this purpose. In the U.S. they go radically underreported, many details are tailored to protect against lawsuit and no one reviews them to find out why it happened. The statistics on infant mortality aren't much better. Newborns are more likely to die in the U.S. than in almost any other industrialized nation." she said.  "I think the problem is twofold," I said. "It is the business and administrative mess on the one hand and the way medicine in being practiced on the other."I didn't know how to create change in the business models, I told her, my focus was making the case for bringing Mind-Body Medicine into obstetrics.

"My perspective is that the presuppositions and philosophical orientations of obstetrical care have not changed significantly in 150 years", I explained. Nineteenth and early twentieth century medicine with its roots in the industrial revolution still looked at the body as a sophisticated machine. In the late twentieth century science was forced to acknowledge what a profound impact consciousness (the mind, thoughts and emotions) has on the body and upon health. That was the birth of Mind-Body Medicine. Now it is commonplace to hear of hypnosis, yoga and meditation being used to supplement the treatments of individuals with cancer, Aids, chronic pain and a multiplicity of other serious complaints. "Obstetrics seems stuck in the old body as machine model with drugs and surgery as the only tools available," I continued. "Why isn't anyone connecting the dots and seeing the relevance of Mind-Body Medicine to the birthing world?"

I told Maddy I think the subtle interplay between body, mind and spirit could not be more pronounced than during childbirth. This is where the revolution will be sparked---getting Mind-Body Medicine into obstetrics and then making the leap to include the spiritual dimension of Eternity Medicine, the next evolutionary step as described by Larry Dossey MD in this bestsellers, Healing Words and Prayer Is Good Medicine. If birth isn't a spiritual event I don't know what is.

"I don't know, what do you think?" I asked. "Why is it so hard to ignite new thinking?"  "There will be changes", Maddy said, her voice full of challenge, "that's why we all need to stand up and be counted."  "If you stand back and look at the enormity of the medical institutions in this country, rolling down the track, talk about David and Goliath. Are we just fools?" I asked. "You know, two middle aged women, neither in positions of power or influence, taking on the medical establishment over pasta?"  Maddy's voice became quiet as if telling a secret, ".. the deaths of our kids." she hesitated, "I couldn't look at it at first but I understand now, there are no accidents, not really. It was meant to be this way. Because of that, who knows what is possible? The sky is the limit if you ask me."

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