Link Update to Safe Baby Resolution on the Hawaii State page

As of today, July 21, 2015, the link to the Safe Baby Resolution is

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2007/bills/SCR8_.htm

Sometimes links are changed so that if that link does not work, go to Senate Concurrent Resolutions Introduced and scroll down to find SCR8.  This can be accessed via http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/archives/2007.aspx

SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH BRANCH, TO STUDY THE ROLE OF GESTATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS, GENTLE BIRTHING PRACTICES, ADULT WELLNESS EDUCATION, DOMESTIC HARMONY AWARENESS, APPROPRIATE AND SUFFICIENT TOUCH, AND THE PRACTICE OF HEALING BIRTH TRAUMA, AND THEIR CONNECTION TO PUBLIC POLICY CONCERNS SUCH AS SUBSTANCE ABUSE, ALCOHOLISM, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND OBESITY.

     WHEREAS, in memory of Hawaii residents Daysha Aiona Aka and Sarah Marie Faye whose passions for life were cut short as victims of domestic violence, the Legislature shares in the public outcry regarding the need to educate, collaborate, and develop strategies to address domestic violence; and

     WHEREAS, the Legislature finds that societal issues such as domestic violence, substance and alcohol abuse, and obesity, involve important public policy concerns that require study and deliberation in order to identify strategies to reduce their prevalence in Hawaii; and

     WHEREAS, it has been recognized that wellness education teaches healthy development and peaceful coexistence of family members and thus decreases incidences of substance abuse, alcoholism, and domestic violence; and

     WHEREAS, recent scientific findings in a variety of disciplines have contributed to an emerging understanding of the primal developmental needs of individuals from conception through early infancy; and

     WHEREAS, it is relatively well-known and accepted that the health and well-being of an unborn child is linked to the health and well-being of the mother; and

     WHEREAS, it has been suggested that the experience of birth imprints the basic personality of a child; and

     WHEREAS, it has been asserted that domestic abuse and turmoil during the prenatal period, labor, birth, or in a newborn child's domestic environment can negatively impact the child's development; and

     WHEREAS, science suggests that appropriate and sufficient touch and human contact between an infant child and the child's caregivers is integral to a child's healthy development; and

     WHEREAS, the right of a woman to choose the course of a pregnancy also extends the right of a woman to choose where she will labor and to give birth with qualified caregivers of her choice; and

     WHEREAS, it has been suggested that the increased incidence of inducement and narcotic use during labor, as well as the increase in surgical births, are related to an increase in pre-term births and long-term health conditions, including a greater propensity to over use drugs throughout life, thereby indicating a need for consistent science-based protocols and policies in this field; and

     WHEREAS, the Legislature recognizes the positive impact of trained birthing professionals and, in particular, birth doulas, who are trained and experienced childbirth professionals who provide continuous physical, emotional, and informational support to the mother before, during, and just after childbirth; and

     WHEREAS, the Legislature acknowledges that a growing body of science from diverse fields supports further study of the roles of gestational environments, gentle birthing practices, adult wellness education, domestic harmony awareness, appropriate and sufficient touch, and the practice of healing birth trauma, and the impact these practices may have on reducing the occurrence of substance abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, and obesity; now, therefore,

     BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-fourth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2007, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Department of Health, Maternal and Child Health Branch, is requested to study the roles of gestational environments, gentle birthing practices, adult wellness education, domestic harmony awareness, appropriate and sufficient touch, and the practice of healing birth trauma, and the impact these practices may have on reducing the occurrence of substance abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, and obesity; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Health, Maternal and Child Health Branch, is requested to report its findings and recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2008; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Governor, the Director of Health, and the Chief of the Maternal and Child Health Branch.

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________

What happened to this bill?  It was stopped by then director, Dr. Barrett MD, of the Maternal Child and Health Branch of the  Family Health Services Division because the study was estimated to cost $200,000.  This stopped the resolution from being offered to the Senate and from going to the Hawaii House. Representative Josh Green, MD supported it. 

Hawaii State Legislature

Bill Status

SCR8 

Generated on 8/13/2007 4:25:15 PM

Measure Title:

REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH BRANCH, TO STUDY THE ROLE OF GESTATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS, GENTLE BIRTHING PRACTICES, ADULT WELLNESS EDUCATION, DOMESTIC HARMONY AWARENESS, APPROPRIATE AND SUFFICIENT TOUCH, AND THE PRACTICE OF HEALING BIRTH TRAUMA, AND THEIR CONNECTION TO PUBLIC POLICY CONCERNS SUCH AS SUBSTANCE ABUSE, ALCOHOLISM, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, AND OBESITY.

Report Title:

Maternal and child health; impact of certain practices on substance abuse, alcoholism, domestic violence, and obesity. 

Description:

Package:

None

Companion:

Introducers:

CHUN OAKLAND (BR)

Current Referral:

HTH

Date		Status Text
1/24/2007	S	Offered.
2/9/2007	S	Referred to HTH.
3/23/2007	S	The committee(s) on HTH has scheduled a public hearing on 03-28-07 at 2:00 pm in conference room 016.
3/28/2007	S	The committee(s) on HTH deferred the measure until 03-30-07 at 1:15 pm in conference room 016.
3/30/2007	S	The committee on HTH deferred the measure.

The Safe Baby Resolution

This is draft was co-written and co-sculpted by Janel Martin-Mirendah of Missouri and Star Newland of Hawaii and presented to the proposers of the resolution. It holds the bigger picture of what the Safe Baby Resolution proposes to create. It has been submitted to the offices of Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland and Representative Josh Green, MD. The resolution introduced in the 2007 will likely be a negotiated and modified version.

THE SAFE BABY RESOLUTION
WORKING DRAFT – 10-06

REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH BRANCH, TO STUDY THE ROLES OF GESTATIONAL ENVIRONMENTS, GENTLE BIRTHING PRACTICES, WELLNESS EDUCATION PROGRAMS, DOMESTIC HARMONY AWARENESS, APPROPRIATE AND SUFFICIENT TOUCH, AND THE SCIENCE OF HEALING BIRTH TRAUMA, AND THEIR CONNECTION TO PUBLIC POLICY CONCERNS THAT INCLUDE SUBSTANCE ABUSE, ALCOHOLISM, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND OBESITY.

WHEREAS, in memory of Puna, Hawaii resident, Sarah Marie Faye, whose life, beauty, intelligence and passion were cut short as a victim of domestic violence, and whose yet to be born child was saved through heroic medical intervention, and for whom the Legislature shares in the public outcry for the need to educate, collaborate, and develop strategies for addressing the issue of domestic violence, especially against our expectant mothers, and

WHEREAS, the Legislature finds that deliberation of societal issues such as abuse of controlled substances, alcoholism and domestic violence and obesity are of serious public concern; and

WHEREAS, it is relatively well-known that wellness education improves responses to stress, which leads to the more healthy development and harmonious co-existence of family members; and

WHEREAS, it has been well-known and accepted that the health and well-being of a pregnant woman is linked to the health and well-being of her yet to be born child; and

WHEREAS, recently scientific findings in a variety of disciplines have converged into an emerging new understanding of the primal, developmental needs of the human being from conception through early infancy;

WHEREAS, it has been asserted that domestic harmony and caring during the prenatal period, birth, and in a newborn baby's domestic environment may lead to a propensity for that child to perpetuate domestic harmony in the future; and;

WHEREAS, it has been suggested that the environment and practices employed in the birth experience imprints the basic personality of the newborn child; and

WHEREAS, it has been suggested that appropriate and sufficient touch and human contact between an infant child and its caregivers is integral to that child's development; and

WHEREAS, the Legislature recognizes that women have the right to choose to continue a pregnancy, the Legislature now recognizes that women have a right to their body during the birth,
including to be responsible for how they gestate their baby, and where and with whom they birth;

WHEREAS, the Legislature further recognizes the differences in the practice of obstetric medical care noting a rising incidence of surgical birth is correlated with increasing pre-term births and other long-term health conditions; and

WHEREAS, the Legislature recognizes the positive impact of the trained birth coaching professional, and in particular, the profession of "Doula", defined as a person trained and experienced in childbirth assistance, providing continuous physical, emotional and informational support to the mother before, during and soon after childbirth; and

WHEREAS, current scientific findings in brain research, cellular and neurobiology, physics, pre- and peri-natal psychology, and more, provide a foundation for theory, practice, and research of new technologies and techniques that exist to treat the impact of traumatic and violent physical and emotional issues during conception, gestation, and birth which are now known to contribute to drug addiction, violence, physical and emotional dysfunctions, including obesity; and now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-fifth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2007, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Department of Health, Maternal and Child Health Branch, is requested to study the roles of gestational environments, gentle birthing practices, wellness training and education, domestic harmony awareness, and appropriate and sufficient touch, and their connection to reduction of the abuse of controlled substances, alcoholism and domestic violence, and health issues such as obesity; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Department of Health, Maternal and Child Health Branch, is requested to report its findings and recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to the Legislature prior to twenty days before the convening of the Regular Session of 2008; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a certified copy of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Office of the Governor.

Update

This blog has not been updated recently because I have been consumed with my new project, a film for fathers called The Other Side of the Glass.

It is a film about the baby during birth and calls for us to see the full impact of birth on the human baby. It is about creating safety by embracing that the baby is a fully aware and sentient being who is experiencing birth, and recognizing that the baby's brain is imprinting the birth experience so that even though it is not remembered consciously, it is remembered in the brain and is expressed emotionally and behaviorally for life.

The film calls upon society to support women and men in birthing their baby in the safest way possible where ever birth is, and with whomever. It demands that we expect doctors, nurses, and midwives to release control of birth to the mother and father, and to work in partnership with them, and to treat our babies with conscious, respectful, and gentle care. Fathers will learn the information they need to demand that he and his partner are equal partners with the birthing team. He will become the rightful protector of his family on the most important day of their baby's life.

The film is a one-woman, self-funded project for the most part; however, I do appreciate camera assistance from my daughter, Mariah, and my fellow video production buddy, Brenden Caughwell, along with his keen mind that challenges me. And, I appreciate my colleagues from BEPE.info (Birth and Early Parenting Educators in Nevada City, CA) who supported me in multiple ways -- housing, equipment, and now we near getting the editing software. Meanwhile, I am using the Community Access Television editing lab and I appreciate it but the time limited to only certain hours a day. I appreciate beyond words their support as well as the support of my friend, Rich Winkle, who bought a new MAC for me to use as long as I need it. He said, "This film has to be made." I proudly share his writing here. I appreciate my friends and relatives in CA, AZ, and MO (Uncle Worth, Cousin Deloris, the Mekahil's, Mom and Dad, my producer Audra Kelly-Collier and her family, the Remingtons and their Peace Haven, and Paula Green) who have shared their homes with me during my travels. I am forever grateful as the journey is just unfolding and I head back to California.

BEBE Coordinator, Donna Chamberalain and I have interviewed many of the BEPE members and in February we started a production team with the Nevada City, CA Community Access Television station. We plan to be completing many projects sharing multiple aspects of the birthing baby and family. Some of these will soon be featured in MEMBERS CIRCLE section on the website of the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health, http://www.birthpsychology.com/ hosted by yours truly.

Soon ... very soon ... I will be posting a fundraising trailer for the film here as well as excerpts from interviewees.

I have interviewed the following physicians:

Sarah Buckley, MD, http://www.sarahjbuckley.com/,
Michel Odent, MD from France/UK, author of several books and his site is http://www.wombecology.com/,
Gladys McGarey, MD in Arizona, http://www.mcgareyfoundation.org/,
George M. Morley, MD, http://www.cordclamp.com/ in Michigan.

I am very excited about my most recent interview with Ralph Boling, DO, an obstetrician in Kirksville, MO who is seeking to engage the local homebirthing community with the hospital as the hospital renovates the labor and delivery floor. Dr. Boling is seeking to build partnerships with the local women and homebirth community to provide a supportive environment in the hospital for homebirth transfers and to create a hospital enviornment that honors women and the baby. Wooo hooo.

Others I interviewed for my film are:
Marilyn Milos, founder of NOCIRC, http://www.nocirc.org/, and a few folks at the Santa Barbara Graduate Insitute http://www.sbgi.edu/.,
BJ Lyman, PhD, Director of the Pre and Perinatal Psych program and
Marti Glenn, PhD., founder and director of the institute, as well as
Ray Castellino, DC and his colleague, Mary Jackson (midwife), http://www.beba.org/,
William Emerson, PhD, pioneer in birth trauma healing, http://www.emersonbirthrx.com/, Wendy McCord, PhD., http://www.wendymccord.com/,
Karen Strange is the neonatal resuscitation instructor at http://www.newbornbreath.com/,
William Sexton, PhD, medical school physiology professor who explains fetal circulation transition to adult circulation at birth, and
David Chamberlain, PhD, author of The Mind of Your Newborn Baby and co-founder of the Association for Pre and Perinatal Psychology and Health, http://www.birthpsychology.com/ and his own group, http://www.bepe.info/.

BEPE Coordinator, Donna Chamberlain and I have interviewed many of the BEPE members.

And the real stars of the film are the three babies and the many fathers who share their stories that range from homebirth, birth on the way to the birthcenter, and hospital births. They share with other men their best advice for preparing for their baby's birth.

Watch for some video coming soon. I promise.

Hawaii Updates

Star and her organization, Sirius, are expecting a French film crew in late January. The crew will be documenting Sirius work with "pod communities." Star explains this in the YouTube above.

Six pregnant women are planning to arrive in the area in the next few months to give birth in the ocean with dolphins. My daughter and I will be traveling to Hawaii in January to work on the Safe Baby Resolution.

Check out Planet Puna for more information on the Domestic Harmony Initiative, the dolphin research and the Safe Baby Resolution.

Radio Interview

Janel was interviewed by Victoria Day on Womens Issues, Womens Voices on community radio, KOPN 89.5 in Columbia, MO.

The topic was the Safe Baby Resolution -- aware conception, safe gestation, and gentle birth as the means of creating harmonious and healthy humans.

Check it out at: KOPN 89.5 FM Columbia

On the KOPN site go to menu on the left, to Archive - Podcasts and then to Womens Issues. Scroll down. The date is 2007-05-24.

Also check out my interview with Suzanne Arms on July 12, 2007. It mistakenly says Boden was the host that day, but it was me.

On August 16th I interviewed local Columbia women, one a wife and one a mother of deployed men about how women can join together to make a difference.

Legislative Research Study Questions

SAFE BABY RESOLUTION

Legislative Research Study Questions

by Janel Martin-Miranda, MA, LPC, Safe Baby – Missouri, October 2006

The Safe Baby Resolution team asks our state legislators to form a Safe Baby Commission to be comprised of representatives from birthing women, doulas, midwives, physicians, therapists, psychologists, teachers, clergy, attorneys, representatives from women’s and children’s group (i.e., Shaken Baby, Domestic Violence, March of Dimes, Drug Prevention) and a legislative liaison to consider how to answer the following questions.

We are asking the state legislators to assign the commission (or appropriate department, such as Maternal Health and Child Wellness) with the objectives:

- Gather and study the current science that supports the resolution,
- Facilitate multi-disciplinary collaboration,
- Determine the feasibility of launching a major research project to look for long-term solutions, and
- Report the findings of the resolution study at the next legislative session.

1. Develop Strategies for Implementing Findings. A proliferation of research about the primal period, including evidenced-based research about labor and birth practices exists but is not implemented, despite the trauma to the baby and mother. What are the strategies and technologies that could be: 1) examined, developed, and utilized to assist Missouri moms and babies to engage in aware conception, to be safe and supported throughout gestation, and to be responsible for her and her baby’s labor and birth experience, and 2) to have provided to them the opportunity to receive therapy to resolve the traumatic aspects of the birth, including her and her partner's (even home birth babies may need trauma resolution.)

2. Infuse New Research Findings into Traditional Professional Education. How can the Missouri legislature mandate changes in professional education to include the primal health information, brain research, Pre and Perinatal psychology, and trauma healing strategies to instruct all disciplines, but in particular in medicine, nursing, chiropractic, education, child care, and psychology/therapy?

3. Study and Implement New Science-Based Technologies for Healing. How are the increasing rates of asthma, ADHD, and autism related to prenatal environment and care and the increased use of non-medically necessary drugs (induction and epidural), instruments, and surgical births; and how can the new understanding of therapeutic models in prenatal and birth trauma healing be implemented?

4. Study the Rising Incidence of Post Partum Depression and Grief. What are Missouri legislators doing to provide funding and resources for hospitals to provide effective post-partum psychological treatment and medical care for women who experience cesarean section birth and/or the loss of their baby (death or adoption)? Post-partum depression among these women is rising at an alarming rate. Research, including from March of Dimes, is pointing at the increasing cesarean section rate as a contributor to depression (and prematurity). Prescription drugs are promoted as the choice of care for depressed post-partum women even though drug treatment is known to not be successful and to even have serious side effects. What is the effect of this on the long-term relationship of the mother and child, and what are the ramifications for society when mothers are not fully connected to their child?

5. Homeland Disaster Preparedness – Include a plan for Pregnant, Laboring and Birthing Women, and Infants. How is the Missouri Home Land Security disaster plan prepared to care for pregnant and birthing women in MO in the event of a disaster? Currently, the practice of direct-entry midwifery is against the law in MO, and the CNM must be backed by a physician; therefore, out-of-hospital birth is rare and socially feared. In the event of a disaster hospitals will be focused on trauma patients and/or may be quarantined, and there will be zero options in Missouri for safe and quality care for pregnant and birthing women and babies outside of the hospital. What will they do?

6. Increase Access to Quality Maternity and Early Infancy Care. Poor accessibility of legal maternal care in rural areas in Missouri is already a major contributor to highly medicalized birth (i.e., planned inductions and cesareans because they live hours from hospital). The prematurity and neonatal death rate has increased. In Missouri as in many states in the US, an exodus of obstetricians is leaving a lack of physicians in that specialty. What can Missouri legislators and citizens do to address the need to provide statewide, consistent, accessible, safe, affordable, quality maternity and pediatric health care for Missouri women and babies every day in rural areas, and during a disaster? What is the legislature doing to address the liability issue that drives obstetricians from their profession when it is well known that obstetricians practice defensive medicine and “malpractice avoidance.”

7. Establish a Standard of Care and Accountability. How can Missouri lead in the United States in establishing a “standard of care” for the pregnant and birthing women and their babies? ACOG, is a professional group for obstetricians that supports them, and as such does not necessarily promote what is best for women and babies based on evidence-based science. ACOG is a lobbying group for physicians and leads in determining the social and political perspective that drives medicine and protocols - that are more ritual than science-based. The flimsy adherence to the science is evidenced by the widely varying protocols for medical care differ from state-to-state, hospital-to-hospital, doctor-to-doctor, and nurse-to-nurse. It is impossible for the wide variant of what is “normal” is science-based. Most often, it is personal choice and needs of the medical caregiver that dictates the care, not what is scientifically agreed upon. The profession of obstetrics is not accountable to anyone outside of obstetrics. What can the legislature to do to establish accountability for obstetricians?

8. Legislate of State-wide Maternity Care Protocols that are Evidence-Based Science. If the increasing premature birth and infant mortality rate in Missouri, as has been suggested, is partially related to the increased practices of inductions and cesarean section, what are doctors and legislators doing to regulate the misuse of technology? And, if the current research indicates the non-medically necessary medical interventions are associated with emotional and psychological conditions, how can the legislature ensure that appropriate, consistent, evidence-based, medical protocols be implemented? What mandatory, consistent doctor-to-doctor, hospital-to-hospital, and nurse-to-nurse protocols can the (Missouri) legislature create in the care of laboring and birthing women and babies that are consistent from doctor to CNM to CPM? The use of non-medically necessary inducing and interventions during labor and birth as well as the “in case” approach to harsh, invasive interventions, resuscitation, and cleaning of newborn are not based in science. Decades of research, new findings, and new understandings tell us these are damaging; and yet, obstetric and pediatric professionals are allowed to continue these practices on babies even when we know the first hour of life is a time research shows is crucial attachment time?

9. Establish Adequate, Consistent, Accountability and Statistic Gathering. The reporting of maternal and newborn trauma and loss of life is underreported and misreported. Hospital risk-management takes precedence over maternal and baby-risk management. What format and structures can be established and enforced by the (Missouri) state legislature for full-disclosure, reporting, and structures that mandate evidenced-based practices and consistent reporting and documentation of labor and birth experience by the birth caregivers?

10. Create Partnerships to Support Pregnancy, Birth, and Early Infancy. How can Missouri legislators create reporting and accountability structures that mandate and support doctors, midwives, doulas, and birth trauma therapists to work in harmonious partnership with the goal of creating available, safe, and gentle birth and post-partum continuity of care for the health and well-being of our babies?

11. Introduce an Agenda of “The Baby’s Rights” that Looks at a Human Baby’s Rights as Well As A Women’s Right to Her Body. While reproductive rights are personal and beyond legislation, what do the citizens of Missouri believe is the right of a human being to expect to be born to parents who are healthy, welcoming, and functional, and who are prepared to protect and provide for him or her in a community and society that is safe and harmonious? A human baby will live his lifetime with the results of his mother’s choices and experiences. Society pays for this in multiple ways. This critical, primal, foundational period of development BUILDS the body and brain that IS that person; therefore, a social and political will to protect the human being from conception forward is critical. Birth is the BABY’S experience. Only that human being will have to live with the consequences.

Respecting a mother’s individual human right to reproduce, how can the legislature and society members support, fund, and ensure the healthy, conscious, safe prenatal behavior of the mother? And so,

11. a Study the Combined Effects of Alcohol, Drugs (illegal and prescription narcotics, psycho-tropic meds), Trauma, Mother-Baby Separation and the High Rates of Child Abuse, Addiction, ADHD, Methamphetamine Use and Addiction. In Missouri where the methamphetamine addiction rate is number two in the US, what can the Missouri legislature, MO citizens, doctors, and epidemiologists do research the connection to the predominant use of narcotics during labor and birth? Is there a relationship between gestation and narcotics during labor and birth contributing to the incidence of methamphetamine addiction?

11. b. High Rates of Smoking. What can the Missouri legislature and citizens do to address the high rate of pregnant women who smoke in Missouri, especially when we know smoking is a contributing factor to lifelong health issues (that the child must live with and society must pay for?)

12. Support and Fund Parenting Preparedness (Conscious Conception) as both Prevention and CREATING Harmonious Humans from the Developmental Time. Consciousness and awareness is about beginning before conception to prepare for pregnancy and parenting. How can we as a society create the will to look at how to address and fund responsible parenting and individual and couple preparedness for conception and parenting? What is the connection between random conception, poor nutrition, a lack of family or emotional support, stress, and violence during gestation and the need for extreme medical intervention during labor and birth? And, do they correlate to life long issues with violence, health issues, and poor self-esteem? The research indicates so. While the majority of adult Missourians (Americans) give little thought to the primal period of development (and so accept that the laboring and birthing baby are not affected by induction and narcotics), are teen programs, abstinence programs, and health curriculums addressing the role of aware/conscious conception?

13. Address Adoption and NICU Issues. Referring again to the social and political disregard of the impact of the conception experience, gestation, labor and birth, and hospital stay on the BABY, the impact of these life experiences for the newly born human are tragically ignored. Knowing that the conception, gestation, labor and birth create one long critical period of development for the ability of the baby to feel wanted, valued, and attached, how can we incorporate these new techniques to support a baby to transfer from the biological mother to the adoptive mother? And/or, how can we better support baby and mother dyads in separation and reunification during NICU care and protective services.

14. Address Role of Nutrition and Primal Programming of Health. With the recent news frenzy regarding the "obesity crisis" in the US and Missouri, and the primal health research indicating that obesity (as well as heart, stroke, and diabetes) is established in utero, and the common understanding that obesity is a factor in diabetes, heart disease, etc., what system supports and interventions can be implemented? How are the high rates of obesity in Missouri being related to poor prenatal nutrition to be addressed?

15. Evaluating the Long-Term Physical and Psychological Impact of the Use of Drugs and Technology in Labor and Birth. I have long wanted to do this research. In a longitudinal study of at least five years, would Missouri babies born at home (naturally, surrounded by familiar faces and sounds, in their own germ field, and nil interventions) have better health, developmental, educational, social, academic, and behavioral outcomes as compared to babies born induced, with narcotic epidural, and surgical birth? As multitudes of money go to research and services to address a myriad of issues through the human lifetime, medicine, psychology, and religion all ignore the primal period as foundational and they ignore the collective scientific evidence is suggesting is related to maternal and neonatal mortality, prematurity, asthma, autism, violence, and addiction?

Safe Baby to be heard in House

Your letters of support are needed!!

The Hawaii House of Representatives Health Committee has passed the Safe Baby Resolution and it will go on to the House on Wednesday, March 28!!

http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/getstatus2.asp?billno=HCR33

Safe Baby Resolution asks the legislators to order the study the early primal period of conception through infancy as the foundational time for health, wellness, and harmony as well as foundational time of the myriad of social and physical concerns of society. The resolution looks at what both our hearts and the science tell us that a human being needs from pre-conception through infancy as the foundation for a safe, healthy, and harmonious life. We seek to make gestation and birth gentle, drug-free, and safe for mothers and babies as well as for medical caregivers and society. The resolution supports all parties working together in partnership to create this foundation to support harmony for our babies -- and, worldwide.

Your letters of support are needed from around the country and the world.

Please read the resolution and send a letter of support to:

Office of Senator David Y. Ige
415 South Beretania Street, Room 215
Honolulu, Hawaii 96813
Phone: (808) 586-6230 * Fax: (808) 586-6231
e-mail: sendige [at] capitol.hawaii.gov

Please cc your emails to planetpuna@yahoo.com

Safe Baby Resolution is now a Concurrent Resolution

Safe Baby Resolution is now the Senate Concurrent Resolution 8. The resolution is being introduced by Hawaii Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland and Representative Josh Green, MD, Chair of the Health Committee.

The complete resolution can be viewed at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessioncurrent/Bills/SCR8_.pdf . Track progress on the Senate resolution, HCR33 at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/getstatus2.asp?billno=HR16 and HR16 House resolution at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/getstatus2.asp?billno=HCR33

Hawaii Legislature Opening Day

Puna resident Star Newland, left, gets help in the Capitol on Thursday from Robbie Watland, assistant Public Access Room coordinator. The Public Access Room provides free use of workspace, telephones, computers and a television for viewing committee meetings, a wealth of reference material and makes copies of testimony to be presented to committees. - Nancy Cook Lauer/Stephens Media

http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/articles/2007/01/20/local_news/local03.txt

Links to Hawaii Legislative Info on Safe Baby Resolution

Our Safe Baby Resolution has been assigned numbers and is on it's way!

HR 16 and HCR 33.

Track progress on the Senate resolution at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/getstatus2.asp?billno=HR16 (Senator Oakland) and House resolution at http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/site1/docs/getstatus2.asp?billno=HCR33 (Representative Green)

The Safe Baby Resolution is now Senate Concurrent Resolution 8 and is posted in full at:
http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/sessioncurrent/Bills/SCR8_.pdf

The resolution is being introduced by Hawaii Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland and Representative Josh Green, MD, Chair of the Health Committee. Addresses for mailing your letters of support coming soon.

Now comes the fun part!!

Womb to the World -- A Template for Living

The Womb to the World -- A Template for Living
L. Janel Martin-Miranda

We now know that the prenatal period is the foundation for health and wellness -- or pathology and pain. Personality, behavior, and health (i.e., blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, etc.) are all expressions of early uterine life. Evidence-based, peer-reviewed research in the last decade confirms this -- what we have intuitively known (and yet denied.) Conception and prenatal experiences determine the architecture of the brain and all body systems for the lifetime. We are concieved, gestated, and birthed in the biology of our mother's hormones, based on her experience and environment.

Simple logical - if one allows himself to consider the magnitude of this - tells us that the human being is built during the prenatal period and that this time must be pretty important, if not downright defining. The prenatal and birth experiences as DEFINING is what investigators and theorists in all aspects of science -- medicine and psychology -- are exploring and finding true. Scientists in physics, cellular biology,physiology, epidemology, ethology, fetal programming, animal research, medicine, psychology, and brain studies are all coming together to form the picture of the importance of the experience of the human being from conception, and earlier. (The mother's egg and father's sperm are each a living cell and has history and memory. We are the never-ending cellular tissue of our ancestors).

Everything the mother experiences is experienced by the conceiving, gestating, laboring, and birthing baby and is imprinted in the on the newborn baby's brain.

Labor and birth is the first physical, independent experience of the human being. As one transitions from the womb to the world this just might be the single, most significant and defining experience in the human's life. It is established a set of survival skills in the brain and body of the laboring and birthing baby. What happens here is critical for the human being for the lifetime -- are the mother and baby drugged, is it bright and noisy, with strangers and their time frames, rough treatment or is the woman in power of her own body, following and allowing hers and her baby's physiology to happen, quiet, dark, surrounded only by people who love her?

This all matters -- every second -- in the experience of transitioning from uterine life in symbiotic connection with the mother to being an independently functioning being. It is critical for the human body-brain-soul still hormonally connected to the mother. Within seconds every system must work efficiently at birth. At the moment of birth, we visually see and physically hold a completely separate, functioning human being -- one whose body AND brain has just completed a critical, monumental, development task. This is a being - a live and sacred being, not a blob impervious to drugs, boundary violations, separation, fear, and pain. This human was a totally functional human being in the womb for months. His or his body was and will continue to be regulated by the mother -- her heart, her nervous system, and her voice and touch will continue to support the survival of this new being. For months and years. My voice at the other end of the phone is still safety and comfort to my adult child in need. My heart and inner knowing often "feel" the need to connect across miles and oceans.

During birth how the mother and baby are cared for will be expressed in their lifelong relationship. Trauma to the head, neck, shoulders, and hips during the birth experience is the first physical experience, but especially to those born in the hospital. Unresolved and unacknowledged, the first traumas during birth is the cause of infant, child, and adult issues, including chronic pain and physical and emotional dysfunctions.

What keeps society from embracing and applying basic biology and physiology to birth -- so that we must reform how babies are born in hospitals? What keeps one from observing simple physiological fact that babies remember birth? Most of us have been birthed "under the influence" of drugs and experienced a very violating transition from the womb to the world. Our own births create the template for both needing and fearing medical interventions. The denial of our own birth by previous generations who didn't know the impact of their actions feeds the politics (of medicine, the drug companies' influence, and insurance companies), denial (of a society who does not know how to forgive and change directions), and fear (of malpractice for doctors and guilt and shame for mothers and fathers).

Recognizing that prenatal development and labor and birth are keys to physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual well being creates a monumental need for society to change how we treat women and babies in birth. It calls for an overhaul of every service we fund and provide for in our society. The effects of the prenatal and birth periods is totally unrecognized in medicine and psychology, and so solutions to the myriad of social and personal problems is ignored. For example, not even in addiction studies, autism, depression and violence or even basic parenting does our society look at the earliest brain development and birth experience (of baby and mother and father) for answers. The detrimental impact of drugs and interventions at birth is ignored, and the contribution of conscious conception (wanted children are happier), prenatal development (healthy body and brain) and natural, empowered birth (non-violent survival imprints) is overlooked.

Again, our own births and the collective denial supports the denial of the importance of the prenatal and birth experiences as the foundation (cause, if you must) of the multitude of medical, emotional, psychological, educational issues in our society. To acknowledge this is to open a huge Pandora's box that require change -- PERSONAL, individual change as well as political and systemic change. Changing how we conceive our babies, how we treat and support pregnant women, and how we treat women and babies in labor and birth. It would require looking at the science that supports the healing of trauma and the brain. It would require chaning the way we train professionals in medicine, psychology and anyone who works with birthing women, babies, and children.

It requires individual awareness and consciousness of all. Doctors, nurses, midwives, and importantly, conceiving and birthing women and men.