Midwifery: December 2003 Archives

Center for Loss in Multiple Birth

Welcome to the website of CLIMB, the Center for Loss in Multiple Birth, Inc. We are parents throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and beyond who have experienced the death of one or more, both or all of our twins or higher multiples at any time from conception through birth, infancy and childhood. We originated in 1987, when a mother whose twin son died very suddenly at birth believed that she was truly the only one--then began to search for "a few" others. Soon, she was hearing from families everywhere who were struggling to cope and heal from the devastating loss of their twin or twins, their triplet or triplets or other higher multiples, in a wide variety of circumstances -- in sad contrast to the happy images of multiples portrayed in the media and elsewhere.

Young nurses and midwives bring babies into the world - and find themselves
reborn
BY BEATRIZ TERRAZAS
The Dallas Morning News
WESLACO, Texas - (KRT) - It's almost 7 this autumn evening when Blanca
Rivera sits on the orange exercise ball again. All day, nurses and midwives
in this duplex with mint-green walls have tried to get the baby inside of
Rivera to turn. The baby's back should be up against her belly. Instead,
with every contraction, his back presses painfully against his mother's
back.

I have no real update to give today - the baby was transferred to a Children's Hospital for care that we could not provide, and I don't have an update yet. I haven't heard any recent bad news, though. I am continuing to pray.
I will be off work until Friday, and so am unlikely to hear anything before then at the earliest.
Thank you all for your continuing prayers.

Kimberly's baby has been born, weighing just over 4 lbs. He was baptised in the NICU shortly after his birth. He is still unstable and in need of prayer, as is his mother. Please keep them in your prayers. I am unable to offer more information - Kimberly asked me simply to get as many prayers going as I could. SO I am. Blessed Gianna, please pray for them both.

or at least calendar based periodic abstinence. I can't help but wonder, though, what the meta-motives are. There are so many better models of fertility awareness for true natural family planning - both to avoid and to achieve pregnancy. But at least there isn't the sneer about 'vatican roulette'.

Preface: I recognize that there are situations, such as adoption, where lactation and natural infant feeding may be difficult if not impossible. For those circumstances, I am very grateful that there is a technology to help these infanst to survive. This polemic is not addressed as those cases.
Here goes.
Many people have been astonished and overwhelmed by the level of emotion that the breastfeeding in public issues arouses. I think that the topic is so controverisal because it is emblematic of so much that is horribly wrong with our culture and our society. For the last hundred years or so, there has been a concerted effort to sever women from femininity in the name of feminism. The major social and technological factors that have made this even remotely possible have been contraception, abortion, and bottle feeding. The wide spread acceptance of bottle feeding was what originally made it possible for women to become a part of the industrial work force.