Spinoff - Laura Shanley, freebirth "fundie"

[2xx1xy1JD]

In the breastfeeding thread, I mentioned just how much I hate so-called "natural" beliefs and arguments, that claims that X is perfectly natural and therefore we shouldn't have any problems unless we interfere or don't trust our abilities.

Even when these arguments don't come from people who are conventionally religious, they have a fundie tone to them. I'm not talking about arguments based on actual science (yes, I know that eating fruits and veggies is better than processed junk), but arguments that sound all warm and fuzzy and woman-positive, until you realize that they are feeding into a bullshit belief that we control everything, including physical processes in our bodies that aren't actually within our control. The flip side is that when things go wrong, it must have been caused by our own bad attitudes and thoughts.

Here's a prime example from Laura Shanley, who insists that completely unassisted childbirth (ie. giving birth alone, no midwife, no prenatal appointments) is the ideal and must be perfectly safe since she did it:

unassistedchildbirth.com/unassisted-childbirth/is-uc-safe/

The same loving consciousness that knew how to grow her baby inside her perfectly, knows how to get her baby out safely and easily, if only she will let it.

That line drove me crazy. First off, as someone who had 3 pregnancy losses, I couldn't help but feel that my "loving consciousness" must be pretty stupid if it fucked up my pregnancies. Second, she totally shifts the blame to the woman for any birth difficulties. If she had just "let it", birth would have been perfect.

The article concludes with this heart-warming line:

No one, however, regardless of their “expertise,†can guarantee that a baby will be born safely. Some babies die. It’s simply nature’s way.

Sure, some babies have severe defects and can't be saved, but that's a fucking cavalier attitude. Oh well, baby's dead, that's just nature's way. Well, at the risk of going against the almighty nature, I'd prefer to fight to save a child if it's at all possible. My SIL was born with an APGAR score of 0 - blue, no pulse, problem with the cord. Fortunately, doctors said screw nature, we're reviving the baby, and she's a normal, healthy young woman who just got married.

While Shanley may be a lone loon, Dr. Christiane Northrup has sold millions of books. Despite the medical training, she also pedals plenty of unproven garbage. Infertility, for example, is linked to the woman's stress and unresolved issues.

drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/healthcenter/topic_details.php?topic_id=124

She also blames infertility on ambivalence toward being a parent - an astonishingly cruel statement to all those desperate to become parents:

drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/healthcenter/topic_details.php?topic_id=127

On a personal level, many women do not get pregnant because in their hearts they really do not want to—they are afraid of the demands a child will make on them. Whenever a woman feels conflicted over birthing, children, or the restrictions that children may impose once they arrive, infertility may result.

Most women - even those that are desperate to have a baby - will feel at least a tiny tinge of anxiety over childbirth and childrearing. That's the normal reaction to the prospect of having a full term baby emerge from your vagina or abdomen, and being responsible for then raising that child. A woman going through fertility issues, though, gets to read this and think that her thoughts are sabotaging her fertility.

Some studies from the 1940s through the 1990s have suggested an association between infertility and ambivalence toward pregnancy and children.

Yes, she's quoting so-called research from the 1940s.

Farther down, she grudgingly admits that no real science supports this idea - but hey, they're just stodgy conventional scientists, so what do they know?

The fertility-stress link remains controversial in conventional science and it’s difficult to document a causal link between psychosocial distress and fertility. Though many studies do show that women with infertility are more apt to have depression and anxiety, most doctors believe that the depression and anxiety are the result of infertility, not the other way around. In any case, studies tend to be conflicting, not well-controlled, and there are no prospective studies. In their review of forty years of research on psychological distress and infertility, psychologist Dr. W. A. Fisher and his colleague A. M. Brkovich summarized the viewpoint of most conventional doctors when they wrote: "Much research has been done to try to corroborate the proposition that psychological factors may be casually related to the occurrence of infertility, but no study has been able to confirm a causal relationship to date.

[Hane]

God, do I ever hate this woman-attacking junk science.

[a bit OT] Re the "stress makes you infertile" part: I can't tell you how many people I've met who think that most women who adopt are miraculously able to get pregnant shortly thereafter. Yes, I do know of three cases in which this was true. However, I prefer to believe what one of the fathers in such a case told me. (He and his wife had their adoption process well underway when she became pregnant--so now they have two boys only seven months apart in age.) He quoted documentation saying that about 15% of adoptive mothers give birth for the first time after they've adopted.

[docmom]

One of her unassisted childbirth babies died soon after birth. She claims a doctor friend told her nothing could have saved him but I have my doubts. I suspect her friend was trying to spare her feelings. I do know that my son would have died if he hadn't been born in a hospital...

[Stephanie66]

One of her unassisted childbirth babies died soon after birth. She claims a doctor friend told her nothing could have saved him but I have my doubts. I suspect her friend was trying to spare her feelings. I do know that my son would have died if he hadn't been born in a hospital...

I wouldn't have spared her feelings. I get wanting to deliver at home, but no prenatal care or midwife? That's ridiculous.

[JMarie]

Some studies from the 1940s through the 1990s have suggested an association between infertility and ambivalence toward pregnancy and children.

_____________________________________

Many teenagers have ambivalence toward pregnancy and children, yet still manage to get pregnant.

[Dutch_girl]

This get me sooo angry

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Over the last few days I've learned that depression and mental illness is caused by sin, infertility is caused by ambivalence, and rheumatoid arthritis is caused by unforgiveness. So reassuring to know these people are home educating their children.

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Oh and autism is caused by watching sesame street.

[Phoebe]

Some studies from the 1940s through the 1990s have suggested an association between infertility and ambivalence toward pregnancy and children.

When your most recent study samples are from twenty fucking years ago, you're sciencing wrong.

[singsingsing]

My mother and I would both be dead if she had chosen to just trust her body and ignore modern medicine. I have to say, I'm pretty glad that she didn't depend on her 'loving consciousness'... or that the doctors didn't accept that it was 'nature's way' and just let me and her die.

[thekate]

She also blames infertility on ambivalence toward being a parent - an astonishingly cruel statement to all those desperate to become parents:

drnorthrup.com/womenshealth/healthcenter/topic_details.php?topic_id=127

This sounds like the same line of thinking that women can shut down pregnancies from legitimate rape. :angry-banghead:

[Buzzard]

In the breastfeeding thread, I mentioned just how much I hate so-called "natural" beliefs and arguments, that claims that X is perfectly natural and therefore we shouldn't have any problems unless we interfere or don't trust our abilities.

Even when these arguments don't come from people who are conventionally religious, they have a fundie tone to them. I'm not talking about arguments based on actual science (yes, I know that eating fruits and veggies is better than processed junk), but arguments that sound all warm and fuzzy and woman-positive, until you realize that they are feeding into a bullshit belief that we control everything, including physical processes in our bodies that aren't actually within our control. The flip side is that when things go wrong, it must have been caused by our own bad attitudes and thoughts.

Here's a prime example from Laura Shanley, who insists that completely unassisted childbirth (ie. giving birth alone, no midwife, no prenatal appointments) is the ideal and must be perfectly safe since she did it:

unassistedchildbirth.com/unassisted-childbirth/is-uc-safe/

That line drove me crazy. First off, as someone who had 3 pregnancy losses, I couldn't help but feel that my "loving consciousness" must be pretty stupid if it fucked up my pregnancies. Second, she totally shifts the blame to the woman for any birth difficulties. If she had just "let it", birth would have been perfect.

:angry-banghead: :angry-banghead: :angry-banghead:

The same loving conciousness that allows life sucking tumors to grow inside one's (insert important body part/organ) knows perfectly how to survive too... sometimes shit just goes wrong. FFS just because your body is ABLE to grow something inside of it doesnt mean that it is wise to do so without the intervention of someone with a fucking clue. We have modern medicine for a reason and people survive things that would have killed them only 10 years ago.

Putting your body/pregnancy/life on autopilot is not a good choice. I pity all those who have to listen to her bullshit IRL.

[docmom]

I read a bunch of her stuff a few years ago when I was pregnant- got sucked in because it was so batshit crazy. One of her followers WATCHED HER OWN MOTHER DIE from post-partum hemorrhage after an unassisted birth but insists on having unassisted birth herself. The cynic in me suggests this is natural selection at work.

[PennySycamore]

I remember reading in Christiane Northrup's book that women who suffer from pelvic pain almost always have a history of sexual abuse. There's good research on any connection between chronic pelvic pain and a hx of sexual abuse and there is none. Christiane is a fucking liar as far as I'm concerned. And batshit crazy.

[AuntCloud]

I have a busy day at work, following a hectic morning at home, preceding an equally hectic afternoon and schlepping to class at night, so I can't dedicate too many resources to write a lucid, coherent answer.

Let's make it short and sweet, then: WOMEN, WHATEVER HAPPENS, IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.

If I was inclined to psych-babble, I would say lots of people are angry at their mommies for not being omnipotent and magically make the world alright, so the revert to women-blaming.

PS 2XX1XY1JD, a thousand "Likes" for this thread and the breastfeeding thread too. You win the internets, your wise words are an antidote for all the loonery (is that a word?) out there.

[browngrl]

I'm on my break but I just read a bunch of scrotal ultrasounds on men with fertility issues - abnormal sperm motility etc. So does this "doctor" blame men's ambivalence about children on male factor infertility? My guess: no - it is still the woman's fault.

[2xx1xy1JD]

I'll add in another twist to the WOMEN, WHATEVER HAPPENS, IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT mentality:

If you are a marginalized woman without a perfect life, you cannot possibly be trusted to gestate and birth. If you give birth in jail, there is no reason for the guards to believe you when you go into labor, and if the baby then dies, it's your fault.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/14 ... den-death/

Years ago, I had some dealings with a similar case where a woman went into premature labor with twins, while she was in jail. Again, she claimed to have complained to the guards, who didn't believe her. Despite the fact that the jail refused to comment on the allegations, I saw a child protection report that essentially blamed the mother for the loss of the twins and stated that this case showed that Canada desperately needs fetal protection laws. No, it doesn't. This case actually showed the exact opposite. There wasn't a shred of evidence that the mother's past drug issues had anything to do with the outcome. Putting her in jail did not protect the babies - it placed them in harm's way, and prevented her from getting the sort of care (decent monitoring, possibly bedrest) that might have given the babies a chance.

[NoneandDoneinCali]

So, "ambivalence" about getting pregnant affects fertility - but apparently, being one hundred percent clear that you don't want a child does nothing. At least, this is my understanding, as I (unfortunately) got pregnant during a drunken one night stand at 19 (condom broke). There was never even a question of keeping that pregnancy.

Oh, and any "doctor" who attempts to link biological processes to mental health in a causal fashion is doing it wrong. Is there a relationship? Certainly. Can we definitively pinpoint how they work? Um, NO. Which is why there are NO STUDIES PENDING (at least not any that would give her the bullshit she spouts).

As a poster above stated, the gist is: HEY WOMEN!! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!

[Stephanie66]

Both of my kids were breech. One turned, one didn't...in fact, he was compound breech. One of us would have died, maybe both of us. I had a C section, in a hospital, and life went on.

I don't feel like a failure for having a C-section. It is what it is.

[rward]

Over the last few days I've learned that depression and mental illness is caused by sin, infertility is caused by ambivalence, and rheumatoid arthritis is caused by unforgiveness. So reassuring to know these people are home educating their children.

Gee, I wonder what caused my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome? Red Dye #5? (EDS is a genetic disease affecting collagen production.)

My mother also had EDS, I believe. (She's been dead a while, I can't prove it.) She did have 4 children, but she nearly died having me and she was told in no uncertain terms to never have another child, so she had her tubes tied. 6.5 years later, she got pregnant again. Being Catholic, she chose to continue the pregnancy. She was never the same. Her heart just kinda quit. She had no energy. I and my siblings raised my little sister while my mother slept on the Lazyboy or watched TV. We cooked dinner (heated up TV dinners), we did laundry, we cared for the dogs. That went on for 17 years, then she died.

Nature doesn't give a shit about any individual person, especially not mothers. Once the baby is born, the mother can die, she's done her job and passed on her genes. And one in seven babies can die and the human race gets by just fine, in evolutionary terms. (That's the rate of death with no medical intervention.) Nature just doesn't care.

[lemonhead]

I remember reading in Christiane Northrup's book that women who suffer from pelvic pain almost always have a history of sexual abuse. There's good research on any connection between chronic pelvic pain and a hx of sexual abuse and there is none. Christiane is a fucking liar as far as I'm concerned. And batshit crazy.

I wonder if she was using the research on correlations between sexual abuse and pelvic inflammatory disease (as a result of a sexually-transmitted infection) for the basis of this claim...if so, she twisted it around like a pretzel into something that sounds very much like victim-blaming. So yeah...lying liar who lies.

[2xx1xy1JD]

More WTF comments from Northrup:

“Ovarian cancer,†Northrup writes, “may result from the energy of unexpressed rage or resentment,†while “problems in the vulva, vagina, cervix and lower urinary tract are primarily associated with a woman’s feelings of violation in her one-on-one relationship with another individual or in her job.â€

And to think that I thought that ovarian cancer was linked to bad genes in some cases (BRCA1 and BRCA2), or to the number of times that a woman has ovulated (which is why birth control pills cut the risk).

Here's another example of her faux research:

Such theories, she says, came out of “years of connecting the dots†in her practice. “Here’s an example: This young woman with polycystic ovaries is having no periods, and she’s very creative. She looks at the ultrasound of her ovaries and sees all the little cysts, and she goes, ‘Of course! I have a million different ideas for plays and one-woman shows, but I can’t get them out because I’m afraid of the criticism of others!’ And the minute she realized that—plus started a low-glycemic diet—bam! The polycystic ovarian syndrome goes away, and she starts having normal periods.â€

The low-glycemic diet isn't a casual toss-away comment. It's actually a standard recommendation from conventional medicine for treating PCOS. It was most likely the diet that helped reverse the condition.

From here: http://www.wmagazine.com/beauty/2008/10/holistic_cures/

[JMarie]

What about infertile men? Don't they exist? Why is it always the woman's fault?

[singsingsing]

More WTF comments from Northrup:

And to think that I thought that ovarian cancer was linked to bad genes in some cases (BRCA1 and BRCA2), or to the number of times that a woman has ovulated (which is why birth control pills cut the risk).

Here's another example of her faux research:

The low-glycemic diet isn't a casual toss-away comment. It's actually a standard recommendation from conventional medicine for treating PCOS. It was most likely the diet that helped reverse the condition.

From here: http://www.wmagazine.com/beauty/2008/10/holistic_cures/

What the ever. loving. fuck.

[PennySycamore]

Back in 1983 or so, I'd read Silent Knife by Nancy Cohen and Lois Estner about vaginal birth after cesarean and cesarean prevention. Not only did the book mention free birth although it didn't particularly recommend it. but it also talked about how maybe women ended up with c-sections because where their heads were at. They didn't have the right thoughts about birth or some such nonsense. Well, two years later, I heard Lois Estner speak at the LLLI International Conference in Washington DC. Lois said that that stuff about about how your thoughts affected your birth and, if you had a c-section or a breech it was all your fault, was just utter bullshit. Lois had one breech, followed by a vertex presentation, followed by another breech. I don't think she had any of her babies at home, but I know she didn't with her first and last. She may have had her second at home, but she didn't have a freebirth.

In the Fall of 1988, Mothering magazine had a bunch of articles about premature babies in that quarter's issue. None of the articles was helpful. Instead, they had an article about how if you had a baby prematurely it was because of your fucked-up thinking and beliefs (no mention of how it might be the fetus's or mother's physical condition) and another account by a mom on how she practically live at the NICU because she just didn't trust the nurses and doctors to take good care of her baby. That was my last issue on my subscription and I let my subscription lapse after that bullshit. I saw one of the neonatologists not long after and I gave my copy to him after letting him know how much that stuff bothered me. I hope he wrote a good, hot letter to Mothering about it. I know he's capable of it.