Birth Trauma
Mamas On Bedrest: FMLA is “Useless” for 40% of The Workforce
February 25th, 2013Hey Mamas,
I was just cruising through my e-mails and got a Google alert about Family Medical Leave (FMLA). The article, published on Journalgazette.net, chronicles the story of Danelle Buchman of Clarkesville, MD. Buchman lost her job as a result of being out, and nearly dying, giving birth to her second daughter.
Buchman, now a mama of 2 little girls, had a uterine artery rupture while she was pregnant with her second daughter at 32 weeks gestation. Her daughter was delivered by emergency c-section and Buchman had an emergent hysterectomy to save her own life. When Buchman recovered and returned to her job, she was first demoted and given a 33% salary cut. She was subsequently fired. It’s not that Buchman had done anything wrong, quite the contrary. She had an outstanding employment record. But her time off due to illness resulted in her termination.
This is not unusual. The US Department of Labor conducted a study and they found that 40% of employees are not eligible for the unpaid leave with job protection benefit offered by FMLA. While this law has been on the books for 20 years now, a full 40% of US employees cannot benefit from it because they work for companies that employ fewer than 50 employees, were employed for less than a year with the particular company or had already used the FMLA benefit within the past 24 months and are hence exempt from the FMLA provisions. So Buchman who was out fighting, for her life, was legally fired as a result.
The law is also very difficult to enforce. Companies are not always obligated to allow the unpaid leave and there have been nearly 6000 court cases against companies that fired workers or otherwise penalized them for taking advantage of FMLA.
Once again, The lack of any sort of paid family leave is leaving families in a financial lurch. It is a travesty that the United States has such little regards for families. The United States, along with Papau New Guinea and Swaziland remain the only countries out of 177 that offer no sort of paid parental medical leave. And while family friendly organization such as the National Partnership for Women and Families and Working Mother are fighting diligently for paid family leave, that reality is still, by many estimates, years away. And that won’t help people like Buchman.
“I was lucky. My husband had a job, and we went into crazy credit card debt. But so many people who don’t have the support system I had are one accident, one illness away from losing their livelihood.”
And that is the fearful fate of many Americans. We can do better and we here at Mamas on Bedrest & Beyond will continue to support and help those on the front lines continue this all important fight.
Mamas on Bedrest: A Call for Compassion, Not Crucifixion
October 10th, 2012
On October 5, 2012 Jeanne Faulkner, R.N. posted on theFitPregnancy Blog about Tragic Teen Pregnancies. Seems yet another young teen aged girl hid her pregnancy and gave birth alone and scared in the bathroom. She subsequently killed the baby and disposed of it in a garbage bag. The baby was later discovered and the girl arrested.
From time to time we hear of such tragedies. I happen to know of one personally, and saw a few others working as a PA in a teen health clinic. It’s a really difficult situation. Those on the outside looking in are appalled by the young mothers’ actions. The media is crucifying them. And many want them punished to the full extent of the law.
But I like Faulkner’ take on the situation. These are young girls, often as young as 14 or 15, having babies. Babies are having babies. For whatever reason, the girls choose not to tell their parents (a question for a whole other post!), friends or teachers. They hide their pregnancies, childishly hoping they’ll go away. But what can we expect-THEY ARE CHILDREN!!! I could go on and on about the first grievous mistake being that they are sexually active in the first place, why is this happening and where are the parents/guardians? But that is all water under the bridge. The more important question is how do we help young girls who are caught up in such situations get the (mental/emotional and physical) help that they need so that they can recover, grow up, become productive adults and eventually have children of their own?
Jennie Joseph, CPM, was quoted in the article and I think that her words bear repeating. Joseph describes “labor madness”, a trance-like state many women enter into during labor, a sort of primal defense mechanism from the pain and overwhelm of the situation.
“Women from all walks of life disappear into an inner place (during labor). They retreat from the fear and pain and the overwhelming nature of what their body is doing. They don’t really know what’s going on and without help some panic. When a woman is supported by a caring midwife, nurse, doctor, doula and family we can call her back from that place. We can support her, help her and get her through the experience. But when a woman is alone the terror, pain and hormones kick some women into autopilot where they panic and do whatever they have to do to save themselves from this life-threatening situation.”
“And if it’s a young teenage girl, all alone, in pain, not fully understanding what’s going on, terrified of what will happen when her parents find out…that’s a recipe for labor madness right there.”
Labor madness. I like that term and I believe that it is fitting. We all like to believe that pregnancy, labor and childbirth are these ethereal states in which a woman experiences her truest feminine self. This occurs for many women. But for many of us, pregnancy, labor and childbirth can be fraught with hellacious complications, fear, chaos and at their worst, catastrophic if not deadly complications.
As mamas on bed rest, we’re on the front lines of complicated pregnancy. Yet most of us are grown women. Many of us are married or at least with a partner in the picture and if not, we have family, friends and a support system. We’re on the internet, reading websites, chatting with other mamas and gathering information in order to best prepare ourselves for whatever may lay ahead. This is the difference between pregnancy in a woman and a girl. As women, if we don’t have a support system, we know how to find one.
Young girls aren’t necessarily that savvy. Yes, many have grown up women’s bodies, but not the wisdom of age. Think back to your teen years. Were you fully equipped to manage all the feelings and emotions you were experiencing? Now add pregnancy, and all its physiologic (hormonal) changes, and you can readily see that trainwreck poised to happen.
I am not saying that what this young girl did was right. It absolutely wasn’t. But there are so many levels at which things went wrong I would find it difficult to prosecute her for a crime. I highly doubt that her actions were premeditated or that she acted out of malice or guile. She was afraid. It’s that simple. And she’ll be further traumatized by the criminal justice system. Will she ever receive counseling? Will she ever heal? I mean really heal???
I see this story as another reminder that women of all ages need support and compassion during pregnancy. For young girls, they need not only support but also caring and compassionate guidance-preferably before they become pregnant but most certainly after-to help them understand the complex physical changes they’ll experience as well as the myriad of emotional changes. Oh what a different story this would have been if this young girl had been able to talk to someone about what was happening! Oh what a difference it makes forMamas on Bedrest to have this support network!
I don’t know what will be next for this young girl or others like her. What I do know is that rather than crucify her in the media, we all need to show her compassion. She needs help so that she can heal. And we as a culture need to be thinking about what we can do to help end this type of tragedy in teen pregnancies.
Mamas on Bedrest: It’s okay to have a C-section
August 10th, 2012Whaaaaat?????
Yes, you are reading correctly, I am saying that it’s okay to have a c-section.
I realize that much of my platform here is about normal birth and allowing mamas (and babies) to come into and move into this world naturally.
Yet, I have had 2 C-sections.
Yup, 2 C-sections!
So how come I am such a proponent of “normal birth?”
I’ve often berated myself for not “trying harder” to deliver vaginally. I should have at least tried, shouldn’t I? These feelings welled up once again as I was about to pen another post about the virtues of normal, vaginal birth, this time about how normal birth is now associated with important positive brain proteins in babies. Then just when I was about to get started, I looked over at my 2 sleeping children (I’m writing this in a hotel on my way back to Austin from Summer vacation) when I had to stop myself and ask, “Are my children somehow brain deprived because they were delivered via c-section? Are they in anyway developmentally impaired or otherwise “less than” because they were c-section deliveries?” My children are beautiful and as healthy and cunning as they come!
I also know that without c-sections, neither of my children (or myself for that matter) may be here. My daughter’s birth, my first c-section delivery was emergent, traumatic and both of us are lucky to be alive! I don’t remember all the details of her “coming out” but according to my husband, she was in distress, blue and the neonatologists worked on her for a bit before she cried. I was vomiting profusely from the pregnancy (I had all day sickness all 9 months!) and the anesthesia only made things worse. Added to that, my uterus was lacking in tone, so once my daughter was born, it didn’t contract but was kind of like a stretched out balloon. And I bled. I’m not talking a little sputter, I’m talking this side of hemorrhage! Everything started to move more quickly, there was a lot of clatter as more instruments were opened and soon I was given something in my IV to “calm me down” (translation-make me out of it so that I’d stop trying to see what was going on and getting more agitated in the process.) I watched my OB’s eyes over her mask; they were set, focused and soon you could hear a pin drop in that OR suite. I knew that things were not good.
But I lived to tell about it and I am thankful that I and my almost 10 year old sassy girl are just fine. And I can tell you, there is no brain deficit in this one! In fact, that smart mouth is about to drive me crazy!
Same with my son. My darling boy was born at 39 weeks via c-section. While his birth was much calmer, my uterus was again an overused balloon, lacking in tone and contractility. This time, my baby was put to my breast and with a bit of pitocin, I was stitched up, good as new (sort of!).
I know that I may not be here to write this blog or to critique and share the various articles that I read had I not had 2 c-sections. I would not have the 2 children that I adore beyond words without my 2 c-sections.
”So how are my words affecting mamas who may have had a C-section or are about to have, a truly medically necessary, a C-section?”
I hope that my words will give you some solace. Sometimes you have to do what is right for you, and if a C-section is what is needed for you to have a healthy baby-and to survive yourself, then by all means, go for it! Yes, C-section rates in the United States have reached unacceptable rate. They are also often performed for “unnecessary” reasons. And there is no denying that c-sections carry with them risk. So if you can avoid having one, I prayerfully ask that you do. There really are benefits to having a normal vaginal birth for both mamas and babies. I look at it this way: If this is the way in which Mother Nature designed us to have our young, it must be good because she’s not been wrong so far!
But I am also very thankful for medical science and technology for evolving and developing such that I was able to have my children and live to tell about it! Without seeming mellow dramatic, I am quite convinced that I would be dead otherwise.
We do need to curtail the number of c-sections performed in the United States. I do believe that health care providers need to meticulously scrutinize each situation to evaluate if a proposed c-section is truly necessary. But if a health care provider, after careful analysis of the situation deems it in you and your baby’s best health interest to have a c-section, it (you) will be okay!
