Main article from the BBC.

Surprise! Scientists have discovered that giving women drugs while they are in labour affects their ability to breastfeed. Well, that should be no surprise, but the implications are tremendous - will mainstrean medicine begin rethinking birth (does it have to be so medicalized?) and breastfeeding (don't you think nature does a pretty fine job of providing the newborn with the proper nutrients?)

What Moira and I learned from hypobirthing our boy, and which still continues to blow our minds, is that birth does not have to follow the interventionist model that characterises western practice. Birth can be very beautiful, private, sexy even - but the woman (and her partner) have to prepare themselves mentally and physically for a good birth. If you ignore planning and preparing for your birth, you will get the birth that hums around in your subconscious, the liminal and subliminal images and expectations that colour the western mind: an image of pain, traumatic runs to the hospital, the fear that something may go wrong, the hundreds of such images that our girls (and boys) are subject to from TV and film, the 'Oh my God! She's going to have the baby!!!!!!! Call an ambulance!'

If you can handle it, and don't watch this if you are expecting, and want a laugh, check Monty Python's birth scene from the Meaning of Life.

"What do I do?"

"Nothing dear, you're not qualified."

Now, sometimes, we need the qualified, we need surgeons, but, as far as I've heard and seen, they'd only be needed in around 5% of births. That means 95% of births could proceed naturally, without intervention, in a loving and caring and homely environment. It also seems, as our political instincts should tell us, the qualified often screw things up - and so it seems with this BBC report that notes findings that drugs given during the birthing process can affect a woman's chance to feed her baby.

(Oh, but didn't many women die in childbirth in the past? Yes - and still do when their diet does not match their body's needs - poverty is a great evil but governments aren't going to abandon poverty too quickly, can't have millions of independently wealthy people wandering around with no need or desire for an official to tell them what to do, oh, no - keep the poor poor, that way they'll vote for the latest welfare scam.)

Breastfeeding is natural, green and environmentally friendly if you wish, healthy and provides babies with an enormous amount of good nutrients that scientists have not quite pinned down. Why would they be interested in pinning them down? So large pharmaceutical concerns can repackage milk and sell it to mothers for a large profit. But they don't know everything that's in breast milk, so they can't replicate it.

However, it certainly helps big pharma profits if women's chances of breastfeeding are reduced by (big pharma) drugs given during childbirth. Hah! Got you! Now you have to buy our milk.

Birthing is a natural process. If we study animals' births, they go ito a quiet corner and placidly give birth - they find their zone, and enter it, and what do you think happens if someone comes in and says, "Hey, you're not progressing quick enough, must be something wrong!' the animal would stop the process and, if she enjoys the freedom to escape, will postpone birthing until she's ready again. In our case, women are rushed off to the hospital, prodded and poked, measured intimately and timed (why?), with unknown people walking in and out. As Mia Scotland, our hypnobirth specialist commented, 'How many people were there when you conceived your baby? ... So: how many people should be there when you give birth?'

Birth and sex are related - they present one continuum, a continuum that thrives in our mindset and about how we think we ought to approach birth. Breastfeeding continues that process of nurturing a new human from the moment of conception - and what gets in the way? Big pharma drugs.

The International Journal of Obstretics and Gynecology reports in its abstract that: "associations of lower breastfeeding rates with certain demographic indicators, epidural analgesia, intramuscular opioid analgesia and ergometrine... The associations were maintained when subgroups, such as primiparous women, women whose labours were neither induced nor augmented, and women not receiving epidural analgesia were considered."

Without drugs, 48% of women started breastfeeding after giving birth. However, only 45% of women in the UK breastfeed - a fantastic achievement for the marketing boards of the dairy industry and big pharma! Not bad going is it - to encourage women (and men) to believe that women's bodies are not good enough for their babies' needs, that they need 'qualified' people and products devised by (usually male) scientists to cope. Money money money. And babies' health and family structures have suffered as a result - but that's another story.

But what makes me smile reading the BBC article is that the BBC (which is vehemently pro-vaccine by the way - and vaccines certainly need to be seriously considered: plenty of sceptical sites on the net) asked 'an expert'. Who? What makes them an 'expert'?? No reference or name given. Was this someone who happened to be walking past the BBC broadcasting house? Is this someone connected to the dairy industry, or to big pharma, or who is embarrassed because they did not breastfeed, or finds breastfeeding somehow awkward? Well, I'm an expert on my wife - she's still breast feeding (23mo) and will continue until our son naturally weans himself - as nature, not government policies, intended, and I'd say that the evidence certainly points to drugs deleteriously affecting breastfeeding. Drugs have side effects.

The problem is that in order to shift our ground on birth, sex, and breastfeeding, we need to shift alot of our preconceptions (slight pun intended): we need to rethink the western model of woman, man, medicine, centrally controlled and socialized medicine, the role of companies, politics, and health. Now, I'm a free-market proponent, I'm all up for companies making things to sell and consumers choosing to buy or not to buy, but when we have such a massive state as we do today in the western countries, we face the nefarious interconnectedness between power and wealth that literally undermines our wealth, our health, our confidence, as well as our freedoms. Health suffers when 'experts' tell women that their bodies are not made for birth or for breastfeeding - the evidence (yes, uncovered by other 'experts' who may thankfully take alternative approaches to health or who are just interested in correlations for their own sake) is that breastfeeding is the best form of nutrition for babies, and above all, IT IS FREE!!!!! No money to be made from a babie suckling from its mother - and that's why the large companies conniving with governments (and vice versa) have sought to drive a wedge between mothers and babies: they can make money off it! Jobs, research, support teams, departments ... Money. Not health.

Connect this:" Lead researcher Dr Sue Jordan said more research was required..." (from the BBC site) - of course, she wants a job to do more research. Whenever do you hear a researcher say, "Hey, you know, I think we've learned enough here, job done"? No, they always say, "more research is required" - otherwise, they'd be out of work and having to do something productive and conducive to health and wealth creation instead. Uh oh, that wouldn't be good - have to work for a living? Nah, let's ply the government (taxpayers) for more funds to study things we're interested in (and hopefully which will sell more big pharma products).

What is also entertaining is that the tentative conclusions (always has to be tentative, otherwise the job is done and they'd get no more research funds) points to a dangerous notion that the 'experts' and the machines that go 'ping' are doing harm. No kidding? But to understand that we'd need that massive shift in our thinking.

Oh, but the drugs saved my life! Did they? Were they really needed? Had you prepared from early in the pregnancy or did you leave birth till the last moments and then go, oh f***, this hurts! Give me all the drugs NOW!!! Just like on TV.

If women can get back to a true natural birth (and I saw my wife do this, without drugs or intervention), then the breast feed companies will lose a lot of money. But then, our kids will be healthier, our families stronger, and perhaps therein lies the reason why governments don't like to cultivate the natural approaches to life: they're free, and they don't need the 'experts' - you just get on with life! This video is from Laura Shanley's site on unassisted birth - note, this one IS A GOOD ONE TO WATCH if you are expecting (or your wife is) - notice the lack of emergency personnel, why should childbirth be an emergency?

Moira and I (and yep, a father to be has a LOT to do) used HYPNOBIRTHING under the guidance of Mia Scotland. I get no commission from Mia or her associated companies for plugging her - I recommend her and the techniques because she SHIFTED MY THINKING (and as a philosopher that's usually my remit!) ON CHILDBIRTH and she's therefore been a great influence in my life. And she's a lovely, calm, thoughtful person; Charlie was born at home in a pool, medics fretted, but it all went well. We had had the nod from a more sympathetic gynaecologist who said he'd expected a normal delivery (which should be the case for most women), but we were always prepared to call in what I termed the insurance policy should Moira feel distressed. But the work that we did - and that means learning, rethinking, listening to CDs, watching DVDs to alter our perceptions and thoughts on birth, that learning created a new foundation for a good birth - and a truly relaxed baby (which is apparently often the case with Hypobirth babies)

And if the birth is therefore drug-free and easy and natural, then breastfeeding will tend to follow.

For further information on hypnobirthing click on

MINDFUL MAMA, Mia's website, which has links to the Hypnobirthing movement too

For breastfeeding issues and support click on LA LECHE LEAGUE.

For a holistic vision of breastfeeding and other matters, check out Veronica Robinson's home pages.

For Laura Shanley's homepages on natural, unassisted birth: stories to enjoy and begin to celebrate as human rather than bureaucratic, peaceful rather than interventionist.

Alexander Moseley

Usual caveats apply: get advice from a professional, don't trust me, I'm not 'an expert' in gynaecology or medicine although I've passed exams in pathology, anatomy, and physiology to understand enough of what I read; go get some good advice from a good and decent professional - to sort your mind out first, why not consult the hypnobirth movement or similar natural birthing organisations - in nutshell, think, do your research, think again. Life today's one big government big business juggernaut and the pain and loss in its wake is horrendous - let's do some thinking for ourselves for a change. Shut the TV off and get your own mind back.

Second caveat - these are opinions and may or may not be condoned by the people and institutions linked to in this article. It's a dumb world, so I'd better put that.

Third note: I've changed pharm****l to BIG PHARMA because I noticed that the google ads promoted big pharma products, something I wish to avoid here. It's a term used by Mike Adams of naturalnews.com and others.

Yep, that seemed to work - removed pharma*****l and the drug compand ads disappear - remember that they have a huge budget, unlike the people like Veronic Robinson and Laura Shanley who challenge the main paradigms (and me for that matter!), and they will get there message in there.