Grateful Birth Newsletter

"I was 43 years old when Kellie delivered my ten pound baby girl. She was my fifth child. This was a wonderful experience since my eighteen year old daughter assisted. This was the first time I didn't tear, I was not cut either. No drugs. When all was done I sat up and nursed my precious baby girl. Ten pounds of pure joy."

-Pamela Phillips

Contact Us

Kellie Sparkman C.P.M., L.M.
(702)-399-8380

se habla espanol
Marlene Cruz

Associated Services for Well Pregnancy

Serving the Las Vegas and surrounding community

info@gratefulbirth.com

(702) 399-8380

"We have a secret in our culture, and it's not that birth is painful; it's that women are strong."

-Laura Stavoe Harm

I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask,

"Mother, what is war?"

Eve Merriam

Associated Services for Well Pregnancy would like to welcome you to our newsletter and website, www.gratefulbirth.com. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or are interested in homebirthing. If you have a story you would like to share with us, please submit your story. We would love to hear from you.

Study group...

Students of midwifery are invited to join our Tuesday study group covering a variety of topics to move you towards CPM certification. For more information and directions call 702-399-8380 or 702-845-5113.

Neonatal Resuscitation Program

Upcoming dates to be announced.

Pre-registration required

Class Fee $150.00

Book Fee $50.00

This is an all day class.

Please bring lunch.

For location information and registration

call 702-399-8380.

Tie-dye...

Start collecting your 100% cotton fabrics for upcoming tie-dye events. Dates and locations to be announced. Loads of fun for the family!

Amalie's Story...

My name is Amalie Pittman and I have had 4 homebirths. My son was born while we were living in Ohio, where lay midwives are illegal and nurse midwives can only practice in a hospital under a doctor. I was young and though we knew we wanted a homebirth, I was pressured into seeing an OB...Read complete article...

Managing Pain Naturally...

Women can significantly reduce the amount of pain during labor by natural methods. View pain in labor for what it is - normal, healthy, productive, intermittent, ending with the ecstasy of your baby's birth...Read complete article...

Healthy Eating Cheat Sheet...

FISH: Contaminants in fish can affect your pregnancy.

OK: Up to 12 ounces a week of wild salmon, sea bass, flounder, sole snapper, haddock, cod, Pollack, sardines and tilapia; up to 6 ounces a week of light, canned “chunk” tuna

SKIP: Swordfish, shark, king mackerel, tilefish, fresh tuna, canned albacore tuna; raw sushi; raw shellfish; refrigerated smoked seafood, such as lox and whitefish

CHEESE AND DIARY: Raw and unpasteurized dairy products can cause foodborne illnesses.

OK: Pasteurized milk and yogurt; hard-cooked eggs; hard cheese, raw or unpasteurized milk from a certified clean source*

SKIP: Unpasteurized milk products, including milk, yogurt and cheese; soft cheeses, such as Brie, blue cheese and Camembert; foods with raw eggs, such as some salad dressings and protein shakes

*Pasteurization, like antibiotics, kills both good and harmful bacteria and destroys nutrient enzymes in milk. Raw or unpasteurized milk from a certified clean source is sometimes available because of improved sanitation methods in some states like California.

RAW FOODS: They can cause listeriosis, salmonellosis and other food-related illnesses that can harm your baby

OK: Microwave kills enzymes in food. Use other source of heat. Vegetarian sushi, raw large sprouts that can be cleaned and raw vegetables that can be cleaned or peeled

SKIP: Any meat you’re not sure has been reheated to the proper temperature; raw shellfish; raw eggs; raw sprouts; raw radishes

CAFFEINE AND TEA: Too much caffeine can up your baby’s heart rate, and some ingredients in herbal tea aren’t regulated to be safe for pregnant women.

OK: Up to 150mg of caffeine a day (a cup of coffee has about 150 mg; a can of soda has not only caffeine but phosphoric acid that dissolves bones. It takes 43 glasses of water to neutralize the acid of one soda!); flavored synergistic teas, such as citrus or peppermint

SKIP: Any tea made with goldenseal, blue or black cohosh, juniper, pennyroyal, St. John’s wort, rosemary, thuja, feverfew and dong quai

Herbs to Avoid - Angelica, Cinchona, Eucalyptus Oil, Lovage, Ma Huang (Ephedra), Male Fern, Mistletoe, Mugwort, Poke Root, Rue, Epizote, Sheperds Purse, Tansy, Wild Ginger, Wormwood, Yarrow

NOTE: The following herbs are LAXATIVE in nature and should be used sparingly or in combinations. Aloe Vera, Barberry, Buckthorn, Cascara Sagrada, Mandrake, Rhubarb, Senna

Strong laxatives should be used with discretion as it causes cramping and stomach griping.

Recommended Reading:

Jordan Rubin

The Great Physician's Rx

www.greatphysiciansrx.com

Healing foods from the Bible

Research has pinpointed at least seven different antibiotics in yogurt that can be as effective as the prescription drug Terramycin against such diseases as botulism, salmonella and staph poisoning.

Read complete article...

To Find Balance, Retreat!

by Howard VanEs

When our lives get out of balance we experience stress. The stress may come from work, relationships, health challenges, legal challenges, the environment or any combination of factors. Stress in of itself is not so bad but when experienced regularly over time disease states arise: irritability, anxiety, insomnia, headaches, feelings of helplessness, and indigestion. Left unchecked chronic stress leads to depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, chronic anxiety, a compromised immunes system, etc.

A time honored way of bringing balance into your life is with a retreat. A retreat can help you regain balance and live healthier in a number of important ways.

Read complete article...

A New Birth

The expression “born again” is not a new term, invented by modern journalists to describe recent religious trends. The term “born again” is almost two thousand years old.

One dark night, in the ancient city of Jerusalem, Jesus turned to one of the best-known intellectuals of his time and said, “I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

In those words, Jesus told us of both the necessity and the possibility of new birth—of spiritual transformation.

-From “How to Be Born Again” Billy Graham

Technology for Birth:

A Consensus Meeting in Fortaleza, Brazil

By Marsden Wagner

Chapter 6: Pursuing the Birth Machine: The Search for Appropriate Birth Technology. pg 125

In the United States the issue of who is to give maternity care to poor women is acute. In many of the largest cities, the majority of practicing obstetricians refuse to give care if the women’s bill is to be paid by public funds. These same doctors frequently block attempts to use midwives as a solution. For example, in 1991 the California Medical Association successfully stopped a bill to expand midwifery services from passing the State legislature (personal communication, State Senator Killea, 1992). Meanwhile a private hospital in Los Angeles hired security guards to patrol the hospital parking lot to stop poor women in active labour from gaining access to the emergency room where the hospital is obliged to provide assistance (Cable News Network 1989) and in 1992 the County of Los Angeles, desperate to increase the number of poor women receiving prenatal service but could find no obstetricians to staff prenatal clinics and the county did not consider using midwives instead.

Chapter 8: Spreading the Word: Action and Reaction pg 324

If the solution to the inappropriate use of birth technology does not lie with the medical, public health or science establishments, where does it lie? Recent events show that it lies with the public. Again and again, the record shows that when key members of the public became aware and fully informed of what is happening with the birth machine, they will join forces with selected doctors, midwives, public health officials, scientists and politicians to demand, and often secure, change.

pg 325

Scientists can also be fearless and recognise their responsibility to help bridge the gap between their results and policy and medical practice. When the editors of the new International Journal of Obstetric Anaesthesia disassociated themselves from the scientific review article on epidural anaesthesia in their own journal, and said that controlled research could not ethically be done on the single most important new technology in their field, the scientist who had done the review immediately wrote a letter to the Lancet which concluded:

“Perhaps the reason that they (the editors of the new Journal) are so confident that women would not take part in properly controlled trials is that they and other anaesthetists are less forthcoming that they should be about disclosing evidence that epidurals may have important adverse effects. Obstetric anaesthetists give the impression that they are not living up to their responsibilities, either as researchers or as clinicians.” (Chalmers 1992)

Abundant Life Foundation

See How to Be Born Again By Billy Graham

Special TBN Edition available through website www.tbn.org

From the book “Healing Prayer” by Reginald Cherry, M.D.

As early as 1988, medical researcher Harold Koenig noted: “High technology medicine is accomplishing much, but its limitations are obvious to many. It has emphasized the mechanical, physiological, and biochemical means for restoring health and sustaining physical life, but it has tended to minimize or even ignore the psychological, social, and especially the religious and spiritual dimensions of healing.” Harold George Koenig, Mona Smiley, and Jo Ann Ploch Gonzales, Religion, Health, and Aging: A Review and Theoretical Integration (New York : Greenwood Press, 1988), Foreward

The Supernatural Connection study by Randolph C. Byrd, “Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population,” Southern Medical journal (July 1988), 826-29

1. Those prayed for were five times less likely to require antibiotics.

2. They were three times less likely to develop pulmonary edema, a condition in which lungs fill with fluid.

3. None of those prayed for required endotracheal intubation, the insertion of an artificial airway in the throat, compared with twelve in the control group who required treatment.

4. They experienced fewer cases of pneumonia and cardiopulmonary arrests.

5. Fewer patients in the prayed-for group died.

Read the book!

Or visit us at our free

Community Abundant Life Health Meetings

covering topics such as

Christian Midwifery by Betty A. Pecknann RN, CPM

Pray for the Lord’s guidance, wisdom pg 281

Speak the Word of God pg 285

Couple faith with works pg 89

(James 2:17, II Timothy 2:15)

The Calcium Factor: The Scientific Secret of Health and Youth

By Robert R. Barefoot & Carl J. Reich, M.D.

The Calcium Factor

P.O. Box 590

Southeastern, PA 19399-0590

1-800-341-1133

Available at

Sunshine Food Market and Whole Foods

Bio-K Plus

Regulates intestinal functions

Bio-K+ CL1285^® is a unique product. It is the only one that contains the patented formula of L. acidophilus and L. casei.

Its exclusive formula contains beneficial bacteria that must be present in great number in the intestine to promote and maintain a healthy balanced digestive system.

info@biokplus.com

www.biokplus.com

1-800-593-2465