hw #27

FEEDBACK FOR OTHERS
To Devin: Devin I think you made a very valid point, parents should really take into consideration the huge amounts of work that entail child care. I even neglected these thoughts with all my interviews. I like how you tied all your interviews back to the focal point that you grasped from your inquries. I want to know why you think women should have children when they are 30, their bodies can have them with more facility at a younger age. I think your strongest line was "Then she was told she had something called Maple Syrup Urine Disease (you can’t make this stuff up), which if not treated could cause coma and death for the baby.". I think that this line had great character and I could really hear your voice. I belive to make this part stronger you could have illustrated the point with more fluidity rather than just stating and then this happened and then this. I thought over all this was an interesting piece, you should just read over your work before publishing ! :D
_______________________________________________________________________________________
FEEDBACK TO ME
MENTOR: Loreli
Eloise! First my apologies for this post being late...my day blew up in my face and i just couldn't get to it until now.

For me the most stimulating point here is about the cost of childbirth...that a natural childbirth is less expensive than a medical one, yet our system pushes medicine and doctors and a less natural experience of birth. The thing is, as I mentioned in your last post, that every woman is different and honestly, I am sure that Carolina would not have lived (umbilical cord was around her neck), and Sofia may not have made it either, had we not been in a hospital, with a lot of medical intervention and surveillance. The other bit is that of our system...a big issue that you have been tracking down all year. The thing is that if our government has been hijacked by corporate bodies (which I believe it has), then our political actions are serving to make money, not take care of citizens. The French paradigm with job security, financial support, and five (!) days in the hospital to recover and rest sound like a utopian dream compared to our system, where a mother can be discharged a single day after delivering a baby, with very little education or practical guidance. It does feel that we have very much gotten away from the wisdom of the ages, that Bill so impressively continues to perpetuate. Great post, really interesting.

What is DSP?

I would love more exploration of what it is to "dis-empower", vs. simply not having empowerment as related to motherhood and the birthing experience.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
DEVIN: STUDENT
You wrote three highly detailed birthing posts. I found them all interesting but the first one was the zinger! Bill Hill is not your run of the mill midwife. I think your best line(and there were several of these)was, "When Bill speaks about the birthing of his wife he said,'she just pushed it out, but I did most of the work', when previously he had stated that if there aren't complications all there is to do is catch it. I believe such contradiction and prejudice towards the strength of his wife comes from the fact that she left 3 weeks after the birth of their second daughter." Its as though his wife said to him, "You did all the work so you keep them." It seems really tragic that she left him and her two babies. I'm sure has a point about hospitalsbeing a sometimes negative part of the "birthing industry." On the other hand, if there are complications, it's obviously better to be in a hospital. Even in this country, when a lot of poor people had babies at home, a lot of the mothers and babies died. The section about your own birth in France was really interesting too. My mother wishes she could have had my brother and me in France. The services are so good. She was lucky that she worked for the French American Foundation here when my brother was born and had a year of paid maternity leave. I think you wrote the way you talk, and this makes the writing lively. You just need to edit it more and I think you meant "relevant" when you said of "prevalent."