How to Turn a Posterior Baby

A baby in the posterior position is one with his head down, but facing the mother's tummy. His back is against her back. This position accounts for many cesareans due to failure to progress and maternal fatigue. Usually a posterior position causes severe back pain during labor, know as 'back labor'. The pain is so intense (believe me, I know) that the mother will beg for intervention or give up.

The top picture show a baby in the posterior position, with his head facing the mother's tummy. The bottom picture shows a baby in the anterior position with his head facing toward the mother' spine. Notice how much smaller the anterior head is? When the baby is in the anterior position, the head fits better into the pelvis, putting more even and adequate pressure on the cervix. This aids the cervix in dialating quickly and effectively. Also, pushing is easier, simply because the portion of the head presenting is smaller in the correct position. It may only be a couple of centimeters, but when the opening is only 10cm large, a few centimeters makes a world of difference.

Here are some more pictures to help you visualize the baby's position.

Anterior position (the ideal position)

 Posterior position

It is best to prevent the baby from getting into a posterior position by practicing good posture. The baby's back and head are the heaviest part of his body. The baby is effected by gravity and the heaviest parts will natually rotate down. When you recline, that heaviest part will roatate toward your back. When you sit straight up and even leaning forwad, the baby's back will turn toward your front.

Once you realize your baby is in the posterior position, here are some things you can do to turn the baby:

• diaphragmatic release
• lunges - put one foot on a stool or chair and lunge foreward, making sure the knee is facing out. Hold fo 5-10 seconds. This widens the pelvis, and gives baby room to rotate.
• Avoid deep squatting
• Use the 'knee to chest' position. When on hands and knees, stick your bottom (butt) in the air, to tip the baby back up out of your pelvis so that there is more room for him to turn around.
• Sway your hips while on hands and knees
• Crawl around on hands and knees. A token 5 minutes on hands and knees is unlikely to do the trick - you need to keep working at this until your baby turns. Try crawling around the carpet for half an hour - while watching TV or listening to music. It is good exercise as well as good for the baby's position!
• Don't put your feet up! Lying back with your feet up encourages posterior presentation.
• Swim belly-down, but avoid kicking with breaststroke legs as this movement is said to encourage the baby to descend in the pelvis [3]. You can still swim breaststroke, but simply kick with straight legs instead of "frogs' legs".
• Try sleeping on your tummy, using lots of pillows and cushions for support.
• Take a warm bath, and get in the tub on all fours, do pelvic tilts while relaxing your tummy.

6:48 AM - May. 28, 2009 - comments {5} - post comment

More News You Don't Hear About

A California pastor is told he can't hold Bible studies in his house until he gets a permit from the city.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=98895

Does this sound like persecution, anyone? Folks have said it is coming for years. Well, its here.  The article also stated the importance of home fellowship.

On a personal note, Broyles added, "I've been leading Bible studies in my home for 13 years in San Diego County, and I personally believe that home fellowship Bible studies are the past and future of the church. … If you look at China, the church grew from home Bible studies. I'm deeply concerned that if in the U.S. we are not able to meet in our homes and freely practice our religion, then we may be worse off than China."

Broyles also explained to WND that oppressive governments, such as communist China or Nazi Germany, worked to repress home fellowships, labeling them the "underground church" or "subversive groups," legally compelling Christians to meet only in sanctioned, government-controlled "official" churches.

I do believe our government, our nation, is headed toward this sort of regulation against Christianity. It started small, with the control over the public schools, and through the indoctrination of  two generations of children, our country is ripe for a take over of atheistic, socialistic, Marxist mentality.

2:59 PM - May. 23, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Courage Quote

This is a perfect quote for the weary woman.

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow.”

                                                    - Mary Anne Radmacher

9:18 PM - May. 21, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Missing Link

Get the real scoop behind the missing link monkey that is apparently 47 million years old at Answers in Genesis.  AIG is an apologetics ministry that helps Christians to defend the faith. Take some time to poke around the site.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/05/19/ida-missing-link

11:12 PM - May. 19, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Tudes

"What are you looking at? So, I've got no shirt and a big bow. You got a problem with that?"

"Mom, will you please stop looking at me?"

"My pretty."

"We're not really interested in having our pictures taken!" And yes, that's laundry in the background. Usually its worse.

10:34 PM - May. 13, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Homeschool Update

Teaching my oldest son (he's 10)  to read has been such a struggle. He is one of those kids who loves math and science, but not reading and writing. Couple that with the fact that I was a first-time homeschool mom and I didn't know HOW to teach a child to read, and we had several years of slow movement in the reading department.

Every year I use the online DORA reading assesment from www.letsgolearn.com. It helps me to see his progress and where he needs work. Yesterday he took the test and I'm happy to announce that his reading comprehension went from mid-third grade last year to mid-ninth grade this year. I'm simply amazed.

I don't write that to boast, but to encourage other moms that your struggling reader really can improve. I believe the improvement is due both to simple maturity and to practice, practice, practice.  Some children, especially boys, are just not ready to read at age four or five. I think consistent exposure and TIME do wonders for boys who are struggling to read. Find books that your boys will want to read and then give the chance to read to you, to their little siblings, to anyone who will listen and not criticize.

I was convicted about the criticism aspect when I took my child to a reading specialist and saw how she interacted with him. She was so laid-back and encouraging. She was not all frustrated or critical. As homeschool moms, we feel so much pressure to get our kids to 'perform' and make sure we prove ourselves to non-homeschoolers. I struggled with this and I created such a negative enviroment, its no wonder the kid hated reading!

Now, we will not talk about spelling. Oy, we have A LOT of work to do in the spelling department. Several ladies have reccomended Sequential Spelling for remedial instruction, so I ordered it last night. THe first eight lessons are free online, so we'll work on those until our order gets here. Next year, I hope to report that his spelling ability has increased by as much as his reading comprehension.

9:15 AM - May. 5, 2009 - comments {6} - post comment

Treating Little Girls Like Ladies

Recently at the ball fields I watched my oldest son practice with his team. My little boys climbed up and down a big hill of dirt and built a seesaw with some abandoned lumber. What more could a little boy want? My baby daughter sat on my lap, proudly displaying her two new teeth and her innate knowledge of the feminine art of batting her eyelashes.

Down on the field below us three male coaches put their team of tiny softball girls through the paces of throwing, batting, and catching. I didn't pay them much attention at first, why would I? I had the cutest little girl in the whole world in my lap entertaining me. But when the abrasive shouts of the male coaches became more than I could bear, I had to start watching.

What I saw was sad and typical. These three men treated these extraordinarily precious little girls like rough and tumble little boys. They shouted "Get in front of the ball!" "Come on, what are you thinking?" "Stop throwing like a girl!" They didn't treat these little girls with the kindness, gentleness and softness that suits the female gender. No, they acted as if they were just little boys with ponytails.

Parents, grandparents, Christians, please listen...if you want little girls to act like the ladies that God created them to be then you must begin by treating them like ladies. It is time for Christians to look feminism in the face and say "No thank you! I don't want what you're teaching, I'll take the Bible instead!"

Feminism seriously robbed and handicapped our mothers' generation. Our generation must not let it rob us and our daughters. We must begin treating little girls DIFFERENTLY because they are different. Little girls are not little boys. Forget the mantra "You can do anything a boy can do!" Why would a little girl want to do anything a boy can do? We weren't created to do what the boys do. We were created for our own precious purpose.

That purpose is to be a lady.

We are here to soften the world, not to dominate it. When we treat our little girls like boys we are calling out of them an aggression and competitiveness that will stifle their natural femininity. We are squelching their created passion for care-giving and nurturing. We are essentially telling them that they are nothing special. When we treat them like little boys we are teaching them that their very gender is worthless.

A little girl who feels worthless is a heart-breaking thing.

6:23 AM - May. 1, 2009 - comments {4} - post comment

Swine Flu - Fact or Fiction?

Dr. Mercola has an article about the recent swine flu scare. Read it here.

Here's an excerpt:

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This is NOT the First Swine Flu Panic

My guess is that you can expect to see a lot of panic over this issue in the near future.  But the key is to remain calm -- this isn't the first time the public has been warned about swine flu. The last time was in 1976, right before I entered medical school and I remember it very clearly. It resulted in the massive swine flu vaccine campaign.

Do you happen to recall the result of this massive campaign?

Within a few months, claims totaling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the vaccine. The vaccine was also blamed for 25 deaths.

However, several hundred people developed crippling Guillain-Barré Syndrome after they were injected with the swine flu vaccine. Even healthy 20-year-olds ended up as paraplegics.

And the swine flu pandemic itself? It never materialized.

More People Died From the Swine Flu Vaccine than Swine Flu!

It is very difficult to forecast a pandemic, and a rash response can be extremely damaging.

As of Monday April 27, the worldwide total number of confirmed cases was 82, according to WHO, which included 40 cases in the U.S., confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control.  But does that truly warrant the feverish news headlines?

To put things into perspective, malaria kills 3,000 people EVERY DAY, and it's considered "a health problem"...  But of course, there are no fancy vaccines for malaria that can rake in billions of dollars in a short amount of time.

One Australian news source,³ for example, states that even a mild swine flu epidemic could lead to the deaths of 1.4 million people and would reduce economic growth by nearly $5 trillion dollars.

Give me a break, if this doesn't sound like the outlandish cries of the pandemic bird-flu I don't know what does. Do you remember when President Bush said two million Americans would die as a result of the bird flu?  

In 2005, in 2006, 2007, and again in 2008, those fears were exposed as little more than a cruel hoax, designed to instill fear, and line the pocketbooks of various individuals and industry. I became so convinced by the evidence AGAINST the possibility of a bird flu pandemic that I wrote a New York Times bestselling book, The Bird Flu Hoax, all about the massive fraud involved with the epidemic that never happened..

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So, what do you think? Is this just another scare tactic from the government and the media? Or even a way to pave the path of national healthcare?

1:01 PM - Apr. 29, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

Muslim Demographics

From Youtube:  Islam will overwhelm Christendom unless Christians recognize the demographic realities, begin reproducing again, and share the gospel with Muslims.

"As the population shrinks, so does the culture."  A birth rate of 2.11 children per couple is required to sustain a culture. Europe's birthrate is 1.38, at that rate it is impossible for their culture to sustain itself. But Europe's population has been growing, 90% of the growth from 1990 has been due to Islam Immigration. The United States birthrate is 2.11, but only because of the Latino immigration. The Catholic church has recently reported that Islam has just surpassed its membership numbers.  The German government recently stated " The fall in German population can no longer be stopped. It will be a Muslim nation by 2050."

This isn't about being anti-Muslim or pro-white Christian, but I find it interesting that "educated", "rich", Christians are simply not reproducing. Of course, these same people will go to poor countries and try to educate the people there and hand out birth control. We can see from the BIble's examples of Rachel and Leah that ancient women knew when their bodies were fertile, why do we assume that poor people only reproduce because they can't afford birth control or because they don't "know what causes it?"

There are so many aspects of this that are interesting...I wish I had time to hash it all out. I won't even get into the white-Christian-missionary-movement that caused so many Christian missionaries to limit their children because of church support.

Bottom line, learn to evangelize Muslims and have more babies.

10:20 AM - Apr. 29, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Refuse to Participate in the Recession

Our church participated in Dave Ramsey's Town Hall for Hope a few nights ago. It was so encouraging. Dave spoke about the spirit of fear that has taken hold of so many Americans. You can watch the full video here and find out that this recession isn't even the worst one since the Great Depression. Are many individuals hurting? Yes, but the facts are being twisted by the media and pehaps, even the government to scare us. Scare us into what?  Well, that depends on how much of a conspiracy theorist you are?

Grin.

Watch the video. http://www.townhallforhope.com/

9:56 PM - Apr. 27, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

Global Peace Keepers

Have you read The Left Behind series? This sounds a lot like Jerry Jenkins' Global Peace Keepers.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=95674

9:44 AM - Apr. 22, 2009 - comments {0} - post comment

The Narcissism Epidemic

The Today Show had a piece on this morning about the prevailing narcissism of the current generation. You can read the article and watch a video here.  Now an entire generation of young adults, and thirty-somethings are more concerned with themselves and their little space on the internet.

 "The cultural focus on self-admiration began with the shift toward focusing on the individual in the 1970s, documented in Tom Wolf's article on “The Me Decade” in 1976 and Lasch's “The Culture of Narcissism.” In the three decades since, narcissism has grown in ways these authors never could have imagined. The fight for the greater good of the 1960s became looking out for number one by the 1980s. Parenting became more indulgent, celebrity worship grew, and reality TV became a showcase of narcissistic people. The Internet brought useful technology but also the possibility of instant fame and a "Look at me!" mentality. "

Parents and teachers began worrying about children's self-esteem. They gave the children unmerited praise and refused to discipline or correct because the were worried that it might hurt little Johnny's self-esteem. Did it work?

"In fact, narcissism causes almost all of the things that Americans hoped high self-esteem would prevent, including aggression, materialism, lack of caring for others, and shallow values. In trying to build a society that celebrates high self-esteem, self-expression, and "loving yourself," Americans have inadvertently created more narcissists — and a culture that brings out the narcissistic behavior in all of us. This book chronicles American culture's journey from self-admiration, which seemed so good, to the corrosive narcissism that threatens to infect us all."

Why didn't boosting our children's self-esteem work? Because it isn't Biblical. The Bible says that we are made in the image of God (Gen 1:27) and that sets us apart from the animals and gives us worth. Where does our worth come from? From God. Our own works are like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) and none of us are righteous without God (Rom 3:10.) We are to be more concerned with the well-being of others than we are for ourselves (Phil 2:3-4) and we are to live to serve, not live to be served.

Do we understand that, without God we are filthy. There is nothing good in us apart from God. We are totally depraved. Anything good in our life is because of God, why are we giving ourselves the praise?

Why did so many Christians fall for it? Because Christians are forgetting the Bible. They look at psychology or science first, and try to fit the Bible in. Christians no longer know how to think rightly (or Biblically.)  This topic is fascinating to me, as I began to understand the depth of how I am not thinking Biblically. Hopefully, for my own benefit, I will be able to put some more thoughts together on the subject. Until then.

8:56 AM - Apr. 21, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Snake-Killer

Snakes and snails

and puppy dog tailes

That's what little boys are made of.

He is the mighty snake-killer protecting the homefront from a ferocious band of baby snakes. My oldest son killed his second snake this morning. He was leading his younger brothers on an worm hunting exhibedition and uncovered a baby snake. The boys came hollering into the kitchen for me to see the slithering snake on our driveway. That's when my oldest chopped his head off...sort of.

Then he was put into service to kill the scorpion my second son found in our bedroom. It was a busy morning.

1:20 PM - Apr. 15, 2009 - comments {4} - post comment

Family Picture

Here's our family on Easter. We had a great time at mom and dad's house. We got to see my sister and brother-in-law and their horse-dog, Carter. His teeth could easily fit around my children's heads, but he is gentle  and playful.  I hope everyone had a great Easter.

11:15 AM - Apr. 14, 2009 - comments {6} - post comment

Review of American Education

People are angry about how quickly it seems that our country is falling into socialism. They are asking, "What happened?" The truth is that the move toward more socialistic tendencies was aided and largely pushed forward through the government-run-mandatory education institutions, ie public school.

Check out the following six videos. They will give you a short history of the American education system and how it fits nicely into a global mindset.

12:18 PM - Apr. 10, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

Becoming a Man

My husband has been using simple questions and answers to teach our little boys about becoming men. For example my husband will say, "Son, what does a man do?" and the son is supposed to reply, "A man talks to God."

My little boys are really enjoying this time to learn from daddy, but my three year old doesn't always get the answers right. Here's how the conversation when this morning.

Dad: Son, what does a man do?

Son: A man talks to...?

Dad: You know who a man talks to.

Son: A man talks to...LADIES!

Looks like we have a heartbreaker on our hands.

7:37 AM - Apr. 10, 2009 - comments {2} - post comment

7 Practices of the Effective Woman

7 Practices of the Effective Woman

1.    She rises early
2.    She maintains the spiritual disciplines
3.    She focuses on relational priorities for every season
4.    She sets up regular times for planning
5.    She develops an effective to-do list system and calendar/planner system
6.    She establishes an efficient routine for managing her home
7.    She organizes her house systematically

Check out the articles, and the "Girl Talk" blog of Carolyn Mahaney and her girls.

8:55 AM - Apr. 8, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

Tax Day Tea Party

By now you've probably heard of the smattering of protests labeled "tea parties" that have popped up in cities around the country. You may not have heard about the April 15th Nationwide Tea Party Rallies that are scheduled to be in 30+ cities. Check out this link. Here is what the tea parties are all about.

The Tea Party effort is just a small piece of a much larger movement aimed at restoring the basic free-market principles our country was built on. The Constitution, for the most part, is being ignored by our current government and we intend on working together to correct the problem.

Find a rally near you and make a stand on April 15th.

8:25 PM - Apr. 5, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment

First Day of April

Today the boys and I spent the morning playing pranks on our family. We drove all around town and had some very playful fun. Here's what we did:

- stuck 100 plastic forks into my parents' yard (The little boys LOVED it)

-superglued three coins to my in-laws garage floor. My father-in-law would stop a car in traffic in order to pick up stray change on the side of the road. So, imagining him trying to pull those pennies off the floor is hilarious.

- went to hubby's work and wrote messages with soap on his truck windows. His company really needs to fire its corporate security!

-my son wanted to make lunch so he boiled some eggs. Before serving mine, he dipped in clear hot sauce. NOT funnY! :)

6:09 PM - Apr. 1, 2009 - comments {3} - post comment

John Taylor Gatto's "Underground History of American Education"

I'm pouring through virtual pages of John Taylor Gatto's most famous work "Underground History of Ameican Education". Its available HERE to read for free.

So far it is fascinating. I wouldn't suggest it if you are happy with the way you view the American education system. It might just change your mind.

3:00 PM - Mar. 31, 2009 - comments {1} - post comment