How long have I been making noise for healthcare reform?  But I just can't feel like the House "reform" vote is a victory, though I know it is. But eliminating insurance coverage for abortion is NOT what I had been looking, hoping, and advocating for. Once again, the health of women is a political football. It is not about what's best for us, it's about political expediency, and that's just bullshit. The Stupak amendment is not about ensuring tax dollars don't pay for abortions -- the Capps amendment provided for that, along with the notorious Hyde amendment. It is about restricting women's access to healthcare.

Here's what our government says to women:  Making an intimate personal choice to end a pregnancy? No insurance coverage. Want to give birth in the privacy of your own home with a midwife and minimize costly intervention?  You may or may not be covered. Pressured into an unnecessary induction, epidural and cesarean because the ultrasound shows that the baby is big/small/whatever? Where's the checkbook?  At least in Washington State, the government is refusing to pay more for cesareans than for vaginal birth.  At least in Washington State, poor women can get Medicaid to pay for a midwife-attended birth or an abortion. 
 

My tax dollars pay for military action I do not support, and anti-abortion people refuse to allow premiums paid by individual women to go toward abortion coverage within their health plan. Why is my concern for life less valid than theirs? Please defund the Pentagon before asking me to give up my autonomy.  Women (& men) deserve the freedom to make our own best choices with dignity. Legal, covered abortion & homebirth for all women, now!

Studies show that a continuous, supportive presence, even if the person is on the other side of a curtain and not speaking, have a positive effect on a woman’s labor, making it shorter, less painful, and able to proceed naturally without intervention.  If you are pregnant with a supportive partner, the birth of your child can be a time of togetherness that enhances your partnership and sexual connection.  The continuous support of the baby’s other parent reinforces the truth, which is that no matter what, you are in it together as parents.  A friend, a godparent or grandparent of the baby, or a professional labor support doula can all act as the supportive continuous presence for a mom who has no partner or whose partner cannot be present.  The best professional labor support person will be able to facilitate and support helpful participation by the mom’s significant others, no matter who they are.  

When women are giving birth in the hospital, they experience a new set of caregivers, students, residents, hospitalists, etc during their birth when the shifts change every 12 hours.  This is why it is so important that a mom bring support with her, rather than hoping to find it from hospital staff.  When a mom gives birth in a freestanding birth center or at home, she generally has a small number of skilled caregivers whom she has met before her birth and who will stay with her until her baby is born.  The research which shows that a CONTINUOUS supportive presence is helpful in labor suggests to me that for most women the continuity of care provided to healthy women by out of hospital midwives would generally lead to healthier labors.  

Sex leads to pregnancy leads to childbirth.  This, of course, is a huge oversimplification.  It is possible to have lots of satisfying sex that doesn’t lead to pregnancy because a penis never goes into a vagina.  It is possible to have chemical or mechanical problems of the reproductive system that make it impossible or unlikely for penis-in-vagina sex to produce pregnancy.  People can also have penis-in-vagina sex but using any of a number of chemical, mechanical or physiological methods to prevent pregnancy (contraception).  But, penis-in-vagina sex has been until very recently in human history the only way to make more humans, and it is only recently that it has been as simple (and difficult) as taking a medicine to prevent pregnancy. 

When pregnancy occurs as a result of sex, it may not necessarily lead to childbirth.  Genetically abnormal embryos often spontaneously abort, and one pregnancy out of five will end spontaneously before halfway through the pregnancy (20 weeks).  Many women choose to end unwanted pregnancies through induced abortion, even in countries where abortion is illegal, clandestine, and dangerous because it is practiced outside the reach of evidence-based healthcare.  Illegal abortion is a leading contributor to maternal mortality worldwide.  In countries where abortion is legal, women have the choice to end an unwanted pregnancy with the help of a trusted healthcare professional and at little risk to their health or well-being.  So, women can be pregnant without ever having given birth or having a child. 

For most women who choose to get pregnant, sex gets them pregnant, though some use reproductive technology like insemination or in vitro fertilization to conceive.  However, all unplanned pregnancies, which is about half of all pregnancies, occur because of penis-in-vagina sex.  So, although it is a generalization, it is still generally true:  sex leads to pregnancy leads to childbirth. 

Knowledge is power.  Sex ed helps us take charge of our sexual and reproductive health, and an important part of reproductive health is the part where you’re reproducing: conception, pregnancy and birth.  Sexuality is affected by pregnancy, and childbirth is accomplished with the same hormones and muscular contractions as orgasm.  Sex, pregnancy, and birth are biologically and physiologically linked.  Childbirth ed is sex ed. 

All animals are built to reproduce themselves, and we humans do it with sex, pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.  The pregnancy and birth of your child is your first act as a parent, and as parents you want to make the best choices you can for your children and family.  By getting educated about the physiologic process of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, you set yourself up for a healthy reproductive life, and prepare yourself to be an informed consumer of the health-care you receive during pregnancy and childbirth.  I want to bring childbirth ed to Scarleteen because when women and families are educated about birth it can be an empowering, transformative and even sexual experience in the life of a family. 

Based on the advice of an Aetna representative in March 2008, I chose an insurance plan for our family which I thought covered the naturopathic doctor we had chosen for our daughter Ramona.  All our well-baby visit claims were paid by Aetna, from 3/2008 through 2/2009.  However, in May 2009 we received a bill from our doctor stating that Aetna had taken back all payments for all dates of service.  We were shocked and canceled an appointment we had scheduled with he doctor for Ramona later in the month.  When we called the Starbucks benefits center, they told us (much to our surprise) that our plan did not cover naturopaths, but when we called Aetna, thought they confirmed that we did not have benefits for a naturopath, we were told that all claims had been re-paid to our doctor.  Totally confused, we called Starbucks benefit center on 5/26/09, where their rep (Alison) called Aetna.  We had a conference call with Aetna rep Dennis, who said that indeed, we did not have benefits with a naturopath, and that the payment had been made by Aetna in error and had been taken back from the doctor.  I got off the phone with all the information (including claim numbers and dates of service) needed to file an appeal.  When we called Jaye at our doctor's billing service, however, she told us that she had recently received payment for our visits and she no longer showed a balance.  At this point, we didn't know what to do, so we hoped that the payments shown in Jaye's system would be final.  We decided to change our plan to one that we were sure had coverage for naturopaths when we were able, which was in August 2009 during the Starbucks enrollment period, which we have now done.  However, we have also now received a new bill from our doctor's biller showing  that Aetna's payments for DOSs 2/28/09, 3/12/08, & 8/25/08 have indeed been taken back again.  I have not filed an appeal with Aetna because at this point I do not trust any action they take in payment of these claims to be final. 

I want all dates of service listed above to be paid by Aetna as they were initially paid.  If we had known about our lack of ND coverage immediately after our first visit 3/12/08, we would have changed plans or doctors, rather than continuing to accumulate non-covered charges with our ND, and thus we believe that Aetna should honor their original payments.