The Covenant

The Covenant (Abrams Daughters #1)

BY: Beverly Lewis

Always Enough

Always Enough

BY: Rolland and Heidi Baker

John Son of Thunder

John Son of Thunder

By: Ellen Gunderson Traylor

The Physics of Life at Forty Below!

I found this and had to post it for you all. It is really good! Here is the link where I found it!

The Physics of Life at Forty Below!

by Ned Rozell

A father wakes, rolls out of bed, and steps on cold carpet. He grabs a flashlight, and shines it outside the window. The thermometer reads 40 below zero, the only point at which the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales agree. The red liquid within his thermometer is alcohol; mercury freezes at 38 below.

His little boy wakes, dresses, and hands his father birch logs to add to the wood stove. The logs are heavy, cut last fall and not properly dried. The green wood contains almost 50 percent moisture, compared to about 30 percent in cured wood. The logs hiss amid other burning logs. They give off no heat until the moisture is driven off. Outside the car is plugged in. The father remembered the night before to activate the heating element that warms his antifreeze, which in turn keeps his motor oil just viscous enough to allow the pistons to move. A heat blanket, another northern adaptation, has kept the battery at about 20 degrees Fahrenheit, just warm enough to permit 50 percent of the cranking strength available in summer.

After breakfast, the mother dresses her boy so he can wait outside for the school bus. She pulls a big pile hat over his head, knowing that’s where the human body loses the most heat, followed by his neck, the sides of his torso under the arms, and his groin.

Mother and son walk outside, crunching the snow on the driveway as they break the bonds between snow crystals. The dry snow is cold enough to prevent skis from gliding. The air is so cold it robs the interface between ski and snow of heat produced by friction that creates melt water on which to glide in warm temperatures.

On the road, car headlights cut through the ice fog that hangs over the road like cotton candy. Exhaust, about 250 degrees in the tailpipe, cools to minus 40 in less than 10 seconds after it comes out of the vehicle. Water cooled that fast turns into tiny particles that make up ice fog. Cars and trucks aren’t the only things that make ice fog. Any source of water vapor will do, including people.

Waiting for the bus, mother and son turn to the sound of a nearby train. Though the train is more than five miles away, a temperature inversion makes it sounds as if it’s coming down the street. The inversion, created when warm air rests on top of colder air, acts as a tunnel in which sound waves bounce for great distances.

The boy sees a raven flying above the ice fog and points to it. Ravens often roost close to town during a cold snap. As the black bird flies through the air, its hyper metabolism keeps its body temperature at about 107 degrees. Through various adaptations, most animals are bothered very little by the cold, though chickadees adapted to life at bird feeders will probably die if people stop feeding them now.

School is rarely closed by cold weather in Alaska (the Fairbanks North Star Borough has no official temperature cut-off), so the bus arrives on time. The mother walks back into the house, her toes tingling as her extremities go through a normal cycle of warming and cooling. Her toe temperature rises to 68 degrees after falling to 50 while waiting for the bus.

She goes inside and moves toward her husband to give him a kiss. Before their lips touch, an arc of electricity bridges the gap, mildly shocking them both. Cold, dry air is a perfect environment for the generation of static electricity.

The father starts a sluggish car engine. During the cold start, his engine spews a large amount of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and a whole slew of hydrocarbons. After five to 10 minutes, heat from the engine warms the gasoline, which changes more readily to vapor, allowing more gas to ignite and reducing the pollutants out the tailpipe. As he pulls out of the driveway and into the fog floating above the street, his car bounces due to a tire that has retained a flat spot. He bumps down the road slowly until the tire warms enough for the rubber to become more flexible.

Its tough, but weather like this may be the best deterrent to overpopulation in Alaska.

28 Weeks – 3rd Trimester

Today was the dawn of a new day. The day beginning my third trimester. I was gently awaken by four wonderful blessings bouncing on, and one blessing bouncing on me from within on my bladder! I am so thankful we have finished adding our new bathroom upstairs at moments like that. It won’t be long from now, until we get to see and hold our newest blessing! Picking a baby name is something we should finalize…Hmm, need to go back and look at our list on our baby name post “What is in a Name”

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Breast milk contains stem cells??

Here is a link a friend sent to us today. About harvesting stem cells from breast milk. I found this article more interesting because of the points they make about “breast milk” vs “formula” and its effect on our children.

“The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast milk versus formula don’t become apparent for decades. Formula companies have focussed on matching breast milk’s nutritional qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance.”

Read more here:
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20081102-16879.html

Birthing Video Link (Must See)

Here is a link for a video you must see, if you have any interest in birthing. It will go great with our last post on birthing!

www.thebusinessofbeingborn.com

BRRRrrrr! -55 as I type….

Thought I would write a short post to let you all know we are still here. Today is -55 degrees below zero. It must have been 5 or 10 degrees colder through the night. Our propane has turned to liquid again and the supplement heater under the house won’t work again. The wood stove makes it nice and livable, but the floor is cold, and we are trying to keep some pipes thawed.

On a good note, our TAXES are filed!!!!! Just got to wait for that return!
We will type more later, but for now we will keep praying for warmer weather.

The “Business” of Birthing

The “Business” of Birthing
This was e-mailed to us today from my friend and cousin. It explains much of our feelings on birthing in America.

Note: All of the information here represents fact, not opinion, of birthing within the United States. If you don’t believe it, check the references listed at the end of the article. That being said, you may want to sit down before reading further…

FACT
Each year, the U.S. spends over $50 billion dollars on childbirth. This is more than any other nation in the world. (This number does not include babies in the NICU or readmissions during the first month.)

FACT
Birthing is the largest source of income for American hospitals.

FACT
The U.S. ranks 37th in the world for the quality of its health care.

FACT
Over HALF of all hospital admissions in America are for maternity.

FACT
Hospitals are NOT the safest place to have a baby. 25 infectious strains exist that are resistant to ALL known antibiotics. These are found primarily in hospitals.

FACT
75 years of routine hospital birth have produced NO studies to show it is safer than having a baby at home with a skilled birth attendant.

FACT
Both homebirth and birth centers have been scientifically proven to be as safe or safer than hospitals with a skilled labor attendant (i.e. midwives, not doctors).

FACT
The more technology used in childbirth, the more dangerous it becomes.

FACT
The larger the hospital, the greater the risks to both mother and baby.

FACT
Of the 4.3 million babies born annually in the U.S., a mere 5% represent natural childbirth.

FACT
America has the 32nd highest infant mortality rate in the entire world.

FACT
The U.S.A. has the 14th highest maternal mortality ratio among developed nations.

FACT
Over 90% of all infants in the U.S. are born with drugs (e.g. narcotics from epidurals, pitocin, acetaminophen, etc) in their systems. NONE of these drugs have been tested for safe use in infants.

FACT
A 24-hour hospital stay, uncomplicated delivery in the U.S.A. costs anywhere from $8,000-10,000. This cost DOUBLES for a c-section.

FACT
ALL families in the U.S. are charged newborn nursery charges, even if the baby NEVER leaves the mother’s room. This “routine” charge amounts to about $1.3 billion dollars annually, for services that are NOT rendered. (I’m not quite sure why this doesn’t constitute insurance fraud – billing for services not rendered.)

FACT
Every year, 1 million, or about 20%, full-term, healthy infants are sent to the NICU for “observation” for an average stay of 3 days, totaling a whopping $6,000.

FACT
For newborns suspected to have serious medical conditions, the same NICU stay totals $20,000.

FACT
1 in 3 American women has an episiotomy. Episiotomies are medically indicated for less than 10% of all women. Over 1 million unnecessary episiotomies are performed annually in the U.S.

FACT
1 in 5 births in the U.S.A. are induced. 44% of women surveyed in 2002 reported their doctor wanted to induce. Only 16% reported medically-indicated reasons.

FACT
American women who elect epidurals are FOUR times as likely to have cesarean sections.

FACT
31.1% of American babies (more than 1 in 3) in 2006 were delivered by cesarean section. The World Health Organization recommends a c-section rate of less than 10-15% as acceptable.

FACT
U.S. hospital policies for routine tests, practices, policies and procedures are based on financial considerations, which include malpractice insurance costs. They are not based on evidence, research, or appropriateness of care.

I truly hope you found these statistics disturbing. If they don’t speak to the medicalization of childbirth in this country, I don’t know what does.

The true horror comes in the fact that these views are being exported across the world. As the U.S. is such a powerhouse of marketing, more impressionable regions are adapting to these customs, despite the overwhelming evidence that the U.S. approach to childbirth IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED!

American obstetricians are taught to view birth as “a disaster waiting to happen.” The average delivery in the U.S. is neither natural nor healthy. We have embraced a cascading system of successively more intense, unneeded interventions termed “active management” or the “standard of care”.

So what do we do? How can we change the system?

We as a country need to reach beyond our own boundaries to embrace an effective model of maternity care. We, as women, mothers, and families, must educate ourselves as to the true process of labor and childbirth.

We must regain our faith in our bodies’ perfect ability to have a baby. We must look at what the research is already telling us – that nature has it right!

In short, we must take back our birthing!

And if you’re still not convinced, check these out:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_07.pdf

http://www.motherfriendly.org/Downloads/induct-fact-sheet.pdf

Deneux-Tharaux D, Berg C, Bouvier-Colle MH, Gissler M, Harper M,
Nannini A, Alexander S, Wildman K, Breart G, Buekens P. Underreporting of
Pregnancy-Related Mortality in the United States and Europe. Obstet
Gynecol 2005;106:684-92.

http://www.who.int/whr/2005/en/

Hartmann K, Viswanathan M, Palmieri R, Gartlehner G, Thorp J, Lohr KN
(2005). “Outcomes of routine episiotomy: a systematic review”. JAMA 293
(17): 2141–8. doi:10.1001/jama.293.17.2141. PMID 15870418.

(2006) “ACOG Practice Bulletin. Episiotomy. Clinical Management
Guidelines for Obstetrician-Gynecologists. Number 71, April 2006″. Obstet
Gynecol 107 (4): 957–62. PMID 16582142.

http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_18108.html

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obgyn.htm

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/330/7505/1416?ehom

Macfarlane A, McCandlish R, Campbell R.
Choosing between home and hospital delivery. There is no evidence that
hospital is the safest place to give birth.
British Medical Journal. 2000 Mar 18;320(7237):798.

Home versus hospital birth.
Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2000;(2)

The cost-effectiveness of home birth.
Journal of Nurse-Midwifery. 44(1):30-5, 1999 Jan-Feb.

http://www.kff.org/womenshealth/upload/whp061207othd.pdf

http://www.childbirthconnection.org/article.asp?ck=10401

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/318/7189/995

Peck P. Preinduction cervical ripening significantly increases risk of
cesarean. Medscape Medical News, 2003

Goer H. The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth. New York:
Perigee Books, 1999, p 228-9.

Fullerton JT and Severino R. In-hospital care for low-risk childbirth:
comparison with results from the NationalBirth Center Study. J Nurse
Midwifery 1992;37(5):331-340.