28 February, 2009

blame the midwives

Placentas are appearing in the Urbana, Illinois sewer system. From the article:

"The unprecedented finds have officials wondering if a midwife or veterinarian, stressed by economic woes, has been avoiding the expense of paying for a medical waste disposal service."

Right, because they couldn't possibly be from a doctor's practice or hospital. Or from--gasp--unassisted births.

One of the investigators implies it would be difficult to flush a placenta down a toilet. Really? Think about the aperture of a woman's pelvis and yoni.

Most of the homebirthers I know have such respect and reverence for the Arbol de Vida, they would never just discard it. Usually people bury it and plant a tree or shrub, or process into placenta medicine.

Are the sewer placentas just another symptom of our profound cultural disconnect from nature and the cycles of life and death?

homage

1 comment:

Diana said...

Hi, there! Thanks so much for your comments on my blog! (Birthing at Home) I always love getting feedback, and I also loved the opportunity to discover your blog and check it out. Thanks for visiting!

I will definitely take the study with a grain of salt. The reason that I accepted ICAN's results on this without going into the matter personally is simply that I have found ICAN to be an incredibly reliable and accurate source of information in the past, and I consider them extremely trustworthy. I know that they may have had to make some calls on hospitals in order to classify them, but I also know that this data was based on in-depth phone calls and was also based on what the hospitals said about themselves - not what third parties said about them. So I do consider the information to be fairly accurate. Also, hospitals do have the opportunity to contest their classifications if they so desire - I believe an address was given for people to email if they had a problem with any of the classifications. Anyway, I believe that the information was in the main reliable, even if there were some errors. But thanks so much for the input! I always value cautionary advice and will do my best to heed it.

Best wishes!!!
Diana J.