The Mom Crowd

I got to spend a whole day with Ina May Gaskin, well known midwife and author of books Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth and Spiritual Midwifery.  She came to Pittsburgh to speak to a group of doulas, childbirth educators, midwives, labor nurses, and anyone interested in the power of birth.  She gave several talks: Hands: Our Treasured Tools, Sphincter Law, Forgotten Powers of the Vagina, Demand Cesareans, and Post-Date Inductions.  

I was very interested in her talk on post-date inductions because this issue is one that is so common and one that many women have to face, either by doctors who are pushing inductions for various reasons (many unnecessary), or by women who do go past their due dates.  I rather enjoyed her talk on Sphincter Law.  Not only was it entertaining, but she highlighted the idea that bringing humor into the labor room can be freeing for the woman in labor and can also help her labor to chug along and be less painful.

A word about induction:  Did you know that first time moms who get induced are twice as likely to end up with a cesarean than mothers who go into spontaneous labor?  Did you know that there are many natural things you can try to get labor going instead of opting for pitocin first?  Did you know that many practices like to induce women with a drug called Cytotec (misoprostal) that has not been proven to be safe for pregnant mothers?  It is a great drug to use for post-partum hemorhage but when used to induce labor, there can be many complications.  Cytotec is a drug that cannot be counteracted, it can’t be turned off like pitocin can.  It can’t be removed from the body. One of the complications of the drug is that it can cause hyperstimulation of the uterus which can then distress the baby.  Using a drug that can’t be counteracted and can have harmful effect on both the mother and the baby is not wise.  Many women are not shared the possible risks when given this drug.  Ina May is very passionate about women knowing their options when it comes to birth.

In her book, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, she goes over the theory of Sphincter Law thoroughly.  It was fun to hear her talk about it in person.  The basic premise behind Sphincter Law is that the cervix also functions like a sphincter.  Like our other well known sphincters (think toilet humor), the cervix doesn’t respond well to commands, pressure, or fear.  How many of you have had “stage fright” when it comes to pooping or peeing in front of someone or sitting next to someone in the next stall?  Our emotional state of relaxation can have a powerful effect on the cervix.  Fear and shame can keep the cervix closed.  Ina May talked extensively about how bringing in a sense of humor into the place of birth can help the body release endorphins that overrule the adrenaline that gets released when afraid.  Sometimes not understanding what is going on with your body while it is laboring can cause fear too.  Her suggestions for keeping that cervix open and able to open is to bring in humor and allowing your mouth and jaw to relax. Making low groaning sounds or making your lips vibrate like a horse can keep that jaw relaxed.  (Relaxing your jaw also helps  you to poop when it feels difficult to do so :).) She recommends that kissing your husband while laboring can also help keep that jaw relaxed.  Of course, if you are laboring in the hospital, you might want to ask for some privacy ;).

Ina May also talked about her project, The Safe Motherhood Quilt Project.  She started this project several years ago to try and waken the government to the need to decrease the maternal mortality rate here in the US.  Did you know that the maternal mortality rate has not decreased since 1982?  It is increasing, in fact. It is also thought to be grossly underestimated.  We are ranked behind 40 other countried for maternal mortality.  You would think that with all of our technology that the rate would be decreasing but that is not the case.  As the rate of Cesareans has risen, so has the maternal mortality rate.  

Some of the deaths that happen every year of unpreventable, but many are not.  Ina May started making a quilt in honor of the mothers that have died from complications of birth. An interesting phenomenon is the increase of death from amniotic fluid embolism.  Some speculate that the increase of inductions is also increasing the number of deaths from amniotic fluid embolism.  There needs to be more studies done so to show why there is such an increase.

I cannot tell you how important it is to spread the word for women to know their options when it comes to birth.  I advocate giving birth where you feel the most comfortable.  For some women, that is at home.  For others, it is at a birth center or hospital.  It is so important to know the procedures that are done and what the risks and benefits are.  For example, when a woman show up in labor at the hospital, the staff will break her water, insert an internal fetal monitor, and even start her on a pitocin drip to speed up the labor.  A mom may not know that as long as her and the baby are okay, breaking the bag of waters and inserting an internal fetal monitor is going overboard.  Using pitocin when it is not needed is simply unnecssary and introduces risks to the mother and baby.  She may not know that it is okay to refuse those things.   

There are many resources available to help women make informed choices about childbirth.  Some of my favorite books are:

• Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth by Ina May Gaskin
• The Thinking Woman’s Guide to a Better Birth by Henci Goer
• Creating Your Birth Plan: The Definitive Guide to a Safe and Empowering Birth by Marsden Wagner
• Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First by Marsden Wagner
• Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block
• Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy
• Natural Birth the Bradley Way by Susan McCutcheon

You may be paying too much for your prescriptions. It’s easy to accept prescription prices from the pharmacy and just deal with it. However, if you are like me and you are on a high deductible health plan (because we are self-employed), then prescriptions can be very expensive. As a Stay at Home Mom I feel like it is my job to save my family money wherever I can and watching our health costs is just part of my job.

I have had a long day today on the phone with doctors’ offices and pharmacies, but I saved my family about $300 just by spending some time figuring out the prescriptions for my kids.

Here is what I have learned in 5 tips for saving money on prescriptions.

1. Shop Around. This can be a real hassle, but can save you a lot of money. In order to shop around you need to know the name, dose, and quantity of the medicine prescribed. Ask the nurse or doctor to spell out the name for you. Also, ask the doctor or nurse if there is a generic available. Once you are armed with this info, you can call around to the pharmacies and ask for the cash price. Also, you will need the paper prescription from the doctor’s office. So instead of them faxing in a prescription to the pharmacy for you, you need to leave the doctor’s office with it or go pick up the paper copy.

I shopped my prescription around today by phone. CVS, my usual pharmacy was going to charge me $261 for my daughter’s prescription. My grocery store was $96, WalMart was $80, and Costco was $65 for the same prescription. I earned $196 today in 1 hour of work.

2. Ask your doctor for a cheaper alternative medicine. When doctor’s prescribe medicines they aren’t thinking about the cost. Sometimes there is another medicine that can do the same job, but at a cheaper price. We are the doctor’s customer, so they should strive to serve us. Don’t be afraid to ask.

The doctor’s office gave me an alternative if the prescription for my son was going to be too expensive. Also, on a follow-up appointment to my Pediatrician I told her we didn’t get my daughter’s excema cream, because it was going to be $250. She then told me which over-the-counter product I could use. Thankfully that product has worked.

3. You don’t have to get the whole prescription filled. Depending on the prescription type you can fill it a little at a time. Even if the pharmacy has already put your order together, you don’t have to buy all of it. If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask your doctor, doctor’s nurse, or pharmacist if you need to fill all of the prescription at once.

My son’s prescription today was going to be $355 for a 16 day treatment. Each box is $89 and covers 4 days of treatment. Per my doctor’s instructions I am to use this medicine for 4 days and see if he gets better. So instead of buying all 4 boxes at once, I only bought one. Then I can refill it and get more boxes, once I find out that it works. I may end up spending $355 and buying all 4 boxes, but I may only need 8 days of treatment and I could potentially save us $178.

4. Ask for samples. Sometimes I am too shy to ask, but I have learned to speak up. Sometimes they have samples or a coupon that you can use. It never hurts to ask.

I spoke up the other day at a doctor’s visit and asked about cold medicine for 2 year-olds. There aren’t any cold medicines for 2-year-olds on the store shelves, because of FDA rulings. She gave me two bottles of medicine that I can give my daughter. Free medicine!

5. Check into mail order prescriptions. If you have a regular recurring prescription, then a mail order option may be a lot cheaper. It is not a waste of time to research and ask, because it could save you hundreds of dollars.

How do you save money on prescriptions?

This is a guest post from my friend Natalie. She is one of the most caring moms that I know and she makes the most beautiful children. Natalie works at my church and is in charge of the Creative Arts Team.  Here is her insight on how to handle being a mom while working at the same time.

I have been a mother now for almost 3 years. Not only am I a mom of a 3 year old and 6 month old, but I am also a “working mom”.  My experience has been full of joyous moments and even crying in the shower moments at the end of a long day. Thankfully, my job has allowed me to bring my kids to work. My oldest now attends our Mother’s Day Out program at our church, but he was with me 3 times a week until he started crawling. We all know that when our kids get mobile it’s hard finding time to do anything.  My daughter will soon be moving along before I know it and I will have to once again make the decision to find someone else to keep her.

It’s easy to feel guilty that I am not a “stay at home mom”, but I know that this is where I am called to be.  Although I am so thankful for such a great situation, it’s not the easiest thing. In addition to all my responsibilities at work, I am also responsible for raising my kids!  Juggling a work schedule, nap schedule, eating schedule and finding time to get my house clean and dinner cooked has been one of the most challenging things I have ever done.

I will never forget the first time I brought my daughter to work and had to get my son off to pre-school.  The morning was spent getting bottles ready, diapers packed, both my kids dressed, and myself decent enough to go into work. I found out very quickly that I needed to add another 45 minutes on to the start of my day! I think by the end of the first 2 weeks I was crying in the shower every morning and falling asleep the minute my head hit the pillow.  My husband came home one night about a month ago, handed me the keys and said, “Go get something to eat and take the long way home.”  I think that was the most romantic thing ever.

Whether you are a working mom or you stay at home with your kids, we all have a lot on our plates. We will never have enough time and/or energy to teach our kids how to read by the time they are 3, potty train them by the time they are 18 months old and make sure we are the perfect homeroom mom. We will try though, won’t we?  The one thing I know I will always have time for is loving them.  I have found myself getting so upset that my son is not potty trained yet. I think to myself, “If only I were at home ALL day then he would be done by now.”  That’s not true at all. My mom raised 5 kids working and we are all finding our way to the restroom.  So, if that means they aren’t potty trained until they are 3 years old and 5 days (I am determined!!), then oh well! We can’t do it all, but we can love them.

5 Tips for Working Moms

1. Schedule fun days – Set aside a Family Weekend once a month. There will always be something that can take up your weekend. Put it on the calendar in advance and stick to it.

2. Bring home to the office. – Decorate your office with pictures of your children. Bring in their artwork and put it up. I love when I get to look my kids smiling faces. It makes me smile and I find myself being grateful!

3. Don’t bring work home! – You can choose to cheat your family or your job. Cheat your job. Leave work at the office and don’t bring it home. I work from home once a week, but I shut things down at 2:00 pm.

4. Volunteer Part-time – You may not be able to be in charge of every school party, but you can certainly help out. Volunteer to make phone calls or help by bringing something. Don’t forget to talk with your employer. They have a family too and you may surprised by what latitude they give you.

5. Find time for yourself and your husband – One of the best things you can do for yourself is have a loving marriage. It’s too easy to get home at night and mindlessly watch reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond”. Put the kids to bed early, talk, rent a movie and have a date at home. We have done this many times!

At a recent dinner party I attended the husbands were lovingly razzing us Stay at Homes Moms, because we only call them at work to see if we can spend fifteen bucks at Target. One husband wondered out loud how a mom who “stays home” could use so much gas in one week. The wives and I retorted that they should be thankful for having such low maintenance wives and how in the big picture we barely spend money.

One mom and I realized that we don’t even wash our face with proper face wash, because we are so cheap. So this got me thinking about what other things make us frugal mamas.

Here are 10 signs that you might be a Frugal Mama:

1. You wear the same three pair of blue jeans over and over.

2. You love the little red stickers at Target.

3. You buy Easter and Christmas dresses for the next year on clearance the year before.

4. You check the Baby+Kids section of Craigslist everyday looking for deals.

5. You are up early on Saturday mornings hitting the sales in front yards.

6. You talk yourself out of buying the items you picked up while standing in the checkout line.

7. You brag about what you saved in coupons and sales after every trip to the grocery store.

8. You haven’t had a hair cut in six months.

9. You love the challenge of coming in under budget.

10. You don’t buy toys, because you wait for family and friends to buy them for you.

What makes you a Frugal Mama?

– photo courtesy of iChris.

This has been going around lately on blogs & such, and I couldn’t resist sharing it here.

Have you seen this?  What are your feelings after reading it?