The more I read about Miranda Kerr, the more I like her.
Last year, the 29 year old supermodel from Australia who is married to actor Orlando Bloom refused to cave in to pressure from the anti-saturated fat lobby by publicly professing her love of coconut oil with the following statement:
“I will not go a day without coconut oil. I personally take four tablespoons per day, either on my salads, in my cooking or in my cups of green tea.”
Mmmmm, let’s see. Shall we listen to fat, unhealthy looking doctors with expensive vacation homes and yacht payments telling us to avoid coconut oil because it will give us a heart attack who are incidentally getting kickbacks or special perks from drug companies on the amount of cholesterol lowering prescriptions they write, or …
Shall we listen to a woman who is sharing her secret for shiny hair, trim figure, and clear skin which has been used by attractive, healthy Polynesians for centuries who suffered virtually no heart disease whatsoever?
Kerr: Epidurals Result in Drugged Babies
Now, Ms. Kerr has once again stirred up a hornet’s nest with her comments about the dangers of epidurals published as part of her interview in the August 2012 issue of Harper’s Bazaar UK.
Miranda states that she decided to forgo an epidural with the recent birth of her son after observing in baby bonding videos that babies born to mothers who had epidurals did not instinctively go for the breast and appeared out of it and “drugged” unlike babies born to mothers who had not submitted to pain medication who went straight for the breast and were alert and looking around:
“The baby was a little bit drugged up, and I was like, ‘Well I don’t want that.’ I wanted to give him the best possible start in life I could.”
Dr. Deborah Stein, who practices obstetric anethesiology at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York, fired back by insisting that there “is no concern of epidural anesthesia on a newborn baby.”
Yeah right, doc. A little concerned about those yacht payments are we?
Mother and parenting forums also blasted Kerr saying that she should more carefully choose her words. Mary Fischer who writes for TheStir said that “women just need to respect each other.”
Give me a break. Isn’t the health of babies a lot more important than, sniff, mommy’s feelings (does anyone have a hankie?).
The reality of the situation is that epidural babies are drugged and if a woman can possibly avoid these medications (of course, sometimes she cannot), it is indeed giving her baby a better start in life. At the very least, a natural birth gives baby and Mom a better shot at a successful breastfeeding relationship with a normal latch and suckle more likely from the start.
Good for you, Miranda, for sticking to your guns and showing once again that a supermodel isn’t necessarily just a pretty face and can be a force to be reckoned with in this age of false and misleading health propaganda from those who are supposed to “know” the most!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Source: Miranda Kerr’s Anti-Epidural Comments Incite Backlash
Um. Wow you read a lot into my post. I said absolutely nothing derogatory towards moms with epidurals or their children. Only that I notice others seemed unresponsive. And I cited an article full of scientific evidence and research on the subject. Before you lash out assuming you’ve been insulted, look at the link. I’m sure there are factors regarding what drug cocktail a person has and at what point in their labor they had it would increase its effects. For example if you had it late it may not affect the baby at all but I suppose if you had a really long labor with drugs early on you’d see more negative effects. My so that imentioned was very responsive following his birth actually had a very low apgar score because he was stuck with shoulder dystocia. The midwife had to shift him and pull him out, give oxygen , and rub him because he was purple. But after he got his first breaths he was extremely alert.
But please look at the mothering.com link. It has the research.
Okay. This is really starting to annoy me. Okay, miss supermodel. Maybe you have a vagina that your child just walked out of, but not everyone does. Maybe, everyone who blasts Mothers who have epidurals, you had easier labours than others. But PLEASE, quit your holier-than-thou, I’m-a-stronger-better-Mom-than-you ATTITUDES.
MY story is as follows. My son was 8lbs 4oz, wide awake, nursing, eyes wide open looking around minutes after birth, Apgar of 9, pink, crying and PERFECTLY HEALTHY, and I had an epidural.
My daughter was 8lbs 7oz, wide awake, nursing (and at 8 months, still is with no signs of stopping), eyes wide open and curious minutes after birth, Apgar of 9, pink, crying and PERFECTLY HEALTHY, and I had an epidural.
Both labours, I wanted no drugs, but could not handle the pain. CALL ME WEAK, CALL ME A BAD MOTHER. PLEASE, INSINUATE THAT MY CHILD WILL HAVE LEARNING DISABILITIES, OR BE OBESE, OR THAT WE DIDN’T “BOND” PROPERLY.
Give your heads a shake and understand that not everyone has the pain threshold that YOU do. You MUST be better Mother’s than me. Good on you that you COULD do it without drugs, you must be a much better person than me. Because after bawling my eyes out, and throwing up during labour, I couldn’t handle it anymore. And the epidurals took just enough edge off that I made it until pushing. At which time it wore off, so I could feel everything during pushing.
When you make blanket statements about things which none of you know anything about unless you are a physician (I KNOW, researching things online makes you much much more knowledgeable than everyone else) you are insulting people with which you have absolutely no understanding of their situation.
Little miss supermodel can stand on her damn high horse all she wants, but I’d like to tell her where she can shove her “opinion”.
I feel I should elaborate. I had all 3 of my children naturally. The last one was a homebirth. All 3 were very very alert immediately. And would turn their heads when they heard their name. My first daughter raised her head off our shoulders and held it on her own at just 3 days old! My last son when on his tummy and would lift himself up and raise his head to turn to the other side. This right after birth at 1-2 days old! We continuously got comments on how alert our children were as infants. We didn’t think it strange at the time but everytime I saw another child around the same age, they just appeared to be unresponsive lumps, basically still drugged. It hadn’t left their systems yet.
But don’t take my word for it. Read the article I cited in my previous comment. It’s chock full of science and citations about the negative effects for both mom and baby.
Mothering magazine (mothering.com) has published articles on the dangers / negative effects of epidurals that are well researched and sourced.
Read it.
http://www.mothering.com/community/a/the-hidden-risk-of-epidurals
That would be epidurals.
You know. Our first baby came out normal with no epidermal. Our second, with an epidermal came out sluggish. It took a month before it adjusted. I’m now sure after some consideration that Miranda is absolutly correct. I was one freaked out dad for that month. To add… Doctors and dentists do not care about us as long as they are insured from malpractice. They put forth the same old outdated information that is given them in universities to the detriment of their patients. I’m in the midst of using coconut oil to oil pull, along with becoming a vegan, to show my woman dentist that her advice that I need another crown is incorrect. I’m healing my cavity with no sugars and leafy greens, without her drilling and her bill. Man life is good.
I had an epidural with each of my 3 children.
Labors went beautifully, children were born healthy and well and all went marvelously for the breast and were excellent nursers with no problems.
So, I’d rather not use blanket statements that “epidural babies are drugged.”
And in my opinion it is totally shameful to make women feel badly for using pain relief during the most excruciatingly painful experience a person can go through. Would you shame a man for being anesthetized for surgery or dental care? C’mon.
Shawna Here: GOOD for her, I had my youngest at home, back in 1985. I enjoyed the home birth more than when, my oldest son was born, back in 1977 in a hospital, I did not think they gave epidurals back then. I did not like the fact that my son, born in the hospital, was shown to me & I did not get to hold him for what seemed like a hour. My son born at home was given to me right after his birth, before the cord was cut. I do not like the way hospitals just take control of you & your body & your childs. I have learned to say NO, now.
I am glad that there are people out there like you that are questioning the efficacy of some of the Western Medicines practices and I usually agree with much of what you say. I did have one epidural many years ago before I knew better and then luckily I didn’t need one with my last son and it was my easiest and fastest delivery! I do take offense a little bit to your comments on doctors only wanting money to pay for expensive vacation homes and yacht payments, however. My husband is a surgeon and works 60-80 hours per week and has for the last 20 years. He is a compassionate, caring doctor and takes care of many people who don’t have insurance and can’t pay. He isn’t allowed anymore(which is a good thing) to take handouts from his surgical instrument companies and drug companies. Luckily for the consumer, this practice has changed dramatically.
Also, he is very open minded and listens to me when I talk about nutrition and how important it is so we don’t need medication! He always keeps this in mind when talking to his patients and even gives good nutrition advice! I am a very proud Doctors’ wife!
My dad is a Doctor too, employed by the hospital and it is his passion to help his patients…that includes nutritional advice and he is very cautious about pain killers, he doesn’t like patients to just get hooked and mask their problems…he really works to help them get better and has recieved a lot of wonderful letters and comments from patients. As far as yaucht payments and vacation homes…my dad nor any of his colleagues are enjoying the high life to that degree. If my dad gets a decent bonus some years, my mom might be able to expand her garden a little more but they are still working off the debt of the education to get to where he is now. They live in a small 1980s house that has never been updated….I hope someday they will be able to update their house and have a little more to show for all their sacrifice and hard work. I think most of the time, what doctors recommend and want to do is out of how they have been educated…not because they are personally getting rich. Then there are the specialist who run their own practice and I question that a little more…when I was pregnant…my son had a little more fluid on one side of his brain than the other…they sent me to the specialist and he said it was within normal range but he wanted to monitor it every 2 weeks for the rest of the pregnancy. (i was maybe halfway through it) my husband was like “is there anything you can do about it?” and there wasn’t….so my husband alluded to the fact that they just wanted us to keep coming in every 2 weeks and paying them the expensive fees for their specialist ultrasound equiptment even though if the fluid levels did increase there was nothing he could do about it…after pressing the doctor more he said we could just have the hospital do an ultrasound on his head after he was born to check the fluid levels. So that is what we did and he was fine….but without questioning and some pressure on them…he would have had us coming in every 2 weeks and charging us $400 to look at our sons within range fluid levels the remainder of the pregnancy…so not all Doctors are out there to hurt you or rip you off…but then again…some are!