Bring Dr. Biter (aka Dr. Wonderful) Back!

Hi all-

Dr. Biter (aka Dr. Wonderful) has been suspended from delivering babies from Scripps Encinitas as of Friday at 5 pm. His patients are being told by the hospital to show up in labor & have one of the on-call OBs attend their birth.

Scripps is supposed to be one of the most mother-baby-friendly hospitals in town. How can they get away with taking away women's right to have their care provider attend their birth at the hospital they want to birth at?!?

Dr. Biter has a back up plan & has contacted the perinatologist group at Sharp Mary Birch. They have agreed to transfer his patients to their care while in labor & he will attend their births as an unpaid doula. This is the level of commitment this man has to his patients.

Scripps will not provide an answer as to why he was suspended. The last birth Dr. Biter attended was Friday morning. The birth required a c-section & when the c-section was being done, meconium was found in the amniotic fluid. No meconium was found prior to the c-section. According to the parents, the baby's Apgar score at birth was a 7 and then a 9. She gave a good cry but then needed respiratory assistance. The baby was taken to the NICU, but 3 days after her birth, she is already breathing on her own & eating on her own. The parents have no complaints against Dr. Biter & specifically chose him to attend the birth of their 1st baby because they did their research & wanted a doctor that would be present & would support their choices. The parents are shocked & distraught that something so drastic as suspending him would possibly be related to the birth of their little girl.

Please come support Dr. Biter, natural birth & a woman's right to choose where to birth & who to birth with.

Where: Scripps Encinitas hospital 354 Santa Fe Dr. Encinitas, 92024
When: Friday, May 14th from 1:30-3:30
Why: We want Dr. Biter reinstated immediately so his patients can have continuity of care & so they can be reassured that they can have the birth experience they want.
Who: You! Bring your family, your friends & neighbors! We want a really large group of protestors. The more the better!

Ricki Lake, documentary-maker, author & actress, will be there as will Anna Getty, author, actress & great-granddaughter of John Paul Getty I. Possibly more celebrities will be attending in support of Dr. Biter.

Wear green to unify the group & bring signs that say:
This is not Mother-Baby Friendly!
Bring Back Dr. Biter!
Bring Biter Back!
Hey Chief of Staff! Bring Biter Back!

If you can't make it to this event, we will be holding mini-rallies Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday in front of the hospital from 9-11 am. Feel free to bring your children!

If you can't make it to any of these events, please show your support by writing on your car windows: Bring Dr. Biter Back!
The more people see this & ask questions, the better.

Thanks so much for any support you can provide.

If you're on Facebook, please join the I love Dr. Biter fan page for up-to-date info & RSVP to the event so we have a good head count.

If you're not on Facebook, please visit www.bringbiterback.blogspot.com or www.bringbiterback.com for updates.

Please share this information with anyone you think can help support our efforts to get Dr. Biter back to doing what he does best--supporting women & their partners to have the best birth experience they can have.

Hope to see you at some of the events!

Carol Yeh-Garner
www.AWellLivedLife.Net

A Labor & Delivery Nurse's HypnoBirthing experience

Gail & Matt took my HypnoBirthing classes at Indigo Dragon Health & Wellness Center on Tuesdays starting in April 2009. She is a Labor & Delivery Nurse at Sharp Mary Birch. She's seen every intervention used at Sharp Mary Birch, some as standard procedures for laboring moms & some for special circumstances. She knew that when she was pregnant that she wanted a natural birth & that she didn't want interventions for her birth. She chose to birth with Dr. Biter & at Scripps Encinitas.

Here is her birth story:

Hi Carol--

I took your suggestions for Evening Primrose, acupuncture, and prenatal massage last week and started having surges the same day as my acupuncture and prenatal massage treatments at Indigo Dragon. That was Thursday. I had surges that lasted the whole day on 8/20 until 9 pm and then they subsided and I had the best night's sleep I'd had in about a month. The surges started up again on 8/21 after breakfast and continued until after my appointment with Dr. Biter. I had surges the entire time even when he checked my cervix and found that I was dilated to 1.5 cm, completely effaced and the baby was low at -1 station. Dr. Biter offered to strip my membranes which I declined. Then he said I'd probably go into labor very soon and said that he'd see me either that night or sometime over the weekend. I laughed and said that I'd probably see him at my next appointment which was scheduled for Monday.

The surges stopped as soon I left the office and my husband and I went out for dinner with his parents. I settled in for bed around 9 pm but couldn't sleep because my little one was kicking me hard all night.

Around 5 am, the surges started again but this time they felt different. I tried to use my breathing and visualization but it was very difficult. I used the ball, a bath, and took a shower to cope with the contractions. In the end, moaning and making noise distracted me. At 7 am, the surges were really strong coming about every 2-3 minutes and I couldn't talk through them. We started preparing to leave for the hospital and finally left at 9 am.

We got to the hospital at 9:30, got into the shower around 10 am. The nurse checked my cervix when we got there and I was 3 cm dilated. I started seriously thinking about an epidural. My nurse, knowing that I was using HypnoBirthing techniques, called Dr. Biter and he came in to talk me through labor. He asked me to get into the shower and "ride the waves one at a time". That visualization worked and I stayed in the shower for about 1 hour. He came back when I got out of the shower and checked me and found that I was 8 cm. 1 hour later, I was ready to start pushing. I'd been feeling the urge to breath my baby down since 5 am so this was great.

I pushed my baby out for 53 minutes. We didn't know the sex of the baby until she was out. Delilah Rose was born at 12:53 on August 22. She was 6 lbs 14 oz and 20 inches long. She was very alert and calm. She's absolutely adorable and we're totally in love.

Thanks for the class. It really helped us achieve a non-medicated and calm birth which is what we wanted.

Gail and Matt (Tuesday class in April/May 2009)
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Thank you Gail & Matt for sharing your birth story! I think it's really great that you were able to have the non-medicated, calm birth that you wanted. You had a lot of visuals to "let go" from being a labor & delivery nurse! I think it's important for future HypnoBirthing moms to read your story, knowing that you still made noises, but not out of discomfort, but rather to distract yourself. So many moms want their birth to look like the videos we watch in class, but sometimes you need to make noise to release all of the energy you're feeling inside or like in your case, to distract yourself.

Happy early 1st birthday to Delilah Rose!

All my best--Carol
www.AWellLivedLife.Net
www.AWellLivedLife.blogspot.com