The Wellness Bitch

Welcome to a new feature on The Wellness Bitch called Scrooge It!

Here at Scrooge It!, we’re not rich, like Scrooge McDuck, nor greedy like Ebenezer Scrooge, but we sure do know how to spoil a good time.

Who cares if our worthwhile recommendations are for the greater good? Who cares about our noble intentions?

Try as we may, there’s no avoiding the buzz kill. We’re party poopers.

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I know I have at least one other mom on my side with this Scrooge It installment (non-toxic mom, you know who you are.)

Scrooge It! Sugary Crafts from School and Camp

My kid came home from camp today with a Fruit Loop necklace. Nice! At least it was colorful.

I have my babysitter so well-trained that she got it off his neck faster than you can say “bursting with fruit flavor.” It sat on the kitchen counter waiting for me to be the bad guy when I got home. My guilty conscience weighed heavily on me for about 30 seconds before I threw it away in the trash. (This is the same guilty conscience that rears it’s ugly head every time I throw away one of my kids’ projects.) More than guilt, I was annoyed. And slightly pissed. Annoyed that they couldn’t choose a craft un-related to food…I’d even settle for colored macaroni necklace. And pissed that once again I have to be the bad guy saying no to something my kid comes home from school/camp with. Do our educators really feel like our kids are so deprived at home that they need to stuff sugar down their throats at school? Or are they just not thinking?

For years, health writers have been reporting results of studies that show how people with strong friendships live longer, healthier lives. So this new study out of Brigham Young University is not surprising. However, the comparisons between social interaction and other well-known health stats are a bit intriguing:

Having no friends is:

• Equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day
• Equivalent to being an alcoholic
• More harmful than not exercising
• Twice as harmful as obesity

Speaking from personal experience, I know that the more time I spend with my friends…whether it’s laughing or gossiping or sharing intimate details of my life…the happier I am.

There’s one problem I see with this easy access health fix. How often do we really allow ourselves time to connect? (And I don’t know if casual interaction on Facebook necessarily counts as “friendship.”) It’s hard enough for most of us (especially those of us with young kids) to fit in a regular exercise routine. We’re expected to wake up before the sun to fit in a morning jog, work an 8-hour + work day, come home and spend quality time with our children, have sex with our spouse, and then be awake enough to chat with our friends? How?

I see only two choices: Run away or integrate your community into your life and your life into your community.

Choose a workplace or a school or a neighborhood with like-minded folks.

Choose a job that’s your passion or your pleasure.

Choose a partner who is also your friend.

Find a book club.

Those have all worked for me.

Otherwise, you might as well pick up a pack a day smoking habit, ’cause your chances of survival without friends is slim.

I’ve had three C-sections. And while I’m grateful to say I welcomed three healthy children into this world, I’m less than thrilled with the manner in which they arrived.

None of my C-sections were by choice. Sure, I signed my name to a consent form each time. No one literally forced my hand. But they might as well have.

With the first, I was told by my physician that inducing me at 41 weeks would lessen my likelihood of a C-section. I didn’t have enough information at the time to know that was bullshit.

With my second, I searched high and low for a midwife backed by an OB who would “allow” me not just a trial of labor, but the chance to go into labor on my own. My mother had three children, all post-term (and all by normal vaginal birth). I knew my kids needed more time to bake. Do you know how hard it was not only to find a licensed practitioner, let alone someone who would “let” me go to 42 weeks without forcing me into a repeat C-section? Practically impossible.

By the hair of my chinny chin chin, I went into labor on my own at 41 weeks 6 days. (A repeat C-section was scheduled for me the next day.) I labored for 15 hours, but when the baby stopped dropping, I was given a window of two hours to show any sign of progression. When there wasn’t within that window, I was sent to the operating table. He wasn’t in distress; neither was I. It didn’t matter. Rules were rules.

As I laid on the table awaiting the surgery, the OB on call said to the intern before he cut me, “She’s a failed VBAC.”

When I got pregnant with baby #3, there were even less options. The only way I could even contemplate having a trial of labor after two Cesareans was to find an unlicensed homebirth midwife. No hospital in NJ would take me unless I scheduled a Cesarean. And not even the most VBAC-friendly OB or midwife in the state would entertain the thought of allowing me a trial of labor as a “VBA2C.” Repeat C-section it was.

Now, new guidelines supposedly seek to reduce the C-section rate in this country, which have risen to obscene rates. I appreciate with pleasant surprise the honesty displayed by writer Denise Grady in this recent article from The New York Times, when she writes that decisions to insist upon scheduled repeat C-sections are due largely to fear of lawsuit and liability. You won’t hear those words coming out of a doctor’s mouth, though.

What will you usually hear instead?

“Risk’s too great.”

“Your pelvis is too small.”

“You make babies a little too big for your frame.”

“The hospital is not VBAC-friendly.”

And it’s not just doctors who practice near me. Almost every single one of my female friends who had a C-section with her first (and it’s a frightfully high number), chose a repeat C-section for her subsequent pregnancies. And most did so out of fear. (A handful did so out of convenience, but that’s a bitch of a different color.)

It’s not easy too chose VBAC. Even the most natural-minded woman needs to be very brave and very sure of herself to consider VBAC when her doctor tells her she risks killing her baby by doing so.

It’s once again the medical industry pressuring patients to make fear-based decisions. Sharing some of the facts, but withholding those that don’t support their case. (My doctor never told me about the increased maternal death rate for a woman giving birth by C-section. I had to learn that fun fact on my own.) And it’s once again, individuals placing blind faith in what their doctors say.

A holistic approach to childbirth? It’s not natural vs. epidural. Nor VBAC vs. C-section. Nor hospital vs. homebirth.

It’s taking the time to know each woman and each pregnancy. It’s providing all the facts, not just some. It’s allowing women the time and opportunity to labor on her own, while also supporting her in the case of a true, medical emergency.

Educated, informed choice is not too much to ask for.

TIPS: International Cesarean Awarness Network. Choices in Childbirth. BOLD.

If you’re like the average human being, it’s likely you slack off on your health regimen while you’re on vacation. As for me while on my current vacation in Israel, I’m probably being more diligent about exercise and less so about food. I knew this going in and decided to go with the flow. While the sun and fun are agreeing with me, the dietary changes are not.

Israelis like their dairy. They also like their bread. Two foods I hardly, if ever, eat while home, and foods I have to eat at least a little bit here unless I want to starve. I know we have a few Israelis reading this blog, and I’m sure they will be quick to tell me where I might find gluten-free products in some major city I’m passing through or some soy alternatives. But for the most part, I’m staying in the less populated Northern region, and traveling with my mom, who is, shall we say, less adventurous than I when it comes to food.

Organic produce offered at the gift shop

The one brief relief I had from this gluttony was my overnight stay at an amazing organic farm, hotel, and spa called Hotel Mitzpe HaYamim (which translates to “Lakeview”). My husband booked this stay for us as a joint birthday gift for my mom’s and my August birthdays. He knew I’d fall in love with the place and he’s lucky I didn’t take up with my amazing massage therapist or beg the management to let me manage their wellness program in exchange for food and board. (I would! I would!)

At Mitzpe Haymamim, I didn’t have to worry about what I would eat or what I was eating. I knew there would be healty options for me and I knew that those healthy options were picked straight from the organic farm that day, prepared, and placed on the vegetarian buffet for me to choose. (Next door, they offer a meat restaurant called Muscat, one of the top restaurants in Israel. The meat comes from the cows and chicken on the farm who are also fed organic vegetables!)

Why can’t life be a vegetarian buffet, I ask you?

Why is relief and serenity so accessible at a fancy-schmancy spa, but not so in every day life?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m so grateful to have even had this experience. Contrary to what you might think, I’ve never been to Canyon Ranch or any equivalent. So this was a super duper treat which I enjoyed to the fullest.

It just bums me out that what I want and need may be at my fingertips…but only if I’m on vacation…and only if that vacation includes a high-priced stop at a rare gem like Mitzpe Hayamim.

I’m sick of healthy options being a luxury only for the wealthy.

I was in the dentist’s office yesterday getting my teeth cleaned when I caught this commercial on the TV. The gist of it is a guy walks into a fast food joint and the hot chick behind the counter asks him if he “wants to hurt now or later?”

The guy’s bewildered, naturally. So two other less attractive dudes behind the counter explain to him that he needs to choose the right antacid to make sure he gets complete protection from heartburn as he enjoys his fast food meal– Soothe heartburn now AND later.

Of course, no one tells him what The Wellness Bitch would: ”Turn around moron and go get a fruit smoothie across the street!”

Does this crap really convince people to buy Pepcid AC? Really?!?

Man, I wonder if I could be a secret agent working in some high-powered advertising firm. Once inside their ranks, I take on the most ruthless, unhealthiest companies and embed coded messages into commercials that tell people the truth! Or subliminally convince them to not only abandon their commitment to the unhealthy product, but to march on over to the nearest supermarket and destroy, destroy, destroy. I could create an army!

I would totally do it, but with one condition.

I get to dress like Joan from Mad Men.

I can’t resist a good 80s reference.

Now, when B.A. Baracus said “I pity the fool,” he usually meant he was gonna unleash a great big can of whoop-ass on whichever “fool” messed with his car or kidnapped Face. Not much pity there.

But I really do pity the fool. And by fool, I don’t mean idiot. I mean a person who might not know better.

I keep meeting people who are exposed to toxins through their work and I wonder (a) if they know they are poisoning themselves by handling these toxins and (b) should I tell them?

Tobi Indyke, a talented artist, just guest blogged on Mindful Living NJ today about her experience getting ill from 18 years working with petro-chemicals and paints. I think about how lucky she is she lived through the experience. And wished that someone could have told her sooner what was happening to her body in response to the chemicals she was handling every day.

Yesterday, I got my haircut at the salon I should have left three years ago, but haven’t because I love my stylist. I noticed the swollen, red hands of the regular hair washer and frowned. Imagine how many heads she handles each day? Applying toxic chemicals with her bare hands no less.

There are the workers in the meat and poultry factory getting lung cancer from being in closed rooms with the ammonia they wash the meat with. (Don’t believe me? Watch Food Inc.)

And what about the farmers and the children of farmers handling and working in pesticide-laden fields?

Uch. The worst work hazard I have to deal with every day is carpal tunnel, which is nothing to sneeze at, I know, but in comparison seems wimpy.

Who’s going to rescue these folks from a “crime they did not commit?”

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find her, maybe you can hire… The Wellness Bitch.