Some very concerning comments here and my thoughts to those who have suffered such bad experiences at the hands of the medical profession. I'm glad to hear your son is doing well and that the Social Workers are not adding to any pressures, raw.
My own experiences with my 6 month old son may add a little balance to the argument, however.
I am very anti-establishment, anti-medicine, anti-state schooling etc. I've been prepared for a fight all the way since the birth of my son - and there's certainly been times when I've had to fight already too!! But, on the whole, I have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of state intervention.
During the initial weeks following his birth we reluctantly agreed to allow the home visits of the state 'health visitor' to check on our son's progress. We did this purely because we're acutely aware that drawing attention to ourselves by refusing visits is only going to cause problems which could be avoided by using a different strategy. Myself and my partner both work in the social sector and have had to work with GPs, medical staff, social workers etc so we have an understanding of how these things work.
The health visitor was a young girl who was very friendly and pleasant. We were firm in our views but armed with knowledge. We were welcoming and friendly in our approach. I think these things can make a big difference. When she enquired about arranging my son's vaccination program I explained to her quite clearly that we were not having him vaccinated and gave her credible and scientific reasons why. To my amazement, she accepted this entirely and we have not had to have a single visit since. My partner takes my son to the clinic occasionally to be weighed which we do more for our benefit than anything else. We've had to have no further contact during these 6 months with any health 'professionals' (and have no intention of doing so!). We've had nobody on our case or monitoring us. I'll be interested to see if this changes when it becomes apparent that he's been fed raw animal foods!
Similarly, during the pregnancy we were equally upfront with the nurse who my partner had to frequently visit for check-ups etc. From the very beginning we've been adamant of doing things
our way and, I think, if you arm yourself with knowledge and are firm but fair in your approach then trouble can be avoided.
We paid an extortionate amount of money to hire a private midwife to manage my partner throughout the pregnancy, birth and aftercare. We're not rich by any means but we considered it important enough to invest in this area. It was the best money I've ever spent! Despite great efforts, we had complications during our home birth which eventually led to our private midwife calling an ambulance for an emergency visit to the hospital labour ward. Myself and my partner were devastated as we knew exactly what would be in store there and suddenly our worst nightmare seemed to be coming true! I was incredibly rude to the innocent ambulance men and annoyed with our lovely midwife as she'd accidentally broken the membrane during an inspection which had led to an excessive drop in my son's heart rate. As soon as we arrived at the hospital, we were rushed into a clinical setting with my partner strapped to various monitoring machines and a gang of Drs and nurses surrounding her on the bed threatening all kinds of interventions if she hadn't achieved various points during the labour within a certain amount of time. We were both absolutely deflated and, of course, she was in uncontrollable tears. Not surprisingly, her dilation which had been 9cm hours earlier was now only 5 or 6cm. Anything to do with the stressful environment do you think?! Doh?!
Eventually, I used my growing anger and frustration, thankfully, in a controlled manner and basically told the Dr exactly what WE'RE going to do and that SHE will not be dictating events! I told her that she can forget her time limits. If things haven't progressed in the next few hours and the baby is in clear distress then, fine, we'll have to go down her road. Until then, we're doing it our way. I told them no Dr's or nurses were to come in the room AT ALL. I got them to bring us a fan and a lamp and we dimmed the lighting. We put on some classical music and made the environment as conducive to calm and natural birth as possible. Our private midwife was with us the entire time and with her we delivered my son with no further problems completely naturally with no drugs, no interventions and just hot towels!
The hospital problems didn't end there unfortunately. They virtually forced mother and baby to stay in overnight and were continuing to try to control everything. My partner, of course, was too exhausted to fight but I had no trust in them whatsoever and questioned and argued every request. It was clear that they absolutely hated me by the time we left!!
Eventually, we escaped unscathed and haven't looked back since.
It's a crying shame that it has to be this way but it's critical that we arm ourselves with knowledge, stand our ground and be strong on all these matters. We can have things how we want them but we have to be prepared to fight for it!
