Sunshine, Natural Immunity & Real Food

“Politically Incorrect” but Common-Sense Approaches to Health & Wellbeing

Planning for birth

I’m definitely at the business end of my pregnancy now - 35 weeks this week - officially only 5 weeks to go.

Today we had the Birth Planning meeting with our midwives - something I don’t recall having with my first pregnancy with an obstetrician - but then everything is different with this pregnancy than it was with the first.

I’m not quite sure what to expect this time. The first time round I had all drugs available - pethidine injection, gas and an epidural (or spinal) because I was given the artificial oxytocin to bring on the contractions - I don’t recall being told that the contractions would come on so quickly (and so painfully) when given the drip.

My intention for this labour is no drip, no drugs at all - plenty of women have done it this way and have come out the other side stronger and more self assured, and, this allows for greater bonding between mother and baby (when there is no drug haze) - something I really want.

It’s a shame that it has become so commonplace now to have so many interventions during a natural process (labour and birth) that in the majority of circumstances are unnecessary.

At this stage, all I do feel is that this birth, the way I’m choosing to do it, will be a major turning point for the better in my life and will provide an amazing start for my baby.

Helena :)

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$150 teen dental bonus

The “great” news on the weekend was that our newly elected prime minister was implementing a $360 million Teen Dental Plan to begin on July 1st.

As primary school children already receive school dental services under State Government plans, and according to OECD figures, the dental health of Australian adults ranks second to worst among developing countries, perhaps the government feels that teenagers are the ones that need to be targeted.

In “The Age” newspaper on Sunday in the article “Dental Scheme will ease the pain: Rudd”, the Prime Minister was quoted as saying:

“We have a huge problem in terms of dental health in the country”

For the majority of people who fall into the category of being eligible for this dental subsidy, this would be of great benefit - extra money from the government to fund regular dental checkups.

Is anyone questioning the reason behind teenagers having such bad teeth that they require a subsidy to encourage them to go for regular checkups?

Don’t we have water fluoridation in Australia? We’ve all been led to believe that this toxic addition to our water is meant to improve the state of our teeth.

I guess it’s not doing it’s job - perhaps a big con by the powers that be?

Perhaps parents taking some responsibility in educating their children (and being an example for them) about the damaging effects of sweet, fizzy, acidic soft drinks and the benefits of abstaining, would have a greater impact on our ranking as the second worst in terms of dental health in developed countries?

Dental checkups are great, but they are no substitute for taking care of your teeth in the first place and preventing the things that a dentist may need to fix

Check out this video I found on how acidic soft drinks really can be:

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Toxins in your drinking water - not what you would expect!!

This is an article I read last week - topical at this time, considering Queensland (Australia) is considering implementing water fluoridation.

Helena :|

Scientific Study Finds Fluoride Horror Stories Factual - Industrial by-product consumed by millions of Americans lowers IQ, causes cancer.

by Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The establishment media will have to find a new tactic with which to ridicule those who oppose the fluoridation of water after a major new Scientific American report concluded that “Scientific attitudes toward fluoridation may be starting to shift” as new evidence emerges of the poison’s link to disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland, as well as lowering IQ.

“Today almost 60 percent of the U.S. population drinks fluoridated water, including residents of 46 of the nation’s 50 largest cities,”

reports Scientific American’s Dan Fagin.

Fagin is an award-winning environmental reporter and Director of New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

“Outside the U.S., fluoridation has spread to Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries. Critics of the practice have generally been dismissed as gadflies or zealots by mainstream researchers and public health agencies in those countries as well as the U.S. (In other nations, however, water fluoridation is rare and controversial.)”

Indeed, the zeitgeist for scoffing at those who spoke of the dangers of mass medicating the public against their will with fluoride was the deranged and paranoid character of General Ripper in the hit 1964 Peter Selllers movie Dr. Strangelove. But that stereotype is quickly fading as serious scientific research uncovers proof that all the horror stories about sodium fluoride told down the decades are essentially true.

The Scientific American study concluded that “fluoride can subtly alter endocrine function, especially in the thyroid — the gland that produces hormones regulating growth and metabolism.”

The report also notes that “a series of epidemiological studies in China have associated high fluoride exposures with lower IQ.”

“Epidemiological studies and tests on lab animals suggest that high fluoride exposure increases the risk of bone fracture, especially in vulnerable populations such as the elderly and diabetics,”

writes Fagin.

Fagin interviewed Steven Levy, director of the Iowa Fluoride Study which tracked about 700 Iowa children for sixteen years.

“Nine-year-old Iowa children who lived in communities where the water was fluoridated were 50 percent more likely to have mild fluorosis… than [nine-year-old] children living in nonfluoridated areas of the state,”

writes Fagin.

The study adds to a growing literature of shocking scientific studies proving fluoride’s link with all manner of health defects, even as governments in the west, including recently the UK, make plans to mass medicate the population against their will with this deadly toxin.

In 2005, a study conducted at the Harvard School of Dental Health found that fluoride in tap water directly contributes to causing bone cancer in young boys.

“New American research suggests that boys exposed to fluoride between the ages of five and 10 will suffer an increased rate of osteosarcoma - bone cancer - between the ages of 10 and 19,”

according to a London Observer article about the study.

Based on the findings of the study, the respected Environmental Working Group lobbied to have fluoride in tap water be added to the US government’s classified list of substances known or anticipated to cause cancer in humans.

Cancer rates in the U.S. have skyrocketed with one in three people now contracting the disease at some stage in their life.
The link to bone cancer has also been discovered by other scientists, but a controversy ensued after it emerged that Harvard Professor Chester Douglass, who downplayed the connection in his final report, was in fact editor-in-chief of The Colgate Oral Health Report, a quarterly newsletter funded by Colgate-Palmolive Co., which makes fluoridated toothpaste.

An August 2006 Chinese study found that fluoride in drinking water damages children’s liver and kidney functions.

FACTS ABOUT FLUORIDE

  • Fluoride is a waste by-product of the fertilizer and aluminum industry and it’s also a Part II Poison under the UK Poisons Act 1972.
  • Fluoride is one of the basic ingredients in both PROZAC (FLUoxetene Hydrochloride) and Sarin nerve gas (Isopropyl-Methyl- Phosphoryl Fluoride).
  • USAF Major George R. Jordan testified before Un-American Activity committees of Congress in the 1950’s that in his post as U.S.-Soviet liaison officer, the Soviets openly admitted to “Using the fluoride in the water supplies in their concentration camps, to make the prisoners stupid, docile, and subservient.”
  • The first occurrence of fluoridated drinking water on Earth was found in Germany’s Nazi prison camps. The Gestapo had little concern about fluoride’s supposed effect on children’s teeth; their alleged reason for mass-medicating water with sodium fluoride was to sterilize humans and force the people in their concentration camps into calm submission. (Ref. book: “The Crime and Punishment of I.G. Farben” by Joseph Borkin.)
  • 97% of western Europe has rejected fluoridated water due to the known health risks, however 10% of Britons drink it and the UK government is trying to fast track the fluoridation of the entire country’s water supply.
  • In Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg fluoridation of water was rejected because it was classified as compulsive medication against the subjects’ will and therefore violated fundamental human rights.
  • In November of 2006, the American Dental Association (ADA) advised that parents should avoid giving babies fluoridated water.
  • Sources of fluoride include: fluoride dental products, fluoride pesticides, fluoridated pharmaceuticals, processed foods made with fluoridated water, and tea.

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