What People are Commenting
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Triangle, Forgetting the Pandemic & Midwifery
Forgetting the Pandemic
Someone sent me this article (below) on how many people are already forgetting the 2+ years of the torture of Covid/pandemic with its stupid measures – masks, social distance, lockdowns. I did not forget anything, but it seems that many people did.
The article is a little old – from 2023 – but the data it brings to the surface does not change. So I am forwarding it to you since I did not see your website addressing this topic, although I am a regular reader of it.
God bless and Mary keep you,
G.L
Richard Sima
How much do you remember about the past three years of pandemic life? How much have you already forgotten?
A lot has happened since the “Before Times.” Canceled proms, toilet paper shortages, nightly applause for health workers, new vaccines, waitlists for getting the first jab, and more.
Covid disrupted everyone’s lives, but it was truly life-changing for only a sizable subset of people: those who lost someone to covid, health-care workers, the immuno-compromised or those who developed long covid, among others.
For the rest of us, over time, many details will probably fade because of the quirks and limitations of how much our brains can remember.
“Our memory is designed not to be computer-like,” said William Hirst, professor of psychology at the New School for Social Research in New York. “It fades.”
Why we might forget a pandemic
Forgetting is inextricably intertwined with memory.
“A basic assumption that we can make is that everybody forgets everything all the time,” said Norman Brown, cognitive psychology professor researching autobiographical memory at the University of Alberta. “The default is forgetting.”
To understand why we may forget parts of pandemic life, it helps to understand how we hold on to memories in the first place. Your brain has at least three interrelated phases for memory: encoding, consolidation and retrieval of information.
When we encounter new information, our brains encode it with changes in neurons in the hippocampus, an important memory center, as well as other areas, such as the amygdala for emotional memories. These neurons embody a physical memory trace, known as an engram.
Our memories are centered around our life stories and what affected us personally the most.
Much of this information is lost unless it is stored during memory consolidation, which often happens during sleep, making the memories more stable and long-term. The hippocampus essentially “replays” the memory, which is also redistributed to neurons in the cortex for longer-term storage. One theory is that the hippocampus stores an index of where these cortical memory neurons are for retrieval — like Google search.
Continue reading here
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Usefulness of Midwifery
Salve Maria.
I wish I knew of this article (below) 40 years ago! I will pass this on to my daughters, who are already on board with home births. I have always encouraged it to them, especially now that it is more mainstream and readily available to their generation.
Hospital births are mentally sterile, physically dirty and emotionally unnerving, and their policies do not allow for common sense measures. Many women suffer horribly from this attitude. Hospital staff follow unethical practices to protect themselves from lawsuits. They refuse to provide help for the labor, leaving it to the mother to suffer and struggle on her own. The current litigation mentality is a scourge upon our culture and seriously harms our physical and economic health.
In Maria,
C.C.
The devaluation of motherhood is a destructive trend in modern society. Pregnant women are treated more respectfully in many cultures, and motherhood is seen as a transformative experience. Our society, however, often disconnects us from the process, treating it as sterile and impersonal. This lack of connection is one of the core issues underlying many problems in modern childbirth.
Many of the dysfunctional things that have come to characterize the birthing process (e.g., unnecessary hospital interventions that create complications begetting more hospital interventions) make much more sense once you understand the history behind them and how childbirth was transformed from a natural human life event to a medical emergency requiring those interventions.
In early America, midwives were highly valued members of society, often receiving housing, food, land, and a salary for their services. They were more than just birth attendants; they acted as nurses, herbalists, and even veterinarians.
One of the most significant shifts came with male doctors entering the field of childbirth. In the late 1700s, it became fashionable in Europe for doctors to attend deliveries. By the 1820s, American doctors, influenced by an ambitious Harvard professor, started pushing for their involvement in births.
The professor argued that women would form a deep trust in their doctors, which would ensure steady business for the doctor who delivered her baby.1 Doctors began displacing midwives, and the medicalization of childbirth began.
Dr. Joseph DeLee, a key figure in this transition, opened Chicago's first obstetric clinic in 1895 and later pioneered a hospital dedicated to obstetrics.2 While some of his innovations — such as incubators for premature infants — saved many lives, DeLee also advocated for aggressive medical practices like forceps and episiotomies for most births.
DeLee's stance that childbirth was inherently dangerous — and required medical intervention — helped cement the idea that doctors, not midwives, were the ones who should be in control. This mindset dominated the medical field for decades, even though, for most of human history, birth had been a natural process without the need for intervention.
By the 1930s, maternal mortality rates in the U.S. were still high,4 despite the increase in hospital births, leaving many to question whether medicalization was truly the answer.
These failures prompted a resurgence of midwifery, and despite stiff resistance from the medical profession, in the decades that followed, midwifery evolved into a professional discipline more and more sought out as they recognized its immense value (e.g., recently 1.5% of births were at home, the highest level in decades).
A standard hospital birth
A standard hospital birth is often viewed as a medical emergency, shaped by the media and reinforced by societal expectations. The process typically involves a range of questionable interventions that are necessitated by the time constraints of an obstetrician who has to attend to many births concurrently (unlike a midwife who has time to be with a mother throughout her birthing process).
Note: As we go through these, consider that America currently spends at least 111 billion dollars on childbirth6 (which is twice that of most high-income countries) yet ranks last amongst the high income nations in both infant and maternal mortality.
Original here
Posted March 20, 2025
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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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Re: The Triangle: Symbol of the Most Holy Trinity
I apologize for not noticing the triangle around the eye of God. The photo I had was too small to see the triangle...
I had seen the Eye of God at this mission very many years ago before it became a sterilized museum void of the Holy Ghost, and when reflecting, I did not remember the small triangle. It is a very beautiful, powerful, and memorable image, that is for sure. I have thought of it often over the years as well as he large scallop shells on the walls and used both in large shrines we have built.
It is still a wonder that it is still there, since the N.O. religion has no Holy Trinity now, as I learned from Mr. Guimaraes' 'Lightening Bolt' book - Peccato-Redemptio (Sin-Redemption) - last year. I did not know that! Thank you, Señor Guimaraes.
Thank you
E.K.