September 15, 2008
WND: Jerome Corsi - Let Them Eat Yellowcake
Let them eat yellowcake
Iran 'loses' significant quantities of enriched uranium, U.S. spies trouble
"Experts responsible for monitoring Iran's nuclear program have discovered enough enriched uranium to make six atom bombs is missing from the country's main production facility at Isfahan, according to the Telegraph in London.
U.S. spy satellites have identified a number of "suspicious sites" Iranians have not declared to nuclear inspectors. Intelligence officials believe the sites are being used for covert nuclear research.
Meanwhile, reports coming from Israel continue to suggest it may be preparing for a military strike on Iran."
...The Telegraph reported nuclear experts believe 50 to 60 tons of uranium are now missing from the Isfahan plant. If enriched to weapons grade, it is enough uranium to produce five or six atom bombs.
For more on how Iranian officials allegedly removed significant quantities of uranium without inspectors' knowledge, read Jerome Corsi's Red Alert, the premium, online intelligence news source by the WND staff writer, columnist and author of the New York Times No. 1 best-seller, "The Obama Nation."
Click on the image to get to my Blog Entry - A Mother Thinks About Nuclear Survival
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 10:11 AM
October 10, 2007
Washington Quarterly: The Day After, Action following a nuclear blast in a US city
This sobering report from Carter, May, and Perry is a timely reminder that Prep for Nuclear War is and will be a factor in American Life for many years to come.
I have written extensively about Family Prep for a Nuclear Event. It is one of the main reasons we decided to become self sufficient with our health care and take personal responsibility for our births. We have been talking quite a bit about having our sixth child, and it comforts me so much to know that if anything like an American Hiroshima took place, we could safely survive in our home for a matter of months because of the preparations that we have made. Just click around my catagories for more information about Family Preparations.
Here is an article I wrote for newsmax titled, A Mother thinks about Nuclear Survival.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 8:23 AM
July 28, 2007
Newsmax: Homeland General: Attack 'Could Happen Any Day'
Homeland General: Attack 'Could Happen Any Day'
"The U.S. military commander in charge of defending the U.S. homeland said Tuesday that he believes there are al-Qaida cells in the United States or people working to create them.
Air Force Gen. Victor "Gene" Renuart said that while the terrorism threat within the nation's boundaries has increased in the past year, officials have strengthened intelligence sharing, particularly in an effort to shore up weaknesses in security at U.S. ports.
"I believe there are cells in the United States, or at least people who aspire to create cells in the United States," Renuart said in an interview with The Associated Press. "To assume that there are not those cells is naive and so we have to take that threat seriously."
He added, "Am I concerned that this will happen this summer, I have to be concerned that it could happen any day."
Other U.S. officials last week said they did not know of al-Qaida cells in the United States.
Renuart, who took over the job as the head of U.S. Northern Command just four months ago, said that to counter the growing threat, the military also needs to create two more brigade-size units to be available to respond to nuclear, chemical and biological incidents at home - because currently there is only one. A brigade is about 3,500 troops.
Renuart's comments came in the wake of a national intelligence report released last week, which concluded that al-Qaida is using its growing strength in the Middle East to plot attacks on U.S. soil.
Port security has long been identified as a key weak point, including the need to scan cargo containers coming into the country by ship.
Renuart said officials are expanding their use of sensors and other technologies that allow them to track ships, including their location, their speed and other commercial information. And, while he would not provide details, he said there has already been "real payback" in terms of identifying vessels of concern and either checking or boarding them well before they got into U.S. waters.
"Because the national intelligence estimate talks about the vulnerability of ports, and because of the importance that we place on the movement of a variety of goods through those ports, finding ways to improve that is a really important element of our day to day work," Renuart said.
At the same time, he said it will be a year or two before he is able to pull together the military units he needs to better be able to respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear disaster in the U.S.
The units, he said, will be made up of active duty, reserves and National Guard troops. And while portions of the brigades will be located in different states, they will be expected to train together and be able to respond quickly to a disaster.
Overall, Renuart said that as the terror threat increases, the nation's ability to detect problems has also improved.
The intelligence report, he said, is a "summary of drumbeats, and the drumbeats are getting more prevalent out there. You cannot afford to ignore that." But he said, a few years ago, the nation was not as able to hear and interpret those drumbeats."
A Mother Thinks About Nuclear Survival
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 7:10 AM
March 13, 2007
FrontPage Mag: Davids Blog: Was Saddam a mortal threat? Was he determined to build and use WMDs? The Dems said so. First.
Was Saddam a mortal threat? Was he determined to build and use WMDs? The Dems said so. First.
Go watch this movie, and then see if you agree with me that the President is justified in giving Libby a pardon...
American Politics is simply nuts....at least the lefty side is....
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 5:07 AM
February 12, 2007
Amanda Terfansky Counter Speaking at the 2nd International Husband/Wife Homebirth Conference
Amanda Counter Speaking at the 2nd International Husband/Wife Homebirth Conference in 2001.
This conference was held in July of 2001. Amanda was one of the parents who spoke at this conference dedicated to husband and wife home childbirth.
No Professionals were allowed to attend.
If you would like to purchase the E-Video, Please go here.
If you would like to purchase the transcript to the conference, Please go here.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 7:25 AM
February 7, 2007
Giving Birth during a Bird Flu Pandemic
U.S. companies prepare for bird flu pandemic
"The U.S. Labor Department's Occupational Safety and Health Administration urged employers to develop plans to cope with a possible flu pandemic on Tuesday, suggesting letting employees work from home and encouraging sick workers to stay home without reprisals.
But a few international companies and small regional firms were already making bird flu planning a full-time job, and said on Tuesday they have had to prepare for the unthinkable.
Jay Schwartz, vice president of information systems at North Carolina-based Alex Lee Inc., is worried about what will happen when food supplies begin to get scarce as people become ill, stay home to care for children when schools close or tend to ill relatives."
For the past few months I have read everything that was posted on the web about the Bird Flu. Not one time have I read one word about the need for mothers to give birth at home during a Flu Pandemic.
I am pleased that government and business agencies are preparing, thinking, and planning. But it must be remembered that in America, when the Flu Pandemic of 1918 hit, most babies in the US were being born at home. Our society has now flipped to the other side of the spectrum and 99% of all babies are born in the Hospital.
With an infectious disease that could be spread easily from person to person, the last place a healthy mother would want to birth her child is in a hospital overwhelmed with Flu Patients.
I thought I would use this post to share my story.
Shortly after my first daughter was born, I was nursing her one day and reading my scriptures. I came to the 24th chapter of Matthew and read verse 19. Jesus was talking about the latter days, and he said, "And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!"
I said a short prayer after reading this passage and asked Heavenly Father what was meant by this passage of scripture. Then I had one of the most sacred experiences of my life. The Lord communicated to me that he was talking about this generation of women who were giving birth right now! He let me know that the woe was two fold.
One, the surgical and drug interventions of Allopathic Birth that were disabling a huge number of women was the first form of woe, and second, that when the time came when women were giving birth during the Abomination of Desolation described by Daniel the Prophet, they would be so dependent on the Medical Profession that they would not be able to help themselves because they knew absolutely nothing about natural birth and parenting.
What is this Abomination? Here is a link to a descriptive passage in the bible dictionary: Go Here
"In a general sense, abomination of desolation also describes the latter-day judgments to be poured out upon the wicked wherever they may be. And so that the honest in heart may escape these things, the Lord sends his servants forth to raise the warning voice, to declare the glad tidings of the restoration, lest “desolation and utter abolishment” come upon them. The elders are commanded to reprove “the world in righteousness of all their unrighteous and ungodly deeds, setting forth clearly and understandingly the desolation of abomination in the last days” (D&C 84: 114, 117; D&C 88: 84-85)."
Now in the LDS Health Code we have been given a promise and it is at the end of the Word of Wisdom:
"And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen."
First and foremost, for protection from the destroying angel, We must keep the commandments! And so, I would like to challenge any of you reading this post to right now read the ten commandments and then repent of your sins.
For a really great overview of the Commandments, I defer to this article from Wiki: Go Here
Tied to keeping the commandments is the diet detailed in the Word of Wisdom as a form of protection from the destroying angels. This low meat, high grain diet was given to the world in 1833 through the Lord's Prophet, Joseph Smith, in Kirtland Ohio.
Do I believe those destroying angels will use a little virus to do the work of cleansing the earth?
Yes I do! This does not mean that I believe every person who will die during a pandemic is evil or is not keeping the commandments. I do believe the laws of morality and health are intrinsically tied to the physical health of human beings. And so with this information of challenging families to eat a whole foods diet, which is the thrust of my efforts on this blog, I also unapologetically declare that repentance and keeping the commandments will give more protection from a contagious virus than any vaccine ever could.
Birth Self Sufficiency
Now for the rest of my story: After I read the passage and had that understanding come into my heart about the reality of last days trials, I had this prompting come into my heart from the Holy Spirit...."I want you to learn everything you can about natural family living and become completely self sufficient in your mothering."
Over the next few days after I had this prompting from the Lord, the overwhelm I felt in my heart, the absolute complexity of what Heavenly Father was asking me to do threw me into a manic state that resulted in a complete nervous breakdown a couple of weeks later.
How could I as this young mother, with no degree, no education, no training in medicine learn everything there was to know about natural mothering? I really could not believe that the Lord wanted me to learn all of those skills that would enable me to feel comfortable taking care of my own family, giving birth alone, doctoring alone, midwifing alone, etc etc etc...the overwhelm was so real, so intense....why me?
But I was determined to learn and follow the counsel that I believed and still do believe was loving guidance from my God.
And so it began.
When I started down this path, I was innocent in my heart. I had no deep dread of doctors, hospitals, and the allopathic model of birth that has spread over the earth. I had no issues with the way things were. I just knew that I had been given some personal revelation and was determined to follow it. As I read, studied, and practiced the skills of self sufficiency in my own family life, I was given a profound education in the politics of birth and non-conformity. I have watched families destroyed by the politics of birth as social workers, doctors, police, and judges have stepped in to intervene when they determined "medical neglect" was playing out in family life.
During the years that I taught The Bradley Method of Husband Coached Childbirth, I was given a very detailed and extensive education on the history of Allopathic Birth in our society, and after a few years of observing and reading about little else but birth, I found myself radicalized and by 1997, I was completely on the side of the birth activists in our society, completely and irrefutably convinced that modern childbirth was killing something sacred in women and leading to the destruction of marriages and hurting the very babies it was supposedly saving with all of the interventions, drugs, and surgery.
For me, what started out as a supposedly simple plan to walk down a different path than my peers, to dance to the beat of a different drummer, to run down the road less traveled has taken our family to this point where we are completely weaned from the medical birthing powers that be.
For my last two pregnancies (in 1996 and 2002), I did all of my own prenatal care, gave birth in the sanctity of our bedroom with only my husband attending me, and we almost never go to Allopathic people for help with illness and disease. We needed help from the doctors after Andy was born in 1996, but by the time we had Ben in 2002 I had learned enough to be able to give birth alone and everything went perfectly!
We do occasionally use the allopathic docs for injuries, physicals for school, and once we did six days in Children's Hospital when Ben needed a surgery. We have been very grateful for this emergency care.
But when considering the realities of a pandemic, no infrastructure is in place to help women in their own homes when the baby is ready to be born. The Medical Profession has been very dilligent in bringing law suits against midwives all over the country, and the current laws and rules regarding who can have a home birth are conformed to medical dogma and practice.
Bens birth put me in the range of being risked out of home birth here in Colorado. I gave birth to him at 42 weeks and three days. One Colorado law says a home birth midwife must pass care to an OB if the mother goes past 42 weeks. And my water broke three days before he was born, and another Colorado law says midwifes must pass care to an OB 12 hours after the water has broken. If I had been under a midwifes care, I would never have been able to have a home birth because of these two factors.
One more time I would like to attempt to shine the spotlight on this breach in our planning for a flu pandemic. Four million women give birth in America every year. If the hospitals become too toxic for them to do so safely, I believe it is smart planning to start educating our people with skills that will help them to safely give birth at home to keep themselves away from viruses and bacteria that could kill both the mother and the baby.
This is my challenge to anyone reading this post.
And here is my link to an Emergency Childbirth Column detailing how to give birth at home alone:
April 25, 2004
By, Jenny Marie Hatch
It has been exactly eighteen months today since the birth of my fifth baby. He was born at home quietly into the hands of his father after a 6 hr labor. He weighed nine and a half pounds at birth, and had a 15 in head. He was born without drugs, knives, surgery, or any significant medical prenatal care. I went to my doctor for a consultation once when I was seven months pregnant.
In the past 18 months he has never been seriously ill, has never taken an antibiotic, or had a vaccination. I took him to see our doctor twice just to have him on record as being born, and other than a few colds and one nasty case of flu, he has been healthy, happy, and a wonderful addition to our family.
Why share this story of medical self-sufficiency?
TERROR?
In the past month I have seen President Bush, a few FBI agents, and various pundits on the news claiming that we in America are at risk of terror.
From Newsmax Monday April 19, 2004:
“Today on "Fox News Live," former FBI Special Agent Harold Copus said that the summer of 2004 will be remembered as the "Summer of Terror."
Anchor Gregg Jarrett told agent Copus that Tom Ridge said special attention will be focused on stopping terror attacks on rail, air, hazmat shipment, chemical facilities and the electrical grid. He asked if all of those were vulnerable. Copas said, "They certainly are."
I perceive a little bit of disconnect on the part of many in the media, our society, politicians, and my own community as these threats are discussed. Few are calling for any sort of real civil defense preparations. Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal is an exception. She has written lately of the need for Civil Defense.
In a recent Column she challenged politicians with these words:
“As government officials last week rehearsed their testimony the enemy was planning new horrors for Americans to endure. Right now we should be preparing--taking protective action in our ports and around our nuclear facilities, at our borders, etc. American officials should not be busy testifying; they should be busy making sure every citizen has a CBN suit, a regulation gas mask and data on how to recognize and respond to a chemical, biological or nuclear incident.
The most pressing thing at the moment is making America safer. Instead, our officials are otherwise engaged. As they were before 9/11.”
I believe it is futile to wait for the government to provide us the skills and tools to survive terror. Could they really do it anyway, with every family in different locations and in need of a variety of resources given the various scenarios of attack and disruptions?
If each individual in America would take a realistic look at their own lives and make some prudent preparations to be able to live for a period of weeks in their own home cut off from water, electricity, communications, commerce, and not able to travel anywhere to purchase anything, our country would be in a far better defensive posture for the War on Terror. I challenge those who are reading this column to begin family civil defense preparations now.
SOME PERSONAL HISTORY
Shortly after I gave birth to my first baby in 1988, I was reading the Bible. My baby was about two months old and I was nursing her as I studied my Sunday school lesson. We were reading the New Testament and I came to the 24th chapter of Matthew. As I read these words in verse 19 “and woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!” my heart skipped a beat. Jesus had just been describing to his disciples the signs of the times before his second coming to the world.
As I read those words, I just knew that Jesus Christ was talking about my generation of birthing and breastfeeding women. I also knew deep in my heart that I had to learn everything I could about natural mothering and be prepared that should we have some societal disruptions in America, that I would be prepared to birth, feed, and take care of my babies without the help of any professionals.
My oldest daughter is now almost sixteen. Since that fateful moment in my life, I have run down a path that to many people seemed irresponsible and somewhat suspect as I gradually weaned from the medical profession in regards to my mothering. We have had four additional children since that cold morning in February of 1989 when the words in the Bible leaped off the page and landed straight into my heart.
SELF-SUFFICIENCY
To aid me in my journey to mothering self-sufficiency I became A Certified Bradley Childbirth Teacher and for eight years studied about and taught natural childbirth in every spare moment. As a teacher, I was able to observe the impact my teaching had on the birth outcomes of the couples that took my class, and I was able to practice these principles in a hands on way during my four additional births. In 1996 I decided to stop teaching my childbirth class and became an active participant in the unassisted childbirth movement on the Internet.
I organized the 2nd International Husband/Wife homebirth conference in 2001 and have written three books sharing my experiences and the birth stories of the many couples that have adopted this lifestyle.
One of the most interesting facts as I would chat with my friends on the internet about birth, was how many of these couples had come to home birth because of end times preparations. Either the wife or the husband or both had felt guided by personal conviction that the time was soon coming when it would be prudent to know how to birth a child alone without a midwife or a doctor present.
Many of these couples shared with me that they had experienced vivid dreams regarding societal chaos and instability. They knew that they had to prepare in every facet of life to be self-sufficient, especially in regards to Childbirth and Breastfeeding.
I studied many survival books and was dismayed that few had any real information on how to birth a child in a raw survival situation. Most of these books had been written by men who knew absolutely nothing about birthing and breastfeeding, and so I decided to write my book, Elijah Birth in order to help educate the parents who desire to give birth at home alone. Here is the link to Elijah Birth, How to turn the hearts of the Fathers.
Few Obstetricians are acquainted with the principles of natural childbirth, and fewer still have seen a spontaneous, un-drugged birth and are so dependent on their medications, machinery, and tools, that the thought of a mother intentionally giving birth alone, without any assistance makes it difficult for them to write knowledgeably about childbirth removed from the hospital environment. An exception to this is Gregory White MD who wrote Emergency Childbirth, and his manual is an excellent resource. Click here for the Amazon link.
When life is cut down to the bare minimums for survival – food, water, shelter…. only a couple of life skills are truly needed to keep the family going through a survival time. NATURAL CHILDBIRTH IS ONE OF THEM!
If for some reason our fragile society was to experience a major disruption because of terror, mastering the skills of natural mothering will go a long way in helping to ensure the survival of our people.
We all have heard the stories of mothers who give birth in the car or at home in an unplanned emergency childbirth. So we know it is possible. Motivated by the scripture I read in Matthew 24:19, and the many preparedness dreams, promptings, and my own gut feelings about the true state of the world, I have been on a quest for fifteen years to learn how to do my own prenatal care, give birth without any professional help and then nourish my baby with no formula supplementation. Largely living as if the Medical and Midwifery Professions and Formula Manufacturers did not exist.
We are living this lifestyle right now today, as are many hundreds of couples that have embraced Primal Mothering all over the world.
I would like to share a few helpful tips that if utilized during birth will help the mother and baby get off to a better start. I don’t have any medical credentials nor do I take responsibility for any outcome that you may have during the birth should you decide to provide fully for the health of your family. This information is shared out of deep concern that couples in their childbearing years need to be educated on natural mothering in case of a terrorist attack.
My prayer is that should your family decide to practice giving birth alone before any sort of chaos, that you and each of you will be protected from prosecution for medical negligence by those professionals in our world who get a little antsy when they hear of babies being born without medical assistance.
Let me begin by saying, that for many couples, just hearing that other couples have given birth at home intentionally with positive outcomes is enough to begin the education process and bring comfort to their hearts. Knowing that the vast majority of babes born at home will have no problem whatsoever is encouraging to those making these preparations.
TERROR REALITIES
Imagine you are at home with a pregnant wife, and the electricity goes off. You hear on the radio the city closest to you has been attacked by a nuclear terrorist. You understand that it is crucial to stay in a shelter for the first two weeks after a bomb blast to protect yourself from blast fallout, radiation, and debris. But after two days your wife tells you she is in labor, and it is time to go to the hospital.
What to do?
Do you risk the exposure to hazardous fallout in order to get your wife where it is supposedly safe? Or do you trust nature and proceed at home? Assuming you could physically get to your local hospital, it could be filled to the brim with fallout burn victims or if the blast was accompanied by a chemical or biological attack, the hospital would be the last place on earth you would want your healthy wife and newborn baby to be during and after childbirth.
So you decide to stay home. WHAT DO YOU DO?
HEAVENLY HELP
I would first challenge you to get on your knees and ask God for specific guidance to know what your wife and child will need during this specific birthing experience. You will be guided to know what to do at any given moment and this will help insure the safe passage of your child from inside the womb to outside safely separated from your wife.
STAGES OF LABOR
Labor is composed of three parts. First stage labor is simply about getting the cervix (the bottom opening of the womb) open to allow the baby to move from the uterus to the birth canal. As the cervix widens, a bloody, mucous discharge is often released as it slowly stretches open. This stage of labor can be aided by back massage, and hot compresses to the back. If the mother has painful back labor, the child will possibly be in a posterior position (when the baby comes out it has its face away from the mother’s bottom) and the mother could be aided by counter pressure on the lower back while the baby moves into position to be born.
My favorite book that details all of the stages of labor and gives helpful suggestions for what to do for any given labor situation is Natural Childbirth, the Bradley Way. Here is the link from Amazon.
The final part of first stage, called transition, is typically the most difficult for the mother. It is generally an intense time of contractions one on top of the other that mark the full expansion of the cervix at the baby prepares to be born. During this time it is helpful for the mother to vocalize in a loud AHHHH to help move the energy from the womb up out of her body. I have found vocalization to be the absolute most profound pain relief during my natural births.
SELF-DOUBT SIGNPOST
One of the common emotional signposts of transition is the mother turning to whomever is with her and saying, “I can’t do this anymore”. This “self-doubt” signpost is evidence that first stage labor is almost over and the second stage of pushing is just around the corner. Gentle encouragement is all that is needed to let her know she is doing great and the baby will be born soon.
SECOND STAGE – PUSHING
The second stage of labor generally begins soon after transition and is marked by contractions that come slower and tend to be accompanied with an intense desire to push. Some women don’t feel this desire to push however. Encouraging the mother to be in a standing or upright position will let gravity aid the mother in safely delivering her child.
If it is evident that the baby is coming out feet or bottom first (breech), it is especially important for the mother to be in an upright or standing position during the delivery. But she will know which position is best to deliver her child and should be encouraged to assume whichever position feels right to her.
I only mention the upright information because a few mothers, influenced by the media and current medical dogma will believe and assume that it is best to give birth laying flat on her back, with legs up in the air. This is the absolute worst position for a mother to give birth.
Most women will assume an upright or hands and knees position in which to give birth if left alone. Some will feel more comfortable giving birth in a side lying position. Again, whichever position she feels is most comfortable to her will be the best position to be in. Warm compresses placed on the perineum will aid in a comfortable passage of the baby. I kept a stack of thick cloth diapers by my side during my last birth and my husband’s main task during the labor was to get them wet with warm water and olive oil, which I placed on my bottom during the birth.
It is also important for the mother to keep her bladder empty with frequent urination during labor. Encourage her to use the toilet every hour of labor, and especially during pushing, a full bladder can impede the baby being born. Some mothers experience labor diarrhea while giving birth and this again is nature’s way of opening up the body for the safe passage of the baby. If the rectum and bladder are full it is just that much more space that is taken up which could be utilized by the baby as it is born. Encourage the mother to use the toilet.
BABY RESUSCITATION
As the baby starts to crown, whomever is with the mother can prepare her a hot drink, and get out the bulb syringe, (this tool is the little blue suction device they use in the hospital to suck out the babies nose and throat as it is being born to help them breathe) Bulbs syringes are available at most drug stores. The only “tool” we purchased for our home birth was a new baby syringe to help suction our baby’s mouth and nose. I gave birth in a standing position and my husband stood behind me and suctioned our son’s nose after his head was born. He also checked to see if the cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck. It was not, but I have read about couples that had the cord wrapped several times around the neck, and as the baby was born, they quickly un-looped it from the neck.
During my fourth birth, which took place at home, we were not able to resuscitate our son, and so we called 911 for help. The Fireman who showed up first to help, gently suctioned my baby out with his own mouth. He placed his mouth over the nose and mouth of my son, and sucked out the mucous, then spit it out and gave our baby three puffs of air, and Andy opened his eyes. I call this technique “Shawn’s suck and spit baby survival system”.
A few days after the birth, I talked to a high-risk pediatrician and told her about the fireman’s effective suck and spit technique and she told me that this suctioning is a perfect tool to resuscitate a baby as it creates a vacuum effect that is a superior way to clear the airway of a newborn. If a birth took place in a raw situation where no supplies were available, the mother or the father of the baby could suction out the baby if it was slow to breathe with their own mouths. The bigger the baby, the longer they tend to take to breath and pink up.
Some babies get a little stuck as the shoulders are being born, but a lack of drugs in the mother, and an upright position will help to turn the child to get the shoulders out. Sometimes it helps to hook a finger under the child’s armpit and guide them out if they seem stuck. One friend had to do this with both shoulders as his wife gave birth to his 10-pound son. First getting out one shoulder and then the other.
If the baby is breech, and the head gets stuck, again the use of gravity, and a gentle guiding of the head as it is born will help to safely birth the baby. When cold air hits the baby’s body in a breech birth, they tend to want to take in a breath of air, and if this happens, the mother or father should use a finger in the baby’s mouth to create an air passage, so the baby does not breath in any fluid or blood as it is being born. Squatting during pushing opens up the vaginal outlet an additional 10%, which can make a crucial difference is the ease of passage as the baby is born.
WATER BAG
If the water has not broken during labor, the baby can be born in the amniotic sac. My fourth baby was born in his sac, and it helped the birth to be pain-free, however, he was born with a flood of water upon his arrival and this created a very slippery situation. Having lots of clean towels, receiving blankets, and cloth diapers on hand will help to dry the baby, and make it easier to hold. The mother also tends to bleed as the child emerges from her body, this is normal and is not cause for panic.
However, if the mother seems to be hemorrhaging or bleeding more than she should (no more than two cups of blood), immediate breastfeeding is the absolute best cure for a post partum bleed. I read that Japanese Midwives stand ready with a basin to catch the blood and if the mother has hemorrhaged, they will quickly use a bulb syringe to suck up the blood from the basin and reintroduce it into the mother’s body through the rectum. The rectum is the quickest way to reabsorb the blood back into the mother’s bloodstream. Wheat grass juice orally and rectally is also a powerful aid to heal a post partum hemorrhage.
It is normal for the mother to bleed for up to six weeks after the birth. If the blood comes on heavier and is bright red in the weeks after the birth, this is evidence the mother is doing too much and needs to slow down her activity.
Mothers should also be supported in staying in bed for three days after the birth while the uterus contracts down to its normal size. Breastfeeding on demand, again, facilitates this happening.
BONDING, BREASTFEEDING, AND RELEASING THE PLACENTA
The next hour after the child is born is one of the most important in terms of making sure the mother and child get off to the best start physically, emotionally, and as a breastfeeding partnership. Breastfeeding during survival times will be very important as most families cannot afford to have more than a month or two supply of infant formula stored. Getting educated about exclusive breastfeeding before a terror attack will be very important.
Practicing nursing 100% with no supplementation will give that mother even more confidence that she will be able to provide for her child during a long-term disruption in basic services like communications, electricity, and water, not to mention goods and services. Mastering this art of breastfeeding has been one of the most difficult tasks I have ever taken on. But it can be done and all mothers should be encouraged at the very least, to have a copy of the book, The Womanly art of Breastfeeding on hand to help teach her how to nurse if we have an attack. Here is a link to Emergency Breastfeeding information:
After the child is born, immediate breastfeeding is important for a variety of reasons. First, in the un-drugged child, it is what they instinctively want to do. Second, immediate nursing has powerful implications for the mother. The sucking action of nursing releases hormones that help the uterus to contract in order to aid in the safe detaching of the placenta. I nursed my son immediately after he was born, and fifteen minutes later I felt my placenta plopping down ready to be pushed out, completely intact and with a minimum amount of blood loss.
Immediate nursing also aids in bonding the mother to the child, and powerful hormones are released in both the mother and child, which create a beautiful and long lasting attachment.
As the mother feeds her child in that important first hour, her uterus will immediately start to contract in powerful sensations that will help in preventing hemorrhage. This is the absolute most important reason why the mother should never be separated from her baby in the first minutes after birth.
The mother also has Colostrum in her breasts, which is the perfect first food for the newborn. It contains important anti-bodies and has a laxative effect on the baby. The babies first stool (poop), called meconium is a tar like substance that needs to be passed out of the baby, the colostrums helps this to happen.
As the hormones start to rage through the mother, she may feel shaky and cold. Since these are typical shock symptoms it is easy to get frightened if this happens. A warm drink and wrapping the mother up with blankets and a hot water bottle will help with these normal post birth symptoms. Dehydration and the mother getting too cold can keep the placenta from detaching, and so helping the mother to warm up with a warm drink will help with both issues as she drinks and warms her body up.
During the first twenty-four hours it is normal for the baby to expel lots of mucous from its lungs and nasal cavity. In the un-drugged baby, normal sneezing, coughing, and even vomiting can be anticipated as the baby clears the amniotic fluid from its body. I kept clean cloth diapers by my side to help wipe away the mucous that came out of the baby that first night. A bulb syringe or nasal aspirator can also be kept handy to help the baby expel the mucous out of the lungs.
A common cause of post birth complications in the baby is if the meconium that is the baby’s first bowel movement is aspirated into the lungs. In the hospital this complication is treated in a variety of ways, but at home, close monitoring of the baby for signs of breathing difficulty and infection will help to know if this has occurred. If it does, antibiotic type herbs like Goldenseal and Usnea can be given to the mother to be passed into the baby through the breastmilk. Essential oil of Oregano can also be applied to the baby’s feet and held over the child’s mouth and nose to be breathed in to help with infection.
CORD CARE
In the hospital the cord is generally cut immediately. Over the years I learned about a simpler and more holistic form of childbirth called Lotus Birth. We had a lotus birth with our last baby. It was a peaceful and gentle way to welcome our son into our home. We simply did not cut the cord. We wrapped the placenta up in a cloth diaper and kept it with our son in a receiving blanket. Every time I changed the baby’s diaper, I changed the diaper on the placenta as it dried up and drained fluids. I aided this drying process by putting salt and essential oil of Lavender on the placenta, and after six days the cord detached on it’s own.
This type of birth ensures that all of the cord blood gets back into the baby. Babies born lotus style are very content and peaceful. If one gave birth in a survival situation, and no scissors were available to cut the cord with, a lotus birth would make it irrelevant. Immediate cord clamping and cutting has been proven to cause anemia in some children, as up to 1/3 of the baby’s blood volume can be in the cord and placenta at the time of birth. Early cord cutting has also been implicated in the difficult detaching of the placenta in several studies that I have read on the internet.
Should you decide to cut the cord, sterilize the scissors in boiling water, clamp the cord on the mother and the baby’s side with shoelaces, dental floss, or purchase some cord clamps from a midwife supply store, and then cut the cord in between the clamped portions of the cord.
I would encourage you to wait until the cord has stopped pulsating or even better, wait until the placenta has fully detached and been passed.
Get the baby to breast as soon as it is born. When the placenta detaches, and in some cases that can take several hours, wrap it up with the baby and keep the baby close to the mother. Feeding the baby on demand will help the mother to produce an abundant milk supply.
Emergency childbirth knowledge and exclusive breastfeeding will go a long way in helping Young Americans to overcome the Woe predicted by Jesus as the winding up scenes of the end times of our world take place. I challenge all who are reading this article to get educated, put in a few simple supplies like some good books on natural childbirth and breastfeeding, cloth diapers, cloth menstrual pads, a two week supply of water (14 gallons per person), some food, and a few natural remedies for infection.
I can’t express in words the comfort that has come into my heart knowing that should we have terror when I am expecting a baby, we will be able to make it to the other side of a natural childbirth experience with me and the baby just fine. I have absolute faith and confidence that if I can do it, so could any couple who decided to get prepared and go for it. Please, take the time to read, study, and ponder these things. Then take some more time and put in the few supplies needed.
Even if you don’t anticipate ever needing to give birth alone, prepare now for that contingency should circumstances require it. I don’t know that the things I have shared in this article cover all of the issues that may present in your situation, but trust that you will be guided to know what to do for your family when the time comes. I have read hundreds of home birth stories, and so many of these families have claimed divine guidance and help as the baby was being born.
I know this Heavenly Help ultimately is where safety lies. It is my fervent testimony that as each day goes by and the world continues to be in commotion, we can and will be able to survive whatever happens if we muster our faith and grasp the reality that like our ancestors hundreds of generations back, we can give birth safely alone at home.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 7:32 AM
January 19, 2007
HuffPo: Gabriel Rotello
Nuclear Porn, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love '24'
"Sure, 9/11 was a pinprick compared to a nuke. Or even several nukes. But the truth is that - unlike an all-out nuclear exchange with the USSR - America would survive a nuclear terrorist attack.
The real question is, how would we survive? With or without civil liberties? With or without the rule of law? With or without our humanity?
These are genuine, pressing questions. But they are not Mad Max, fantasy questions. They're not even On The Beach questions.
They are legitimate questions about a survivable and plausible event, and they are questions that every American should be thinking about. Now. Before it happens."
I completely agree with Mr. Rotellos analysis of this issue and like him, I am grateful to the producers of 24 for bringing this issue to the minds of average Americans. The conversation on Family Civil Defense against Nuclear Terrorism is LONG overdue in our culture. I believe we need to let the cult of personality around our celebrities go, and focus our energies teaching people in our society how to be self sufficient.
Here is a compilation of my own writings about nuclear issues on this blog:
Interview on Provident Living/Family Preparedness
and
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 10:00 AM
October 10, 2006
Nuke Notes
I've just spent the past few hours reading about North Korea.
Bloggers, Essayists at Front Page, News Articles, and a variety of chat rooms from uber liberal to the comments section at the Belmont Club, and of course all my pals over at Free Republic.
Except for a lone post by a fellow Freeper talking about Civil Defense, not once have I come across anyone saying anything about Personal Preparation and Family Civil Defense.
The talk has mostly revolved around "did they" or "didn't they" test a nuke, What should be our response, and analysis and humor around "why" this happened.
People, we are living in the nuclear age. Terrorists, if they don't already have nukes, are certainly trying to obtain them.
We know they have the will to use them.
Question is...What should be the appropriate response?
I want to testify the Personal Preparedness brings peace to the heart. Having a 72 hour kit, a supply of food, water, and basic supplies to survive a nuclear event calms the nerves. Reading the book Nuclear War Survival Skills back in the 1990's comforted me, and empowered me. The book convinced me that a nuclear attack would be terrible, but completely survivable.
I began doing intensive research on this topic when I learned that the Clinton Administration had been selling nuclear technology for campaign contributions.
I was angry at the time, still am, that we had such a traitor in the White House, and I still think his treasonous tushie should be in Federal Prison.
But finger pointing and making jokes about the past do nothing to prepare for a nuclear future.
What I would like to see is the Department of Homeland Security do some intensive promotion of Family Civil Defense. Individual and Family Civil Defense being promoted, taught, and literally shoved on the American People, especially on television.
I applaud the Government for the Be READY internet campaign, and am grateful for the brochures and good information found on its web site.
If for no other reason than it makes sense and brings peace of mind, I believe it would be proper and appropriate for all of the news agencies to begin promoting civil defense in earnest as a reality check and for the sake of our most vulnerable populations.
Most people in this country can make some simple preparations. They do not need to wait for the Government to do it for them.
We can be certain that Hollywood Liberals will mock any attempts to teach our people what to do to prepare. Much as they mocked the duct tape and plastic sheeting advice that came out after 9-11.
So what? Let them mock.
We need to teach our people much more intensively how to be prepared to survive a nuclear attack.
It is the right thing to do.
If not now .... when?
Jenny Hatch
Mommy Blogger
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 8:04 PM
October 8, 2006
North Korea Tests Nuclear Bomb
UPDATE Tuesday October 10th:
Watch it, then watch it again....I have TEARS running down my face. Thanks Matt Drudge....
ROTFLOL - (That is internet speak for Rolling on the Floor, laughing out loud!)
Pajamas Media Link (Scroll down for Opinion)
I just checked my traffic and the hits for my Nuclear War Prep Stuff is going nutso, so lots of you are coming in, probably for the first time.
To make things easier, here is a run down of posts and links to all of my Nuclear War Prep for Families on the web:
First:
Nuclear War Survival Skills, the classic By Cresson Kearny available for free here on the internet
Quote from Nuclear War Survival:
"A terrorist attack, that will be a more likely possibility once nuclear weapons become available in unstable nations. Fallout dangers could extend clear across America. For example, a single small nuclear weapon exploded in a West Coast city would cause lethal fallout hazards to unsheltered persons for several miles downwind from the part of the city devastated by blast and fire.
It also would result in deposition of fallout in downwind localities up to hundreds of miles away, with radiation dose rates hundreds of times higher than the normal background. Fallout would be especially heavy in areas of rain- out; pregnant women and small children in those areas, following peacetime standards for radiation protection, might need to stay sheltered for weeks. Furthermore, in localities spotted across the United States, milk would be contaminated by radioiodine.
Surely in future years nuclear survival know-how will become an increasingly important part of every prudent person's education."
Newsmax Article - A Mother Thinks about Nuclear Survival
Blog Entries:
A Mother thinks about Nuclear Survival
Interview on Provident Living/Family Preparedness
American Hiroshima.....Take Two
And Please, no more appeasers in the government.
"Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to Pyongyang to flatter the regime. In 1994, we signed the "Agreed Framework" — a deal that required North Korea to cease work on its graphite-moderated nuclear power plants (which can produce weapons-grade plutonium) and promise to sin no more."
They LIED! And bragged about it, and now the fruits of the Clinton Administrations ingnorance and naivety have just exploded in North Korea.
UPDATE: Monday Morning
President Bush is speaking as I type. Short and sweet, he just finished. "North Korea is exporting bombs to Iran and Syria", people of North Korea deserve more..." etc etc
I just arrived home from taking my boys to school. Was listening to AM radio as I drove. It was almost farsical. 850 KOA - Conservative Mike Rosen talking about Appeasement of the 90's leading to this probem in North Korea. Then I flipped to an uber conservative/libertarian site The American Freedom Network - 1360, and they had a guy on talking about preparedness, survival, guns, and being prepared to shoot neighbors if they come to take your food.
Then I flipped to Air America, and Local Boulder Host Jay Marvin introduced his show with a short musical clip of the Rolling Stones, and he was talking to my fellow Boulderites about legalizing Pot.
I started to chuckle thinking of the irony of these responses to todays North Korean threat.
Conservative = realistic analysis of the threat, with a focus on hawkish behavior being the appropriate response.
Far Right Libertarian = Store Food, Water, Guns...head for the hills
Liberal = Let's get STONED!
I'm somewhere comfortably settled between Conservative and Libertarian. We have a storage of food and water, and we do own a shotgun. But to say I am going to start killing my hungry neighbors if they come asking for some food is a little over the top. We'll share until it is all gone, and then pray for Manna from Heaven.
As for our liberal friends, if getting stoned is the best that the liberals have to offer to the current political scene, I say let's legalize pot and give it to them for free. Then maybe these adolescent yuk yuks will shut up while the adults in our world do the work of dismantling Communism and disarming Dictators.
Jenny
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 9:55 PM
October 3, 2006
Contents of Jenny Hatchs 72 Hour Kit and BackPack with Video Commentary
Here are two video clips demonstrating the contents of my own personal 72 Kit backpack and one of my childrens food kits. These materials are designed to help motivate others to prepare with emergency supplies to be prepared to evacuate their homes.
In this video I share the contents of my own backpack, with an emphasis on infant care, which is always the number one needed supplies during any emergency.
In this clip I go through the contents of one of my sons Food Kits. Each person in our family has one of these lunch kits that contains enough food to last for 72 hours. Three days is generally the amount of time that it takes for emergency services to arrive after an emergency. The point of this kit is to provide a bridge from the emergency to the time when help arrives. I purchased all of the food for our kits at Wal Mart.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 2:22 PM
Video Tour of Hatch Storage Room with 72 hour kits explained
On sunday night I made a quick movie outlining the steps we have made to prepare. I had to break it up into three parts to fit on U TUBE....ENJOY!
Topics Covered: Water Storage, 72 Hour Kits, Long Term Food storage in #10 Cans. I did not mention it in the movie, but we also have a shot gun with lots of ammo.
Other Posts on this topic:
72 Hour Kits
72 Hour Kit Class
Clip #1
In this clip I mention 75 gallon water container. I meant to say 75 gallon Hot Water Heater.
And when I said that our family could live in our home self sufficiently, that would mean with no grocery shopping, and no water, electricity, or any sort of "help" from any outside sources.
One of the main reasons we decided to educate ourselves about Emergency Home Childbirth is for just such a situation, where, for whatever reason, we were not able to depend on anyone to help us with a baby being born. I have had many friends over the years claim that we would never have such a situation develop, or that God would never make us go through such hard times. I would suggest that "failure of imagination" is what leads to this type of thinking.
I can think of dozens of scenarios that could potentially play out where we would need to have self sufficiency skills related to Motherhood.
Rocky Mountains in the Fall
Clip # 2
Fall Colors!
Clip # 3
UPDATE: October 4th
This morning Ben and I went to his playgroup at my friend Patricias house. I brought along my daughters video camera and asked a couple of friends if I could interview them on Provident Living. Two of the friends at the playgroup, which is made up of mostly LDS Mothers and babies agreed to be interviewed.
The clip is really short, but I hope it demonstrates that many people are feeling the need to prepare and are taking such preparations seriously. Recently our Stake President, our local Priesthood leader at church requested that the whole Boulder Stake set some serious goals this year for preparation. We were supposed to have our 72 hour kits finished by October 1st, and a one month supply of food by Dec. 1st and a three month supply of food by June 1st 2007.
The whole stake has been working hard to hold classes and encourage the members to be prepared. When Patricia and Deborah mentioned being Obedient as one of the main reasons for preparing, what they meant was that as Mormons we believe being Obedient to the direct admonitions from our local priesthood leaders, who have stewardship in behalf of us, brings blessings into our lives.
As I was talking to Deborah after the interview, I told her that I believed the greatest blessing that comes from being prepared is a feeling of peace in my heart. That should the storms howl and the planet shake, I know that I have done everything within my power to be prepared and follow the counself that has come down to Mormons for the past 80 years about Provident Living. She agreed. I also mentioned to her that a woman who spoke in Fast and Testimony Meeting a couple weeks ago, talked about the peace she has felt come over her heart as she prepared 72 hour kits for herself and her college age and newly married children. She said this was an unanticipated blessing of following the counsel to prepare.
I personally believe that it is the most important blessing of being prepared and living providently. I have enjoyed this peace in my heart for many years, and I can testify that "If you are prepared you will not fear!"
Here is the Video Clip:
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I ran out of space on the video card in the middle of Deborahs answer to my question. I asked her if she had any advice for people getting started with Provident Living. She said that it was very helpful to plan a one month menu, and then start shopping with that menu in mind. It saved her loads of money, and kept her cooking efforts very concise and predictable.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 11:37 AM
October 2, 2006
Atta Tape signal to strike?
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 10:02 PM
September 22, 2006
American Hiroshima?
Reporter: Take warning for Muslims out of U.S. seriously
"Muslims should leave America," said Dawood. "We cannot stop our attack just because of the American Muslims; they must realize that American forces are killing innocent Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq; we have the right to respond back, in the same manner, in the enemy's homeland. The American Muslims are like a human shield for our enemy; they must leave New York and Washington."
My prayer is simply that this attack will be stopped like the British Attack was foiled.
I have long thought that even befor 9-11 occured, the terrorists had completely planned the second attack for America, and already had all of the supplies in place for that attack.
Why?
They knew that once the planes hit the targets, America would fully awake from its slumber and crack down on all of the comings and goings of potential terrorists. We have not quite accomplished that goal, but many, many people have been either killed or locked up. The question is: If these terrorists are ready to hit at any time, and they are planning the American Hiroshima attack in the next few weeks, what should be the response of ordinary Americans?
I would challenge anyone reading this post to simply get down on your knees and ask your Father in Heaven what you should do to prepare. For some that may mean doing nothing. For others, they may feel like putting in a small supply of water, non-perishable food, and emergency supplies. For others, it may mean taking an unplanned trip to visit grandma in Nebraska.
I don't know much about our countrys preparations for a nuclear or radiological bomb going off in a major city. But I do know that the preparations that our family has made comforts and makes me feel more in control of my life. Feelings of being in control are directly related to ones mental wellness or lack thereof.
I know the promptings I have had over the years directly relate to nuclear activity. I have had hundreds of dreams of nuclear bombs going off in America. I have felt very prompted to prepare to give birth in a survival situation. Does this mean that a nuclear bomb is going to go off in Colorado during a time when I am pregnant? No, not necessarily.
I can only testify that while we don't know what is going to happen in the future, our Heavenly Father does. He loves us, and he wants us to live happy lives. He does not want us to feel fearful, and he does not want us to be afraid. I believe that he has guided our family to certain preparations to be more ready for a time of chaos and terror.
Should the terrorists be sucessful in bombing some cities in America with a nuclear or radiological bomb, I would hope that our military and the president would have the will to turn certain known hot beds of terrorist activity in our world into nuclear parking lots in retaliation, and I would also hope that those terrorists would be fully aware that this will happen within minutes of any attack in America or on our interests around the world.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 11:50 AM
September 12, 2006
American Hiroshima.....Take Two
Last night I drove down to DIA to pick up my husband who had been traveling for work. As I drove I listened to AM radio. I flipped around between Dr. Laura, Air America (which I occasionally listen to for the humor factor), and Savage Nation. Michael Savage, who seemed just a little bit on the edge last night, had a guest on discussing, once again, Suitcase Nukes and American Hiroshima.
Since I have written at length about nuclear survival in the past on my blog and in various locations on the web, I thought I would once again share links, quotes from Bloggers, and a few articles on the web that showed up this week talking about a Ramadan Attack by Bin Laden.
From the article I wrote for newsmax after 9-11:
"Fear often is a life-saving emotion. When we believe death is close at hand, fear can increase our ability to work harder and longer, driven by fear, we can accomplish feats that would be impossible otherwise. Trembling hands, weak legs, and cold sweat do not mean that a person has become ineffective. Doing hard necessary work is one of the best ways to keep one’s fears under control.
"If the danger is unexpected enough or great enough, normal persons sometimes experience terror as well as fear. Terror prevents the mind from evaluating dangers and thinking logically. It develops in two stages. ...
"The first stage is apathy: people become indifferent to their own safety and are unable even to try to save themselves or their families. The second stage is a compulsion to flee. … Persons who learn to understand the nature of our inherent human traits and behavior and symptoms are less likely to become terrorized and ineffective in the event of a nuclear attack." (Cresson H. Kearny, "Nuclear War Survival Skills")
I learned many practical skills from Dr. Kearny’s book, which he has graciously published online for anyone to read for free. This book helped me to understand the myths versus the facts of a nuclear attack, and our family has purchased the supplies he recommends to survive a nuclear incident in our own little home.
If we give in to terror and become apathetic or attempt to flee our homes, it is these very actions which will cause more death and disease than the actual bombings.
Imagine if every person in America had a two-week supply of food, water and supplies to survive a nuclear blast. Those at ground zero would certainly lose their lives, but the authorities could focus on the needs of people in the locales around the blast site, while the rest of America confidently took care of itself.
Please move beyond terror in your own mind and let a little fear motivate you to buy the things necessary and master the skills needed for surviving a nuclear incident.
One person at a time, we can win the war on terror using our wits and remembering the legacy of our patriot ancestors, who sacrificed so much to provide us with freedom.
If you will take personal responsibility for your own safety rather than depending on others, you will be one less person or family the authorities have to worry about during an attack."
What concerned me the most listening to Michael Savage rant on the radio last night was his claim that the government would use a nuke attack to grab everyones guns, and that it would take decades to recover and all modern society would immediately cease to exist - investments worthless etc... I thought to myself, "perhaps if Clinton were still president we would have the government gestape grabbing the guns, but I don't see the Bush administration doing that." No, what I see is that IF Al Qaeda is able to set off some suitcase nukes in America during Ramadan this year, even if all seven that Savage was talking about are set off, certainly the people in those seven locations would die, and in the areas around those cities, some panic and need for martial law would be needed. But to say the whole country would be brought to it's collective knees??? I just don't see that happening.
I believe everyone would feel like it was the end of the world, and for a time, perhaps a couple of weeks, terror would rule the day. But after a month or so, I see us picking ourselves up and going on with life much as it is today. Just with a firmer resolve to win the war on terror.
Here are some links:
TERRORISM: 'AL-QAEDA'S MR. NUCLEAR TO HEAD FRESH ATTACK ON U.S.
QUOTE:
Dubai, 12 Sept. (AKI) - "Osama bin Laden is planning to carry out new, more destructive attacks inside the United States, and there is someone working on this terror plot currently in the US, according to Hamid Mir, the famed Pakistani journalist who obtained the only post-9/11 interviews with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. In an interview quoted on the website of the al-Arabiya television network, Mir spoke about his last trip to Afghanistan and his meeting with al-Qaeda members and Taliban leaders."
al-Qaeda And The Nuclear Threat
"Meanwhile, Shukrijumah continues to cause many a sleepless night.
Special Agent Andrew Lenzen, the lead case agent and a veteran of the FBI’s Miami counterterrorism squad, has amassed an encyclopedic knowledge of Shukrijumah’s actions and personality quirks. He has even compiled a timeline of his life, beginning with the day he was born.
“I know him almost like his mother,” said Lenzen. “I’ve lived, slept and dreamed him for the past three years.”
There's been a recent alert in Trinidad / Guyana for an al-Qaeda operative linked to a possible Dirty Bomb attack in the US to coincide with Ramadan, which I believe begins September 24th."
"In an interview with Al.Arabiya.net, reported by Aki today, Hamid Mir said that on a recent trip to Afghanistan he heard Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters speaking of an imminent attack on the United States “larger than 11 September 2001 attacks.”
Al Qaeda is reported to have enough material for six dirty bombs already in the United States.
Three suitcase nuclear bombs are said to have been smuggled from Russia into Europe."
Here are some previous links from my Blog talking about Nuclear Survival, and if you will click on the Catagory, Prep for Nuclear War, I have some other posts that talk about a couple of key things you can do to prepare. Just remember, the most important supply to have in your home is some water. And everyone who has a hot water heater already has 40 gallons of clean water to use for drinking. If you will just stay in your own home for two weeks while the radiation disperses, you can protect yourself and your family from fallout dangers.
In some of these posts, I refer to a bomb shelter that my boys and I built in the basement in the summer of 2005. It has since been taken apart and the materials used for other purposes because we finished our basement. If an attack were to occur, we would simply stay in our basement where our water supply and 72 hour kits and food storage are located.
Here are the links:
Interview on Provident Living and Family Preparedness
72 hour Kits and 72 hour kit Class
Now I have no doubt the Blogosphere and even the main stream press is going to go nuts these next two weeks before Ramadan talking about nuclear dirty bombs. And I know that you mothers who read this blog may get a little freaked out by all the talk. Just remember this, if you will right now put in a two week supply of drinking water (just go to Sam's Club and purchase a couple cases of water bottles), and have a two week supply of food that you do not need to cook - chunky soups, power bars, etc...canned fruit, tuna, whatever your family likes. If you will do those two things, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE TERRORIZED BY THIS THREAT!!!
And, for those of you who would like to be even more prepared: If you would purchase some potassium Iodide for your whole family, and maybe get a Portable Radiation Detector to put on your key chain to determine radiation levels, I would think that would be enough to survive any attack.
Granted those who live at ground zero will most certainly lose their lives, or be seriously injured. But a line from Brave Heart comes to mind when thinking about that. "all men die, but not all men truly live" If we are going to live free from terror, we MUST go on with life absolutely fearless of what the future will bring. If we cave to terror in our own minds, we have already lost the war.
I'm not afraid. Since I was a teen I have been preparing emotionally, physically, and spiritually for the possibility of nuclear war. If it happens we will deal with it. But I am not going to let these next two weeks paralyze me and keep me from living a full and satisfying life every day.
Chertoff on nuclear terror: Keep it over there
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 8:15 AM | Comments (1)
March 8, 2006
New Preparedness Company
Buy Emergency Kits and Preparedness Supplies
To keep your family safe, equip your home with the essential products you’ll need if an emergency occurs. While you may have home insurance, it will never increase your family’s chances of survival if disaster strikes.
Our kits provide the insurance you need to care for yourself and your loved ones when emergency response is delayed or unavailable—and they can save your life. The Department of Homeland Security recommends keeping a well-maintained emergency kit in every home. Our Ready Kit™ contains everything the department recommends.
This company has supplies available for families to use in case of an emergency. I like to put together my own survival kit, but for those of you who would like to have help getting started a pre made kit can be very helpful.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 11:03 AM
February 1, 2006
Interview on Provident Living/Family Preparedness
Provident Living Lecture:
Recently I prepared a lecture to be given in any forum to help individuals and organizations, either government or private, to learn Basic Civil Defense skills from a mother's perspective. Most civil defense prep is done from an infrastructure standpoint, with very little talk about women's issues and the realities that will smack Americans should we have a WMD attack.
The point of my talk is to challenge others to take family self sufficiency seriously, and to think about some of the realities that may present should we have a loss in basic utilities like Water, Electricity, gasoline and delivery of goods and services for an extended period of time.
Please contact me if you would like to schedule a lecture for your group or organization.
Last year I was interviewed by a Natural Mothering Web Site Owner on the Topic of Provident Living. I thought I would share it again here on my blog.
1.Q – Why is Family Self-Sufficiency a key part of America winning the War on Terror, and should we have some sort of terror attack, how will Provident Living help?
A – If individuals and families will take care of themselves, the authorities can focus on the needs of those directly affected by the attack, whatever type that may be – even if power, water, transportation, or communications are cut off.
2.Q – What does it mean to be a Sovereign Family?
A – The family that is Self-Governed.
Follow up question – And in what areas of Family life does this Self-Sufficiency manifest itself?
A - In whatever area the family feels a need to focus. For us that included health care.
3.Q- Where is a good place for the average family to start?
A – Water storage, 72-hour kits, and a two-week supply of food. However, all areas of life could be improved and that includes:
1. Literacy and Education
2. Career Development
3. Financial and Resource Management
4. Home Production and Storage
5. Physical Health
6. Social-Emotional and Spiritual Development
Follow up question – Where did your family start?
A – We put in a supply of food, organized 72-hour kits, and bought some kitchen tools. I read dozens of survival books. I then spent years becoming medically self-sufficient. I gradually stopped using my medications.
We have raised our children without antibiotics and vaccinations, and they rarely go to the doctor and have never been to the dentist. We try to live as if the medical profession did not exist. The most difficult thing I have ever done was to wean off of my anti-depressants thirteen years ago. My husband also decided to go natural and stopped taking all of his over the counter meds. Now we use nutrition and herbal healing for most of what ails our family.
Later on, after I felt stronger, we added home childbirth to our list of Provident skills.
4.Q – How have your husband and children participated in this effort to live Providently?
A – My husband has been the voice of reason that kept us balanced as we prepared. It is easy in this day and time to take preparations too far, to live in fear and perhaps go into debt in order to prepare. I believe sometimes going into debt is justified as when an individual or family decides to go into debt for extra schooling, knowing this investment will pay off in a better income because of an increase in knowledge or skills. My husband kept us from taking too many extreme measures.
My children help every time we re-do our 72 hour kits, and they help us can and store the food as well as inventory it. They also love to eat the foods I prepare and they are my living testimonials that with good information and serious effort you can produce a healthy child without the help of any professionals.
5.Q – When did you decide to live this Lifestyle?
A – I started thinking about provident living during my teens. I was raised in a family that practiced many facets of this life style and it was a natural progression to implement it when I left home. As we have learned line upon line the skills necessary for living without the help of modern medicine, education, and government welfare a great feeling of confidence has been the end result of this effort.
6.Q – Why do you take living the Provident Lifestyle so seriously?
A – All my life I have studied the various scriptural prophecies from ancient and modern prophets. This knowledge coupled with my own dreams and promptings motivated me to start down this path.
In fact, I was reading the Bible one day in February of 1989, Matthew 24:19 to be exact. I had just given birth to my first baby and that month had celebrated my 21st birthday. I was nursing her while I read this chapter. It is the chapter where Jesus is telling his disciples the signs of his second coming in the last days. Verse 19 quotes Jesus as saying “and woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days”. When I read that verse I just knew Jesus was talking about my generation of mothers and I also realized that I had to learn everything I could about birth and natural mothering.
Recent world events have just underscored the promptings to become self-sufficient and warning dreams I have had over the years.
7.Q – What motivates you to keep preparing and adding skills?
A – The thought of my children being truly hungry.
When I teach preparedness classes, I always show our years supply of food to those who attend. I tell them this food is for my family and then I challenge them to do the same for themselves and their children. Inevitably, some joker always says, “well, if anything happens I’ll just come to your house”. I always tell them, “No, you have been warned, this food is for my family”.
Follow up question – This brings up the question, If others were truly starving, would you share your food with them?
A – Yes, we would share with anyone who was hungry, but I would struggle to share with fellow Mormons because they have been warned for eighty years of the necessity of having a year’s supply of food. I would still probably share with them though.
8.Q – Why such an emphasis on preparation for nuclear war in your classes, your Blog, and on your web site?
A – The reality of our world demands that we get the facts and make some prudent preparations for any type of WMD attack.
Follow up question – How did you educate yourself on nuclear war survival skills?
A – I read the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresson Kearny three times and did all of the psychological preparations as well as the minimum pre-crisis preparations he recommends, like putting in a two week supply of potassium iodide tablets for my family.
9.Q – How can others learn about this lifestyle?
A – My Web Site has some great resources - The Natural Family Company Web Site was set up to help families become self-sufficient, especially in regards to childbirth.
I set up my web site with many provident living links. My site focuses on childbirth because as I studied the various survival books over the years, I felt that the facts shared about childbirth were poorly written by men who knew nothing about natural childbirth. The books would say things like, “when the mother starts pushing the baby out, help her to lie down on her back.”
The absolute worst position for a woman to give birth in is on her back. Cultural conditioning has taught mothers that this is the proper position to give birth, perhaps not knowing that this position was developed by doctors to make things easier for them. Yet when mothers have the freedom to birth in any position they want, most often they will be upright in a squat or on hands and knees.
Applying the medical-drugs and surgery model of childbirth to a survival situation could be deadly for the mother and baby because the many life saving backups for baby resuscitation and a blood supply to transfuse the mother may not be available in case of excess bleeding. Doctors tend to be somewhat casual about cutting the mother with scissors and knives and using forceps, as well as pulling out the placenta after a hospital birth. All of these interventions can cause terrible blood loss in the mother.
Knowing a few practical principles about natural childbirth will really help.
For example – After the baby is born if the mother will latch the baby onto her breast this will help to contract the uterus and aid in the placenta detaching safely. A retained placenta can be a problem for the mother. In the hospital the doctors have Pitocin to help contract the uterus and help with bleeding, and they have a blood supply to transfuse the mother with in case if she hemorrhages.
Most doctors don’t know this but immediate breastfeeding is a natural cure for post partum hemorrhage. If the mother is dehydrated and cold she will also have a difficult time releasing the placenta, and so it is wise to have blankets on hand to wrap the mother up with the baby and a warm drink available to help with re-hydration and warmth.
I have rarely seen these types of practical tips and information in the survival books I studied and I felt a need to share them in my own books and articles. Gregory White MD wrote a book titled Emergency Childbirth, which is an excellent resource as well.
I wrote Elijah Birth, a practical “How to” book, for the father who has a desire to assist his wife with a home delivery. It is available on my web site as an E-Book. I also have links to a variety of sites, books, videos, and articles on the web that have been great helps to us as we have become educated about childbirth.
10.Q – Who has been the greatest influence in your life in regards to Provident Living?
A – My Mother. As I was growing up we studied the scriptures together and spent many hours discussing these issues. She also instilled in me a love of gardening and cooking with whole foods and has been a tremendous example of proactive living to not just me, but to everyone she has come in contact with.
11.Q – What is the most important thing to you?
A – Healthy babies.
12.Q – How many children do you have?
A – Five – Michelle, Allison, Jeffrey, Andrew, and Benjamin.
13.Q – Why did you decide to give birth at home? Is this part of Provident Living?
A – I gave birth in the hospital three times – one birth was a c-section. I wanted to assure myself that I could do it alone without any help from anyone. During a WMD attack hospital personnel and emergency workers may not be available to help with a birth as they will be caring for others, and having practiced at home, I knew my confidence would be much higher should that scenario play out. I also would not want to be in a hospital to give birth if it was filled with smallpox or anthrax patients.
14.Q – Weren’t you afraid to give birth alone?
A – At first we were both very frightened, but as the years went by and we mastered the knowledge and skills of home childbirth, our fear was replaced by a great faith in the miracle of natural unassisted birth. Our first home birth did result in a transfer to the hospital right after my son was born because we could not get him to breath. I also hemorrhaged. This experience truly reinforced the need to become educated about all facets of birth, especially the hour right after the baby is born. We learned a lot from that experience.
15.Q – How did you get your husband to “let” you birth at home?
A – We have had hours of discussion on this topic over the years and it ultimately came down to personal choice. I was the one who had to give birth and he respected my rights of self-determination over my own body, and he supported me giving birth where I felt most comfortable. When our fifth baby was born at home safely and perfectly in 2002 it truly satisfied my decade long quest to master this art of childbirth. I learned that I could do it alone and did not have to live in fear of any type of terror attack while I was pregnant.
16.Q – Do you live in a cabin out in the woods cut off from everyone?
A – No, we live in the suburbs of Boulder Colorado.
17.Q – Where were you raised?
A – Detroit Michigan.
18.Q – What are your politics?
A – Conservative.
19.Q – How can others get more information about Provident Living?
A – The Provident Living web site, set up by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
20.Q – What is your vision for the future?
A – Strong healthy Families, Communities, and Nations. I have adopted the vision of Isaiah the Prophet and am working and living for this day in the world. He said…
“And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days”
Isaiah the Prophet
I want to testify that before this day of longevity and all babies living to an old age, we will continue to have chaos and distress with some societal instability and it is for this reason that we prepare and live providently.
21. Q – If we have a prolonged disruption in services because of terror, what will be the greatest need?
A – Purified Water.
22. Q – If society had to go a week, month, or a year without normal goods and services, which commodity will be in highest demand?
A – Breastmilk. Most families cannot afford to have more than a months supply of formula on hand. I predict that should we have a long-term disruption, mother’s milk will be the food in highest demand.
23. Q – How can mothers prepare for breastfeeding?
A – Get educated. Read the La Leche Leagues, The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding. Go to a series of League meetings. Practice now 100% breastfeeding with no supplementation with your current babies. It is not an easy thing to do and poses many challenges for parents. Nursing my babies 100% has been one of the most difficult skills I have ever mastered.
24. Q – What about those families who don’t have the resources, or more importantly, don’t have the foresight to prepare?
A – I have a challenge for everyone who is listening to me right now. I challenge you men: husbands, fathers, grandfathers, neighbors, etc…. to put in the survival supplies to keep the women and babies you love safe, fed, and protected. Just do it. Most men think of guns and ammo when they start to prepare. But you will need water, food, and a way to keep your family warm. If you think you may father a child sometime in the next 20 or 30 years during the war on terror, get a few good books or videos on natural childbirth and breastfeeding. Put in a supply of cloth diapers. Get a months’ supply of food and water. When you have that, get a six-month supply and then a year’s supply. Just do it.
Because food is typically the women’s domain, I have met men who would like to prepare who feel paralyzed to know where to start because their wives adamantly refuse to “let them” store the food and learn provident skills. Your wife will thank you when she has some supplies on hand to feed the children with, and some books to educate herself with. The Victorian age cast a dark pall over the woman of the west and robbed us of our birthright of traditional skills and female arts. Most women even today know very little about natural mothering. Until she is able to face this reality and help you prepare, just go ahead and get the supplies and books.
I have observed over the years that it is nearly impossible for women in their childbearing years to even face the reality of these types of disruptions in services. The thought of having to give birth and care for a child without doctors, drugs, epidurals, baby formula, antibiotics, and vaccinations is absolutely unthinkable for most women. But in a matter of hours our fragile society could easily regress 200 years. Don’t judge your wife, daughter, sister, grand-daughter, or the young female neighbor who laughs at you when you try to talk about these things. As a pregnant woman they simply may not have the capacity to face reality right now.
The only reason I was able to do it is because I was raised thinking about these things, and have had years of psychological preparation, always thinking, planning, imagining life without modern medicine, education, and commerce. Your loved one may not have the luxury of years of coming to terms with these things. She may not be able to even have a conversation with you about it, or may shut you up or change the subject if you try to talk about it.
This denial of reality is actually a divine mechanism to keep her in a place where she can nurture her children during pregnancy and lactation, because if reality is just too harsh, why try? Why eat well or exercise or even make plans for a child’s future if that future is just a nuclear holocaust?
Education about nuclear war is what will dispel this fear and help the mother to come to terms with the harsh realities of life during the war on terror. But this will take time, and we may not have time. So, it is the job, responsibility and duty of the men in our society to get educated, put in a few simple supplies, and be prepared to nourish and protect the ones you love.
I don’t mean to be sexist about this issue, but it is just something I have observed after teaching dozen’s of classes. Don’t get angry with these women, just put in the supplies that will help them and their babies. Older women have a much easier time facing the facts about the fragility of our world.
You who are listening to me today, stop trying to convince the young women around you that life could change in an instant, and instead, just put in some supplies to share with them when the time comes.
When life is cut down to the bare minimums, it is amazing how few supplies are truly necessary to sustain life. Water, food, and shelter are it. Babies need so little to thrive. They need to be kept clean, fed, warm, and dry.
Use your imagination to think about living in your home for a month with no outside water, electricity, or the ability to travel anywhere to buy anything. Make a list of the supplies that you will need to survive for that time. As you take the first steps of water storage and a little food storage, it is amazing how much easier it is to continue on thinking about the supplies and skills you will need to survive. I challenge those of you who are listening to me right now, today, to begin your preparations.
Don’t delay, don’t allow yourself to be deluded into thinking our world situation will change. We are more at risk for a nuclear attack than at any time in our history. This is not something to run from. We Americans need to face this reality head on and realize the responsibility we have to prepare.
We have been promised in the scriptures that if ye are prepared, ye shall not fear. I can honestly say that I have no fear about the future. We are happily living our life, and if terror comes, we will go on living and face whatever happens without paralyzing fear.
Provident Living Lecture:
Recently I prepared a lecture to be given in any forum to help individuals and organizations, either government or private, to learn Basic Civil Defense skills from a mother's perspective. Most civil defense prep is done from an infrastructure standpoint, with very little talk about women's issues and the realities that will smack Americans should we have a WMD attack.
The point of my talk is to challenge others to take family self sufficiency seriously, and to think about some of the realities that may present should we have a loss in basic utilities like Water, Electricity, gasoline and delivery of goods and services for an extended period of time.
Please contact me if you would like to schedule a lecture for your group or organization.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 5:41 AM
January 17, 2006
A Mother Thinks About Nuclear Survival
Paul and Jenny about the time of our engagement in 1987
And, well into middle age...seventeen years later...
A couple of weeks after 9-11 in 2001, I contacted Christopher Ruddy of Newsmax and asked if he would be interested in an article on Nuclear Survival.
Because the Iran Nuclear threat has escalated this past week, I thought it would be a timely thing to share the article with my Blog readers and explain why I wrote it the way I did.
Chris wrote back and said he would love to publish something from me. I told him I would do it for free and I spent the next few days writing the piece.
I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me write something effective, that would cause people to think, but more importantly motivate those who read it to get out of that psychologically stuck place most of America seems to be in right now regarding nuclear bombs, and move past the terror into a place of proactive preparations.
I suppose it might be helpful for those of you reading this to understand a little of my history in regards to nuclear war. My Dad sold Bomb Shelters when he was in college in the fifties. He learned the facts about nuclear war, and although he did not sell too many shelters as a salesman, he was not filled with the hype that seemed to permeate our culture during the sixties. This hype, the fruits of which we still see today, has taught America that nuclear war is not survivable, so there is no point in trying to get prepared.
During the early 80's when I was a teen, my Dad purchased a home that had a crawl space that he set up as a shelter. He filled it with water, food, and supplies, and even looked into getting a radiation meter. Somehow a Detroit paper heard about his preparations and did a story on our family. I had several friends at school mention seeing the article to me, which included a picture of our family sitting in our "bomb shelter". I was upset that we were perceived as kooky to some of our neighbors and friends.
Earlier when I was eleven, he had tossed around the idea of us moving to the country and building an earth ship home, and learning how to live off the land. My mother said "no way, no how" was she moving, and so he let the idea go.
As a teen I would occasionally have nightmares about nuclear war. These dreams were vivid and very frightening. I always woke up feeling afraid, and once in a while I would share my fears with my Father. He once told me that we did not have to live in fear. We just had to keep the commandments and wether we were part of the Kingdom of God in this life or in the life beyond that was the most important thing. I took his words to heart.
Our church has been very proactive in teaching the members Provident Living Skills and Principles. It was a natural progression for me to leave my parents home and immediately begin similar preparations in my own home with my husband. I was only married a few months before I began storing water and setting up our 72 hour kit.
When my husband received a bonus during the first year of our marriage, I asked him if we could spend the money on an electric wheat grinder and a supply of wheat. He wanted to purchase baby furniture as we were expecting our first baby. With that first purchase a pattern was started of food storage being the first thing we bought whenever we had any extra money.
We have been married 18 years and finally have a years supply of the basic foods for survival. I have taught classes in food storage and provident living since 1993 and I was motivated to learn childbirth self sufficiency skills because of my belief that the day may come when we simply will not have the luxury of going to a hospital to give birth.
About ten years ago I purchased Cresson Kearny's book Nuclear War survival skills (which is available online in its entirety) to fully acquaint myself with the facts of nuclear war survival. I have studied certain chapters of this book numerous times, and I have fully read the book three times through. This education coupled with the many classes I have taught over the years have convinced me that one of the main things that has to be overcome in American Civil Defense is simply learning the facts versus the myths of nuclear war. I also watched as various people in my life went from complete denial of the reality of nuclear war, to accepting it was a possibility, to then getting prepared for it.
This process took some people years of psychological growth and development to mature to the point where they were willing to prepare. Others were much more accepting of the need to prepare, and moved quickly from the denial of reality to preparation stage. After years of observation, I have learned that pregnant women have the absolute most difficult time accepting the reality of nuclear bombs going off in America.
Yet this denial or reality on the part of young mothers does not mean that they are not being affected by the state of our world. Because of my mental health challenges, I have studied quite a bit about post partum psychosis. One of the common themes of psychosis is the terrorizing of nuclear threats.
I believe strongly that for the American People to be fully prepared we need to educate our people, not only on the facts of nuclear war (The learning of which helps to dispel fear), but also on the effect terror and trauma have on our minds. While I was in a psychotic state in 1989, I believed I was living through a nuclear war, and actually hallucinated nuclear bombs going off all around me. I have read about many women having this same experience while they were in psychosis.
Part of my healing from this experience has been to simply prepare for it. Mental illness has been described as someone feeling completely out of control. And mental wellness is directly coordinated to ones ability to feel in control of their own lives. For me, learning about nuclear war and getting prepared for it have been the absolute best psychological preparation. It also helped to heal me of the terror I felt when thinking of the reality of weapons of mass destruction.
I wrote that Newsmax piece with all of these thoughts in my mind, and with the hope that the words would simply help those who read it move from terror to proactive preparation. The most gratifying thing to me, and this is the power of the internet, is simply that so many people have read it over the past four years. When you google nuclear survival "A mother thinks about nuclear survival" still comes out in the top ten. Which tells me people are reading it, sharing it, and I hope and pray, being influenced by it.
Here is the article in its entirety, compliments of newsmax...
(Currently out of 9,960,000 topics on nuclear survival - it is at number 7!) - Man, I wish there was a way for me to have been paid for each hit of that article....my hubby and I could have bought a bigger house!)
A Mother Thinks About Nuclear Survival
Jenny Hatch
Saturday, Nov. 17, 2001
If a nuclear bomb were to go off somewhere in North America, I don’t think my life would change much. As a wife and mother, my life revolves around my kitchen, dishes and laundry. I don’t believe my daily work would be so very different after an attack.
Upon hearing of the bombing, I would call my husband and ask him to immediately gather up the children from school. When my family arrived home, we would walk down to our basement, where we would resume living indoors, sheltered from fallout.
How would we live if the power and water were off and nuclear radiation was in the air? We would start by praying, and asking Father in Heaven for his protecting hand to be upon our family, our nation, local and national leaders, and guide us to know what to do for personal safety.
We would give each child a potassium iodide tablet. And continue giving them one every day for two weeks, to protect their little thyroid glands from radiation poisoning. My husband and I would also take these protective pills.
We have a couple of 55-gallon drums filled with clean water stored in our basement. (One gallon per person per day provides drinking, bathing and dish/laundry water.) I have a bottle of pure bleach on hand to purify this water (16 drops per gallon of water) and also a water pitcher purifier that could be used to pull more contaminants out of the water.
Water from hot water heaters, cisterns on the backs of toilets, and waterbeds could also supply gallons of water to drink, bathe or wash with.
For food we have a three-day supply of crackers, peanut butter, protein bars, just-add-water dried soups, and boxed drinks. This food is contained in our 72-hour kits. These kits are in backpacks that could quickly be transported to our car, or carried on foot, in case of an evacuation from our home.
In these kits we have important documents, cash, water, a change of clothing, hiking boots for each family member, toiletries, radio, sleeping bags, tent, first aid kit, candles, gas masks, and our shotgun and ammo.
If we were in our basement shelter for the two weeks after any nuclear event, or longer depending on the state of the nation, I would immediately start sprouting wheat for a wheat grass operation. Wheat grass juice is a cheap and natural way to cleanse the body of pollution. Radiation in the body is quickly flushed out of the cells when wheat grass juice is consumed.
A few drops of wheat grass juice mixed in dirty water also has a purifying effect and could be used if one ran out of bleach to cleanse foul drinking water.
We have wheat, oats and beans stored in #10 cans. We also have a Dutch oven and a supply of charcoal for hot meals of cracked wheat cereal, bean soup or sprouted grain casserole. We have rounded out these foods with a supply of olive oil, salt, powdered milk and honey.
Cooking would be difficult in the basement, with the smoke from the charcoal making it hard to breathe, but we could live quite well on sprouted grains. Raw oatmeal soaked overnight and eaten with honey in the morning would satisfy. Hunger would prompt the picky eater to partake of these simple foods.
A day in our shelter would include morning prayers/scripture reading, followed by a meal of cracked wheat soaked in water overnight. We would hold school for our four children using the many books and materials we have gathered over the years to enrich their education. We would feed our dog the food we have stored for her in case of emergency.
A bucket lined with a black garbage bag would serve as a toilet. Mulch or sawdust thrown into this bag after each use would help to contain odors and dry the waste for later disposal.
If the children became bored, we have a shelf full of board games and books, and we could sew, do crafts, prepare the next meal, or nap. We would have a daily session of exercise to stretch and flex our muscles and calm our nerves.
We would sing songs with our guitar to uplift spirits and help the children overcome fear. We would quietly listen to our radio on a limited basis, so as not to overwhelm the children with too much bad news.
If one of the children became sick, we have a variety of remedies on hand to help with illness. We love aromatherapy and a good-quality essential oil would help to elevate moods, enhance natural wellness, and scent the air with beautiful aromas.
We also have a supply of homeopathic remedies, herbs, vitamins and minerals to boost our immune systems and aid in wellness. Even if the government ran out of vaccines and antibiotics we would feel safe using the natural healing. We would not have to worry about horrible side effects from strong medicines if we used our natural remedies.
To bathe we would fill a handheld sprayer with water, a liquid soap and essential oils and do a daily cleansing of the skin. Baby wipes could be used to cleanse private areas of the body to help control odor and prevent the spread of disease.
To cleanse the air in our basement we would fill a spray bottle with water and a few drops of essential oils and spray the air several times a day. This activity would quickly saturate the air with ozone and negative ions to cleanse it of contaminants.
If I were expecting a new baby, preparations for a quiet home birth would give comfort that all would be well with me and the new baby should the birth occur during a crisis.
A few La Leche League meetings could supply me with needed information on how to breastfeed. This information would help us to care for our baby during any crisis, without the help of a midwife or doctor.
Whenever I try to imagine giving birth during a war, I always think of the movie "Gone with the Wind," the birth scene with Melanie in labor and Scarlet frantically looking for someone to help. When the doctor was finally located, he told her, with a sort of crazed look in his eye, "This is war, people are dying, there is nothing to bringing a baby."
Although Melanie had a difficult birth in the movie, both she and the baby survived despite Scarlet and Prissy "not knowin' nothin' 'bout birthin' babies." I gave birth to my 11-pound son at home five years ago in an attempt to practice an unassisted birth, knowing I had backup from the medical profession.
If you think you might have a baby sometime in the next 20 or 30 years, you would be well served to do a little research on unassisted childbirth. During a nuclear crisis the last place a laboring women should be is in a hospital.
For dish cleaning we would wash our dishes in a basin with soapy water, or if we wanted to save our water for drinking, we would scrub the dishes with sand from our sandbox and spray with the essential oil bottle for sanitation.
We would wash our dirty clothing in a little hand-crank machine I bought, and dry the clothing on racks. We would sleep in our sleeping bags and keep our shotgun close by for personal security.
We would worship and pray and eat and live and life would go on much as it does in our everyday world. Priorities would be given to feeding the children, keeping them clean, healthy, warm and dry. We would sleep, eat, bathe, teach, play and sing.
As a mother, the priorities for daily life in our basement after a nuclear attack would largely be the same goals I have for my children in normal life.
Parents and grandparents, instead of toys and games for your children for the holidays, why not get them a 72-hour kit, a 50-pound bag of wheat and a 55-gallon water container? For the same amount of money you would spend on dolls, video games or a bike, you could get the few supplies necessary to live through an emergency.
"Fear often is a life-saving emotion. When we believe death is close at hand, fear can increase our ability to work harder and longer, driven by fear, we can accomplish feats that would be impossible otherwise. Trembling hands, weak legs, and cold sweat do not mean that a person has become ineffective. Doing hard necessary work is one of the best ways to keep one’s fears under control.
"If the danger is unexpected enough or great enough, normal persons sometimes experience terror as well as fear. Terror prevents the mind from evaluating dangers and thinking logically. It develops in two stages. ...
"The first stage is apathy: people become indifferent to their own safety and are unable even to try to save themselves or their families. The second stage is a compulsion to flee. … Persons who learn to understand the nature of our inherent human traits and behavior and symptoms are less likely to become terrorized and ineffective in the event of a nuclear attack." (Cresson H. Kearny, "Nuclear War Survival Skills")
I learned many practical skills from Dr. Kearny’s book, which he has graciously published online for anyone to read for free. This book helped me to understand the myths versus the facts of a nuclear attack, and our family has purchased the supplies he recommends to survive a nuclear incident in our own little home.
If we give in to terror and become apathetic or attempt to flee our homes, it is these very actions which will cause more death and disease than the actual bombings.
Imagine if every person in America had a two-week supply of food, water and supplies to survive a nuclear blast. Those at ground zero would certainly lose their lives, but the authorities could focus on the needs of people in the locales around the blast site, while the rest of America confidently took care of itself.
Please move beyond terror in your own mind and let a little fear motivate you to buy the things necessary and master the skills needed for surviving a nuclear incident.
One person at a time, we can win the war on terror using our wits and remembering the legacy of our patriot ancestors, who sacrificed so much to provide us with freedom.
If you will take personal responsibility for your own safety rather than depending on others, you will be one less person or family the authorities have to worry about during an attack.
Please email me if you are interested in contracting for my lecture on preparing for nuclear terror. This lecture has been designed as a primer in Basic Civil Defense before Nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction are deployed against Americans.
With a focus on Family Preparations, this lecture has been created to be given in just about any forum where the listeners are prepared to take some proactive steps and are anticipating Nuclear Terror.
Topics covered include basic mitigation for individuals and families, including 72 hour kits, proper water storage, short term and long term food storage, how to limit radiation exposure, and how to function in the home when the water, electricity, and sewage are shut off. A Power point presentation has been prepared to explain the steps our family has taken to prepare for nuclear terror.
I believe strongly that family civil defense is a key component in America winning the War on Terror.
Posted by Jenny Hatch at 8:33 AM
September 9, 2005
September is national preparedness month!
Welcome to the National Preparedness Month Website. Thank you for your interest in this important initiative designed to promote public emergency preparedness. On this Website you will learn how you can participate in National Preparedness Month 2005 and prepare yourself and your family for emergencies.
National Preparedness Month is a nationwide effort held each September to encourage Americans to take simple steps to prepare for emergencies in their homes, businesses and schools. National Preparedness Month 2005 is being co-sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the American Red Cross.
Throughout September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the American Red Cross will work with a wide variety of organizations, including local, state and federal government agencies and the private sector, to highlight the importance of emergency preparedness and promote individual involvement through events and activities across the nation.
The goal of National Preparedness Month is to increase public awareness about the importance of preparing for emergencies and to encourage individuals to take action.
During September, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the American Red Cross and the National Preparedness Month Coalition Members asks all Americans to take some simple steps to prepare for emergencies including getting an emergency supply kit, making a family emergency plan, being informed about different threats and getting involved in preparing their communities.
We invite you to review the National Preparedness Month information on this Website, and to participate in this important effort.
I will be teaching a Provident Living Class on October 22nd from 8:30 to 10:30 AM. So for those of you who live in the Denver/Boulder area, please accept my invitation to attend this free class taught here in my home. If you would like directions to the class, Please email me at Jenny@NaturalFamilyCo.com
Details of this popular class that has been offered in the Boulder area for the past 12 years:
Learn how to utilize Whole Foods into your day to day cooking! With an emphasis on whole wheat cooking, these classes will teach you the basics of grinding, sprouting, and cooking with whole grains, beans, and seeds. Also introduces the principles of family survival during natural or man-made disasters and/or terrorism. Classes are taught once every three months.
To determine the amounts of food for your family please go to the Provident Living web site to create a food storage counter.
Class Description: All about wheat - Learn how to make a 25cent loaf of bread, a ten cent muffin, and how to feed your family breakfast for pennies a day using cannery foods!
Learn the basics of 72 hour kits and saf