One of the first public records is Public Death Records. They started in the early 1900’s and form today’s Vital Public Records in conjunction with Birth, Divorce and Marriage Records. As with other public records, Public Death Records is not a voluntary or optional procedure. It is determined and mandated by the discretion of the authorities.

The details surrounding the death such as time and place of death, burial and funeral information, personal particulars of the deceased and some degree of his spouse’s, children’s and parents’ are found in people’s Public Death Records. It’s also customary to put up an obituary alongside the death notices especially if the deceased was a distinguished figure in his lifetime and obituaries often show up as part of death records.

Some of the information contained in Death Records Search is actually quite private and people are known to be sensitive about it. That’s why there can be restrictions on their accessibility and use, death records being public records notwithstanding. Other than that, Public Death Records are by and large freely available from government agencies and private sources alike.

People Find Death Records for a multitude of reasons and purposes most predominant of which are catching up on long lost friends, tracing family trees and researching specific individuals. They are also widely used in Genealogy and other historical studies and are a primary resource for the Police and other enforcement bodies in their criminal investigation work.

As with the other Public Vital Records, Public Death Records come under state jurisdiction which is different from one state to another. They vary from being very stringent to being totally unrestricted in the accessibility and permissibility of their use. In the same breath, state death record databases are also not linked interstate although they are generally well accounted within their own individual jurisdictions.

Death Records Search are very popular. They can be requested at any delegated government agency by mail, telephone, fax or walk-in. These days, the online option over the internet is also offered by the majority of public offices. Not surprisingly, Death Records Online has become the most popular way of retrieving Public Death Records.

While it’s generally smooth sailing, to find Death Records from government offices invariably involves waiting time and entails fine-tuning and touch-up if they’re meant for formal or official purposes. One way to beat all the fuss and hassle is through commercial record providers. Many are readily available on the net to spoon-feed you all the way with very professional value-for-money.

Death Records is one of the key public vital records. It is available free of charge. They are also provided commercially by private information brokers. Being public records, they are accessible by any member of the public. In other words, anyone can conduct a public death record search on anybody. There are variations in restriction and rules governing the retrieval and use of public death records from state to state but by on large, they are quite freely available.

Free public death records can be obtained from both government and private sources. The former can be requested by mail, telephone, fax or in-person. Many states now also have the online option. Private providers of public death records vary widely in the way their records are retrieved. Most of them are tied to a primary product or service and can be quite suspect in intent.

Assembling public death records from free sources can be quite a challenge. The best starting point is the government office itself if you know where the exact place where the death was reported. If not, the date or approximate time period can also prove helpful. Otherwise, you can start out with a wide search and zoom in step by step but this is only viable electronically in all practicality. But the most fundamental requirement to retrieve free public death records is time, patience and will.

The standard information contained in death records are personal particulars of the deceased, spouse, children and parents, time and place of death, obituaries, death certificate, burial and funeral matters. This information is commonly used in Genealogy research, family tree and other historical studies. A lot can be learned about the deceased especially when obituaries are attached. Social Security Number may also be available throwing up an entire host of other vital information and uses. The Death Certificate is the principal document in the death records and is required for many official and legal purposes. Its certified copies may have to be separately requested.

There are many professional online record providers to choose from on the major search engines. Prices are very reasonable for the mileage you can derive and most top-tier providers offer money-back guarantee. On top of public sources, they tap into private and proprietary database networks. Very good information and guidance on free public death records are found at review sites on the internet. There are also other websites which offer free tips and information so it pays to browse around.

By Damian Sofsian

Upon the birth of your child, you cannot wait to tell the world that you have been blessed with a bundle of joy. One way of sharing the joy that you feel is by sending a birth announcement to your relatives and to your friends. There are a number of ways you can send these birth announcements.

The traditional way is to buy them at card stores and fill out the information needed, like the name of your child and the date of his birth, by hand. Another way is to send electronic birth announcements through e-mail. Most people use the Internet to send electronic birth announcements since thy can personalize the design. However, if you would want to send a more personalized birth announcement the traditional way, you can choose to create your own birth announcement.

Steps

When you choose to make your own birth announcement, it is important to consider a few things before you start. One of those to consider is the number of people you are sending the birth announcements to because doing this can help you determine which kind of design you are going to use. If you decide that you will only send the birth announcement to a few people, you can choose to use more intricate designs. On the other hand, if you are going to send it to many people, it would be helpful to stick to a simpler design so that you can finish them as soon as possible.

Once you’ve decided on the design you can decide on the style of your text or the kind of paper that you will use. Given the variety of paper that is available on the market, it is a good idea to browse through them and then decide. Using birth announcements that are made from recycled paper are slowly becoming popular because it allows you to send a very unique birth announcement.

Fonts and design

You can choose to write the text of the announcement yourself to add a more personal touch, or you can use cutout letters from newspapers and magazines to add more fun to your birth announcement. For other designs, you can choose to add ribbons, your child’s picture, and stickers to the card to make it more colorful.

The last thing that you would need to do is to pick an envelope that you will use. You can also add your own designs to these envelopes to make it more personal. Apart from providing a cheaper way to send birth announcements, making them yourself provides a more personal way of sending a birth announcement, which is often lacking when you send them electronically.

Birth Announcements provides detailed information on Birth Announcements, Photo Birth Announcements, Twin Birth Announcement, Birth Announcement Cards and more. Birth Announcements is affiliated with Birth And Death Certificates.

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By Rebecca Waters

Finally a book that tells the truth about what really happens when a woman has her baby in the hospital with a certified nurse-midwife, CNM. Ivy-league-educated author Catherine Taylor, writes about her own experience as a nurse-midwifery patient as well as stories of many births she attended as an observer or doula.

What is most amazing about the stories of birth that are retold is the author’s realization that the certified nurse-midwives that the pregnant women trust are agents of the medical institutions. In story after story, the CNM patients are mislead about what to expect of their birth experiences.

Taylor shadowed a number of CNM’s during their usual workdays at their hospitals. The CNM care frequently mirrored physician–nurse care as busy CNMs left their clients in very active labor. Claims one CNM, “We try to compensate by having a nurse attend them.” Yet while a number of CNMs expressed a longing to be more actively involved with the women they care for, none actually provided the women with hands-on, continuous care during their labors and births. Taylor points out hospital-based CNMs frequently provide inadequate midwifery care, failing to provide even a modicum of “human presence” which is a core competency of the ACNM (American College of Nurse Midwives).

In birth story after birth story the reader is made aware of the inability of the CNM to prepare women for a drug-free, empowering birth. Woman after woman believed the slick hospital promotions that shows the beaming new mom and dad holding their little one with the ever-present staff hovering nearby. The rude reality is that for most of the women, this was a fantasy.

The midwifery clients were unprepared for the pain of labor and what to do about it. The midwives were too busy running from patient to patient to do more than stick their head in a room long enough to don a glove and check dilation and make lame suggestions for dealing with pain. The nurses also had no time to provide one on one support–that left the women and their partners to go it alone, without having been educated about what to do.

One theme that is played out in many of these stories is the power the hospital has over the CNMs. Whatever their personal beliefs may have been, they inevitably acquiesced to the hospital administration or physicians if there was friction between what a client/patient wanted. A few of the examples given include handing out “goodie” bags loaded with formula while theoretically promoting breastfeeding; telling a woman she needs pitocin when it is actually being given to speed up labor for the staff’s benefit; and breaking a water bag for the physician’s convenience.

Many CNMs seem to relish their role as mini physicians. IVs, rupturing membranes, ordering antibiotics, pitocin and epidurals, cutting episiotomies and dragging babies out by suction vacuum are daily activities for hospital-based CNMs. Yet the ACNM claims that one of the primary characteristics of a midwife is as an advocate “of non-intervention in the absence of complications.” With the widespread use of routine interventions by CNMs, one has to wonder whether any of the ACNM publications can be trusted. Said one CNM to a VBAC client, “With the next baby, if the baby starts to look big, my preference is to induce a week early. You’re so tiny you might have to have a c-section for all your babies.”

Do CNMs educate their clients better than physicians so that when interventions are offered, they are able to make fully informed decisions? Taylor wonders about this too and asks, “Can parents in the middle of the unfamiliar and often disorienting experience of labor make good decisions?” Can parents really be fully informed when a CNM has to please her collaborating or supervising physician or comply with hospital protocol in order to keep her job? Too often it seems, they side with those who sign their paychecks.

Some women have been able to hire doulas to provide the emotional support and unbiased information about hospital interventions. Sadly this is not always what they thought they were getting either. As Taylor points out, doulas are trained to never be critical. This means that if a woman suddenly decides she wants drugs during her labor, the doula supports her. Like CNMs, doulas frequently find they must walk a fine line to be welcome in a hospital. Sometimes this may mean not advocating 100% for the woman but rather guiding her to comply with some unnecessary intervention that will soothe the staff and keep the doula in their good graces.

Taylor discovered that at one hospital, the majority of CNMs had homebirths. She attended a number of homebirths while researching this book as well as at Elizabeth Gilmore’s birth center in New Mexico. Taylor chose to have her second child born at home. After her less than satisfactory first birth, Taylor explains that at home the woman’s ability to birth is protected rather than controlled. This is what Taylor wants. This is, I believe, the primary reason women in America choose to have a homebirth.
Taylor’s emotional process of going from a hospital birth to a homebirth is somewhat detailed in this book. Those of us who have had home births know exactly what she is dealing with when explaining her homebirth decision to those who only believe in hospital birth. She writes, “I realized my friend’s viscerally negative reaction to homebirth was probably not based on some piece of knowledge or information, but rather on ungrounded fears.”

While an ideal arrangement for birth is to have supportive medical care at the ready in case of an emergency, most homebirth families and midwives find this very difficult to obtain. Unlike a great many American women, Taylor had insurance while pregnant with her second baby and utilized that insurance to buy back-up medical care her CNM was unable to provide. While physicians decry those who plan homebirths without medical back-up, these physicians increase the dangers of homebirth by refusing to provide the very care they believe is essential for safety. Like Taylor, who pretended to plan a hospital birth in order to have emergency medical care readily available, those with money can buy a safety net. The rest cross their fingers or pray.

Taylor’s praises Elizabeth Gilmore’s Taos, New Mexico free-standing birth center. The practice employs obstetricians who provide built-in back up for the midwifery clients. Clients can choose to birth at home or the birth center. Although seemingly idyllic, the birth center has been a labor of love for Gilmore who has worked ceaselessly to keep it viable. The politics of birth are everywhere an endless war.

This book was written because Catherine Taylor had to write about her birth experience. Like so many of The Complete Mother subscribers, her homebirth transformed her into a strong, self-assured mother and woman. Those of us who have been there and done that will smile that knowing smile while reading of her metamorphosis. It’s the secret knowledge that’s suddenly discovered that we had the power all along, but didn’t know it.

Taylor recognizes that the road to self-discovery is frequently full of pain and vomit and body fluids. “Yet it was one of the most vital and powerful moments of my life…my midwife did not just attend the birth of my baby; she attended the birth of a new, powerful, confident and loving part of myself.”

Amen.

Rebecca Waters is the book reviewer for The Compleat Mother Magazine - http://compleatmother.com/books/misconceptions.htm Rebecca is also a contributor to Nursing Programs Online at http://www.nursingprogramsonline.com and to Go-Law-School at http://www.go-law-school.com Rebecca is also a mother of seven and the wife of an interesting dude.

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By Prahalad Singh

As your due date approaches, the days may seem to drag by and you probably feel uncomfortably large. The expectant father will be waiting for the telephone to ring with the call they’ve been waiting for.

Getting Ready

Although pregnancy is said to last 40 weeks, this is only a convenient method of calculation it’s quite normal for a baby to be born any time between 38 and 42 weeks. If your baby hasn’t been born by the official due date, don’t worry. most doctors aren’t in a hurry to induce a baby if the mother is healthy and there are no obvious problems, such as raised blood pressure. Stay active and arrange some outings and visits. It’s much better for both of you and the baby than hanging around the house feeling apprehensive.

Packing Your Hospital Bag

It’s a good idea to have everything ready for your baby’s arrival and your bag packed for the hospital three to four weeks before the due date, so that you are prepared for any eventuality. You will need to pack comfortable clothing, several pairs of underwear, toiletries, and other items, such as sanitary pads, diapers, and clothes for your baby, but ask your doctor or midwife if you’re not sure. You might want to bring along extra pillows or a couple comfort aids as well.

Getting Near Labor

In the few days before labor begins in earnest, you may notice some signs that indicate you haven’t got much longer to wait.

Feeling premenstrual

You may experience similar feelings to those before your period, such as a low, nagging backache.

Braxton hicks

You may become more aware of the painless tightening’s of the uterine wall. These are Braxton Hicks contractions, which can begin at around six months, and occur on and off during the last few weeks.

Mild diarrhea

You may have looser bowel movements as your system is affected by the increasing uterine activity.

Abdominal lightening

There may be an easing of discomfort under your ribs a feeling of lightening as your baby’s head engages in your pelvis. This may happen a week or two before the birth with a first baby, but just as often it doesn’t happen until labor.

Burst of energy

Many women experience a sudden burst of energy even if they have been very tired and sluggish for several weeks previously. You may find you want to rush around making sure everything is ready for your baby’s home coming, this is known as the nesting instinct.

Irritability

Understandably, you may become short tempered and impatient, with a definite sense that it’s time pregnancy was over.

The Stages Of Labor

Labor has three distinct stages. The first stage is when the uterine contractions pull the cervix open second stage from full dilation to when the baby is born, and third stage, until the placenta is delivered.

The first stage

During the first stage of labor, contractions begin and are established, gradually becoming stronger and lasting longer; this stage can last up to 12 hours, or even longer with a first baby. The first stage has three phases, the latent phase is the longest, lasting around eight hours. This is when the cervix thins. Then there is the active phase, when the cervix is opened up wide, and finally the transitional phase, when the cervix reaches full dilatation, before pushing your baby out. You’re most likely to need pain relief during the active phase, and you’re likely to feel a burst of energy toward the end to take you through the second stage.

The second stage

During the second stage of labor, your baby leaves the uterus and is pushed through the birth canal in to the outside world. This stage can take anything from a few minutes to two hours with a first baby, and can be exhausting.

The third stage

The delivery of the placenta is the third and final stage of labor; it is almost painless, although you may feel some cramping like a severe period pain. Normally the third stage lasts 10-20 minutes. The placenta weighs about 1 lb (0.5kg) and is 8-10 inches (20-25 cm) in diameter.

The author also writes about baby problems, baby defects and pregnancy

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By Donna Cunningham

An old rule says that for an astrological interpretation to be true, you must be able to see it expressed three ways in the chart. If you see it once, it is only a possibility; if you see it twice, it becomes more likely; but if you can see the same theme a third time, that interpretation then becomes a probability. These repeated and related chart features often point to major themes in a person’s life.

What constitutes a theme? When analyzing a chart, you would look for sign and house placements and aspects that are similar in nature to one another. One starting point is the astrological alphabet popularized by Dr. Zipporah Dobyns, which held Aries, Mars, and the 1st house as equivalents, Taurus, Venus and the 2nd house as equivalents, and so on.

Then look for repetitions in the chart. A concentration of Pisces planets, plus the Sun or Moon in the 12th house and several aspects to Neptune would make a person highly Neptunian. The themes of Neptune, Pisces, and the 12th would, therefore, be a strong dynamic in this individual’s life, whether expressed primarily in a positive way (such as spiritual study, creativity, and service) or in more problematic ones like addiction, rescuing, self-deception, or even delusion. With any such concentration, the life path of the individual may be strongly colored by attempts to master the issues and drives connected with that sign, house, and planet.

Another person might have Cancer rising, the Moon as the focus of a grand trine, and the Sun, Mercury, and Venus in the 4th house. Lunar issues - home, security, family, the mother, nurturing, and food - would strongly motivate this individual and be a major focus of effort. However, such a person will not necessarily deal with these issues in a typically Cancerian way, for the sign and aspects of the Moon become important modifiers of the pattern. Also, when the Sun and other planets are located in the 4th, the individual places great emphasis on home life and family but may not be as moody and emotional as the typical Cancerian, depending on the Sun’s sign and element. A person with a stellium in air in the 4th may not be particularly emotional but would still tend to be deeply invested in the home.

One conceivable interpretation of someone with Mercury on the Midheaven could be that a brother or sister functioned in a parental role, since Mercury, like the 3rd house or Gemini, often indicates the role of siblings. Suppose you also note that Saturn, one indicator of parental authority, falls in the 3rd house - a repetition of the sibling/authority connection. Then, you find that the Moon, which describes the Mother, is in the Mercury-ruled sign of Gemini. This is another clue that a sibling may have taken on a substantial share of the parenting functions. You are then fairly safe in venturing that interpretation - and smiling modestly when the client gasps, “How on earth did you know that?” (A second level of interpretation of these same placements, given Mercury on the Midheaven, would focus on the career. We might infer that this individual is very much a communicator and will pursue a career in a related field.)

Astrology students often worry about a particular facet of a chart, but they need not become alarmed unless this factor is confirmed in other ways. For instance, many people born without planets in the water signs have sworn that they are not especially emotional. Yet, some of them have Neptune on the Ascendant and Pluto conjunct the Moon; these people are, on the contrary, extremely emotional. Their challenge, instead, is to manage those emotions.

Other people worry excessively about some feature of their chart that is shared by most of the people born around the same time. For instance, almost everyone born in the winter months of the early 1940s had Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto all retrograde. This astrological event deeply meaningful in the psychology and sociology of the entire generation born on Earth in that era. However, when individuals assume that a single retrograde planet in that collection (say, a retrograde Saturn) pertains to their life alone, rather than to the challenges held in common by their entire generation, they are personalizing a generational influence.

Others congratulate themselves prematurely on some facet of their chart without balancing it by considering aspects or house placements. For instance, people with Jupiter on the Midheaven might conclude that they would enjoy good luck and fabulous success in their career. Before lying back and waiting for fortune to find them, however, they’d best take a look at the aspects to Jupiter, Saturn, and any 10th-house planets. Early in my career, I taught astrology as a volunteer at an alcohol treatment center in a slum, and I was chastened to find that some of these patients who had lived on the streets for years had Jupiter on the Midheaven.

To give an example of how the Rule of Three works, suppose that a client had Neptune and Saturn conjunct in the 4th house, which shows conditions in the home life and often in the family of origin. I might speculate that there was some mystery, hardship, and maybe a loss in the family of origin, but I would look further to see what it might be. Suppose I then noticed that the Moon was in Pisces in the 8th house. The suspicion of a painful loss involving the mother and the family of origin would grow stronger. If the Moon also formed a difficult t-square, that would pretty much clinch it. I would inquire about the early loss of a female authority figure - maybe even go out on a limb and ask if the client was adopted, since natal or transiting Neptune aspects in the 4th or 10th have shown up numerous times in my practice in cases of adoption.

Seeing a difficult placement in the chart - like that 8th-house Pisces Moon, for instance - would you automatically conclude that the mother will die? All mothers die ultimately, but when and how they die are not written in stone. You would never make a fixed prediction, especially one so negative in tone, based on a single aspect in a chart, whether natal or transiting. Look for repetitious chart patterns and for mitigating forces, such as supportive natal or transiting aspects. You also need to ask questions about how that placement has worked in the person’s life, especially during important past transits to that point, and what the native has learned in the course of living about how to express the higher potential of that placement. In the case of a transiting aspect, you must have a clear grasp of the natal condition of the planet in question and also look at all the other transits currently going on in the chart, for balancing factors. If you are still concerned about a natal or transiting pattern in your chart, consult a seasoned professional astrologer with a well-balanced approach. Find one who can admit the realistic drawbacks of a given placement but can also help you to work toward its positive expressions.

©2005 by Donna Cunningham

This has been an excerpt from Donna Cunningham’s e-book, Astrological Analysis: Selected Topics In Chart Interpretation. Based on Donna’s long-running series in The Mountain Astrologer, the book was published in December, 2005. It is reprinted here with the permission of Moon Maven Publications (http://www.MoonMavenPublications.com).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donna Cunningham, an internationally respected astrologer with over 35 years experience, is the author of 15 books on metaphysical topics. Listed in several Who’s Who volumes, she has given seminars on astrology around the world and won the prestigious Regulus Award at the 1998 UAC. She also has a Master’s Degree in Social Work from Columbia University. She uses this combined approach in her “Dear Abby” type column in Dell Horoscope and her ongoing series of articles in The Mountain Astrologer.

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