Portrait of a birth activist

I’m not the least bit insecure about having had a C-section. I did it to keep my son safe after a rough pregnancy. I’m not asking my perinatologist about VBAC for future babies because I know he feels it is too risky, and I trust him because he saves mothers and babies. My “terrible parents” joke was about the practice of putting the baby in a knit hat after delivery, which would have been more effective had the photo of my cute chubster in his hat showed up. I admit I don’t know much about Amy. But I do know that I had a very difficult pregnancy, a high risk baby, perinatal depression, and a 3-day NICU stay, and although we came out just fine and are doing wonderfully 6 months later, people definitely act judgy about my methods of delivery and feeding. It makes me want to scream because it’s nobody’s business. My pediatrician is very happy with how my baby is doing, and I love being his mama. I just really do not appreciate the people who act like I failed, and yes, they are definitely out there. It sounds like you are not one of them – but they unfortunately do exist. Perhaps I live in an area where people are particularly judgy.

Not constructive, I know, but I feel like this is one of many recent comments on this blog that should be imagined read in the voice of The Annoying Girl You Wish You Hadn’t Started a Conversation With from Saturday night Live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pRCeof-NKM

Of course, low risk is usually something that is determined by ruling out conditions by testing but most of these tests were ones I would tell my patients were “optional” and they could decline anything. Usually the issue was “if you have this, you will no longer qualify for home birth, birth in the birth center and I will have to refer you out to an OB” (this is coming someone who trained to be a CPM. I am now an RN).

My 50 year old neighbor with a previous C was encouraged to have a hbac (with a CNM). The placenta didn’t come out, and she lost so much blood that she went into shock.

(She lives 10 min from hospital, but CNM waited 90 minutes before calling EMS.)

Oh please. Brush up on your facts.

Ok, I finally get to ask this question. Previous commenter’s pseudonym is “I sing to Andy,” and she likely prefers to be addressed as such, since she picked it. Why are you calling her “mommy”? It’s awfully familiar, don’t you think?

Ad hominem much?

The primary weakness in the arguments made by home-birth activists is their phrase, “low risk pregnancy.” Fact is, childbirth is inherently dangerous, midwives aren’t qualified to pronounce who is “high” or “low” risk, and sometimes the risk doesn’t emerge until the moment of birth.

Some of the papers cited as proof of the safety of home births are either co-written by midwives, or otherwise biased, and they cook the numbers to favour their position. For instance, if you take your intended home births that end up in hospital and count them as hospital births, you reduce the number of adverse outcomes from home births. But it takes a close reading of these papers by people skilled at appraising medical literature to reveal such skullduggery, and most home birth activists don’t have this skill, and never read past the abstracts anyhow.

Mortality rates of babies and mums both in those countries where women don’t have access to medical care clearly show the hazards of childbirth. Compare the maternal mortality rates of about 1000 per 100,000 live births in Chad and Somalia with between 2 and 10 for Western European countries.

Modern obstetrical care was invented to address a need: the horrible awful mortality rates of mums and babies when you let nature take its course. You have to play statistical games to hide this basic overwhelming fact.