There have been many highlights in my professional life, but rarely has one filled me with as much glee as this one: Modern Alternative Mama, Katie Tietje, hate reviewed my book!
She and her followers are trying to drive down the ratings for PUSH BACK: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting.
And the best part is that Tietje didn’t even bother to read it, just like she never reads the scientific literature.
Behold!
Wow. I really don’t even know where to begin with this.
“Dr” Amy has taken something — the ‘natural’ parenting movement — that she never understood, never bothered or cared to understand, and twisted it into something so far from what it actually is, it’s unrecognizable.
I don’t know a single mother who cares more about her “experience” in birth than her baby’s safety. Nor any who would refuse truly needed medical interventions. “Dr” Amy shares anecdotes of mothers who have supposedly done this, to their baby’s detriment. Mothers I know are grateful for interventions where necessary — but I also know many who have had interventions pushed upon them without medical reason. Many felt bullied, and ended up with postpartum depression, or even PTSD. That’s a problem.
“Dr” Amy paints a beautiful picture of a sharply reduced maternal and perinatal mortality rate. What she fails to mention is that these rates were at an all-time low in the 1980s, but as birth has become more medicalized, they have risen — actually, have tripled — in the last 30 years. There’s a point where intervention is too much! And yes, we are overusing it now, and the results are sometimes tragic for mom and baby. “Dr” Amy conveniently ignores this, because it doesn’t fit her narrative.
Even more insulting is “Dr” Amy’s insistence that the entire natural child birth and natural parenting movement is driven solely by white men and money. Wow! Actually, modern obstetrics were driven largely by white men. There’s also not much money to be had by midwives, doulas, lactation consultants, etc. These people aren’t rich. Their salaries sure don’t compare to the salaries of obstetricians. Neither do the amounts women pay for birth pools and other supplies compare to what they pay for a simple dose of Tylenol in the hospital. The real money is clearly in the ‘mainstream’ system. (I personally paid less out of pocket for an out-of-hospital birth than I did for a hospital birth, even with good insurance. Although money wasn’t the motivator either way.)
Then “Dr.” Amy attacks natural because it’s really all about “privilege.” (It’s honestly dizzying how many random objections she comes up with. It sounds like the same tirade that the ‘natural’ people launch against the mainstream, simply turned around. It sounds more like butthurt than legitimate objections.)
And then “Dr.” Amy talks about how women are trapped in motherhood and men are pushed out, and women’s choices aren’t respected. This is so blatantly false — it just proves she’s never bothered to talk to anyone outside her tiny little world and try to understand who they are and what they want.
Plus, although “Dr” Amy rants and raves about the necessity of women having options and respecting women’s choices, she does not follow her own advice. She attacks women who don’t choose as she feels is necessary in this book. And, she commonly goes around the internet and trolls natural child birth groups. She maintains a blog called “Hurt by Home Birth” to highlight stories of babies who were injured or died during home births (regardless of cause). She has a group called “Fed Up with Natural Childbirth” where she and other women take screenshots of posts in ‘natural’ groups and mock the women, or even seek their personal information and call the police or children’s services on these women, often over nothing much. Recently, she used fake Facebook profiles to pretend to be a natural birth advocate, become an admin in a large natural parenting group, and dismantle the group entirely.
“Dr” Amy is someone who is closed-minded, refuses to understand a world outside her own, and will stop at nothing to belittle, demean, attack, and punish anyone who dares to stand up to her. She is a bully of the worst kind. This book is just one more step in her infantile tirade against a group of people she doesn’t understand. It’s just pathetic at this point.
When it comes to professional accomplishments, it doesn’t get much better than this!
Her review actually wanted to read your book more.
These women are despicable and reaching for any imagined slight to discredit you. I have never heard of any male doctor whose painfully earned title, degree and education have been revoked or discounted upon their retirement from practice. How they manage to also discount your actual experience pushing babies out of your own body is a feat of mental gymnastics worthy of the Idiot Olympics. Smdh.
I love how they always attempt to invalidate your education and credentials with quotations whenever you write something counter to what they believe…
Wow. Reads like a troll comment from the first line. Gah.
Can’t wait to read the book. Desperately hoping it hits NYT Bestselling list!
Apparently, Kate isn’t satisfied with leaving a bad review. She had to get a few digs in on one of her Facebook pages, too. A delightful woman.
Yes, I saw her rant on her personal Facebook page. The hilarious part is that she reviewed the book and started the whole thing. If she wants to just be left alone, why review the book in the first place?
Because she’s an attention whore.
I am having a similar issue with our newborn. She will sleep on us or in the swing/car seat but not in her bassinet. Since I need to get *some* sleep at least I’ve been going along with it but feeling guilty and like a terrible parent for it. As far as I can tell she doesn’t have reflux though.
Putting him in the swing was one of the only ways that my son would nap as an infant. He regularly slept there, and I never mentioned it to anyone because I knew it was frowned upon. But it was either that, or hold him on my chest all night long and get no sleep myself.
Good review, actually*. She shows just how warped the NCB movement has become. Lots of women will now want to see what the fuss is about and will buy the book who probably wouldn’t have bothered before.
*That’s sarcasm.
” Recently, she used fake Facebook profiles to pretend to be a natural
birth advocate, become an admin in a large natural parenting group, and
dismantle the group entirely.”
Maimed Idiot Mama strikes again. No, dr Amy did no such thing – a large VBAC group killed another post term baby with its deadly cheering. One of their original admins quit and wanted to change things and invited people who would not allow it to help prevent it from happening again. The group owner refused to cooperate and was happy to victim-blame the loss on mother because “anyone with half a brain does not take advice from facebook groups”.
Real people, who have begged that group and its admins to stop cheering dangerous stuntbirths, took over and made sure that the group will never enable and *support* another completely preventable death like this latest one.
Dr Tuteur is a real doctor. The people who took down that group are real people too. And that baby that the former group admins are now claiming was “fake”? She was real too. Her name was Aurelia. Her mother was 42+5 weeks when she posted about her illegal midwife doing “manual NST once a week that is even better than the one they give you in hospital.” and when the former group birth psychopath admins told her how “they know someone who went to 45 weeks and everyone lived” and how “January from Birth Without Fear goes to 44 weeks all the time”.
The baby predictably “dropped dead without any sign of trouble” into the hands of illegal midwife and her illegal student apprentice during this disaster HBAC at over 43 weeks with no proper monitoring.
That’s why that echo chamber had to go – because the stain of this latest death, just like all the ones before it that all 12 000 of its members approved of by saying nothing and cheering on, cannot be washed away by the lies of lethal clowns like Tietje or Ruth Rodley anymore.
We will not let you bury baby Aurelia twice.
Even more insulting is “modern” “alternative” Mama’s title – she may be a mother, but she is neither modern nor alternative.
Regarding medicine – right after squirting the medicine towards the back of her cheek, have you tried stroking her throat? That’s what the nurse at the pediatrician’s office did for giving oral vaccines at a couple months old. I’ve used that method with her too and it seemed to work well for encouraging her to swallow.
I will give this a try tonight. Thanks!
It’s not horrible at all – not even a bit! If she’s happy to sleep there just go with it, there’s absolutely no point in following AAP recommendations if she won’t sleep elsewhere. You’ve got a plan to get her into a bassinet/crib, but even that is no big deal if it doesn’t work out the first time you try. You’ve still got the swing to go back to. If you are both happy to use the swing, then anyone who disagrees can take a long walk off a short jetty.
I have an announcement: I finally bought the book! I’ve been meaning to for a while, but I had to update my iTunes billing information and just kept forgetting to do so (having out of date information is a bit of a protection from teenagers spending unauthorized money out of my checking account). But I finally bought it, so I might disappear for the rest of the day to read it.
We put the Zantac in my sons’ bottles. We had some little mini-bottles that we dosed with Zantac and then added an ounce or so of milk on top. Then we gave them the rest of the milk (done with both expressed breast milk and formula) in a normal bottle afterwards to make sure they got all of the Zantac even if they didn’t finish all of their milk. Worked like a charm.
My boys both slept in rock-n-play sleepers for months because it was the only thing that let them sleep given their reflux.
I will say that they had issues with torticollis, but that was more likely related to prematurity. I’ve heard some warn that the rock-n-play sleepers cause the problem, but they had the problem in place before they even left the hospital so, while it may have exacerbated it, it was the only way they would sleep.
Good luck with it all.
MAM is the smuggest of the smug. She is insufferably arrogant and dangerously ignorant. She’s about as mature as a teenager. Putting the title of a physician in quotes is typical of this disrespectful brat. She will ban anyone who questions her stance on parenting, medicine, vaccines, and nutrition and then wails about “censorship” when a propaganda video is rejected as an entry in a film festival. Shame on her.
She drips with hubris. An ex-music teacher with a few kids, she appears to pontificate across her entire range of ignorance.
Hahaha, This coming from the mad hatter… LMFAO…. Show yourself troll…
Show yourself, asshole.
hahaha, you still around…? you have a reputation online for being a potty mouth. and for coming unhinged when provided with facts. hahaha… you should get your medication adjusted.
Demaris Forsyth is the biggest prick around. He absolutely hates women and trolls on their FB pages just to call them obscene names. Have nothing to do with this vile evil spirit. There is a hex put on him and karma is coming.
AHAHAHA. What a hoot! Gee, your “hex” seems to have been ineffective, unlike vaccines. Sad for you, honey.
Demaris Forsythe in contrast is a nappy hair women hater who spews vitriol on every site he posts to. He proffers death threats to strong women, likes to call them cunts, has been reported to authorities, lies about his gender and uses a fake account and name. Demaris Forsythe go stick you head back up your ass where it belongs. You have nothing to contribute.
My daughter would only sleep either on someone or in her vibrating chair (whether the vibration was on or not) for the first week or so of her life until my husband bought a rock and play. I don’t know what the AAP’s guidelines are regarding those, but she did sleep in that for a few months (for regular 6+ hour stretches). When she outgrew it I was worried that the transition to her crib would be tough, but we either got lucky or it was just nothing to worry about (possibly both) because she sleeps in her crib just fine, and transitioned pretty seamlessly between the two. Sleep is important for all of you; I’d say if it works, go for it.
You know, I’ve read a lot of people say they had no problems transitioning. I sure hope that’s the case for us too. I just can’t see giving up something that’s working so well at this point. I figure I’ll try it in a few months when her reflux is under control and she’s a little older.
So even if you’ll HAVE problems transitioning – what’s worth more? Problems right now that you know you’ll have, or problems in the future that you don’t know for sure you’ll have?
I’d always go for quiet now for something so essential like sleep.
Good point. Sometimes it’s good to kick the can down the road!
The author of preciouslittlesleep.com really advocates swings. Says Dr. Karp agrees with her
https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/?s=swing
Thanks for that link, I feel a little less bad about the fact that I’ve been putting our newborn in the swing for sleep. Hopefully it won’t last too long because while I am getting much needed sleep, I worry more about her in the swing since it’s not the safest and recommended sleep situation. So I end up sleeping more lightly and checking on her like she were my first.
Our younger guy slept in the swing at night from probably 2 – 6 mos.
I laughed about no money being made from natural birth, lactation, etc. Of course there is! MAM even sells a bunch of supplements on her website. She’s always pushing “natural” products for the kickbacks she gets.
I did this in frustration with my son, turns out he liked the swing. He slept for 6 1/2 hours and we did too that first night I tried it.
Oooooooh, putting “Dr” in quotes, sick burn!
Especially from someone who isnt “modern”.
Well she’s ‘modern’ in that she uses the internet to spread her archaic and downright dangerous ‘information’.
Her attitudes aren’t modern, though – she’s a science-rejecting, home-schooling fundamentalist.
Oh I agree. She’s about as anti-feminist as the Men’s Rights Movement.
I’ve been unfamiliar with this particular blogger, but I’ve been reading up. All l can say is……..Wow. The batshittery is strong with this one.
I am picturing her pointing a finger at Dr. Amy, but there are 3 additional fingers pointing back at herself. She has no idea how much she has just revealed about herself and the way she treats mothers.
As a Dr Amy sock puppet, I will say that Katie got one thing right: I don’t understand the NCB mindset.
I am only halfway through “Push Back,” and it’s quite clear that Katie hasn’t cracked the spine on this book. It was one thing back when you were simply “the one who must not be named” who was simply an internet demon – now you are a published author doing interviews in mainstream media. Katie and her fellow mommy bloggers are frothing at the mouth with jealousy and spiteful rage!
I am finally emerging from a long undiagnosed depressive episode thanks to a medication adjustment and therapy. I am seeing a second year resident in psychiatry, and I recommended your book to her. Not all of my issues are related to motherhood, but a good chunk of them are, and we desperately need to change the conversation about what it means to be a “good enough” parent. I told her that many women will probably benefit from “Push Back.”
Glad you are beginning to feel better! Thank you for recommending the book. I think it’s good for medical professionals to understand the real pressure and guilt their patients are facing.
Welcome back! It’s so hard to be at the bottom of the well of depression.
Great to hear from you, and glad you are emerging from that stuff.
A couple of the comments on her “review” (see, I can use quotes too!) mentioned not seeking medical help for a child with a broken bone. Did she do that? Because… I don’t want to throw the “A” word around, but I’m pretty sure that’s child abuse.
Also (and totally small potatoes), but I’m dismayed that we share the same first name. I know, Katie’s a pretty common name and all, but still… stop making the rest of us Katies look bad!
As a teacher in a state with strict mandated-reporter laws, I am required to undergo training every year on when to report. At the minimum, it’s medical neglect and reportable. At the MINIMUM.
For foster parents, much less requires us to report. If I had seen that when I was still a licensed foster parent, I would have contacted her local DCFS office.
Just want to throw out that when my daughter broke her wrist at age 3, the PA who saw us at the emergency room was shocked when I told him that it happened that same day. He said with little kids, most people don’t realize it’s actually broken for several days, and in fact, didn’t get his own daughter treated immediately when she broke her arm..
So, it’s apparently, not all that unusual to not bring a broken arm into the ER immediately, as it’s not always obvious that it’s not a sprain.
The reason we took her directly in is not because of the pain in her arm, but because she said she wanted to go to bed. This child has never wanted to go to bed in her life, so we knew something was seriously wrong. If she had just wanted to watch tv we probably wouldn’t have taken her.
I get that it doesn’t always show up immediately, but she realized something was wrong, and headed to the chiropractor instead of an actual doctor.
I totally agree she’s an irresponsible nut, but we need to be careful to condemn her for condemnation worthy acts–like going to the chiropractor instead of the doctor—not on waiting and seeing.
Is Tietje the one who almost let her kids die of whooping cough, or is that someone else?
Someone else, that was Heather Dexter of “Likeminded Mamas”. But Katie is the one whose son had a broken arm for nearly a week before she took him to the MD to have it set. And, surprise, surprise, both have removed those specific posts.
This is also the one who told the world about how she loved one child more than the other because of the birth experience.
Also? I don’t think you can claim to be modern or alternative when you support a far-right anti-feminist agenda as Tietje openly does. And then she has the nerve to claim you’re the one who’s not feminist?!? She likes Matt Walsh and Abby Johnson for Pete’s sake. (Edited to add: and Mike Huckabee!!!) That means she’s signing on to homophobia and misogyny.
She’s also a fan of Joshua Axe, who calls himself a doctor. Except he’s not really one. No quotes around his name, though. Chiropractors and nutritionists get to call themselves doctor all they want, as do fundamentalist preachers with honorary degrees from Bible colleges. Actual doctors who went to actual medical schools? Not so much.
Sorry, Kate, I think the adjectives you’re looking for are “backwards” and “patriarchal.”
She’s a fan of Mike “10-year-old-rape-victim-should-carry-to-term-for-Jesus” Huckabee? Ugh.
The last time I checked, the 5 star reviews came from people with verified purchases…the 1 star reviews, not so much.
Also, I would consider any hate review from someone who doesn’t actually seem to have read the book or have an opinion on the actual content to be very unhelpful, and Amazon has a button for that.
I really wish that Amazon wouldn’t allow people who haven’t bought the book to review them. I’ve bought a few with very good ratings that, as I read the book, I realized they obviously *hadn’t* read the book, and vice versa. They can track your purchases, they should be able to link reviews only to those you have. Or have a required marker to check: “I have bought and read this book” /”I have not bought and read this book”.
(note: at this time, I have neither bought nor read the book. It’s on my wish list).
I get that, but since I’m lucky enough to live near what might be the independent bookstore capital of the world, I buy a lot of books from them and not Amazon, and then review them on Amazon.
I think it’s pretty obvious if you read the reviews that every single one-star review (what are there, five or something?) is from someone who didn’t read the book.
I know what you mean, as I buy a lot of books from that *other* major book vendor – usually in ebook form (which is how and from whom I’ll buy Dr Amy’s book). But in my review I will note that information. I don’t even mind if people say “I got this book from the library…” But at least they’ve read the book!
I’ve reviewed books I’ve read from the library.
I bought it, but on iBooks. The trouble is that there’s so many non-amazon ways to get the book that it would seriously lower the number of legitimate reviews to limit it to people who just bought a book through amazon. There’s really no good solution here.
Yeah, but then you wouldn’t have awesome reviews to read like those for Tuscan Milk or Bic for Her.
I’ve been on an “unhelpful” licking spree…
Haha…clicking I mean. Need a third typing hand. First two are baby and bottle.
Just about the only thing I really liked about breastfeeding was the ability to prop DD on the boppy and nurse while gaming/surfing the web. 😉
I remember working on some papers when my middle kid was nursing in the middle of the night and I was staying at my parents’ house because my house was being tented for termites. My father was on a middle-of-the-night conference call and had it on speaker phone. I went into the office because writing made the misery of late night feeds go by faster. Anyway, there I was typing away (and I type between 120-140wmp), and one of my father’s coworkers suddenly said “When did you learn how to type?!?!?” My father was not known for his typing skills. Anyway, he had to sheepishly admit that it wasn’t him, but that his daughter was feeding his grandson and working on something at the other computer while she did so.
I thought the “licking” spree was funny.
As opposed to a “helpful” licking spree?
you have children, did neither of them ever do this? Mine did last week, the pint-sized weirdo
If the stories are to be believed, I went through a phase as a toddler where I had to lick everything. This ended abruptly when I grabbed the just “popped out” cigarette lighter from the dash of my parents’ RV and licked it, with predictable results.
MrC would appreciate it if I went on a “licking” spree. Well, at least if the spree was confined to a certain area.
You underestimate MrC. I don’t think he would object if the licking spree were not confined, so long as it included that area.
I read this set of comments to him and he said, and I quote, “is it bedtime yet?”.
Done and done.
“Thank you, Catherine, for your help in directing women to the Hurt by Homebirth and Fed Up With Natural Childbirth groups! I hope both groups receive many new visitors, and I sincerely hope those visitors read the stories carefully. There’s a lot to be learned. Cheers!”
Oh Jen, you missed the opportunity to use the “I hope the visitors will read the stories with an open-mind” line.
I not only did them as unhelpful, I reported them to Amazon as well. Pisses me off that people write that crap without even reading the book. No thank you.
I love it that she mentions the “Hurt by Home Birth” blog (although it’s actually “Hurt by Homebirth”, but I didn’t expect her to check her facts), I hope many people look it up. It’s one of the most haunting reads on this subject out there.
And of course it’s completely unsurprising that she insinuates that Dr. Amy writes up all the stories there from her “trolling”, when in fact the stories are posted as written by the parent (usually the mom), with their express permission.
Congratulations!
Is she the one who thinks that the correct response to Sophie’s Choice is “oh, that’s easy – take the girl and leave me the boy”? I remember reading that piece when I was eight months pregnant and being nauseated. I wouldn’t even dream of admitting out loud to having a favourite cat (it changes on a weekly basis anyway depending on which one is sucking up to me most). Also, I was shocked that a not insignificant number of the BTL comments were along the lines of “well, of course she’s right, it’s a natural thing that we mums always love our precious little boys more, we just don’t say it out loud”. Funny how extreme natural parenting types always couch their arguments in a kind of cod-feminist rhetoric, but deep down (or not so deep down) a lot of them really don’t seem that keen on women or girls at all.
Oh god, that movie is the stuff of nightmares for me. Now that I have kids I can’t even think lightly about it without getting upset. (I have not read the book and never will at this point)
I have not read the book or seen the movie and I don’t think I can.
…Seriously?
I can’t read that book any more because it traumatized me so much.
Yeah…no. When I was pregnant with my first, I had all the Old Wives Tale signs of it being a boy. I was so upset, I wanted a girl. I read all sorts of stuff about gender disappointment and had gotten to acceptance that I was having a boy. When we did the sexing ultrasound and found out that yes, it was a girl, my husband burst into tears of relief. He had been trying to stay strong for me but was really disappointed that it might have been a boy.
Not saying we probably wouldn’t have loved the hell out of a boy when he got here though. Don’t want to sound like a bad mom!
I was worried that would happen with my husband. He already has a son from his first marriage, and so when I got pregnant he really desperately hoped it would be a girl. I had to remind him when we went in for our 20 week ultrasound that it might end up being a boy, was he going to be okay with that?
Baby did end up being a girl, much to his delight. But, like you said, we would have loved a boy just as much.
With our second, we were hoping for a girl (we had a boy), and we seriously THOUGHT it was a girl (we never found out the results from the us). Our technically honest response was “It is either a girl, or is the anti-OurOlderGuy” because the pregnancy was about as different as could be. But we really had a hard time envisioning what the Anti-OurOlderGuy would be, so we figured it was going to be a girl.
We were wrong, of course, and I have absolutely no regrets in any way. The only regret is that we weren’t going to have more, so no chance for a girl,*** but I would not trade our guy for anything or anyone. He is absolutely amazing. And, yes, he is exactly the anti-OurOlderGuy.
***The biggest regret in not having a daughter is that in both cases, we always liked our girl name better than our boy name. Our boy names are solid and traditional, and are family names. In fact, our older is named after my uncle and godfather, who is one of the nicest, kindest men you will ever meet. He is now 95 years old, but never married and never had any kids of his own. But we really liked our girls names. Our first would have been Amelia Rose, at the time when everyone was Emily. Our second, the one we thought was a girl, would have been named Illianora (Nora, for short). My wife liked Eleanor, but we liked this take on it. Illianora is a character in a couple of Gregory McGuire’s Wicked series (she is introduced as Nor in Son of a Witch, and shows up as Illianora in A Lion Among Men). I really wish we could have had a daughter Illianora. Ultimately, my niece’s daughter is a Nora, but not Illianora, and she is a couple years younger than our guy, and she knows the story of how if he had been a girl, he would have been Nora.
Wow, WHAT?? She honest-to-glob wrote a blog post declaring that she favored her son(s)?? WHAT? Is this archived somewhere? I – this just – I mean, I have only one child, a son, so of course I’m partial to boys but – SERIOUSLY???
She seriously did. It was disgusting. She said that if one of her children had to die, she would prefer it to be her daughter. I think she took down the post shortly thereafter, but it may be around here in the post Dr. Tuteur wrote about it.
No words.
That is sick. I have two kids and neither is my favorite. I love both equally and could not imagine if I was ever in a situation where I could only pick the life of one. I’d rather die first and have them live.
Her original article (I think it’s the original, she edited it multiple times) is archived at the WayBackMachine website. A Google search will probably find it.
I have three boys (5, 4, and 1), and my favorite is whichever one is not driving me crazy at the moment!
Yep, here’s the original quote that was just…ugh:
There are moments – in my least sane and darkest thoughts – when I think it wouldn’t be so bad if I lost my daughter, as long as I never had to lose my son (assuming crazy, dire, insane circumstances that would never actually occur in real life). I know that sounds completely awful and truly crazy.”
Well…I’d never read the book nor seen the movie. And you’ve (and the responses) just made me know for sure that I’ll never desire to do so. Ugh!
Here is the post about it:
http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/03/ghosts-in-nursery.html
Thanks for the post, Valerie! I’d not read it, and was delighted to see that Dr Amy referenced “The Magic Years” by Selma Freiburg.
Although I’m perhaps slightly prejudiced, being from U of Mich and having that book as one of my nursing text books, I still think it’s one of the best books around to help parents understand why their child thinks and acts like they do!
I give it to friends for baby shower gifts, and plan on giving it to my daughters if they ever get pregnant!
Here’s the post I wrote about Katie’s disclosure that she loves her son more than her daughter:
http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/03/ghosts-in-nursery.html
You really have to be the most incredible narcissist to write things like that for public consumption. Makes you think that just maybe Katie’s whole “alternative mama” schtick has little to do with what’s good for babies and kids.
It’s all about her own need for attention.
Conspicuously absent from the review: Practically any mention of any of the actual content of the book. After reading it, I know a lot about what Tietje believes about Dr. Tuteur and her beliefs, but not a lot about what Tietje thinks about the contents of the book she was supposed to be reviewing.
I have to say, your book has a nice bimodal distribution in its reviews. The majority are 5 star and then there are a few 1 star hate reviews. Congratulations, I believe you have achieved the status “controversial”.
“Recently, she used fake Facebook profiles to pretend to be a natural birth advocate, become an admin in a large natural parenting group, and dismantle the group entirely.”
All while writing/promoting a book, running an active blog, admin-ing a Facebook group and sneaking out late at night to covertly formula feed lactivist’s newborns. Been busy of late, have we?
Were you watching that implosion yesterday? It really was a sight to behold. It unfortunately took two deaths in one month, but one of the admins finally had a come to deity moment and brought in some help to quickly take the killer group down. In between doctor’s office visits and emergency room trips I watch the whole thing in a mix of awe and horror.
How are your kids doing, if you don’t mind my asking? I hope they’re all on the road to recovery!
I posted an update somewhere. The two with acute problems are doing okay. The youngest didn’t break anything. The working hypothesis is that a tendon or ligament “hooked” one of the osteochondromas and popped over it, causing the popping sound he heard and felt and the inflammation and pain. He begrudgingly used his wheelchair in school today (he has both it and a walker at school, but usually uses just the walker for most of the school day). Middle kid has a slightly enlarged left kidney, but all his labs look fine. Doctor has ordered rest and, much to his horror, no figure skating for a few days in hopes that it’s just an injury caused by repeated falls to that side (he’s been working on a higher order axel, which means he’s falling a lot.) We’ll take a look again if there’s no improvement in a week. Oldest is just waiting for the OT referral to come through. That issue wasn’t very big…pretty much “same shit, different day”, but with MHE, the shit never really ends.
No figure skating? I suggest that you keep a good supply of booze in your house. Might be the only way you can stand a moody teen deprived of favourite activity.
Glad to know things are going okay…ish.
what was the real story…I’m guessing not MAM’s version.
The real story is last week the “big” VBAC group cheered on a 43+ week woman as she attempted an HBAC. A number of people attempted to convince her to at least go in and get an NST to check on the baby. They were silenced. The baby died Monday. There’s another large VBAC group, though not quite as large, that’s strongly anti-woo. I’m part of that group. One of the admins on the killer group finally realized what they were actually doing when they cheered these situations on. Of her own choice she brought in a crap load of people to the killer group and made them admins with the sole purpose of disbanding the group as fast as possible. The group had something like 12k members and to delete the group, Facebook makes you delete all the members. This was a huge undertaking so the woman needed a lot of help. The people she asked to help are very outspoken, and one of them has a similar no nonsense and slightly abrasive style. That’s the woman who’s being accused of being dr Amy with a fake profile. Anyway, they managed to delete a 12k member group in a matter of a couple hours. Just looking at it from a simple time-on-task point of view, that is impossible for a single person. Of course, the true believers have already formed new groups, but it will take years before they have anywhere near the kind of reach they had before. I call that a win.
Yeah, I love how they think that particular woman is Dr. Amy. She posts screenshots all the time, and I sincerely doubt Dr. Amy has her Facebook default alphabet set to Cyrillic. Of course, logic is not MAM’s strong point.
And while her English is damned near perfect; better than a lot of native speakers, actually, there’s a few small linguistic give always that it’s not her native language. Every once in a while her syntax gives it away, but you have to know what you’re looking for to see it.
My heart breaks when I hear these stories. It’s good to see that at least some are fighting back and trying to stop this insanity.
Wow! I completely missed all of that! (I was only commenting on the ridiculousness of the accusation. Who has that kind of time?) Good for them, I say!
Emotions are still raw. A lot of women from the other group wound up joining the non-woo group thinking that the old group had just changed names. The culture in the non-woo group can be shocking if you’re used to the sunshine and roses and unicorn farts that permeate most birth/motherhood boards. There’s a lot of crap going on right now, and a lot of flounces. Keeping up with it is a full time job. The admins have my deepest respect for dealing with all this as wonderfully as they have. I’m just devastated that another baby died, but hopefully some good will come out of this. Hopefully, some of the women who found their way to the non-woo group will learn that they’ve been lied to and find their way out of the woo. And hopefully, many babies who might have died will be saved.
I call it a win, too……but it’s really too bad a baby had to die for one of the leaders to see it 🙁
It’s a bittersweet win for sure.
What group was this? The one where they promote unassisted HVBAC?
I’m sick today and looking for some good internet drama. Do tell. 🙂
There were some comments in another (“natural”?) thread, but not too much for details. Based on what was said, the discussion turned to the question of “what is worse than being ‘fucking monsters.'”
I can’t imagine higher praise. You’re definitely doing something right!
What is up with the quotes around Dr.? You didn’t un-earn your MD when you retired. Dr. Spock is DEAD and people sill call him Dr. Spock. Are Bill Sears and Michel Odent still practicing?
Sarah Buckley no longer practicing and she is still Dr Buckley, not “Dr” Sarah Buckley. Why is a family doctor who doesn’t practice anymore get to be doctor but an OB who doesn’t practice get called “Dr”? Same for Dr Sarita Bennett (MANA VP).
Because she’s ebil Dr Amy who says mean nasty things about the NBC/Lactivist/Home birth crowds and thus she NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED!!! -insert maniacal laugh here-
Mostly it’s because they want to discredit her qualifications and render her knowledge on the topics as ‘invalid’.
It’s also very petty and childish. Like refusing to call a knight ‘sir’ because you don’t like the way he votes or something.
You’re clearly well and truly under their skin.
Congratulations!
Jeez, do you eat babies, too?
We need a competition to see who can make the most outlandish accusations of things Dr Amy does.
“‘Dr’ Amy is actually a lizard who uses witchcraft to dry up the milk supply of breastfeeding mothers.”
I’m adding this to the end of my amazon review.
When babies die or are injured in a home birth, it’s not the mother’s fault, nor is it the midwives’s.
It’s Dr Amy’s because of all her negativity towards home birth. Because SHE thinks bad things, they happen.
That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read all day.
To enable her to bully a mother into having an unnecesarean, Dr Amy kidnapped the mother’s doula and tied her to a set of train tracks. Whilst carrying out the Birth Rape, Dr Amy twirled her moustache and stroked her cat, Mr Fluffykins.
I have to love the repeated use of quotes around your professional title. LOLOLOL! Sooooo very witty and authoritative of the non-entity that is the Modern (sic) Alternative Mama
I wonder if she’ll start referring to herself as “Mrs.” Tietje if her husband dies before she does. After all, she’ll no longer be married.
I ordered this months ago and finished it two days after it arrived. I am very young and seven months pregnant with my first and this booked helped me stay above water in the hell-hole of “Natural Birth” that is my neighbourhood. I also reviewed the book on Amazon but I’m one of the majority – those who loved it and were inspired by it.
Congratulations!
I can’t post a screen cap since it’s from a private group, but you’ve now been accused of being evil just because you’re from Boston. I’m kind of impressed at the cognitive acrobatics some of these people perform.
Boston is now the seat of all evil? When did that happen?
Not sure, but last I checked Miami actually had one of the highest, if not the highest, primary c-section rate in the country. Somebody pulled up some stats for Boston area hospitals and they actually look pretty good.
Well, it all started when the Irish Catholics came over en masse to that prior pure haven of Calvinism…
During the Big Dig.
OMG that is amazing!
Masshole here and proud of it. And I’m NEVER leaving.
I came close to moving to Boston. When I was deciding where to go after fleeing my home state I was choosing between here and Boston. Both cities have surgeons who are experts with the particular bone disease two of my boys have. There was a surgeon at Boston Children’s that I really liked and the one here that I really liked. While they both had different pros and cons, they were about equal. The tie breaker became the fact that I had one single friend that lives here. I figure if I was going to uproot my entire life and start over, it would be much less difficult if I started out with a friend nearby.
I am a Masshole but relocated to NH. It is better up here 😉
Her assumption that because midwives and doulas aren’t paid very much compared to doctors and surgeons, they are therefore not motivated by money. Speaking as someone who lives paycheck-to-paycheck, I feel like I’m *more* likely to motivated by money. I’m ethical in my job (I do work for the state government, and there are strict laws in place about what kind of gifts I may and may not accept), but I thought it was generally agreed that when you don’t want people to be influenced by bribes, etc., one of the things you have to do is make sure they have a comfortable wage in the first place.
Ug, sentence fragment. “Her assumption…is incredible.”
Yep. I had my doula outright tell me that she basically made a poor decision about her services for me because she had to keep her good business relationship with my midwives, and she perceived this decision as important to that. She definitely did not have any duty to me as her first priority.
Who has a greater incentive to make a decision that benefits her financially, the OB who sees thousands of patients per year and gets a very small percentage of her income from each or a doula or homebirth midwife who sees fewer than 50 and gets a much larger proportion of income from each client?