Those of you who follow Hurt by Homebirth will be familiar with the story of Sam’s brain injury and his mother’s near death.

Sam’s mother Tina experienced a life-threatening abruption at home and transferred to the hospital. According to Sam’s father Frank:

…The doctors decided to prep for the emergency c-section, as this was being done Tina had the opportunity to push and push she did just before they were going to begin moving her to the O.R. Samuel was born vaginally @ 4:00 AM. Blue and not breathing the nurses began working on him, massaging “bagging” him for his breathing. I never did hear him cry…

After the birth Tina’s blood would not clot, another term I heard was “DIC”, which has to do with the inability of the blood to clot. 4:30 AM the decision was made to take Tina to the OR- losing a lot of blood- possible hysterectomy. Called to lab for blood, none available. Tina lay bleeding on the operating table for the next 1 ½ to 2 hours, basically bleeding to death…

OK, so about 7:00am the doctors come out and tell me that Tina’s hemoglobin has risen to 6 – still dangerously low but rising … – Tina still alive. There is hope, doctors decided against hysterectomy after a lot of consult with other doctors at other hospitals. If in fact they had opened her up she would have bled out on the table. GOD granted the doctors and nurses the wisdom to not operate.

Tina made a complete recovery. Sam was not so fortunate.

According to his aunt Candice:

Sam began to seize early morning, May 19th. The NICU doctors told me that the baby was being transported to Memorial Hermann, downtown Houston Medical Center for an EEG and further evaluation.

To summarize my nephew’s status, the EEG, (electroencephalogram) taken within 24 hours revealed that his entire brain had been affected by the lack of oxygen due to the loss of blood that he had sustained. A MRI was completed and read one week after admission and clearly delineated that there was global brain damage which confirmed the results from the EEG.

We celebrated when his pupils constricted (even though they were sluggish), when exposed to light via an ophthalmoscope because that meant he was not brain dead. There was a response. We were happy to hear that the sedation medication, Phenobarbital and Ativan, were maintained at adequate levels in order to keep the brain from seizing. It was critical to have the brain rest so it could recover and heal to whatever extent he was capable of. We were so glad to have him taken off the respiratory equipment (CPAP) days after the incident because given time, he was able to take deep enough breaths to satisfy his blood oxygen levels. He could breathe on his own!

In conclusion, my nephew has been diagnosed with severe encephalopathy due to a hypoxic ischemic event or HIE.

Sam’s parents brought charges against the midwife in the Texas Board of Midwifery. The Board acknowledged that she had failed to immediately transfer Sam’s mother despite evidence of abruption. The punishment? Six months probated suspension.

Sam’s family, including two older sisters, took him home and loved him … and got lots of love in return.

I received an email from Tina the day before yesterday:

We lost Sam during his sleep 4/26/2013 due to aspiration.

The autopsy ruled that it was directly related to his labor/birth injuries.

We had a celebration of Sam’s life on 5/18/2013……..what would have been his 3rd birthday. Our family is heartbroken yet due to our Christian faith, we do rejoice for Sam. He is now free of all limitations……..fully restored as God had originally intended.

Sam never talked, sat up, crawled, stood, walked, used arms/hands purposefully. He was completely dependent on us for his care. He was orally fed but it was always a challenge and he never had enough caloric intake so most of his nutrition was by PediaSure/Boost…….Sam was still on a bottle.

He was our sweet, precious little boy. He seemed very aware and interested in his surroundings………..had a twinkle in his eyes and a huge smile…………wonderful laugh/giggle. He knew all of his family and those involved in his daily care/weekly therapy.

Tina shared Sam’s obituary:

Samuel Frank Comstive 2, of Richmond, TX ran through the gates of Heaven into the awaiting arms of Jesus Christ during the wee morning hours of Friday, 4/26/2013.

Sam was born to Frank and Tina Comstive on May 18, 2010. He was welcomed into the family by his big sisters, Rose and Lily. Caring for a child with special needs was the hardest challenge our family had ever endured yet there was much joy and reward. Sam impacted so many lives in such a short period of time although due to his disabilities, never spoke a word. Sam brought together a group of ladies that have formed a support group for families of children with special needs….The Special Mom’s Group.

Sam loved people and they were all drawn to him. Sam had a smile that could brighten the darkest room and a light in his eyes that reflected the love of Jesus. Sam’s last day on this earth was spent with people that loved him the most. He was greeted in the morning by his Daddy and played with…”daddy-style”. Sam was smiling from ear to ear and giggling as they played. He then spent a few hours at the Fort Bend Shriners circus where he was the only person in the crowd to receive a clown nose from one of the clowns. Sam continued to enjoy the rest of the day surrounded by loved ones.

The autopsy report concluded that Sam’s passing was directly related to the injuries he sustained during labor/birth. Sam aspirated during his sleep. Aspiration was one of the many threats to Sam’s health due to his injuries. It appears that Sam never awoke. What a blessing!!! To spend the day with the ones you love, close your eyes and walk into the arms of your Heavenly Father…the one that loves us most.

Sam had a purpose. (Romans 8:28) Sam fulfilled his purpose and God took him home in order to spare him any further hardships due to his disabilities. Our family is positive that Sam was greeted with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant”. Our family is heartbroken yet we find comfort in knowing that Sam’s body has been fully restored as God had originally intended. Sam can now walk, run, dance, talk, sing, etc. Glory to God!

Left behind to treasure our time with Sam are his parents-Frank and Tina Comstive and sisters-Rose and Lily … paternal grandmother,.. paternal grandfather,.. maternal grandfather,.. and caregiver Adriana .. and her son Angel… Sam was also loved by his extended family members. One of many to greet Sam at Heaven’s gates was his maternal grandmother…

We will have a celebration of Sam’s life on what would have been his 3rd birthday, May 18. We will have birthday cake!… One of the best blessings in our life is Adriana … “Ms. A” has helped us love Sam for the past 2.5 years. She loved Sam as her own and he loved her. She is forever part of our family…

Rest in peace, sweet Sam.

One of the central conceits of natural childbirth advocacy is that it involves taking control of your birth. The reality is precisely the opposite; natural childbirth involves ceding total control to others who have devised an arbitrary standard to which you must adhere.

Claiming that natural childbirth gives women control over their own bodies is like claiming that being a runway model gives women control over their own bodies. If you want to be a high fashion model, you must maintain a certain weight, be of a certain height, and have facial features that meet someone else’s definition of attractive. Similarly, being a natural childbirth advocates requires that you make every feature of your baby’s birth conform to a pre-approved script, regardless of whether that is right for you or your baby.

Consider:

• Want to determine your use of pain relief based on your preferences?Impossible. Your preferences, your experience and your needs are irrelevant. You must avoid pain relief of any kind because natural childbirth is about pleasing the arbiters of birth, not about pleasing yourself.
• Want to control the way that you give birth by choosing a C-section?Impossible. There is one and only one approved mode of giving birth and that is unmedicated vaginal delivery.
• Want to give birth on a day that’s convenient for you?Impossible. Induction is forbidden, especially for social reasons.
• Want to reduce the risks of birth to your baby?Too bad. The particulars of your baby’s circumstances are irrelevant. Breech? Only a vaginal birth counts. Postdates? Only a vaginal birth counts. Twins? Only a vaginal birth counts.
• Want to take joy and pride in your baby’s birth regardless of how it took place?You’re out of luck. How YOU feel about the birth is meaningless. All that matters is how the arbiters of natural childbirth feel about the birth.

It’s no wonder then that natural childbirth sets women up for disappointment with perfectly wonderful births, in the exact same way as trying to look like a high fashion model sets women up for disappointment in their bodies.

So the question pregnant women need to ask themselves is this: Do you want to be free to control your own birth, tailoring it to your needs and desires and your baby’s safety? Or do you want to cede control over your birth to others who don’t have your interests at heart and plan to hold you to an arbitrary standard that fulfills their needs and ignores yours?

Andrea on Baby Center, planning a twin homebirth, asked What would the world be like if we had no hospitals? and then proceeded to answer her own question with multiple comments claiming that hospitals are unnecessary.

She was shocked, shocked to discover that some women found her comments arrogant and ignorant.

She replied:

I mean, I know now that people now rely on such places like hospitals but what did people do before hospitals? Herb doctors, cleansing, or whatever was needed for the person to be back on trap. Maybe doctors did house visits. The post said what would the world be like without hospitals it was not meant to be disrespectful but for some reason there will always be that one person that you can count on to take a subject out of context.

And:

Who said that herbal cleanses don’t help against strokes and heart attacks.. There is an herb for every issue on earth. The herbs were here before technology. Sorry. No technology needed. Time is of essence though. In a timely manner most issues can be resolved by herbs, diet, and exercise.
Thats my story and Im sticking to it. Be mad if you want ladies. Thanks for giving the post relevance and commenting anyway.

The clincher, just in case you hadn’t gotten the point.

P.S.
You can’t have a natural unmedicated childbirth at the hospital.
That’s vinegar and water status it just doesnt mix.
Bye ladies

Andrea has learned a very hard lesson and her daughter is fighting for her life.

I did have my twins. Akilah …. and Aminah … on 05/24/2013 @ home. I wrote a recent post about What would the world be like without hospitals. I had to eat my words this last week because my second baby had prolapse cord and has been in the hospital since birth fighting for her life. Both babies were born great weights Baby Akilah first baby was 6lbs even and Baby Aminah was born 5lbs 9oz at birth. My midwife didn’t show up on time to deliver my babies so my natural unmediated childbirth was a disaster, it was pretty much an unassisted child birth and that is so dangerous with twins. So to all the women who commented on my previous post, I have to admit I was wrong about hospitals. We defintely need them. Without hospitals my daughter would be dead.

Kudos to Andrea for having the courage to acknowledge her mistake. I have two questions for her if she’d care to answer:

Your daughter is paying a terrible price for your new-found knowledge. What, if anything, could have changed your mind before this disaster occurred? What would you tell other women contemplating homebirth who believe that hospitals are unnecessary?

Periodically a homebirth advocate will parachute in to the blog to school the rest of us on the appeal of homebirth. In the case of homebirth deaths and injuries, the claim is often made that the best way to avoid such tragedies would be to “increase trust in obstetricians.”

Rather ironic, don’t you think? That’s because the cornerstone of homebirth advocacy is the tireless effort to undermine trust in obstetricians. It is the centerpiece of homebirth (and natural childbirth) advocacy, and its most potent marketing tool.

Craig Thompson, professor of marketing at University of Wisconsin wrote about this tactic in Consumer Risk Perceptions in a Community of Reflexive Doubt in the September 2005 Journal of Consumer Research. Thompson marveled at the ability of homebirth advocates to market a “product” by directly defying common sense:

Advocates of natural childbirth seek to inculcate reflexive doubt by countering two commonsense objections to their unorthodox construction of risk: (1) medicalized births would have never gained a cultural foothold if they were so risk laden and (2) the medical profession would not support obstetric practices that place laboring women at risk.

In other words, it is absolutely critical to the natural childbirth project to convince women that doctors don’t know what they are doing, and willfully and cheerfully risk the lives of women and babies to promote a secret agenda.

I can’t think of a single prominent homebirth or natural childbirth advocate who does not work assiduously to undermine trust in obstetricians.

The approach may differ among individuals and organizations:

Ina May Gaskin resorts to new-agey nonsense, and animal birth, which she believes, in her absolute cluelessness, to be perfect. Whereas Henci Goer favors cherry picking data, selective interpretation of scientific papers and pandering to homebirth advocates’ desire to see themselves as “educated.”

Feminist anti-rationalists like Robbie Davis-Floyd deride rationality and insist that women have “other ways of knowing.”Clowns like Jennifer Margulis point to diseases they don’t understand and pretend they are caused by “technology.”

Every homebirth and NCB book, blog and website is predicated on the belief that obstetricians are “surgeons” “untrained in normal birth” who make millions performing unnecessary C-sections in the few moments they have each day between endless rounds of golf.

The tremendous successes of modern obstetrics and the fact that 99+% of women give birth in hospitals is dismissed as the result of an economic war perpetrated by obstetricians on midwives.

Childbirth lobbying organizations like the Childbirth Connection are front and center in the effort to destroy trust between women and obstetricians. How else to explain the endless iterations of the “Listening to Mothers Survey,” a giant push polling project that desperately seeks evidence that obstetricians are not “listening to mothers” and repeatedly finds that the vast majority of American mothers are very pleased with obstetric care?

Homebirth and natural childbirth advocates fiercely grab on to new methods for demonizing obstetric care, such as the unproven claims that modern obstetrics causes “traumatic birth,”  and the hope that C-section cause long term health problems which have heretofore escaped detection despite the fact that there are tens of millions of adults walking around who were born by C-section and appear no different than those born by vaginal delivery.

NCB and homebirth bloggers pile on with inane accusations like “every day 12 babies are given to the wrong mother.” That makes it sound like there’s an epidemic of women leaving the hospital with the wrong baby, when what it really means (if it is true at all), is that an attendant (and that includes midwives) may bring a baby into the room of the wrong mother and discover her mistake when she checks the ID tags on mother and baby.

What about the spectacular advances in modern obstetrics, dropping the neonatal mortality rate by 90% and the maternal mortality rate by 99% in just 100 years?

That is simply dismissed out of hand, with claims that hospitals actually kill babies, or at instigate the medical disasters from which obstetricians thereby appear to be “saving” babies.

Homebirth and natural childbirth advocates have an “answer” for just about every objection you can name to homebirth and those “answers” often involve misinformation, and always involve undermining women’s trust in obstetricians.

Of course, the irony of homebirth and natural childbirth advocates bewailing the very loss of truth between women and obstetricians that they themselves promoted is exceeded by another irony. That irony is the reflexive and unstated reliance of homebirth and natural childbirth advocates on obstetricians to save their lives when they’ve taken terrible chances and made hideous decisions.

The backup plan is always to head for the hospital with the expectation of immediate access to the care of …. you guessed it … obstetricians. Apparently those evil doctors, who can never be trusted, can always be trusted in an emergency.

Over time, to my surprise, I’ve begun to feel sorry for many natural childbirth advocates.

Why?

Because they clearly suffer from a pathetic lack of self-esteem, so pathetic that they cling desperately to any opportunity to feel superior to other women, even if they had no control over the issue in question.

I would feel sorry for any woman who bragged that she was superior because her nose was larger than that of other women. I would feel sorry for any woman who set up a website boasting about the size of her feet. And I do feel sorry for women who feel that their greatest “achievement” is their large breasts.

Therefore, I feel very sorry indeed for the women of the Big Baby Project. Apparently they are so desperate for some sense of self worth that they have set up a website dedicated to their internal pelvic dimensions.

The purpose of the website, according to the woman who created it:

This is a collection of stories. The stories are about Mamas who vaginally birthed babies that some people may consider to be big. People need to hear and see these stories, I hope you share it far and wide, and participate if possible.

The real purpose of the website? To scavenge for praise for the “achievement” of having a pelvis large enough to accommodate an obese baby.

The technical term for a very large baby is macrosomia. Macrosomia is no more worthy of praise than a 45 pound 3 year old or a 10 year old who wears size 14 sneakers, but that doesn’t stop psychologically needy women from bragging about it.

Not all macrosomic babies are obese. Some families simply grow large babies and macrosomia is known to be more common among those of Hispanic descent. However, a substantial proportion of fetal macrosomia is due to untreated or poorly treated diabetes, excessive maternal weight gain, or maternal obesity, which can double or triple the risk of macrosomia. In other words, women have no control over the size of their babies beyond the ability to render them obese through poorly controlled diabetes of excessive maternal consumption.

You will notice that the website refuses to accept pictures of macrosomic babies who were born by C-section, only those born vaginally.

Why?

Because these pathetic women are anxious that you should admire them for their pelvic dimensions, yet another characteristic over which they have no control yet want to take credit.

Just like there is tremendous variation in maternal stature, there is tremendous variation in the dimensions of women’s pelves. As this illustration demonstrates, there are four main “shapes” of the female pelvis.

The most common female pelvic shape, and the one best suited to accommodate a baby, is the gynecoid pelvis. Size variations within a specific shape can make a significant difference in the size of the baby that can pass through.

So the women who post on the site are bragging about the size of their baby and the shape and size of their pelvis, as they have control over either one, and as if you should be impressed with either one. In that sense, it is no different than boasting that you have a bigger nose than other women, or bigger breasts. It is the same old tiresome effort of women to judge each other by physical characteristics, with one important exception.

Macrosomia is a risk factor for various childbirth complications, including neonatal injury, neonatal death and maternal injury. The most dreaded complication is shoulder dystocia. That’s what happens when the baby head fits through the pelvis, but the shoulder become stuck. This is a life threatening emergency because the umbilical cord is compressed by being trapped between the baby’s body and the walls of the pelvis, thereby cutting off oxygen to the baby. The baby will die if not delivered in a timely fashion. Death is the worst possible outcome, but babies who survive are also at risk for serious injury to the nerves of the arm, which can be stretched as they pass through the neck. If the nerves are injured during birth, the baby may suffer permanent paralysis of the arm.

This can cause lifelong difficulties for the child as illustrated in a charming series of books produced by the Erbs’s Palsy Group:

As far as I can determine, The Big Baby Project makes no mention of whether any of the featured babies suffers from Erb’s palsy or whether any of the mothers had long term problems (tears, incontinence) from delivering a big baby. And of course, there are no dead babies on the site, because, apparently, women aren’t entitled to “hear and see” those stories.

It’s really rather pitiful when you think about. A group of women is so desperate for attention and validation that they post to a website bragging about the size of their baby and the size of their pelvis, as if they had anything to do with either. You really have to be pathetically needy to boast about that.

There’s denial and then there is something so desperate, so illogical and so ridiculous that labeling it denial seems grossly inadequate.

The story is simple and straightforward. A pregnant woman was facing a C-section because all the obstetricians she consulted advised her that vaginal delivery might result in the death of one of her twins or herself. She decided to ignore their warning and gave birth at home unassisted. She died of a massive postpartum hemorrhage. Whose fault is that?

According to a fellow homebirth advocate who was her friend, it’s the fault of obstetricians. Let me say that again to make it clear: She was warned she might die if she attempted a vaginal birth. She attempted a vaginal birth and died. But supposedly she bears no responsibility for the choice that killed her.

The story of this preventable maternal death, My Friend Died: A Story of How the War Over Women’s Bodies Continues to Kill, can be found in the appropriate named journal Squat. Everything in the journal isn’t worth squat. It was written by Nekole Shapiro who “focuses on oxytocin-infused states, birthing parts and healing birth trauma.”

Our friend died last year.

She was pregnant with twin girls that would be daughters number 3 and 4… When she was 36wks pregnant, I received a text message that the family had exhausted their search for a provider who would support her to birth her twins vaginally… [T]he couple had decided to do it on their own.

This did not sit well with me. This was not a family who said, We would like an unassisted vaginal home birth of twins. This was a family who felt they were left with no better option since no one would support them in what they saw as the best and safest option: a spontaneous vaginal delivery…

What happened?

Next thing I knew, I got a text that she had birthed her twins: spontaneous labor at 38 weeks. I was elated and couldn’t wait to hear more. But then the second text came: she had lost quite a bit of blood and was in a coma…

Initially, the mother’s prognosis was unclear. Unfortunately:

Then they reported that there was only brain stem activity…

The next update I got was via this Facebook post, “[My wife] has not, and will not, wake up again. She has been moved to a room where she will be kept comfortable until the end.” Some days later she passed away.

Nekole grappled with tremendous cognitive dissonance:

At first, I was quite shaken by these events and I knew others would be as well. I knew people would quickly say, “See, you can’t trust birth. Birth IS inherently dangerous. How dare you be one of those people who support anyone thinking otherwise! See what can happen?” But, I also knew that this is one story of many and I did not want my raw emotional state to start dictating my view of the world. I reminded myself that many people die in car accidents, but we have not outlawed cars.

We don’t go around pretending that driving cars is “as safe as life gets,” either.

But cognitive dissonance is hard. Denial is easy:

Ultimately, this story is a horrific reminder of our broken system. If we walk out of a birth with this type of unfathomable outcome when in fact all the support needed was present, that is one thing. But, to have this outcome with a complete lack of support, that is simply unacceptable. Our system should be designed and focused on supporting mothers to birth the way they feel is best for them!…

No, no, no. This is not a horrific reminder of a broken “system.” It is a horrific reminder of a broken philosophy, the philosophy of natural childbirth.

Natural childbirth advocates encourage women to value process over outcome. They encourage women to seek an idealized “birth experience.” They encourage women to reject medical advice in favor of “intuition.” They encourage women to risk the deaths of themselves and their babies and as a result, women and babies die preventable deaths.

Obstetricians do not exist to provide support. They exist to provide safety. Women ignore them at their own peril. They have every right to do so, but let’s at least be intellectually honest enough to acknowledge what actually happened. A woman ignored the lifesaving advice of obstetricians and died as a result.

The people who bear responsibility for the outcome are not the people who warned her; the people who bear responsibility for yet another preventable death are the mother who made the choice, and the natural childbirth community who encouraged her to pretend that women are “perfectly designed” for childbirth, that obstetricians should not be trusted, and that women should make complex medical decisions by relying on intuition instead of education and training.

A philosophy that encourages women to value process over outcome is a philosophy that inevitably kills women and babies. Unfortunately, Nekole’s friend died as a result of that philosophy and left 4 motherless daughters as the true victims. Too bad Nekole and the editors of Squat didn’t learn anything as a result.

Remember Tracey Cassels, another sactimommy suffering from sadness?

Apparently she’s suffering from self-doubt. Why else would she (and her followers) fear what I write unless they:

• knows it’s true?
• can’t offer any substantive criticism?
• feel their desperate desire to imagine themselves as superior to other mothers is threatened?

On Mother’s Day, from Baby Center:

My husbands cousin passed away today while giving birth. She was 24, beautiful, had just graduated with her masters in engineering, and was getting married. She was due may 15th. She went into labor today. She had a home birth and midwife. She bled to death on the way to the hospital that was 8 minutes away. Her daughter is alive…

This young woman did not have to die, leaving her infant daughter motherless. She died because she chose homebirth, because hemorrhage is and has always been one of the leading causes of maternal mortality, and because a hospital only “8 minutes away” isn’t close enough.

But almost certainly contributing to her death is the fact that homebirth midwives know virtually nothing about postpartum hemorrhage.

Actually, it’s worse than that. Homebirth midwives believe that they can control hemorrhage by doing what they know how to do best: nothing.

In the world of homebirth midwifery clowns, few are as inane as Jan Tritten, the editor of Midwifery Today. Consider her recent editorial on postpartum hemorrhage.

Tritten is appallingly ignorant about the causes of postpartum hemorrhage. She actually appears to believe that postpartum hemorrhage occurs when mother and midwife don’t have the proper thoughts.

The most important thing I can say about hemorrhage is, “Don’t cause one.” If the body is well fed and mom is low on stress and feels loved, motherbaby and their process of labor and birth work well. Our first and most important job is to facilitate what is already a beautiful process. God designed this process to work, but birth workers can come along and do interventions that may cause hemorrhage…

The real causes of postpartum hemorrhage include uterine atony (failure of the uterus to contract after birth), retained placenta (failure of the placenta to completely detach after birth) and injuries to the uterus itself (such as tears of the cervix, which can happen if a woman tries to push the baby through before the cervix is completely dilated). Obviously, none of these has anything to do with what the mother or the midwife “thinks.”

Where did Tritten get such an appallingly stupid idea about what causes postpartum hemorrhage?

Perhaps she got it from these midwifery clowns, Jenny A. Parratt, and Kathleen M. Fahy, the authors of Including the nonrational is sensible midwifery:

For example, when a woman and midwife have agreed to use expectant management of third stage, but bleeding begins unexpectedly, the expert midwife will respond with either or both rational and nonrational ways of thinking. Depending upon all the particularities of the situation the midwife may focus on supporting love between the woman and her baby; she may call the woman back to her body; and/or she may change to active management of third stage…

So not only do we have the editor of Midwifery Today indulging in massive stupidity, there are actually midwifery professors and journalists who encourage this idiocy.

And they’re not the only ones. According to Tritten:

I asked a question about hemorrhage and Margie Dacko had the most interesting response:

“I never used Pitocin in over 2400 homebirths. My hands are my favorite and best tool to stop bleeding (or getting placentas out). BTW, I don’t use eating placenta, herbs or homeopathic bleeding remedies either. They are unnecessary. The uterus wants to stop bleeding, just needs a “helping hand” on occasion…”

The uterus wants to stop bleeding??!!

And just how does a uterus with a tear in the cervix stop itself from bleeding? It can’t.

There is an old saying that to a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a homebirth midwife, who knows nothing and can do nothing, everything looks like it needs no treatment.

For a homebirth midwife to acknowledge that childbirth, just like pregnancy, just like any natural process, is not perfectly designed, is to acknowledge her own worthlessness. It gives new meaning to the bizarre claim that homebirth midwives are “experts in normal birth.” They’re experts in doing nothing and pretending that nothing is what needs to be done.

God help you if you or your baby needs emergency treatment. These clowns certainly won’t.

One of the most depressing aspects of our depressingly dysfunctional political landscape is the corruption of journalism.

According to the Society of Professional Journalists, journalism is supposed to encompass:

Test[ing] the accuracy of information from all sources and exercis[ing] care to avoid inadvertent error.

Today it means: staking out an ideological position and ignoring anything that controverts it.

Hence self-proclaimed “journalists” of the anti-science Left like anti-vaccionationist Jennifer Margulis and self-proclaimed “journalists” on the Right like those at Fox News have a lot more in common than either would be pleased to acknowledge.

• Both start with the ideologically preferred conclusion and work backward.
• Both make no attempt to avoid journalistic bias.
• Both rely heavily on the claims of “experts” vetted for ideological purity.
• Both refuse to mention, let alone address, inconvenient facts that undermine preferred conclusions.

Surprisingly, both rely on similar claims.

1. It’s a conspiracy!

The folks at Fox News are always sure that there is some conspiracy behind most everything they report. It’s a conspiracy to take away our rights! It’s a conspiracy to encourage socialism! It’s a conspiracy to institute One World Government!

Margulis and her buddies on the anti-science Left are equally convinced of conspiracies. It’s conspiracy on the part of drug companies! It’s a conspiracy on the part of infant formula manufacturers! It’s a conspiracy in which government is concluding with Big Medicine!

2. It’s the government!

According to the Right, the government is trying to deprive people of their weapons in preparation for a total takeover. The government is trying to promote “secular humanism.” Heck, the government is engaged in a war on Christmas.

According to the Left, the government is trying to dupe people into buying, eating and injecting themselves with “chemicals” because they are in cahoots with industry.

3. Don’t criticize my God!

The God of the Right is the god of traditional religion. Anything that does not comport with the perfection, wisdom and infallibility of that god must be denied.

The God of the Left is Nature. Not nature as it really exists, but a gentle, benevolent and perfect “Nature” as imagined by those fail to recognize the incongruity of extolling “Nature” while simultaneously living in huge homes with central heating and airconditioning, Wi-Fi, and professional grade espresso makers, communicating their “message” using the Internet, video, photography and smart phones.

4. I’m being persecuted!

The Right is sure that they are being persecuted. Even when government was in the control of a Republican President, Republican Congress, and conservative Supreme Court, the Right was still bleating about persecution.

The anti-science Left is also constantly claiming persecution, but that is often in an attempt to inflate their own importance. No one is persecuting homebirth advocates, AIDS denialists and vaccine rejectionists. Most people don’t even know they exist.

The end result of this “journalism” is a country where the majority of people don’t believe in evolution, the Congress legislates against reproductive rights, and vaccine preventable diseases are once again claiming the lives of the youngest and most vulnerable among us.

If that’s not depressing, I don’t know what is.

Poor homebirth advocates!

It’s getting harder and harder to fill their narcissistic need for attention by having a homebirth. Merely boasting to friends and family is certainly not enough.

Live blogging and live tweeting the birth? Ho hum, it’s been done.

Live video transmission? Yawn.

No medical attendants? That’s so 2012!

In order to get attention and stand out from the rest of the narcissitic crazies, you have to be far more creative than ever before.

At a minimum, you have to give birth outside,surrounded by nature, like this.

First you assemble your midwife, doula, and birth photographer (most vital member of the team). Then you quickly run outside to the pool when you are fully dilated and pushing. Finally, you are in the inflatable kiddie pool just like the one used by a prehistoric foremothers. That should make them sit up and take notice.

But let’s face it, outside homebirth has been done a million times.

If you really want attention, you need to change the venue. Any narcissist can give birth in her own backyard. It takes a special narcissist to give birth in the rainforest, like this:

Simone gave birth on a yoga mat with a video camera focused on her vagina, just like thousands of generations before her.

Of course, anyone can give birth in a rain forest. To truly experience birth as Mother Nature intended, you have to give birth along side exotic animals, like these clowns are planning.

Last month, Adam Barringer, 29, and his pregnant wife Heather, 27, boarded a plane for Hawaii. The couple traveled over 4,500 miles in the hopes of welcoming baby Bodhi into the world during a dolphin-assisted birth in Pohoa, Hawaii.

Why?

Traveling and living in harmony with the earth is a way of life for this couple.

It’s hard to imagine how you are living “in harmony with the earth” if your massive carbon footprint includes an 11 hour plane flight to Hawaii. Oops, bet they didn’t think about the fact that living in harmony with the earth would involve staying home.

But consider the benefits:

At the institute, the couple will spend time in the water, forming a connection with a dolphin pod they hope will bond with them and ultimately their newborn.

“It is about reconnecting as humans with the dolphins so we can coexist in this world together and learn from one another,” says Heather.

The couple hopes to find this connection during prenatal and postnatal swims with the dolphins.

Because women from Siberia to Nigeria and everywhere in between have bonded with dolphins as preparation for birth, right?

Frankly, I’m unimpressed. These people are wimps.

Anyone can give birth in their backyard on a sunny day or a clear evening. How about giving birth in your backyard during a tornado? I’d watch that.

Anyone can give birth in mild climate like a rainforest. How about giving birth on the summit of Mount Everest? I’d watch that.

Anyone can give birth with measly dolphins, but what about the king of beasts? How about giving birth in a lion’s den? I wouldn’t watch that, but only because the baby or the mother or both would end up as cat food.

Extreme homebirth poses a real problem for me, though. It means that it is getting increasingly difficult for me to parody homebirth advocates because they are so busy parodying themselves.

There is nothing so ludicrous that homebirth advocates can’t dress up as “natural” in effort to fill their desperate need for attention.