Mike Adams, the editor of Natural News.com, is having a bad week. He got caught stuffing the ballot box for a health Shorty Award and was disqualified. Skeptics were among those who pointed out that up to 20% of his “votes” had come from new Twitter accounts created expressly to vote for him. So now he’s lashing out at skeptics, and I am proud to report that I have been included in his diatribe.

Adams’ post, What ‘skeptics’ really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe, is inadvertently hilarious. For your Sunday delectation (and for your laugh of the week), let me share his accusations and proudly proclaim my guilt.
Adams begins:

… Briefly stated, “skeptics” are in favor of vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy. They are opponents of nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, chiropractic care, massage therapy, energy medicine, homeopathy, prayer and therapeutic touch.

Yup, that’s me. I oppose the quackery of supplements, herbal medicine, etc. etc.

I thought it would be interesting to find out exactly what “skeptics” actually believe, so I did a little research and pulled this information from various “skeptic” websites. What I found will make you crack up laughing so hard that your abs will be sore for a week. Take a look…

Skeptics believe that pregnancy is a disease and childbirth is a medical crisis. (They are opponents of natural childbirth.)

Now we know he is talking about me, although he is a little confused. I don’t claim that pregnancy is a disease, merely that childbirth is inherently dangerous.

What else do I and my fellow skeptics supposedly believe?

Skeptics believe that fluoride chemicals derived from the scrubbers of coal-fired power plants are really good for human health. They’re so good, in fact, that they should be dumped into the water supply so that everyone is forced to drink those chemicals, regardless of their current level of exposure to fluoride from other sources.

Guilty! I support fluoridation of the water supply to prevent dental disease.

Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods (hilarious!).

Guilty! I believe that the vitamins, minerals, etc in food are neither alive nor dead.

Skeptics believe that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration. Water is inert, they say, and the water your toilet is identical to water from a natural spring (assuming the chemical composition is the same, anyway).

Guilty again!

Skeptics believe that the moon has no influence over life on Earth. Farming in sync with moon cycles is just superstition, they say. (So why are the cycles of life for insects, animals and humans tied to the moon, then?)

Skeptics believe that the SUN has no role in human health other than to cause skin cancer. They completely deny any healing abilities of light…

Skeptics do not believe in intuition. They believe that mothers cannot “feel” the emotions of their infants at a distance. They write off all such “psychic” events as mere coincidence.

Guilty, guilty, guilty!

Here’s my absolute favorite:

Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the demolition-style collapse of the World Trade Center 7 building on September 11, 2001 — a building that was never hit by airplanes. This beautifully-orchestrated collapse of a hardened structure could only have been accomplished with precision explosives… Astonishingly, “skeptics” have little understanding of the laws of physics. Concrete-and-steel buildings don’t magically collapse in a perfect vertical demolition just because of a fire on one floor…

With that Mike, I think you have demonstrate definitively that you are a nut, and that no one should take you seriously. You’ve written far more, but I won’t waste my readers’ time by refuting you point by point. I think they already get the idea. However, I will share the culmination of your rant:

I hope it’s fairly obvious to you by now that skeptics are the most misinformed people on the planet. (emphasis in original)

They are the easiest people to fool. They’re the easiest to hypnotize, too, because they lack independent thinking skills…

Skeptics don’t believe in God or any sort of spiritualism, either. They are almost all athiests. They don’t believe in a higher power of any kind: No God, no spirit, no angels, no guides, no creative force in the universe… nada. They think the universe is a cold, empty, lonely, stupid place full of soulless, mindless, zombie biological bodies who have no free will and no consciousness.

Gee, no wonder these skeptics are so misguided. They have the most pessimistic view possible. No wonder they seek to destroy themselves with chemicals — they don’t even think they’re alive to begin with! Skeptics are bent on self destruction. And they believe that when you die, the lights just go out and you cease to exist. Nothing happens after that. You’re just a mindless biological robot whose life has no meaning, no purpose, no higher self.

This is exactly what the skeptics believe. They’ll even tell you so themselves!

That’s right, Mike. If you define skeptic as someone who believes that fluoridation prevents cavities, chemicals are neither alive nor dead, water is inert, and that the World Trade Center really was hit by planes, then I’m guilty … and proud of it!

A new Cochrane Review released yesterday confirms that there is no benefit to eating or drinking in labor. According to the authors of the paper, Restricting oral fluid and food intake during labour:

We identified five studies (3130 women). All studies looked at women in active labour and at low risk of potentially requiring a general anaesthetic. One study looked at complete restriction versus giving women the freedom to eat and drink at will; two studies looked at water only versus giving women specific fluids and foods and two studies looked at water only versus giving women carbohydrate
drinks.

When comparing any restriction of fluids and food versus women given some nutrition in labour, the meta-analysis was dominated by one study undertaken in a highly medicalised environment. There were no statistically significant differences identified in: caesarean section (average risk ratio (RR) 0.89, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.63 to 1.25, five studies, 3103 women), operative vaginal births (average RR 0.98, 95% CI 0.88 to 1.10, five studies, 3103 women) and Apgar scores less than seven at five minutes (average RR 1.43, 95% CI 0.77 to 2.68, three studies, 2574 infants), nor in any of the other outcomes assessed.

Standard obstetric practice has been to restrict intake in labor to clear liquids or only water. That’s because pregnant women who undergo general anesthesia are particularly vulnerable to vomiting and aspirating vomit into their lungs. The authors explain these restrictions:

Most are based on historical, but important concerns, related to the risks of gastric content regurgitation and aspiration into the lungs during general anaesthesia, a risk first identified by Mendelson in the 1940s. The incidence is very rare with modern anaesthetic techniques and the use of regional anaesthesia rather then general anaesthesia. However, the syndrome is potentially fatal.

The authors also claimed that they found no risks of eating in labor, but the review is far to small to detect the risk of aspiration since very few if any women in the study underwent general anesthesia. So the claim that eating in labor has no risks has not really been addressed by this study.

Where does that leave us? There is certainly no evidence that eating in labor has any benefits. The risks are quite small since very few women undergo general anesthesia for C-section. The authors of this review suggest that the decision should be left up to women themselves.

Andrew Pesce, president of the Australian Medical Association, has emphasized that his opposition to homebirth is based on the scientific evidence. Indeed, he promised in late November:

There is an article to be published soon in the Medical Journal of Australia which is a 15-year review of 1150 home births and it shows there is a seven times higher risk of a baby dying during home birth than a hospital birth … We feel that if we’re not listened to then the safety of the maternity system can be fundamentally compromised.

The paper, Planned home and hospital births in South Australia, 1991–2006: differences in outcomes by Kennare et al., was published this week and if Dr. Pesce is hanging his case against homebirth on this paper, he better head back to the drawing board. The paper does not show that homebirth increases the risk of neonatal death. In fact, the paper is so poorly done that it doesn’t show much of anything.

Let’s take a moment to consider what a well designed study would look like. When comparing homebirth to hospital birth:

The groups should be created by “intention to treat.” In other words, it does not matter where the patient ultimately delivered. The most important criterion is where the patient intended to deliver at the start of labor.

Like must be compared to like. The hospital group should contain only low risk women, since the homebirth group presumably contains only low risk women.

Unfortunately, the Kennare paper fails to meet either requirement, and a few more besides.

The authors explain how they created the groups for comparison:

Of 300 011 births during the period 1991–2006 (consisting of all livebirths as well as stillbirths of at least 400 g birthweight or 20 weeks’ gestation), 461 that were terminations of pregnancy and 1217 with no antenatal care were excluded. The remaining 298 333 were divided into 297 192 planned hospital births and 1141 (0.38%) planned home births. The latter were defined as any birth that, at the time of antenatal booking, was intended to occur at home. Of these, 792 (69.4%) did occur at home and 349 occurred in hospital after transfer.

Right away there is a problem. The groups were not defined by intention to treat at the start of labor, but rather by intention to treat at the start of prenatal care. So any woman who developed complications during pregnancy and was appropriately transferred to hospital care long before labor began was included in the homebirth group.

Moreover, instead of comparing the homebirth group to comparable risk women who gave birth in the hospital, the authors compared the homebirth group to all women who gave birth in the hospital including premature births, and those with serious complications.

What did they find?

The rate of neonatal death in the homebirth group was 7.9 per 1000 births, compared with 8.2 per 1000 births for planned hospital births. In other words, there was NO difference between the planned homebirth group and the planned hospital group. Oops! That wasn’t what the authors were hoping to find.

So the authors take a different tack:

One third of deaths (3 of 9) among planned home births were due to intrapartum asphyxia compared with 3.6% among planned hospital births. Both intrapartum deaths and deaths attributed to intrapartum asphyxia were considerably more frequent in the home birth group than in the hospital birth group.

And proudly conclude:

In our study of births and perinatal deaths in SA during the period 1991–2006, planned home births had a perinatal mortality rate similar to that of planned hospital births, but had a sevenfold higher risk of intrapartum death and a 27-fold higher risk of death from intrapartum asphyxia.

To which I say: So what? Dead is dead. It it hardly a ringing endorsement of hospital birth to claim that all the dead babies died AFTER birth instead of during birth.

So the study does not show that homebirth increases the risk of neonatal death. What does it show? In my judgment, it doesn’t show anything because it is poorly done. The authors should go back and reanalyze their data. First they should create the groups by intention to treat at the start of labor. Second, they should remove high risk women from the hospital group. Only then is there a chance of obtaining valid, useful results.

If the intention of the authors was to bolster the case against homebirth, it has certainly back fired. Instead, they’ve given Australian homebirth advocates a gift. Homebirth advocates be able to point to this study as showing that homebirth doesn’t increase the risk of neonatal death. Perhaps more importantly, though, homebirth advocates will be able to point to this study as evidence that opponents of homebirth disingenuously sliced and diced the data to make hospital birth look good on at least one criterion. And that criterion, the fact that the homebirth babies died during labor instead of after labor, is absurd.

Imagine if we did a study on triple bypass heart surgery and divided patients into three groups. The first group contains people who have no heart trouble and don’t have surgery. The second group contains people who have no heart trouble but have surgery anyway. The third group contains people who have unstable angina and undergo surgery. Guess which group would have the best health outcomes. Not surprisingly it would be the group who have no heart trouble and don’t undergo surgery. That’s because they were healthiest to begin with and were not exposed to the risks of surgery.

That’s pretty much the study that the World Health Organization did on C-section in Asia, Method of delivery and pregnancy outcomes in Asia: the WHO global survey on maternal and perinatal health 2007—08. They compared three groups: women who had no reason for C-section and underwent vaginal delivery, women who had no reason for C-section and had a C-section anyway (subdivided into antepartum and intrapartum C-sections), and women who had medical necessitating C-section and underwent a C-section (subdivided into antepartum and intrapartum C-sections). They also include a group for women who had operative vaginal delivery (forceps or vacuum) though they did not specify whether there were medical indication. It would hardly be surprising if the group that had no medical complications and underwent uneventful vaginal delivery would be the group with the best neonatal outcomes. And that would not be an indication that C-section was dangerous or inappropriate because we would expect that women experiencing complications would have higher rates of neonatal mortality.

What is surprising is what the WHO researchers actually found: the group of babies with the lowest neonatal mortality were born to women with NO reason to have a C-section but who had one anyway! In fact, the babies of women who had C-sections without a medical indication had the best results on every possible indicator.

For reasons that I cannot fathom, the World Health Organization is insisting that the interpretation of this study is simple:

To improve maternal and perinatal outcomes, caesarean section should be done only when there is a medical indication.

But that’s certainly not what the data on perinatal outcomes shows.

How about maternal outcomes?

Both blood transfusion and ICU admission were increased in the women who underwent C-section without medical indication, but the rate of hysterectomy was zero and the rate of maternal death was zero.

I don’t understand how the WHO researchers can justify their conclusions based on the data that they gathered. In fact, I’m not sure exactly what they thought they were studying. If we want to find out the safety and efficacy of a procedure (like C-section) we identify specific conditions or risk factors and divide patients into the treatment group (C-section) and the control group (vaginal delivery). We certainly don’t compare all women who had C-sections with all women who had vaginal deliveries because they are going to differ in very important ways.

I just don’t get it. This is a poorly designed study that can’t possibly yield any valid results. The authors compounded their error by misinterpreting (basically ignoring) the results that they got and instead reached a conclusion decrying C-section that seems to have been pre-determined before the study began.

Another homebirth death: horror, hemorrhaging and a crushing burden of guilt.

Yet another mother from the Homebirth board at Mothering.com has lost her baby in a homebirth tragedy. She has posted the entire story on her personal blog. In addition to the horror of her daughter’s death (with her other young children nearby) she is now coping with guilt. She writes movingly of her daughter’s birth:

…You are crowning. I support with my left hand, and cup your growing head with my right. So slippery, hot.wet… you drop into my hands like to heavy, wet blobs. You fall to the couch. I hear Faith yelling … “pick her up!”

I do, I pick you up … I look at your face. Blood is running from your nose. Your eyes are closed. No movement. Faith is sucking blood from your mouth with hers. She yells “get me my bulb syringe!” I try to wipe the blood from you nose, rub your back…

I sit down next to you, legs spread, you laying limp and white in between. They (Faith, Amy) are working on you. CPR, chest compressions (looks like the doll from CPR class two months before) …DeLee. I am sobbing, rubbing your feet. So long ago Faith called out, “someone call 911!”. such a limp foot… I touch the cord to see if it is pulsing. It is cold, collapsed…time has no meaning when a baby is silent.
.
CRY , baby, CRY! Sobbing..EMS flood the room, all around my baby…

Me, asking Faith, “Is there any way she could live?”

…………………………… “She’s not going to make it”

I know it’s true , baby, I know it. But, still they are working. They are taking you away from me, loading you up, headed for the children’s hospital.

I never see you warm again. They are loading me up. BLOOD everywhere, soaking, standing, staining….you were born in a river of blood, baby girl….

The baby was transported to a children’s hospital. The mother experienced a major postpartum hemorrhage and was transported to a different hospital.

Now the mother mourns:

I researched birth like a mad woman before all three of my homebirths. Every study I found said homebirth is safer for low risk woman than hospital birth. I truly never found anything to refute this.

I researched possible complications, researched choices for treatments for said complications. I timed my drive to the nearest hospital- 3 minutes…

But, the worst possible thing happened. what is considered a “true emergency” anywhere it happens, home hospital, birth center —- full placental abruption in labor. BUT…but…. if this emergency HAD happened in the hospital my baby would almost certainly be alive right now.

So, ultimately , my birth “choices” lead to my daughter’s death. that is where the beginning and end of the blame falls.

I am finding this weight of guilt to be crushing….

The comments on her blog, while meant to be comforting (particularly to the commentors, if not the mother) are inane. The most inane is this comment:

It’s such a short time, such a VERY short time, that anyone can live without oxygen. I’ve heard similar stories, ones that happen IN a hospital, and in most of the cases, they just can’t get the baby out in time. I don’t believe, even in a hospital setting, your outcome would have been different…

In other words, it’s just more of the same garbage that led the mother to make such a disastrous choice in the first place.

I’d like to offer a more honest appraisal:

To Aquila’s mother,

Do not blame yourself for your daughter’s death. Do not blame yourself for your choices, because you were never fully informed of the risks. If you would feel better placing blame somewhere, blame the homebirth advocates who, in books, lectures and websites, are fundamentally dishonest about the dangers of homebirth.

You would never have chosen homebirth is you had understood that this tragedy could happen. I know that you believe you “researched” homebirth, but unless you read the scientific literature, you merely researched disingenuous propaganda.

How do I know you read propaganda? You wrote, “Every study I found said homebirth is safer for low risk woman than hospital birth. I truly never found anything to refute this.” But did you ever read the actual studies? Did you ever read commentary on the studies by medical experts?

Were you aware that the leading American homebirth study (Johnson and Daviss, BMJ, 2005), DOESN’T show that homebirth is as safe as hospital birth? The authors compared homebirth in 2000 with hospital birth from a bunch of out of date papers. That’s because homebirth with a CPM in 2000 had nearly triple the neonatal death rate of low risk hospital birth in the same year.

Did you know that in the three years that according to CDC statistics, midwife attended planned homebirth is the most dangerous form of planned birth in the US? Did you know that those statistics show that homebirth with a homebirth midwife has triple the rate of neonatal death of low risk hospital birth?

I suspect that you didn’t know, because the sources that you consulted were silent on these points. And if you didn’t know, you couldn’t make an informed decision. Had you known the real risks and willingly accepted them, then you might consider accepting the blame as well. But you didn’t understand that this could happen, and if you didn’t understand, you are not to blame.

The latest mantra among “natural” childbirth advocates is informed consent. Advocates sigh and proclaim that they fully support women making the choice for interventions in childbirth, but fret that these same women cannot possibly provide a “truly informed” consent since they haven’t been appropriately informed.

Penny Simkin has produced a classic of this genre, Weighing the Pros and Cons of Epidural. Evidently there’s only one “pro”, relief of pain, and a long list of “cons,” nineteen in all. The list is a hodgepodge of minor “risks” (itching, shivering from cold liquid) and made up “risks” (feeling “detached,” decreased infant responsiveness). Presumably, Ms. Simkin believes that this long list of “cons” is required in order for a woman to give informed consent.

Simkin piously concludes:

The childbirth educator’s duty is to inform, not to talk women into or out of using an epidural. Many women will choose an epidural, when well informed of benefits, risks and alternatives; others will choose to avoid it if their labor allows.

Ms. Simkin and many other “natural” childbirth advocates are well aware that millions of women each year choose epidural for pain relief in labor, yet they are confident that women would make a different choice if they were fully informed.

Why does that sound familiar? Oh, I remember. That’s the same argument that the anti-choice forces make about abortion.

The anti-choice forces make the same pious argument in regard to abortion. Anti-choice advocates are well aware that more than a million women each year choose abortion, yet they are confident that women would make a different choice if they were fully informed.

According to the National Pro-Life Alliance:

Women’s “right to know” (informed consent) laws deal with this obvious conflict of interest by guaranteeing women receive critical information on the risks of abortion, such as infection, hemorrhage, danger to subsequent pregnancies, breast cancer, infertility, psychological consequences, and other dangers.

A Women’s Right to Know Act ensures that women are fully informed about adoption agencies, pregnancy care centers, medical assistance benefits, and the liability of the father to provide support.

It’s hardly surprising to find that their list of “cons” also contains a hodgepodge of “risks,” some utterly fabricated. The National Pro-Life Alliance has thoughtfully considered many, many things that women ought to know before choosing abortion:

* Thorough and accurate description of the nature of the proposed procedure.

* All physical and psychological risks involved in the abortion procedure versus carrying the pregnancy to term.

* A conflict of interest disclaimer disclosing what percentage of the clinic’s gross income is from abortion, as well as how much money the clinic stands to lose should she decide not to abort.

* Availability of adoption alternatives and financial help from the adoptive parents for prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care expenses.

* Medical assistance benefits that may be available for prenatal care, childbirth and neonatal care.

* Names and contact information for organizations that are willing to assist with the costs involved in carrying the pregnancy to term.

* Information on the liability of the father for child support…

At the time of each clinic consultation, a Women’s Right to Know law would also require that the mother be given relevant information about her unborn child and how the child would be affected by an abortion. This information would include:

* A sonogram of the unborn child.

* Probable gestational age of her unborn child, including provision of color photos of fetal development at 4-week increments.

* Description of the development of the child’s nerve endings and the child’s ability to feel pain at each stage of development.

* Relevant information on the potential survival of a child at its stage of development and the requirement of the doctor to take measures to save the life of the child should it be born alive.

Should we take the anti-choice forces at their word? Are they really interested in making sure women are informed about risks? The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-choice organization that provides information on reproductive health, doesn’t think so. In fact, they believe that anti-choice forces are really interested in “misinformed” consent:

Under the banner of informed consent, a majority of states have enacted abortion counseling laws requiring physicians to provide specified information to women seeking abortions. Many of these laws require the state health department to develop detailed written materials that must be distributed to women prior to the procedure.

An analysis of these state-developed materials demonstrates that they do not always measure up to the gold standard of informed consent. Particularly with regard to certain hot-button issues, the information presented is either out-of-date, biased or both. In some cases, the state goes so far as to include information that is patently inaccurate or incomplete, lending credence to the charge that states’ abortion counseling mandates are sometimes intended less to inform women about the abortion procedure than to discourage them from seeking abortions altogether. (my emphasis)

Anti-choice advocates do not hide their opposition to abortion, but they have learned that the majority of women do not share that opposition. They recognize that a frontal assault on abortion is doomed to failure. They have settled instead on undermining a woman’s right to choose by misinforming her about the “risks” and placing obstacles in her path under the guise of “informed consent.”

“Natural” childbirth advocates have enthusiastically followed the playbook of anti-choice activists. They recognize that the majority of women do not share their philosophical objection to pain relief in labor. They have acknowledged that a frontal assault on epidurals is doomed to failure. They have settled instead on undermining a women’s right to choose pain relief in labor by misinforming her of the “risks” and placing obstacles in her path under the guise of “informed consent.”

Such tactics are not merely disingenuous, they are unethical in regard to abortion, and they are unethical in regard to pain relief in labor.

I am horrifed by my most recent “award.” Not by the “award” itself; it’s the usual fact-free drivel that passes for humor among homebirth advocates:

I am very pleased to announce that the inaugural Wingnut Awards have been voted upon by JB [Joyous Birth] festival attendees, and that the following nominees have been successful in achieving the status of Wingnuttery…

The Wingnut Award for Online Contributions to the Homebirth Disinformation Campaign was awarded to Dr Amy. Congratulations Dr Amy! If anyone knows where we can send her certificate, please let us know!

… [C]ongratulations to the winners. Craptastic effort all round! Good thing there are still so many people happy to shoulder the burden of keeping women in our place or who knows what we might achieve?!

That’s your standard homebirth advocates’ charge against me, and, as usual, no one dares to site a specific instance of “disinformation” for fear that it will be shown that I am right and they are wrong.

No, I’m not horrified by the award; I’m horrified by the presenter, Janet Fraser, the leading Australian advocate of unassisted childbirth (stuntbirth). I’m distressed that any woman would consider sacrificing the life of her child for bragging rights, but I’m appalled that someone whose baby is actually dead as the result of her selfishness and self-absorption would go on being self-absorbed.

Janet Fraser, have you no shame? Your precious baby is dead and your refusal to seek prenatal care or assistance in birth is very likely to blame. And, amazingly, you are treating the entire subject as a big joke.

Fraser was interviewed in late March 2009, supposedly after labor with her third child had begun:

Janet Fraser is in labour… Has she called the hospital to let them know what’s happening? “When you go on a skiing trip, do you call the hospital to say, ‘I’m coming down the mountain, can you set aside a spot for me in the emergency room?’ I don’t think so,” says Fraser, whose breathing sounds strained.

This is pretty much where we end the conversation that started with me calling Fraser and asking if it was true that her organisation, Joyous Birth, was advocating that women go it alone giving birth at home, with no midwife or GP or bags of resuscitation gadgets.

“Free-birthing, plenty of women do it,” she says. In fact, Fraser is doing it right now. “I prefer to be an autonomous care-provider,” she says…

Janet Fraser’s son, 5, was planned as a home birth, but came into the world via an emergency caesarean after Fraser was transferred to hospital. Her daughter, 2, was born at home with a midwife attending.

Fraser is 40. She hasn’t seen a doctor or any health professional since becoming pregnant this time. No ultrasound, no genetic testing, no internal examinations, no stethoscope. Does she have any feeling for how long the labour will go? “I could do this for days. My daughter’s birth was 50-something hours. You just do it — it’s just birth, a normal physiological process.”

And death in childbirth is also a normal physiologic process, albeit less than ideal. It happens like this:

… [T]he natural water birth of her third child, a girl, at her home went horribly wrong in the early hours of March 27.

Ambulances were sent to the address following a triple-0 call made at 1.13am.

An ambulance service spokesman said paramedics were called to a Croydon Park address for a newborn baby who had suffered cardiac arrest and was not breathing.

Paramedics failed to revive the baby throughout the journey to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital at Camperdown.

“They were basically working on the baby all the way to the hospital,” the spokesman said.

Looking at Fraser’s website and blog, I can find no mention of the dead baby. Indeed, I can find no evidence that Fraser has publicly mentioned the baby since her death. Not only was the baby’s life erased by her mother’s tragic self-absorption; the baby’s very existence has been blotted out to continue the illusion that unassisted childbirth is safe and “joyous.”

But a full term baby who dies in labor should not be forgotten so easily. Tell us, Ms. Fraser, how joyous is the birth if the baby is dead?

You may remember Gloria Lemay. She’s the Canadian lay midwife with no formal training who has learned nothing from presiding over a number of homebirth deaths. Now she has graced us with an obnoxious post entitled 7 Step Recipe for Creating an Autistic Child:

1.Allow ultrasound technicians to “date” your pregnancy, see if you have twins, check the growth of your baby. Even one ultrasound affects your baby’s brain. Multiple ultrasounds will move cells in the brain around and also affect future generations of your family.

2.Eat whatever you like in pregnancy. Don’t take the time and trouble to study the effects of over-processed, high fat diets. Don’t worry about buying organic produce and meat.

3.Let your physician induce you. Induction drugs over-ride Nature’s pace of the birth process. They cause prolonged periods of oxygen deprivation similar to holding a pillow over your child’s face. Any form of hurrying you into the birth process or, once into it, hurrying the process faster than it goes naturally will damage cells in the baby’s brain.

4.Take pain-killing drugs during your child’s birth. Every anesthetic goes immediately to the baby so choose whatever one you like. The longer the baby is medicated, the more brain damage is done.

5.Continue on with the interventions in birth by having a cesarean, forceps or vacuum pull out of your baby. None of these procedures are gentle. All involve incredible traction on the baby’s neck and head. Sometimes all three are used on the same baby. Risks of all 3 are increased when inductions and epidurals were brought into the birth.

6.Once your baby is born, feed him/her solutions made by pharma giants like Mead Johnson.

7.Be sure to inject your baby with every toxic pharmaceutical vaccine that your doctor recommends. Don’t do any research. 36 vaccines is the modern North American child’s recommended allotment of mercury preserved toxic waste.

How amazing. Scientists have been puzzling for years over the cause of autistic spectrum disorders and the latest evidence points to a genetic component, but Ms. Lemay, with NO RESEARCH of any kind, believes that she has solved the problem. And, coincidentally, it turns out that autism is caused by interventions in childbirth.

It’s all so simple. Autism is caused by ultrasound. Wait, no, it’s caused by eating the wrong food in pregnancy. Oops, I spoke too soon, it’s caused by pitocin. No, silly me, it’s caused by epidurals. Wrong again, it’s caused by C-section.

Hmmm, maybe it isn’t caused by interventions in childbirth after all. It’s caused by formula. Wait, no, it’s caused by mercury in vaccinations. Vaccines no longer have mercury in them? No problem, it must be caused by the vaccinations themselves.

Ms. Lemay is another winner of coveted “Skeptical OB Stupidity Trifecta award”. As an ignorant person with no formal training in science, statistics or medicine, she boldly goes were no stupid person has gone before. And, as a special bonus, she manages to be thoroughly offensive at the same time.

Here is a little background on Ms. Lemay. The following excerpt is taken from the judgment issued by the Supreme Court of Canada:

Sullivan and Lemay were hired by JV to provide private pre-natal classes and to act as midwives during a home birth. Although Sullivan and Lemay had some experience with home births and had done background reading, they had no formal medical qualifications.

After five hours of second stage labour, the child’s head emerged and no further contractions occurred. Sullivan and Lemay attempted to stimulate further contractions but were unsuccessful. Direct pressure was applied to the uterus, causing soreness to the mother’s stomach and back and some bruising. Approximately twenty minutes later, Emergency Services were called and the mother was transported to the hospital. Within two minutes of arrival, an intern delivered the baby using what the trial judge characterized as “a basic delivery technique”. The child showed no signs of life and resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful.

Sullivan and Lemay were jointly charged with one count of criminal negligence causing death to the child of JV contrary to s. 203 of the Criminal Code, and a second count of criminal negligence causing bodily harm to JV contrary to s. 204. They were tried in the County Court of Vancouver and were found guilty on the first charge and were acquitted on the second charge.

Lemay has also been convicted of criminal contempt of court for practicing midwifery without appropriate training and without a license. According to the College of Midwives of British Columbia:

On January 4, 2002, BC Supreme Court Justice Blair found Lemay guilty of criminal contempt of court for attending ten births over a five-month period in defiance or the court injunction. At sentencing, the judge rejected Lemay’s lawyer’s request to impose a conditional sentence. The judge said he was not satisfied a conditional sentence would protect the safety of the public. “This is not an isolated breach but a continued series of breaches,” the judge said in his oral reasons for judgement.

Late in January of 2002, just weeks after being found guilty, Lemay managed another labour planned to be a home birth, which was later investigated by the police after the parents filed a complaint. This non-progressive labour went on for more than two days. Lemay is alleged to have performed a number of restricted acts during that time, including artificially rupturing the membranes. When meconium was apparent, Lemay is said to have stayed at home with the labouring mother for many more hours.

During sentencing the judge made note of this incident, pointing out that when the fetus became compromised Lemay failed to accompany the mother to Burnaby Hospital and told the mother not to mention Lemay’s name to hospital staff. An emergency cesarean was required.

Justice Blair indicated that this incident exacerbated Lemay’s problem and was indicative of her character.

Justice Blair also noted Lemay was previously found in contempt of court for refusing to give testimony at an inquest probing the 1994 death of a newborn in her care. The inquest found that the baby died of cardiac arrest as a result of an infection acquired during this birth attended by Lemay.

Lemay, legally sanctioned for negligence in the death of two babies, and informally acknowledged to be present at other homebirth deaths is considered an “expert” in the homebirth community. Her inane pronouncements are what passes for “education” among homebirth advocates. The fact that she thinks she is in a position to offer “advice” to anyone is scandalous. The fact that anyone would take her “advice” is absurd.

Ms. Lemay is right about one thing, though. If you hire her as a midwife and your baby dies as a result of her idiocy, it will not develop autism. Somehow I doubt that is comforting to the parents of the many dead babies she has delivered.

It’s not often that you find scary stories in scientific journals, but a new paper in the journal Microbiology offers a scary story indeed. Effect of subinhibitory concentrations of chloride on the competitiveness of Pseudomonas aeruginosa grown in continuous culture does not sound particularly menacing, but this paper raises the spectre that the antibacterial cleansers used every day to clean our homes and ourselves may lead to bacteria that are resistant not only to the cleansers but to powerful antibiotics as well.

Americans have become obsessed with “germs.” While there are certainly harmful bacteria and viruses that we would do well to avoid, the environment is full of bacteria and viruses that are harmless to humans. Antibacterial cleansers target all bacteria, regardless of whether or not they are harmful. That might be appropriate in the setting of the operating room, but it is excessive in non-medical settings. Yet manufacturers of anti-bacterial cleansers suggest otherwise:

Some days it seems like the kitchen is more than the center of your house—it’s the entire house. It’s the room where you and your family gather and where your “stuff” tends to end up too. No matter how much it becomes the hub of your home, the kitchen is still where you prepare and eat your meals—and where you are probably most concerned about bacteria and other germs spreading from surface to surface. That’s why we’ve invented a simple solution that will help you easily keep your kitchen clean and disinfected.

Clorox® Disinfecting Kitchen Cleaner kills 99.9% of common household the bacteria and other germs that can make your family sick. Plus, its bleach-free formula also cleans countertops, tabletops, and tough surfaces like stainless steel to a streak-free shine. It’s an effective formula you can use on almost any surface.*

Well, maybe antibacterial cleansers aren’t really necessary in the home, but there’s no harm, right? Actually, it seems like the widespread use of these cleansers has the potential to cause serious harm.

The active ingredient in Chlorox Disinfecting Kitchen Cleaner, and many other antibacterial cleansers, is benzalkonium chloride. The authors of the new paper suspected that Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria can become resistant to benzalkonium chloride if they are exposed to low concentrations of the chemical. In addition, they postulated that if bacteria became resistant to benzalkomium chloride,they would also become resistant against antibiotics that kill bacteria in similar ways.

If Pseudomonas is exposed to high concentrations of benzalkonium chloride, all the bacteria will die. However, if the bacteria are exposed to lower concentrations of benzalkonium chloride, some bacteria will die, but others will become resistant to the antibacterial cleanser. That, in itself, is worrying. If we continually wipe down our kitchen counters with benzalkonium chloride, Pseudomonas will eventually become resistant, making the antibacterial cleanser useless.

Even more concerning is the fact that the bacteria that became resistant to benzalkonium chloride also became resistant to the antibiotic ciprofloxin, even though the bacteria had not been exposed to ciprofloxin. It seems that the adaptation that allowed the bacteria to resist the effects of benzalkonium chloride also allows the bacteria to resist the action of ciprofloxin.

In other words, the use of the antibacterial cleanser eventually rendered the cleanser ineffective. That’s disturbing, but not surprising. What is surprising is that the bacteria that were resistant to the cleanser could no longer be killed by the antibiotic ciprofloxin. In attempting to make our environment safer, we may actually be making it far more dangerous.

The problem of antibiotic resistance has been known for decades and we have learned that antibiotics should only be used when absolutely necessary in order to limit the possibility of bacteria becoming resistant. This paper suggests that the same warning should apply to antibacterial cleansers as well. They should only be used when absolutely necessary, and not used indiscriminately to “keep your kitchen clean and disinfected.” The use of antibacterial cleansers is not merely unnecessary; it has the potential to be very harmful.