Behold birth rape!

According to HuffPo UK:

Birth rape, they call it … Rape is really to do with having your body disrespected, contorted against your wishes, without your consent. The way the medical establishment sees it is, when you’re on the hospital bed, you have already given consent. Some men say the same thing about the marital bed, or any bed that you get into with them.

There’s even a website called Birth Rape:

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]This isn’t the first attempt to censor me and it won’t be the last. It also won’t be effective.[/pullquote]

The idea of being raped while giving birth is difficult to imagine. In most people’s minds, rape means forced sexual intercourse where a penis is inserted, forcefully and without consent, into another person’s body. Some broaden that definition to include objects as well as body parts… And it doesn’t just happen in dark alleyways, bedrooms tinged with the smell of alcohol and ‘mixed signals’, or in war zones. It can (and does) happen in some of the most respected and revered institutions in the land – hospitals.

And another website called Birth Raped:

Birth rape is the violence and assault women are subjected to by those they are trusting to safely care for them while they give birth…

Those who abuse pregnant and birthing women under the guise of care giving need to be called to account. Sadly, most people are unwilling to admit women are routinely assaulted by doctors, nurses and midwives. Women need to tell their stories so that one day these abusers can’t hide behind claims of doing their jobs to avoid the legal and professional repercussions of their abuse.

In each case, natural childbirth advocates are claiming that the way they were treated during birth isn’t merely “like” rape; it is rape. I’m not aware of a single celebrity natural childbirth advocates criticizing the use of the term “birth rape” or cautioning that it is disrespectful to or triggering for women who have survived sexual assault.

You can understand, then, why I’m not moved by the faux outrage about my post pointing out that rape is natural; forced copulation occurs across the animal kingdom including humans and in some cases is an evolutionarily successful strategy. I noted that just because something is natural does not mean it it good or worthy of being emulated. Unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding may be natural, but rape is, too. At no point did I suggest that unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding are the same as rape or that rape is acceptable because it occurs in nature.

No matter. Those who fear me and the power of my words have set out to censor me. Kaci Dean CLC, Doula, Herbalist has set up a Change.org petition to get me banned from Facebook.

Who is Kaci?

Kaci is a birth/postpartum doula, placenta encapsulator, herbalist and certified lactation counselor. She has two beautiful daughters and 4+ years of personal breastfeeding experience. Her thirst for knowledge was born when she was left wanting more following the cesarean birth of her first baby. Her passion for birth and postpartum care bloomed after the gentle home birth of her second daughter. She strives for excellence in every aspect of her work and celebrates each client with the love and support every blossoming mother deserves.

Why should I be banned?

Amy regularly spreads false information (proven time and time again by science). She has been quoted as saying “rape is natural” and a “successful evolutionary strategy.”

But that’s not the real reason. As she acknowledged on her personal Facebook page, she just wants to shut me up:

Help me take down the Skeptical OB. I’m done with her trash littering our society.

For people like midwife Hannah Dahlen, it’s not enough to hide from me by blocking on social media, she is so afraid of what I say that she wants to prevent anyone from hearing it.

We are calling on Facebook to remove The Skeptical OB. I am all for debate and respectful disagreement but Dr Amy demeans, defames, attacks, insults and promotes ideas that are contrary to the evidence and recommendations. Her hatred for midwives, normal birth and homebirth and anyone who supports either of these is well known. It needs to stop #ENOUGH

I understand why they want to silence me. As Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee has observed:

The punitive gesture of censoring finds its origin in the reaction of being offended. The strength of being-offended … lies not in doubting itself; its weakness lies in not being able to afford to doubt itself.

They’re not really offended; their unwillingness to call out their own colleagues for comparing hospital birth and C-sections directly to rape makes it clear that it doesn’t matter how the word is used, just who is using it. They’re afraid of me and my critique of the many ways they bully women and profit from that bullying.

These natural mothering advocates are hardly the first to attempt to censor me and they won’t be the last.

As I wrote more than 6 years ago before embarking on a lawsuit against a blogger who tried to censor me:

…[T]here has never been any chance that The Skeptical OB would disappear. There may continue to be disruptions until the matter is sorted out, but my writing will continue to appear in the marketplace of ideas that is the Web.

It ain’t over ‘til it’s over and this ain’t over.

Pandemonium has broken out on my Facebook page because I dared to point out that rape is both natural and evolutionarily successful in some settings. Natural childbirth advocates and lactivists are so blinded by their kindergarten level view of evolution — everything natural must be good — that they are reeling in indignation.

The responses have ranged the tiny gamut from nonsensical to truly absurd. The nonsensical responses insist that since everything natural must be good and rape is bad, rape can’t possibly be natural. The absurd responses assert that rape doesn’t exist in the animal kingdom or among human beings prior to the development of advanced civilizations.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Pointing out that choking is natural does not make me a “choking apologist.” Similarly pointing out that rape is natural does not mean I think rape is good.[/pullquote]

But rape is hardly the only ugly, harmful thing that occurs in nature. Human beings are perfectly designed to choke.

Direct connections between the mouth, esophagus, and stomach put the lungs at risk for aspiration during swallowing and regurgitation, and excess gas can be swallowed. The pharynx and mouth are used in common for eating, vomiting, and breathing, and food and liquids entering the mouth must be diverted away from the lungs by the epiglottis to avoid flow into the lungs. Major and minor episodes of aspiration contribute to the terminal stages of many diseases, and aspiration appears to play a role in a variety of chronic disorders, such as cough, bronchial asthma, bronchiectasis, and pulmonary fibrosis…

It is a very poor design from an evolutionary point of view.

…[T]he crossing of the respiratory and digestive tracts in the human throat can cause death from choking on food. It would be better design — much safer in terms of survival — if our air and food passages were completely separate.

But evolution can only work with what exists:

…[A]ll vertebrates … from fishes to mammals on the phylogenetic tree … have crossing respiratory and digestive tracts… The crossing of passages is a historical legacy … Not in itself an adaptation, it is a by-product of selection’s having molded [current anatomy] from what came before.

Evolution does NOT produce perfection; working with existing structures and behaviors, it only produces “good enough.”

Just as crossing respiratory and digestive tracts are “good enough” to ensure the survival of the species, childbirth that has a high instrinsic mortality rates is also “good enough.” Similarly, breastfeeding that has a high rate of insufficient breastmilk is also “good enough.” Evolution does not lead to “perfect design”; it leads to imperfect design that is better than other possible adaptations given the constraints of existing design and the existing environment.

The erroneous view that evolution produces perfection was criticized by biologist Stephen J. Gould as the Panglossian paradigm. The paradigm references Pangloss, a character in Voltaire’s Candide who believes that “all is for the best in this best of all worlds.” In the context of evolution the Panglossian paradigm imagines that everything that exists in nature today is the product of intense natural selection and represents the perfect solution to a particular evolutionary problem.

The propensity for human beings to rape and murder each other is not a perfect solution or even a good solution to the problem of survival of the individual or the species. But it isn’t a bad solution, either, because evolutionary traits are neither good nor bad.

That’s why my pointing out that choking is natural does not mean that I am a “choking apologist” or think choking is a good thing. Similarly pointing out that rape is natural does not mean that that I am a rape apologist or that I think rape is good. The entire point of my piece is that whether or not something is natural tells us NOTHING about whether or not it is perfect or even good.

That’s why natural isn’t always good and technology is often better. Rape is natural and even evolutionarily beneficial in some circumstances. But technology allows us to catch and punish rapists severely. Unmedicated vaginal birth is natural and even evolutionarily beneficial in some circumstances. But technology like interventions and C-section allows us to dramatically lower both the neonatal and maternal mortality rates. Interventions and C-sections are often better than unmedicated vaginal birth. Breastfeeding is natural and even evolutionarily beneficial in some circumstances. But formula allows us to dramatically lower the infant mortality rate and in many circumstances is better than breastfeeding.

The bottom line is simple — so simple that even those with a kindergarten level understanding of evolution could understand: Just because something occurs in nature doesn’t make it good. Unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding are natural, but so are rape and choking.

“It’s natural.”

That’s often the beginning and the end of many arguments about the relative merits of C-sections and epidurals vs. unmedicated vaginal birth. It’s also supposed to be the beginning and the end of any argument about the relative merits of breastfeeding vs. formula.

The declaration “it’s natural” is presumed to have cricital advantages over other claims: being inarguable and reflecting science not morals. As natural childbirth and breastfeeding advocates delight in saying, “Facts are not attacks” and the claims that unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding are natural are certainly facts.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Is rape best because it is natural?[/pullquote]

“It’s natural” is also imagined to have prescriptive value. If it’s natural, it must be good because it is what we are “designed for.” Millions of years of evolution can’t be wrong, can it? That’s why we should “normalize” unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding. It is culture that has caused them to fall our of favor, but culture must bow down before nature.

So if unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding are best because they are natural, what does that tell us about rape? Rape is natural, too.

If we define rape as forced copulation, it isn’t merely natural among humans, it is natural throughout the animal kingdom.

From insects to birds to higher animals, reproduction in many species depends on the female choosing her mate. This evolutionary strategy involves females judging males for fitness based on species specific displays like plumage. The peacock with the most elaborate plumage is more attractive to peahens because they are fittest evolutionarily. A peacock with elaborate plumage will pass on its “fitter” genes to the peahens’ offspring.

In other species, males fight to demonstrate their evolutionary fitness with the winner claiming the right to mate with a specific female or all females within a harem. The strongest male is winner in more ways than one; not only does he get the mating opportunities, but he is able to spread his genes into more offspring. In evolution, the individual with the most offspring wins.

In species where females pick or accede to males based on fitness, rape represents an important evolutionary strategy for less fit males. Instead of leaving the choice of mate to the female, the male who forces copulation on a female who wouldn’t otherwise choose him is given a chance to spread his genes that he wouldn’t otherwise get. If he is a successful rapist, he will father many offspring. Rape offers this male an extra opportunity to be an evolutionary winner. So rape isn’t merely natural in such settings, it is a winning strategy.

If unmedicated vaginal birth is best and breast is best, then rape must be best, too!

That can’t be right, can it?

It can’t and it isn’t and the reasons demonstrate why unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding aren’t necessarily best, either.

Evolutionary fitness is all about leaving the most offspring who survive to adulthood. Nature is agnostic as to how that is accomplished.

For example, if the successful moose rapist leaves more offspring than the moose who battled all the other males to win the right to mate, the rapist is the winner. Moreover, he didn’t have to risk his health or his life for the opportunity to mate.

Similarly, nature doesn’t care how a mother and baby survives childbirth, only IF they survive childbirth. Nature doesn’t care whether or not a baby is breastfed, only that the baby is FED.

While specific strategies may be evolutionarily better overall, ignoring those strategies may be better for individuals.

Letting females choose their mates may lead to greater success for a species as a whole, but each individual within the species is struggling to pass on his genes and success for him might require rape.

It makes no difference to the individual woman or baby whether unmedicated vaginal birth or breastfeeding is a successful strategy for the species overall. To them, it only matters if they survive. If C-sections and formula increase the chance of survival, then they are better.

What is adaptive in one setting can be maladaptive in another.

Rape may be an evolutionarily successful strategy among animals. It is less likely to be successful in human societies that have laws to prevent cuckholding. While a rapist in human society might be successful if not caught, he might be killed in a society that punishes rapists with death.

Unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding were the most successful of all possible strategies among human beings until the advent of technology. Now that technology can improve upon or even replace natural processes, refusing to use lifesaving technology is maladaptive.

Just because a tactic is evolutionarily successful doesn’t make it good, particularly when considering the victim.

Males stand to benefit when they rape. The species as a whole may benefit, too, since valuable traits that aren’t connected with display or strength may be carried on. There does not seem to be any benefit at all for the female who was raped; she is deprived of the opportunity to make her own mating choice and she was violated and perhaps injured. Just because rape is natural, doesn’t make it something we wish to emulate or even allow.

Similarly, unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding can be natural, but that doesn’t make them best nor something we can or should wish to emulate; that’s especially true because the natural deprives women of the opportunity to make the choices they deem best for themselves.

The bottom line?

Natural isn’t best, even in nature.

It’s good for some, bad for others, and therefore nobody else’s business what a woman chooses for herself.

Can you imagine the American College of Obstetrician-Gynecologists insisting that they must support the practice of routine episiotomies — even though they harm women — because obstetricians like them? I can’t. That would be deeply unethical.

Can you imagine the The American Academy of Otolaryngology insisting that they must support the practice of routine tonsillectomies — even though the risks to children’s lives far outweigh any possible benefit — because Ear, Nose and Throat specialists profit from them? I can’t. That would be deeply unethical.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Supporting “safe” bedsharing is no different from supporting “safe” drunk driving.[/pullquote]

Can you imagine the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine insisting they must support the practice of routine bed sharing — even though it kills babies — because lactation professionals like it?

Despite the fact that would be deeply unethical, you don’t have to imagine it. Incredibly, for lactation professionals, promoting breastfeeding is more important than whether babies live or die.

The ABM has made their ugly position clear in a recent commentary by Ann Kellams, MD.

She starts with a lie:

…[T]he recommendations for infant feeding and safe sleep can be confusing and may appear to be at odds with one another.

There is NOTHING confusing about the recommendations for safe infant sleep. Every pediatric and public health organization — valuing babies lives above whether or not they breastfeed — is very clear that bedsharing kills babies and should NOT be practiced.

In contrast, every major lactation organization — valuing breastfeeding over whether babies lives or die — supports the deadly practice of bedsharing.

They have lots of excuses:

We know that mothers who bedshare with their infant breastfeed for longer. We also know that where babies start off the night is not always where they end up in the morning. We know that breastfeeding is protective against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), but also that bedsharing may pose a risk for a sleep-related infant death, particularly in the setting of other risk factors such as prenatal smoking, formula feeding, maternal substance use, sedating medications, maternal obesity, prematurity, and the presence of soft bedding in the sleep environment. Some organizations recommend bedsharing as a means of supporting breastfeeding and cite data about the physiologic patterns and postures of mothers and babies when they bedshare…

So what? How does that justify hundreds of preventable infant deaths each year? It DOESN’T.

Dr. Kellams seems to think we face an ethical conundrum:

What then is a mother to do? And how as physicians should we counsel them?

There is no conundrum. The ethical position for doctors is to counsel mothers that bedsharing might kill their babies. The ethical position for mothers is to try to prevent bedsharing in order to avoid the deaths of their babies.

But Dr. Kellams and the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine apparently believe that promoting breastfeeding is more important than preventing infant deaths. For them, a few hundred dead babies each year pales into insignificance compared to goosing exclusive breastfeeding rates higher. Why? Because breastfeeding is “healthier.” They seem neither to know nor care that dead babies can’t breastfeed.

No matter. Is a flourish of mind-blowing hypocrisy, Dr. Kellams suggest that we should “listen to mothers.”

That’s hilarious! The same people who insist that we should NOT listen to women who don’t wish to breastfeed and utterly ignore those women who report pain, exhaustion and insufficient breastmilk as reasons for choosing formula suddenly think we should “listen” to mothers who bedshare? The same people who insist that we should hammer new mothers with masses of information about the benefits of breastfeeding, force them into hospital settings in which they will be pressured to breastfeed and shame them for not breastfeeding expect us to believe they care at all about what mothers think?

But Dr. Kellams and the ABM are undeterred:

…Starting with listening can help the physician determine the level of risk given the particular situation and tailor the education and advice. Even the organizations that recommend no bedsharing recognize that mothers are at risk of falling asleep while feeding and that the safest place to fall asleep while feeding is an adult bed with a flat, firm mattress and no soft bedding, i.e. pillows, blankets, or comforters in the environment. The groups that advocate for bedsharing as a strategy for successful breastfeeding also caution about soft bedding, the gestational age of the infant, breastfeeding vs. formula feeding, the avoidance of smoking and sedating medications or substances, etc…

By that “reasoning,” we should listen to drunk drivers.

Can you imagine ANY physician advocating counseling those who habitually drive drunk to make sure their brakes are in working order and buckle their seatbelts because they are probably going to drive drunk anyway?

What would you think of any physician who insisted that the key to preventing drunk driving deaths was to support safe drunk driving? I imagine you would conclude that such physicians were behaving unethically.

And what would you think of such a physician if you learned that she earned a substantial proportion of her income from bar owners and purveyors of alcoholic beverages in exchange for promoting drunk driving? I don’t know about you, but I would conclude she had a massive conflict of interest and that her “advice” should be ignored as utterly self-serving.

Because that’s what is going on here. The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has a massive conflict of interest. They profit from promoting breastfeeding regardless of who gets hurt — or who dies! — in the process.

They should be ashamed of themselves.

But that would require valuing babies lives above breastfeeding. Unfortunately, they appear so blinded by their own interests that they consider a few hundred dead babies a year a small price to pay to promote breastfeeding.

When you spell it out, it sounds appalling. The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, designed to promote breastfeeding, is very unfriendly to mothers, dangerous to babies, and ignores the scientific evidence. Why then has it become so popular?

A new philosophy paper, Understanding the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative: A Multi-disciplinary Analysis, attempts to answer this question.

The authors take great pains to soft pedal the ugly realities and — in an effort to protect themselves against the inevitable lactivist accusation that they must “hate” breastfeeding — repeatedly insist that they support breastfeeding.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Why has the BFHI — unfriendly to mothers, dangerous to babies, and contemptuous of scientific evidence — become so widespread and politically correct?[/pullquote]

Wading through the apologetic language makes it clear that the BFHI is unfriendly to mothers:

…[S]ome women claim that Baby-Friendly policies have contributed to negative postpartum experiences, arguing that Baby-Friendly hospitals are not “mom-friendly.” For example, some mothers report that they are being inappropriately pressured to breastfeed, or express frustration with hospitals who refuse to provide or support formula supplementation. In addition, mothers have argued that 24-7 rooming-in practices do not take seriously the needs of mothers to rest and recover …

[I]n a survey of postpartum patients in a Baby-Friendly Hospital, 28% responded “neutral or disagree” when asked if they could rest and recover in the hospital. Among mothers who had decided to formula feed, 26% reported feeling shamed for the decision to formula-feed and 37.5% did not feel adequately informed about formula-feeding.

Moreover, with its insistence that “breast is best” for every mother and baby, the BFHI fails to provide appropriate understanding and support for women at high risk of poor outcomes:

For example, staff at the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Women’s Mental Health have described Baby-Friendly policies as being insensitive to the needs of patients who are at elevated risk for postpartum depression, as such mothers are particularly in need of time to rest and recover after delivery…

If that weren’t bad enough, the BFHI places babies at risk for deadly complications because it ignores scientific evidence:

…For instance, researchers have reported that there may be a link between skin-to-skin contact in the hours after birth, which is promoted by BFHI policies, and Sudden Unexpected Post-Natal Collapse (SUPC), a life-threatening condition for a newborn. Additionally, the emphasis on breastfeeding, together with rooming-in policies, may encourage unsafe co-sleeping practices by postpartum mothers, some of whom are recovering from major surgery. Finally, current Baby-Friendly policies ban pacifier use, even though pacifiers appear to lower the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.

How could a program that treats mothers badly and poses deadly risks to babies have become both popular and politically correct? It reflects our cultural construction of motherhood:

…[O]ur normative conceptions of motherhood dispose us to undervalue and overlook maternal interests when benefit to children is at stake, and thus we overlook the costs of BFHI practices to mothers, or treat these costs as obviously acceptable given the potential health benefits …

How could a program that places babies at risk of serious injuries and death have been allowed to continue?

Since the modern breastfeeding movement began in the 1950s, some advocates have embraced the argument that breastfeeding is natural, and that natural things are endowed with a kind of biological morality that makes them superior, better, and healthier by default… This view of breastfeeding as natural, and of “the natural” as superior, healthier, and less risky may help to explain how questions of safety for mothers and infants have been left unasked, and may have shaped the creation, implementation and support for the BFHI.

Rather than addressing the problems inherent in the BFHI, the process of implementation has amplified them:

…[U]nlike research science, which emphasizes well-designed studies and careful analysis, quality improvement emphasizes quick implementation of what is termed “best practices.” The motivation for this approach is based on two beliefs: first, that healthcare faces a quality crisis in which patients are routinely poorly served and, second, that scientific research proceeds too slowly to be of practical benefit. Thus, instead of waiting for research science to conclusively prove the benefit of an intervention, the emphasis in quality improvement is on learning from “success stories” at other facilities… This process typically unfolds over a period of months, and it is contrary to the norms of the field to wait for an extensive evidentiary base to be developed.

Institutionalization leads to “one size fits all” policies:

…[Q]uality improvement places great emphasis on the standardization of care pathways… [P]ressure towards standardization can lead providers to overlook subpopulations of mothers who are ill-served by the standard approach, such as those suffering from depression or anxiety.

…[W]hile some quality improvement initiatives are small and flexible, … others are embedded in multi-layered institutional structures… As quality improvement work becomes more institutionalized, with multiple layers between practitioners and administrators, it also becomes less flexible. In the case we have been discussing, first-line practitioners have identified a potential problem with the existing intervention—it may not be well-suited for mothers with depression—but they are effectively powerless to act on this knowledge. If they stop following the standard protocol for these mothers, they will damage their TJC accreditation scores, and possibly endanger the accreditation of the hospital as a whole…

The ultimate irony of the BFHI is that a program that was designed to facilitate choice for mothers has become a program that pressures mothers to make only ONE approved choice. A program designed to give women the option and support for breastfeeding has become a program to pressure women into breastfeeding. A program designed to give mothers the option of rooming in with babies has become a program that forces women to take full responsibility for the care of babies before they have recovered physically from birth.

The authors offer specific suggestions for improving the BFHI:

First, because an ethic of total motherhood encourages new mothers to downplay their own interests, the BFHI should counteract this tendency by including language which recognizes and values the interests of mothers…

Second, we have argued that institutional pressures tend towards one-size-fits-all policies which become institutionally rigidified. One way to counteract this would be to explicitly acknowledge, within the Ten Steps, that mothers have diverse needs and preferences…

Third, while we believe it is possible for breastfeeding promotion to be conducted in ways which respect the full diversity of maternal interests, we are pessimistic about breastfeeding promotion within medical contexts which are subject to compliance-oriented quality improvement…

This paper is timely, thoughtful, acknowledges the dismal realities of the BFHI and suggests correctives.

In my view, however, it ignores two critical factors. In an effort to ward off the inevitable accusation that they authors “hate” breastfeeding, they repeatedly affirm their support for breastfeeding without ever addressing the fact that most claims of benefits for term babies in industrialized societies have been debunked. The reality is that breastfeeding is not beneficial enough to warrant major efforts to increase breastfeeding rates.

The second omission is more problematic. Although the authors address the institutionalization of the BFHI, they fail to acknowledge the monetization of breastfeeding support and the resulting economic conflict of interest between lactation consultants’ desire to increase demand for their services and women’s desires to control their own bodies and make the feeding choices that are best for their specific circumstances.

Nonetheless, the authors have performed a valuable service is setting out the parameters of the debate. Why has the BFHI — unfriendly to mothers, dangerous to babies, and contemptuous of scientific evidence — become so widespread and politically correct? Because of outmoded views about women, erroneous views about natural processes, and the imperatives of large institutions, not because it’s best for babies … since often it isn’t.

The best selling non-fiction book of 1974 was Maribel Morgan’s Total Woman.

The Total Woman is a self-help book for married women by Marabel Morgan published in 1973… Overall, it sold more than ten million copies… [I]t taught that “A Total Woman caters to her man’s special quirks, whether it be in salads, sex or sports,” and is perhaps best remembered for instructing wives to greet their man at the front door wearing sexy outfits; suggestions included “a cowgirl or a showgirl.” “It’s only when a woman surrenders her life to her husband, reveres and worships him and is willing to serve him, that she becomes really beautiful to him,” Morgan wrote.

The book grew out of an “insight” from Morgan’s own marriage: She could have a happy husband and conflict free marriage only if she knuckled under to her husband’s every whim.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It is no longer fashionable for women to imagine themselves as chattel of the patriarchy. Instead, they are taught to imagine themselves as the slaves and doormats of their children.[/pullquote]

The Total Woman embraced four basic principles:

…ignoring the mistakes of the husband and focusing on his virtues, admiring him physically, appreciating him, and adapting to the idea that the husband was the king …

For example:

For both Marabel and her followers, sex is a vital part of the TW treatment: …[wives] are told to be ready and willing for love-making at any hour … (Marabel herself reveals that she has seduced Charlie under the dining-room table by candlelight (“A very creative girl,” he brags) and sent sexy notes to his office.

Other homework assignments include greeting husbands in provocative costumes. One woman stripped to the buff and wound herself in Saran Wrap and a big red ribbon. An NFL player, whose wife had taken the Total Woman course, decided to reverse the game plan and met her at the door wearing only a hair ribbon, an apron and galoshes.

The difference between a Total Woman and any other wife was not what she was willing to do, however, but why she was willing to do it. It’s the difference between being turned on by dressing in a sexy maid’s costume and being humiliated by being forced to dress in a sexy maid’s costume; it’s the difference between welcoming sex and submitting to unwelcome sex.

In order to ensure a successful marriage and a happy husband, a Total Woman must turn herself into her husband’s doormat, servant, and always willing sex slave. The Total Woman understood husbands had needs that must take precedence over anything a wife could possibly want.

The philosophy of the Total Women didn’t merely subjugate women; it made women the agents of their own subjugation.

From our vantage point in 2019, it’s easy to understand that The Total Woman was a backlash to the women’s liberation movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Led by activists like Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and the lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg, women were asserting the right to make decisions for themselves based on their own needs and desires. They would no longer accept that their role was limited to being chattel of the patriarchy.

It’s less obvious that the “Total Mother” (aka the “natural” mother) is the contemporary iteration of knuckling under to the patriarchy. In most circles, particularly on the Left, it is no longer fashionable for women to imagine themselves as chattel of the patriarchy. Instead, they are taught to imagine themselves as the slaves and doormats of their children.

As Joan Wolf has written:

…Total motherhood is a moral code in which mothers are exhorted to optimize every dimension of children’s lives, beginning with the womb, and its practice is frequently cast as a trade-off between what mothers might like and what babies and children must have. When mothers have wants, such as a sense of bodily, emotional, and psychological autonomy, but children have needs, such as an environment in which anything less than optimal is framed as perilous, good mothering is construed as behavior that reduces even minuscule or poorly understood risks to offspring, regardless of potential cost to the mother.

The underlying assumption of Total Motherhood is that in order to have happy children, a mother must surrender herself to the agony of childbirth (even going so far as to pretend that it is isn’t painful; it’s pleasurable), surrender her body to extended, exclusive breastfeeding for years at a time, and surrender her entire life to continuous proximity to her child whether awake (baby wearing) or asleep (family bed).

Moreover:

…[W]omen’s needs — to work, control their bodies, or sustain an identity independent of their children — become “weaknesses in individual maternal character, to be corrected through educational messages”. This kind of reasoning, which implies that either ignorance, cowardice, or selfishness is behind a mother’s decision not to do what is best for her baby, rests firmly on assumptions about total motherhood …

The difference between a Total Mother and any other mother is not what she is willing to do, however, but why she is willing to do it. It’s the difference between not wanting an epidural and being denied (or denying oneself) an epidural; it’s the difference between breastfeeding because you want to and breastfeeding because you feel you must; it’s the difference between choosing to give up job or career to stay home with your children and being forced (or forcing oneself) to give them up because that’s what “good mothers” are supposed to do.

It is not an accident that philosophy of natural childbirth was created by a misogynist (Grantly Dick-Read) who wanted to force women out of public life and back into the home. It is not an accident that La Leche League was created by traditionalist religious women who thought convincing women to breastfeed would force them out of public life and back into the home. It is not an accident that attachment parenting was promulgated by Bill and Martha Sears who insist that “wives should submit to their husbands in everything…”

The best part from the point of view of the patriarchy? The philosophy of the Total Mother doesn’t merely subjugate women; it makes women the agents of their own and other women’s subjugation.

Although natural childbirth advocates, including midwives like Sheena Byrom and Hannah Dahlen imagine themselves as empowering women, they are subjugating them by normalizing childbirth agony.

Although lactivists like Amy Brown pretend to themselves that they are empowering women, they are subjugating them by normalizing suffering and exhaustion.

Although activists like Jennifer Block and Alisa Alpert whom I wrote about yesterday believe they are empowering women by pretending that postpartum depression is a metaphysical conundrum instead of a medical illness, they are subjugating them. They wish to offer “support” and services whose only purpose is to allow women to ignore their own needs and desires and focus on those of their children.

The Total Woman taught that women could find true happiness only by submitting to their husbands. The philosophy of the Natural Mother teaches that women can find true happiness by submitting to their children’s every need or desire, no matter how trivial. Although they may seem very different, they are fundamentally united: both are predicated on the belief that women’s role in the world is to serve others, never themselves.

To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a natural childbirth advocate, everything looks like an opportunity to push her agenda.

It was ugly when natural childbirth advocates expropriated the tragedy of maternal mortality among women of color — a tragedy largely rooted in socio-economic conditions — to claim, falsely, that these deaths reflect the failure of modern obstetrics. Their solution? Providing the natural childbirth services that privileged women want.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Jennifer Block’s recent piece on postpartum depression is cruel, deadly, self-serving bullshit![/pullquote]

Now it’s ugly when Jennifer Block and Alisa Alpert (a natural childbirth celebrity and doula respectively) are trying to expropriate the tragedy of postpartum depression — a tragedy of serious psychiatric illness — to claim, falsely, that it is the result of the pressures of capitalist societies. Their solution? You guessed it! Providing the natural childbirth and lactivist services that privileged women want.

Referring to the first ever approved drug for the treatment of postpartum depression, Block and Alpert write:

Postpartum depression is a serious problem, affecting, by some estimates, one in nine American mothers. It can be incredibly painful and is believed to be a growing cause of maternal deaths in the year following a birth. Insurers are expected to cover the exorbitant cost of Zulresso, which suggests that there’s finally a will to address our country’s dismal record on maternal health. Hurray!

But if we really want to tackle postpartum depression, we need more than a drug…

The clinical definition of postpartum depression is a “medical complication of childbirth,” but this doesn’t take into account women’s emotional lives, and the fact that the way our culture treats some new mothers amounts to abuse.

That, not to put too fine a point on it, is bullshit!

What is postpartum depression?

Postpartum depression (PPD), the onset of depressive episodes after childbirth, is the most common postnatal neuropsychiatric complication. Postpartum depression affects 10% to 20% of women after delivery, regardless of maternal age, race, parity, socioeconomic status, or level of education.

It is NOT the mild, self limited alteration in mood experienced by many women in the postpartum period:

Postpartum blues occurs in 50% to 80% of new mothers. Signs and symptoms appear within 1 to 2 days postpartum and include depressed mood, anxiety, tearfulness, irritability, poor appetite, and sleep problems. These changes are mild and resolve spontaneously within 10 to 14 days …

In contrast, symptoms of postpartum depression include: persistent depression, persistent loss of interest and pleasure in previous enjoyable activities, changes in appetite, changes in sleep, persistent fatigue, difficulty concentrating, feelings of worthlessness, thoughts of suicide.

In other words, postpartum depression is major clinical depression in the peripartum period.

It is critically important to understand that while any major depression, including postpartum depression, can be exacerbated by socio-economic problems, socio-economic problems do NOT cause major depression including postpartum depression. It is a MEDICAL ILLNESS with an ORGANIC cause, even if we don’t yet know the exact cause. As anyone who has ever loved or cared for a person with major depression learns, no amount of love and support can prevent it, treat it or cure it. Only therapy and medication can do that.

A drug that can treat postpartum depression specifically is a major medical breakthrough! I have no idea how well it works or whether it will work at all, but it marks an important milestone: a recognition that postpartum depression is a disease.

Not according to Block and Alpert:

Pregnant women are often pickled in horror stories about birth, then subjected to unnecessarily intrusive care. Many suffer pelvic trauma; one in three wind up with major abdominal surgery. Then they are sent home with a newborn, typically without support. According to 2015 data, a quarter of women return to work in two weeks. Everyone says that “breast is best,” but new mothers get a decent place to pump at work only if they’re lucky. Most won’t see their doctor again for six weeks. No wonder depression is so common.

As one mother we know who plans to quit her job (because she can afford to) said about the lack of parental support in this country: “It’s just so mean.”

A new expensive drug is not enough; we need humane, evidence-based maternity care, respect for the “fourth trimester,” months if not years of paid parental leave, and affordable child care.

Bullshit! Bullshit!! Bullshit!!!

Postpartum depression exists in every time, place and culture: those with high C-section rates and those without access to C-sections; those in which mothers return to economic employment and those where they are not allowed to work; those with high breastfeeding rates and those with low breastfeeding rates; those with easy access to doctors’ visits and those with no doctors; those with evidence based maternity care and those without; those that provide copious postpartum support and those with none; those that provide parental leave and those that don’t; those that provide affordable childcare and those that provide no childcare of any kind.

That’s because it is a MEDICAL ILLNESS with an ORGANIC cause, not a barometer of socio-economic conditions.

Block and Alpert write:

We’d be foolish to believe that any drug is the magic fix that will once and for all end the metaphysical conundrum of experiencing fear, sadness, anger and despair during the most vulnerable time of our lives.

Bullshit! Postpartum depression is NOT a metaphysical conundrum any more than schizophrenia is.

If insurers are willing to throw down tens of thousands of dollars for a mother’s mental health, we can think of some alternatives that might have a better cost-benefit ratio: Six months paid leave. A live-in doula and a private sleep-training coach. Weekly massages and pelvic-floor rehab sessions. Relocation to a commune in the Bahamas.

Would they dare recommend six months paid leave, a live-in doula, weekly massage and a tropical vacation as a cure treatment for schizophrenia? I doubt it because they understand that schizophrenia is a serious psychiatric illness, not a manifestation of stress. Postpartum depression is a serious psychiatric illness, too, and pretending that a tropical vacation could prevent, treat or cure it is both flip and disrespectful.

In the meantime, we fear that Zulresso is just a stopgap, and yet another instance of pathologizing a very sane reaction to our very insane culture.

Bullshit! Cruel, deadly, self-serving bullshit!

In the 21st Century United States we speak disparagingly of superstition. Superstition is supposedly a feature of backward, indigenous cultures, not our culture.

According to Wikipedia:

Superstition is a pejorative term for any belief or practice that is considered irrational or supernatural: for example, if it arises from ignorance, a misunderstanding of science or causality, a positive belief in fate or magic, or fear of that which is unknown.

But industrialized cultures have supersitions, too. We just call them urban legends.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Only those privileged with easy access to the technology of vaccination could indulge the nonsensical fantasy that natural immunity is best.[/pullquote]

Like superstitions, they are usually irrational, involving a misunderstanding of science or causality.

Like superstition they seek to explain observed phenomena in a way comprehensible to those without advanced education.

And like superstition, it often gives believers the illusion that they have more control over bad things that could happen to them than they really do.

Superstitions include things like black cats, walking under ladders and opening umbrellas indoors. Avoiding them is supposed to prevent bad luck. But since there is no way that they could cause bad luck in the first place, avoidance as a preventative merely gives the comforting illusion of control over the uncontrollable. Only the “unsophisticated” could possibly believe that and even they have trouble defending these beliefs in a rational way.

Urban legends, in contrast, are imagined by their believers, including sophisticated believers, to be true.

There are other significant differences:

Unlike superstitions that are generally spread by word of mouth, urban legends are spread by technology — talk radio, FoxNews and especially social media like Facebook.

In contrast to superstitions, they are often about technology.

They tend to invoke conspiracies in which agents of technology use that technology to harm a gullible public.

Indeed, urban legends are only possible among the technologically privileged.

What does any of this have to do with mothering?

Nearly everything encompassed by “natural mothering” has an urban legend at its heart, an urban legend that could only be believed by the technologically privileged.

Only those with easy access to modern obstetrics could believe the urban legend that “normal” birth is best.

Only those with easy access to formula and clean water could believe the urban legend that ‘breast is best.”

Only those with easy access to a steady supply of safe, nutritious food could believe the urban legend that organic food is best.

In other words, only the technologically privileged have the luxury of fantasizing natural is best.

The ultimate urban legend of our time, of course, is anti-vaccine advocacy. Only those privileged with easy access to the technology of vaccination could indulge the nonsensical fantasy that natural immunity is best.

Anti-vax has many of the classic attributes of urban legends:

The teller of an urban legend may claim it happened to a friend (or to a friend of a friend), which serves to personalize, authenticate and enhance the power of the narrative …

All anti-vaxxers have a friend, a friend of a friend, or a Facebook friend whose child was completely normal until he or she received a vaccine or multiple vaccines.

Many urban legends depict horrific crimes, contaminated foods, or other situations which would potentially affect many people.

The implicit message of anti-vax propaganda is always that this could happen to you or your child. And when it happens, it is the result of a vast global conspiracy involving nearly the entire medication profession, pharmaceutical industry and public health apparatus of every country in the world!

Anyone believing such stories might feel compelled to warn loved ones.

Anti-vaxxers imagine their ravings as a public service.

Persistent urban legends often maintain a degree of plausibility …

The idea that vaccines could cause autism or other serious side effects is theoretically possible, but it has been debunked so often and so comprehensively that it has been proven to be untrue.

But the key feature of the anti-vax urban legend is technological privilege. Anti-vaxxers invariably have no personal experience of nature. Anti-vax beliefs can only take root and flourish in societies that are capable of nearly eradicating diseases by vaccination. No one who has personal experiences of diseases like tetanus, diphtheria, polio, pertussis and measles could be ignorant enough to believe they aren’t dangerous or were disappearing before the advent of vaccines.

Only those who have no direct experience of nature as it existed before technology — not “nature” imagined as lovely vacation spots — could be gullible enough to imagine that nature creates perfection or cares whether you live or die. “Nature is red in tooth and claw” is more than poetry. Evolution, by definition, involves the survival of the fittest, which sounds nicer than acknowledging that most animals (humans included) ended up as dinner for other animals, possibly before but often after being weakened by injury, disease or age.

The same goes for birth, breastfeeding and food:

Survival of the fittest means that massive numbers of women died in childbirth often after agonizing, unproductive labors that lasted days before infection set in or the uterus ruptured leading to hemorrhage that killed both baby and mother.

Survival of the fittest means that massive numbers of babies died from insufficient breastmilk, suffering days or weeks of hunger before slowly starving to death, or being carried off by disease.

Survival of the fittest means that in a world of no fertilizers or large scale industrial production, famine and the resulting human misery were common, slowly and painfully killing massive numbers of people.

Survival of the fittest means that in a world dependent on natural immunity, massive numbers of children died of vaccine preventable diseases before they reached the age of 10. Even those fit enough to reach that age could be carried off at any moment by smallpox, plague or even flu.

Anti-vax is the ultimate urban legend: it is based on misunderstanding of both science and causality, is propagated by technological media, and imparts a false sense of control over bad outcomes where no control exists. Only those so insulated from nature by technological privilege could even pretend that natural is best.

Is there anyone more patronizing then the doctor who visits an indigenous culture and — imagining himself as doing nothing but good — goes where he is not wanted, is a poor guest, allows personal goals to take priority over the goals of the natives, fails to match technology to the needs of the local population, neglects to create a follow up plan and leaves a mess behind when he departs? In other words, the patronizing doctor provides what he believes the benighted patient needs, leaving the patient without what she needs, and then decamps back to civilization congratulating himself on a job well done.

Amazingly it is possible that there are people who are even more patronizing than such doctors; they are midwives and lactation professionals.

They, too, believe themselves to be on humanitarian misssions to enlighten the natives and gift them with what they imagine to be their priceless services. But in their case, the “indigenous culture” is our own and the benighted patients are women who have not been captured by natural childbirth and lactivists ideologies. When their services are not greeted with the unalloyed gratitude they expected, they are shocked, angered and hurt. There is much they could learn from the mistakes doctors have made.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Apparently, the problem with patronizing medical professionals was not that they were patronizing, but that midwives and lactation consultants weren’t the patronizing professionals![/pullquote]

As a paper on the deadly sins of humanitarian medical missions by Welling et al. explains:

This article is in no way meant to denigrate the good works of those who participate in humanitarian missions. We salute all those in these sorts of activities, realizing that there often is real sacrifice made, including the sacrifice of time, money, and equipment… We have great respect for all who go forth to serve. Surely those who aspire to help others almost always do so with honorable intent, and almost never set out to satisfy selfish desires. However, despite our good intentions, mistakes continue to be made …

These same principles apply equally to many midwives and lactation professionals. They believe that by promoting “normal” birth and breastfeeding, they are engaged in a humanitarian mission of the highest order. They often make real sacrifices and they do so with honorable intents. Yet, in doing so, they make terrible mistakes that harm women and babies.

The authors highlight the dangers of patronizing behavior:

As to how one should conduct oneself when on a humanitarian mission, a dose of humility might get us off on the right foot as we begin. Anything that looks like boorish behavior, or condescension, or a patronizing attitude … is detrimental to our efforts and will leave an unpleasant memory of us for those who would be our patients and our colleagues… We should go with the desire to see a different way to render care, instead of insisting that our way is the only correct way possible.

This is good advice for doctors heading to developing countries and it is good advice for midwives and lactation consultants heading to maternity wards.

There is no place for boorish behavior (denying epidurals, grabbing women’s breasts without consent); there is no place for condescension (imaging women who don’t want unmedicated vaginal births or who don’t want to breastfeed as ignorant victims of the medical patriarchy); and there is no place for patronizing attitudes (“C-sections aren’t real births,” “Fed is Minimal”). They leave women with trauma, not gratitude. There are other ways to render good care than natural childbirth and lactivist ideologies.

Furthermore, in humanitarian missions:

Motives should be questioned. We ought to aggressively plan activities that will do the most good for our patients, and we ought to shun those activities that are more designed for our own personal aggrandizement…

Midwives and lactation professionals need to question their own motives. Are midwives promoting unmedicated vaginal birth because it is truly a “one size fits all” benefit or because it enhances midwives’ power relative to other medical professionals? Are lactation consultants aggressively pressuring women to breastfeed because breastfeeding is a “one size fits all” way to maximize infant and maternal health or because it enhances lactation consultants’ employment opportunities?

Most importantly, doctors on humanitarian missions should go to the patients who want to be treated, not to populations who don’t want their skills. They should provide the services that patients want, not the services that the doctors want to give.

Midwives should care for the patients who prize unmedicated vaginal birth, not force patients who want epidurals and C-sections to have unmedicated vaginal births. Lactation consultants should be providing their services to women who want to breastfeed, not forcing everyone to accept their services so that they can pressure everyone to breastfeed.

Doctors on humanitarian missions should respect local traditions, not seek to replace them with the values of industrialized societies. They should treat patients from developing countries as autonomous individuals fully capable of making decisions about their own bodies.

Similarly, midwives should respect the “traditions” of our culture where women are entitled to pain relief in labor and to infant formula to feed their babies, not seek to replace them with midwifery values. Lactation consultants should treat women who can’t or don’t wish to breastfeed as autonomous individuals fully capable of making feeding decisions about their own bodies for their own babies, not as ignorant dupes of corporate behavior. Otherwise, both will merely recapitulate the worst behavior of paternalistic physicians.

Sadly, the greatest irony of contemporary natural childbirth advocacy and lactivism is that its practitioners have become everything they claimed to despise in doctors. It turns out that the problem they had with patronizing medical professionals is not the fact that the professionals were patronizing, but the fact that they weren’t the patronizing professionals

Everything old is new again and that applies to demonic possession. Only now some people call it “vaccine injuries.”

Demonic possession is believed by some to be the process by which individuals are possessed by malevolent preternatural beings, commonly referred to as demons or devils.

Historically it has been used to explain symptoms and illnesses that otherwise seemed inexplicable, particularly neurological and psychiatric symptoms like seizures and mental illness.

[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Not surprisingly, cures involve the modern analogue of exorcism: detoxing.[/pullquote]

In some Catholic doctrine demonic possession can take multiple different forms, including:

• Possession, in which Satan or some demon(s) takes full possession of a person’s body without their knowledge or consent, so the victim is therefore morally blameless.
• Obsession, which includes sudden attacks of irrationally obsessive thoughts, usually culminating in suicidal ideation, and typically influences dreams.

When we knew very little about the function of the brain, the idea that seizures — with their loss of awareness, involuntary movements and altered mental state in the aftermath — were caused by demons temporarily possessing an individual was quite compelling; the true cause, an electrical storm in the brain, was beyond comprehension.

When we knew very little about psychiatry, the idea that mania, depression and psychosis — profound alterations in behavior of beloved family members and friends — was the result of demons was a lot more believable than the concept of altered levels of neurotransmitters.

Even today, autism — the paradigmatic vaccine “injury” — is both frightening and apparently inexplicable. A previously health toddler, one who has begun to socialize and acquire language, regresses and develops profoundly disturbing behavior, including:

• Repetitive movements, such as hand flapping, head rolling, or body rocking.
• Compulsive behaviors … such as placing objects in a specific order, checking things, or hand washing.
• Resistance to change; for example, insisting that the furniture not be moved or refusing to be interrupted.
• Ritualistic behavior: Unvarying pattern of daily activities, such as an unchanging menu or a dressing ritual…
• Interests or fixations that are abnormal in theme or intensity of focus, such as preoccupation with a single television program, toy, or game.
• Self-injury: Behaviors such as eye-poking, skin-picking, hand-biting and head-banging.

Demonic possession offers an comprehensible explanation, and, importantly, an explanation in which parents bear no responsibility for the bizarre symptoms. But in 2019 most people in industrialized countries recognize that claiming their child is possessed by demons would be considered bizarrely superstitious. So they’ve hit upon a new name for the same phenomenon: vaccine injury. It is a simple, easily understandable explanation that, importantly, places no responsibility for the bizarre symptoms on parents or their genes.

All vaccine “injuries” share common attributes. Anti-vaxxers never claim that a vaccines causes heart disease, gall bladder disease, bone abnormalities or any of the myriad diseases for which causes are already known. They always insist that vaccines cause autism, vague “damage to the immune system” or unspecified neurologic injury.

In “All manner of ills”: The features of serious diseases attributed to vaccination, authors Leask, et al. explain the common features:

Idiopathic nature (unknown cause):

Anti-vaccination writings tend to attribute causal connections between vaccination and diseases with idiopathic origin. Autism, asthma, multiple sclerosis, cancers, diabetes and Gulf War Syndrome have all baffled science and draw intense media interest when new claims about their origin arise. Their power comes from the suggestion that danger lurks in the familiar, with the sub-text that vaccines are modern day Trojan horses, promising prevention but disguising hidden threats.

Apparent rise in incidence:

Along with having idiopathic origin, diseases like autism and asthma appear to have increased in incidence in recent decades. Anti-vaccinationists allege this increase coincides with more vaccination…

Dreaded outcomes:

Many of the ills attributed to vaccination have lethal, insidious or dreaded consequences. SIDS, autoimmune disorders and developmental disability are a few examples. Such qualitative components of dreaded diseases reduce the acceptability of even minute risks…

Temporal relationship to vaccination:

Some of the diseases most often attributed to vaccines become apparent in early childhood when many vaccines are given. In such cases, parents understandably search for an agent of blame, scouring their memories for events shortly before the illness… For parents who may feel guilt, albeit unwarranted, about their child’s problem, vaccination is a graspable external cause…

Not surprisingly, since vaccine injuries are the modern analogue of demonic possession, cures involve modern analogues of exorcism.

Exorcism is the religious or spiritual practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person, or an area, that are believed to be possessed…

Attempts to “cure” autism and other purported vaccine injuries involve bizarre efforts at “detoxifying,” with special diets, supplements or medications.

According to the folks at Body Ecology:

How important is the Body Ecology Principle of Cleansing and detoxification for autism recovery? We believe it’s absolutely essential. Here’s why: children affected with autism often have a build-up of toxicity from exposure to chemicals, metals and environmental poisons, as well as internal bacterial and viral infections, like candida.

The webpage reads as if it were a Saturday Night Live sketch:

It’s liver cleansing season. Doug, can you tell us how important detoxification was to your family during Dougie’s recovery and if you have changed his diet or added detoxification techniques during this time of year to help him cleanse more?

A: Well, it was clear to me very early on that my son, Dougie was filled with poisons. Many parents have different stories. But our son’s health gradually declined as a result of countless ear infections, throat infections, colds, fevers — ­ you name it. At this point, of course, he was also regressing developmentally, but I didn’t link the two right away…

Doug, had he lives a few hundred years earlier, could just as easily ascribed Dougie’s difficulties to demons and embarked on a course of exorcism. Dougie probably would have been better served by being subjected to a useless exorcism, rather than detoxing.

It can get far worse. There are Facebook groups involving thousands of members who force their autistic children to ingest bleach either by drinking it or through enemas. The “theory” is that autism is caused by parasites and the bleach kills them. When children begin to shed their intestinal lining as a result of the “treatment,” the parents believe this is evidence of the parasites leaving their bodies. It’s a chemical exorcism.

Many of us marvel when we consider that people used to believe that demons caused illness. But just like the demon believers, people still seek explanations for behavior of loved ones that otherwise seems inexplicable. So demonic possession has made a comeback among anti-vaxxers; but now they call it vaccine injured.