The Skeptical OB

They say that everything old is new again and that is certainly true in the world of “alternative” health. One of the axiomatic premises of contemporary “alternative” health puts its believers behind the times … by approximately 500 years. A fundamental premise held by believers in “alternative” health is that we are swimming in a […]

We’ve all heard about bridezillas, the women who are so obsessed with having the perfect wedding that they become tyrants toward everyone else. There’s an argument to be made that many homebirth and “natural” childbirth advocates are “momzillas” who justify their hypersensitivity, obsessive need for control, and rudeness to everyone else with the all purpose […]

There’s a new mother on the block and she’s cheerfully terrorizing everyone else. The sanctimommy is here! The sanctimommy knows how you should raise your children. Specifically, she knows what foods they should eat, what toys they should be allowed to play with; heck, sanctimommy even knows how you should have given birth. The best […]

There once was a time when all food was organic and no pesticides were used. Health problems were treated with folk wisdom and natural remedies. There was no obesity, and people got lots of exercise. And in that time gone by, the average lifespan was … 35! That’s right. For most of human existence, according […]

This post originally appeared in September 2008. Critics the current C-section rate often quote the World Health Organization recommendation of an ideal C-section rate of 10-15%. Unfortunately, the WHO appears to have pulled those numbers out of thin air. Its own data shows that a 15% C-section rate does not result in the lowest possible […]

I’ll be traveling intermittently for another week, and will occasionally repeat an old column. This article originally appeared on my Open Salon blog in August 2008. Who said: “the mother is the factory, and by education and care she can be made more efficient in the art of motherhood”? That was written in 1942 by […]

Dooce has discovered stuntbirth, also known among aficianados as freebirth or unassisted childbirth (UC). …I accidentally stumbled upon a show about a new fad in childbirth called Freebirthing where women have their babies at home without the aid of a nurse or midwife or any trained professional. And at one point there was this three-year-old […]

Pondering strange practices associated with childbirth, many people imagine that they are the product of third world cultures. While it is true that third world cultures have unusual and superstitious childbirth practices, the most bizarre and the most disgusting almost always come from first world countries. No one in the third world devised the spectacular […]

Waterbirth has been touted as an alternative form of pain relief in childbirth. Indeed, it is often recommended as the method of choice for pain relief  in “natural” childbirth. It’s hardly natural, though. In fact, it is completely unnatural. No primates give birth in water, because primates initiate breathing almost immediately after birth and the […]