June 20, 2009
We are at a moment in history that could affect the future of midwifery for decades. We have the opportunity to positively influence health care legislation to ensure access to midwifery care or be left behind as details of a reformed system are established in law in the next few months.
The M.A.M.A. campaign is a historic coalition of the key midwifery and consumer organizations in the U.S. unified behind the goal of achieving federal recognition of Certified Professional Midwives. Our specific goal in the next weeks is inserting an amendment into the health care bills that are moving through congress right now to mandate Medicaid coverage for CPM services on the federal level.
This multi-faceted campaign is being directed by a steering committee of dedicated volunteers, and paid staff: an experienced lobbyist in Washington D.C. , campaign coordinator and a project consultant with national health care reform experience and connections.
This week Amber Ulvenes, MAWS lobbyist and midwifery consumer, and I are participating in a country-wide “fly-in” of midwives and advocates to DC to work with the campaign’s federal lobbyist to amend this language into the Senate Finance bill when it goes to committee mark-up the week of June 22nd.
In addition to mobilizing grass roots support, right now funds are urgently needed to sustain this work through the next few months when legislation is being drafted.
What you can do:
1. If you are a midwife, talk with each of your current clients about the M.A.M.A. campaign. Give them the link to the web site: http://www.mamacampaign.or g/. Ask them to sign up, endorse, give money and volunteer to pitch in. If you have an e-list of past clients, please send a personal message asking for their support and directing them to the web site.
2. Send this message to everyone you think supports increased access to midwifery care and ask them to join the M.A.M.A. campaign and donate.
3. Sign up yourself! Numbers count. Dollars count. This is a moment when we must mobilize all available resources!
Thank you,
Suzy Myers
Midwives Association of Washington State Board of Directors
National Association of Certified Professional Midwives Board of Directors
Showing posts with label childbirth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childbirth. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Health care reform and midwives
Below find an open letter from Suzy Myers, midwife and women’s health care pioneer. Certified Professional Midwives, whom she represents, are the midwives who practice independently, outside of hospitals, i.e. at home births or freestanding birth centers. The other kind of midwife is nurse midwives, who largely practice in hospitals. If CPMs are federally recognized, covered by Medicaid, and become more widely used, the U.S. could save millions, perhaps billions, of dollars on childbirth while improving care.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Childbirth: the low-hanging fruit of health care reform
Quick, what’s the number one reason to be hospitalized in this country? Heart attack? Car accident? Here’s a hint: It’s not a disease. It’s not even an injury.
The answer is childbirth. And what’s the most common operating room procedure? C-section.
Given that 85 percent of women give birth and it’s no secret how 240 million Americans arrived in the world, this shouldn’t be a surprise. Nor should it really be a surprise that maternal and newborn charges are far and away the nation’s number one hospital cost, $86 billion in 2006, according to Childbirth Connections. Given all this, you’d think that, as talk of health care reform, and especially containing health care costs, fills the media, childbirth would be a major topic.
You’d be wrong. I haven’t read a peep about it in all the newspaper and magazine articles on Obama’s drive to cut health care costs, except for a couple of good articles in USA Today last December, generated by a report from Childbirth Connections.
There’s been a lot of attention paid to the ways the country pays too much for the wrong kind of care. A recent article in the New Yorker made the point that some parts of the country spend much more on medical care than others, without being healthier for it, the moral of the story being that we can cut costs while improving care. Obama reportedly passed this article around to members of Congress (hallelujah, an intellectually curious president for a change).
Yet oddly the article didn’t mention childbirth, even though C-section rates vary wildly by region and by hospital, and the nation’s C-section rate is over 30 percent, more than double what the World Health Organization recommends, which is to say that half of all U.S. C-sections are unnecessary. USA Today estimates unnecessary C-sections per year cost the nation at least $2.5 billion a year, but that is surely conservative, given that there are probably 700,000 unnecessary C-sections, each costing at least $5,000 more than a vaginal birth (not to mention the costs from additional medical complications). Add in the other childbirth interventions—such as episiotomies or continuous fetal monitoring—that are routinely done far in excess of what evidence recommends, and there have to be tens of billions of dollars that could be cut from our spending on childbirth each year while improving care.
As a doctor put it to USA Today, "Fortunately, maternity care is a place where good care and good economics come together."
Why aren't other media covering this?
Thursday, May 28, 2009
An end to the chain gang?
Good news for a change, though this is one of those silver linings that come with dark clouds: Last week New York’s legislature passed a bill outlawing the practice of shackling women prisoners during childbirth. The new law will make New York the fourth state to restrict cuffing of women in labor.
Do the math: That means 46 states and the federal government allow this “barbaric and unconscionable” practice (in the words of Senator Velmanette Montgomery, one of the bill’s sponsors), although apparently the feds are taking steps to restrict shackling of laboring prisoners.
It makes you wonder if, huh, it might be men making these policies. Anyone who has ever been in labor knows you gotta move. Forcing women in labor to lie down and lie still is cruel and unusual punishment that increases pain and raises the likelihood of complications harmful to mother and baby. Shackling a woman raising the likelihood a woman may need a C-section and in turn can cause delay when an emergency C-section becomes necessary, delay that can endanger mother and baby.
(Come to think of it, it’s kind of a metaphor for the ordinary treatment of women in labor by the American medical establishment. In fact, not so long ago, women in labor were regularly tied down to hospital beds.)
Back in 2006, when Amnesty International did a study on the phenomenon, the New York Times ran an article on it. It quoted an Arkansas prison spokeswoman (of course they dug up a woman) defending the practice: “Though these are pregnant women, they are still convicted felons, and sometimes violent in nature. There have been instances when we've had a female inmate try to hurt hospital staff during delivery."
In fact, most women in prison (a full 70 percent) are there for nonviolent offenses, and when Amnesty asked prison officials for examples of women trying to escape during labor, they couldn’t come up with a single case.
Yeah, bulletin to prison officials: a woman in labor is busy (that’s why they call it labor). She doesn’t have time or energy to spare on running away.
(Not surprisingly, this news stirred barely a ripple outside the feminist blogosphere. Cheers to Salon and Our Bodies Ourselves’ blog.)
Another related cloud: A lawsuit by an Arkansas prisoner (serving a brief sentence for a nonviolent offense) over her shackling during labor is still wending its way through the courts. A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the claim that the shackling was cruel and unusual punishment, but the ACLU’s National Prison Project successfully demanded a rehearing by the full court. Stay tuned.
Do the math: That means 46 states and the federal government allow this “barbaric and unconscionable” practice (in the words of Senator Velmanette Montgomery, one of the bill’s sponsors), although apparently the feds are taking steps to restrict shackling of laboring prisoners.
It makes you wonder if, huh, it might be men making these policies. Anyone who has ever been in labor knows you gotta move. Forcing women in labor to lie down and lie still is cruel and unusual punishment that increases pain and raises the likelihood of complications harmful to mother and baby. Shackling a woman raising the likelihood a woman may need a C-section and in turn can cause delay when an emergency C-section becomes necessary, delay that can endanger mother and baby.
(Come to think of it, it’s kind of a metaphor for the ordinary treatment of women in labor by the American medical establishment. In fact, not so long ago, women in labor were regularly tied down to hospital beds.)
Back in 2006, when Amnesty International did a study on the phenomenon, the New York Times ran an article on it. It quoted an Arkansas prison spokeswoman (of course they dug up a woman) defending the practice: “Though these are pregnant women, they are still convicted felons, and sometimes violent in nature. There have been instances when we've had a female inmate try to hurt hospital staff during delivery."
In fact, most women in prison (a full 70 percent) are there for nonviolent offenses, and when Amnesty asked prison officials for examples of women trying to escape during labor, they couldn’t come up with a single case.
Yeah, bulletin to prison officials: a woman in labor is busy (that’s why they call it labor). She doesn’t have time or energy to spare on running away.
(Not surprisingly, this news stirred barely a ripple outside the feminist blogosphere. Cheers to Salon and Our Bodies Ourselves’ blog.)
Another related cloud: A lawsuit by an Arkansas prisoner (serving a brief sentence for a nonviolent offense) over her shackling during labor is still wending its way through the courts. A three-judge panel of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the claim that the shackling was cruel and unusual punishment, but the ACLU’s National Prison Project successfully demanded a rehearing by the full court. Stay tuned.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Mom's fault, as usual, or, yet another installment of crummy science reporting
Get a load of how the media played today’s story on new evidence of the risks of early C-section. Here’s the LA Times lead: “Thousands of women put their babies at needless risk of respiratory problems, hypoglycemia and other medical ailments by scheduling cesarean deliveries too early.” It’s women who put babies at needless risk. Not doctors or hospital policies. As usual, it’s mom’s fault.
Why would silly moms do this? NPR concluded its spot on the same research by noting that women may be scheduling C-sections early to insure that their “personal physicians” (idiotic term) were available to deliver their babies. To protect their babies, women may just have to let go of that choice, intoned the reporter.
The research looked at “elective” C-sections, that is C-sections for which there is no medical reason. Why would anyone have such a thing? The Times opined that it was women who are “too posh to push.” Again, those irresponsible moms.
Nowhere in the stories was there any mention of whether medical practice and policy might have anything to do with this problem. Nowhere in the stories was there any attention paid to the strange fact that doctors perform such a thing as a C-section for which there is no medical reason, or the disturbing fact that researchers could find 13,000 elective C-sections to study.
In further scolding of women, the LA Times mentioned that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has counseled that women wait until 39 weeks before having an elective C-section. But missing from the stories was the information that ACOG and the American Medical Association have ruled elective C-sections to be ethically neutral, despite the health risks C-sections pose to women and babies (especially repeat C-sections) or that when researchers have looked for women who chose C-sections for the heck of it, they haven’t found any.
The Listening to Mothers survey, the biggest and best look at the subject, managed to find one woman among the 1600 surveyed who chose a C-section of her own volition. A full quarter of those who’d had C-sections described themselves as “pressured” by medical caregivers to have the operations—information that doesn’t appear in medical records that term the C-section “elective.” And, thanks to another directive from ACOG, fewer and fewer hospitals will allow women to even attempt vaginal birth after C-section. Women’s childbirth choices certainly play a role in this issue, but their choices aren’t made in a vacuum.
Nor did the stories mention the inherent risks of C-section, regardless of when they’re scheduled. The LA Times story did contain a hint in that direction: “The initiation of labor is a baby's way of signaling that it is ready to live outside the womb,’ [Dr. John Thorp, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of the study] said. When doctors schedule elective C-sections, ‘we're saying we're smarter than that signal,’ he said. ‘There are some babies who aren't ready to make that transition and are forced to do so.’ ”
Why would silly moms do this? NPR concluded its spot on the same research by noting that women may be scheduling C-sections early to insure that their “personal physicians” (idiotic term) were available to deliver their babies. To protect their babies, women may just have to let go of that choice, intoned the reporter.
The research looked at “elective” C-sections, that is C-sections for which there is no medical reason. Why would anyone have such a thing? The Times opined that it was women who are “too posh to push.” Again, those irresponsible moms.
Nowhere in the stories was there any mention of whether medical practice and policy might have anything to do with this problem. Nowhere in the stories was there any attention paid to the strange fact that doctors perform such a thing as a C-section for which there is no medical reason, or the disturbing fact that researchers could find 13,000 elective C-sections to study.
In further scolding of women, the LA Times mentioned that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has counseled that women wait until 39 weeks before having an elective C-section. But missing from the stories was the information that ACOG and the American Medical Association have ruled elective C-sections to be ethically neutral, despite the health risks C-sections pose to women and babies (especially repeat C-sections) or that when researchers have looked for women who chose C-sections for the heck of it, they haven’t found any.
The Listening to Mothers survey, the biggest and best look at the subject, managed to find one woman among the 1600 surveyed who chose a C-section of her own volition. A full quarter of those who’d had C-sections described themselves as “pressured” by medical caregivers to have the operations—information that doesn’t appear in medical records that term the C-section “elective.” And, thanks to another directive from ACOG, fewer and fewer hospitals will allow women to even attempt vaginal birth after C-section. Women’s childbirth choices certainly play a role in this issue, but their choices aren’t made in a vacuum.
Nor did the stories mention the inherent risks of C-section, regardless of when they’re scheduled. The LA Times story did contain a hint in that direction: “The initiation of labor is a baby's way of signaling that it is ready to live outside the womb,’ [Dr. John Thorp, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and coauthor of the study] said. When doctors schedule elective C-sections, ‘we're saying we're smarter than that signal,’ he said. ‘There are some babies who aren't ready to make that transition and are forced to do so.’ ”
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Superbugs and birth
Second in an occasional series: What I’m reading while pumping breastmilk...
A recent article in the New Yorker about antibiotic-resistant infections and their prevalence in hospitals is truly frightening, and it prompted this thought: Birthing women and newborns should, wherever possible, stay the hell away from hospitals. And: C-sections, representing just the kind of surgical wound (an oft-infected one, I might add) that drug-resistant bacteria love to colonize, should be done as rarely as possible.
The tragic history of childbed fever, which proved to be a doctor- and hospital-caused epidemic, suggests good reason for worry about infection of birthing women. While discovery of the cause in the late nineteenth century—that doctors were moving between patients and from dissecting cadavers to delivering babies without washing their hands (ugh)—and introduction of antiseptic techniques dramatically reduced deaths from childbed fever, they weren’t eliminated until the introduction of antibiotics. But the bacteria that cause it were never eliminated—it's caused by the Group A and B strep bugs, among the bugs known to be developing antibiotic resistance. So the news that antibiotics are losing their effectiveness bodes badly for women birthing in hospitals.
A recent article in the New Yorker about antibiotic-resistant infections and their prevalence in hospitals is truly frightening, and it prompted this thought: Birthing women and newborns should, wherever possible, stay the hell away from hospitals. And: C-sections, representing just the kind of surgical wound (an oft-infected one, I might add) that drug-resistant bacteria love to colonize, should be done as rarely as possible.
The tragic history of childbed fever, which proved to be a doctor- and hospital-caused epidemic, suggests good reason for worry about infection of birthing women. While discovery of the cause in the late nineteenth century—that doctors were moving between patients and from dissecting cadavers to delivering babies without washing their hands (ugh)—and introduction of antiseptic techniques dramatically reduced deaths from childbed fever, they weren’t eliminated until the introduction of antibiotics. But the bacteria that cause it were never eliminated—it's caused by the Group A and B strep bugs, among the bugs known to be developing antibiotic resistance. So the news that antibiotics are losing their effectiveness bodes badly for women birthing in hospitals.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Birthing behind bars, but not alone
Reading a recent article in the Seattle Times on doulas in the state prisons, I wasn't sure whether to feel ashamed or proud of my state. It’s a horrible thing for babies to be born in prison—horrible for the mother and boding horribly for the child—made worse by the inhumane ways most prisons treat laboring women (some prisons actually handcuff women to the bed during labor, and prison health care is rarely good). Although the article describes doulas as having been resources for pregnant women for centuries, and it’s true that there have always women who’ve informally offered other women their expertise about childbirth, in fact doulas as such were created only in the last few decades by the women’s health movement, with a prominent role by activists in Washington state, including Penny Simkin.
Typically doulas attend births, while it appears the doulas in the Washington prisons are mostly restricted to prenatal counseling and attend birth in only a few cases. That’s too bad, because studies (PDF) have found that having doulas supporting mothers during labor and delivery dramatically improves health outcomes and reduces C-section rates. Which is a good thing even if you don’t care about incarcerated women; reducing C-sections and reducing complications in birth saves a lot of money for the state’s taxpayers.
The Times article failed to mention that the rate of babies born to incarcerated women has skyrocketed in recent decades, as the female incarceration rate has skyrocketed. U.S. imprisonment has been rising dramatically across the board—we now have the biggest prison population in the world, 1 out of every 100 American adults—but it has been rising much faster for women than men. The female incarceration rate is up 775 percent since 1971, double the rise for men. The single biggest factor in that rise, according to Silja Talvi, author of Women Behind Bars, is the drug war, as I noted in an earlier post.
Again this is an issue worthy of concern whether you’re a bleeding heart or not; imprisonment is expensive. Drug treatment, on the other hand, is cheap.
The Times reporter barely brushed against the other horror of female imprisonment: Most women in prison have been sexually abused. Nearly every one of the hundred or so women Talvi interviewed for her book had been a victim of sexual abuse or domestic violence, and many had been raped. Giving birth can bring the trauma of that experience back to the surface, according to Simkin, who offers special counseling and birth support for abuse survivors.
It will be interesting to track whether the state continues this program and whether it expands it to provide labor support. And keep on eye on whether Washington’s female prisoner population continues to grow. Perhaps as state budgets grow ever tighter, bean counters will notice this huge budget item and see an opportunity.
Typically doulas attend births, while it appears the doulas in the Washington prisons are mostly restricted to prenatal counseling and attend birth in only a few cases. That’s too bad, because studies (PDF) have found that having doulas supporting mothers during labor and delivery dramatically improves health outcomes and reduces C-section rates. Which is a good thing even if you don’t care about incarcerated women; reducing C-sections and reducing complications in birth saves a lot of money for the state’s taxpayers.
The Times article failed to mention that the rate of babies born to incarcerated women has skyrocketed in recent decades, as the female incarceration rate has skyrocketed. U.S. imprisonment has been rising dramatically across the board—we now have the biggest prison population in the world, 1 out of every 100 American adults—but it has been rising much faster for women than men. The female incarceration rate is up 775 percent since 1971, double the rise for men. The single biggest factor in that rise, according to Silja Talvi, author of Women Behind Bars, is the drug war, as I noted in an earlier post.
Again this is an issue worthy of concern whether you’re a bleeding heart or not; imprisonment is expensive. Drug treatment, on the other hand, is cheap.
The Times reporter barely brushed against the other horror of female imprisonment: Most women in prison have been sexually abused. Nearly every one of the hundred or so women Talvi interviewed for her book had been a victim of sexual abuse or domestic violence, and many had been raped. Giving birth can bring the trauma of that experience back to the surface, according to Simkin, who offers special counseling and birth support for abuse survivors.
It will be interesting to track whether the state continues this program and whether it expands it to provide labor support. And keep on eye on whether Washington’s female prisoner population continues to grow. Perhaps as state budgets grow ever tighter, bean counters will notice this huge budget item and see an opportunity.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The Business of Being Born
Ricki Lake has a new documentary film out about childbirth that asks the question, “Should most births be viewed as a natural life process, or should every delivery be treated as a potentially catastrophic medical emergency?” The latter is how the current U.S. system treats birth, but Lake’s film suggests the other choice is better. The Business of Being Born makes the case for having a baby anywhere but in a hospital. Plenty of others have made this point in print (see especially Born in the USA and Birth as an American Rite of Passage), but a film by a celebrity could bring a much broader audience.
If you live in New York, LA, San Francisco, or Seattle, you can see the movie on the big screen in the next few months. Small screenings are scheduled at libraries and universities in other cities, and Lake and her director Abby Epstein encourage people to host their own screenings.
Check out their press room for reviews and articles about the film, including a cover story in Mothering magazine and an article in Salon.
If you live in New York, LA, San Francisco, or Seattle, you can see the movie on the big screen in the next few months. Small screenings are scheduled at libraries and universities in other cities, and Lake and her director Abby Epstein encourage people to host their own screenings.
Check out their press room for reviews and articles about the film, including a cover story in Mothering magazine and an article in Salon.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
"Forgoing Technology" in Birth?
MSN’s health section has a cool department called (creatively) “Birth Stories.” Cheers to this, given that way too many books and articles on birth erase the actual perspective of the person birthing, reinforcing the assumption that it’s the doctor (and all the technology) who delivers the baby, rather than the mother who births. Hilarious example: a book my partner bought for our daughter to prepare her for our second child’s birth explained that the baby would come out “when the baby gives one final push.” Ha! I’m the one who gives that final push, let me tell you.
Less hilarious example: Atul Gawande, writing an otherwise fascinating article for the New Yorker on birth, opens and closes with a woman named Elizabeth’s story, by way of illustration, yet throughout the rest of the piece she completely disappears, replaced by quoted doctors. The passages describing birth, even the bits about Elizabeth’s labor and delivery, are all from the perspective of the doctor, and we’re left in the dark as to what it feels like to give birth. I’m a fan of Gawande’s, but could the editors not in all the world and with all the prestige and money of the New Yorker behind them have found a woman who had given birth to write on the subject? Gawande seems to have some sense of this warping when he describes C-section: He describes C-section as “one of the strangest operations I have seen.” In the process of cutting and then pulling the baby out of the womb, “You almost forget the mother on the table.”
Even less hilarious example: The only place the experience of women appears in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, aka What to Get Anxious About When You’re Expecting, is in the brief descriptions of ailments, worries, and queries that preface the authoritative answers of the authors. Those answers always involve many repetitions along the theme of “Obey your doctor.” When I glanced at the book to check its advice on flying while pregnant, I read “Get your doctor’s permission.” Excuuuse me? Not “discuss it with your doctor.” Not “Get your doctor’s advice.” Get his permission. That’s when I threw the book across the room. (My unasked-for advice to pregnant women: Chuck What to Get Anxious About and get yourself a copy of Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. It’s full of birth stories and it’s inspiring.)
This authoritarianism has dangerous consequences. There’s a high rate of poor childbirth practice in hospitals (The “Listening to Mothers” survey found that only a minority of women were treated with all the practices science has found to promote mothers’ and babies’ safety), a high rate of unnecessary and harmful interventions, and especially a high rate of unnecessary C-sections. (The World Health Organization found that C-section rates above 12 percent result in increased maternal mortality and harm, yet the U.S.’ C-section rate is a whopping 30-plus percent—and rising, along with our maternal death rate.) This means a woman giving birth in a hospital had better stick up for herself to ensure she receives proper care. Passive obedience is dangerous.
Back to MSN: The birth stories are a good thing. But they focus solely on highly medicalized birth. The one story I’ve found labeled “natural childbirth” isn’t. Headlined, “A Birth Story: One Mom's Tale of Natural Childbirth,” the subhead reads, “Why one woman forgoes technology to experience the pain (and joy!) of natural birth.” But the woman gave birth in a hospital, where she received an IV and continuous fetal and maternal heartbeat monitoring (which, by the way, have been found to provide no medical benefit and to result in unnecessary interventions). Hardly forgoing technology.
I don’t care to fight over exactly what counts as “natural childbirth,” and I think the term should be dropped because it’s so vague and loaded. But I do think amid all the stories of C-sections and heroic interventions it would be nice to hear a few about normal, non-technocratic birth. It does exist. For that, check out Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. (And especially check out the statistics about her deliveries at the back of the book. Non-technocratic birth not only exists; it works.)
Less hilarious example: Atul Gawande, writing an otherwise fascinating article for the New Yorker on birth, opens and closes with a woman named Elizabeth’s story, by way of illustration, yet throughout the rest of the piece she completely disappears, replaced by quoted doctors. The passages describing birth, even the bits about Elizabeth’s labor and delivery, are all from the perspective of the doctor, and we’re left in the dark as to what it feels like to give birth. I’m a fan of Gawande’s, but could the editors not in all the world and with all the prestige and money of the New Yorker behind them have found a woman who had given birth to write on the subject? Gawande seems to have some sense of this warping when he describes C-section: He describes C-section as “one of the strangest operations I have seen.” In the process of cutting and then pulling the baby out of the womb, “You almost forget the mother on the table.”
Even less hilarious example: The only place the experience of women appears in What to Expect When You’re Expecting, aka What to Get Anxious About When You’re Expecting, is in the brief descriptions of ailments, worries, and queries that preface the authoritative answers of the authors. Those answers always involve many repetitions along the theme of “Obey your doctor.” When I glanced at the book to check its advice on flying while pregnant, I read “Get your doctor’s permission.” Excuuuse me? Not “discuss it with your doctor.” Not “Get your doctor’s advice.” Get his permission. That’s when I threw the book across the room. (My unasked-for advice to pregnant women: Chuck What to Get Anxious About and get yourself a copy of Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. It’s full of birth stories and it’s inspiring.)
This authoritarianism has dangerous consequences. There’s a high rate of poor childbirth practice in hospitals (The “Listening to Mothers” survey found that only a minority of women were treated with all the practices science has found to promote mothers’ and babies’ safety), a high rate of unnecessary and harmful interventions, and especially a high rate of unnecessary C-sections. (The World Health Organization found that C-section rates above 12 percent result in increased maternal mortality and harm, yet the U.S.’ C-section rate is a whopping 30-plus percent—and rising, along with our maternal death rate.) This means a woman giving birth in a hospital had better stick up for herself to ensure she receives proper care. Passive obedience is dangerous.
Back to MSN: The birth stories are a good thing. But they focus solely on highly medicalized birth. The one story I’ve found labeled “natural childbirth” isn’t. Headlined, “A Birth Story: One Mom's Tale of Natural Childbirth,” the subhead reads, “Why one woman forgoes technology to experience the pain (and joy!) of natural birth.” But the woman gave birth in a hospital, where she received an IV and continuous fetal and maternal heartbeat monitoring (which, by the way, have been found to provide no medical benefit and to result in unnecessary interventions). Hardly forgoing technology.
I don’t care to fight over exactly what counts as “natural childbirth,” and I think the term should be dropped because it’s so vague and loaded. But I do think amid all the stories of C-sections and heroic interventions it would be nice to hear a few about normal, non-technocratic birth. It does exist. For that, check out Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth. (And especially check out the statistics about her deliveries at the back of the book. Non-technocratic birth not only exists; it works.)
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