Controversy over home birthing
June 24th, 2008
Babycenter.com is a website I check every so often for updates on our little Bean’s development. Today, I came across this article about controversy over Ricky Lake’s movie about home birthing. Dan and I watched her documentary several weeks ago and thought it was great. Check out the trailer here:
If it weren’t for the medical industry being controlled by insurance companies, I would opt for a home birth. Alas, in order save money we’re going to be having the baby at the hospital. Luckily, the practice we chose has several midwives on staff. We’ve elected to get care from the midwives, which means that one of them will attend the birth, not an OB. At least we had that choice, as many do not.
But I digress! Not surprisingly, the AMA has come out and released an official statement about how the safest place for a woman to give birth is in the hospital and how when a woman chooses home birth, it increases her risk of hemorrhage, etc. I say HOGWASH! Of all developed countries, the US has the highest infant and maternal mortality rates, and as Ms. Lake so clearly points out, this is precisely because of hospital intervention. The countries with the lowest rates are the countries in which home births are standard. What’s more dangerous to women are unnecessary C-sections, episiotomies, etc. I was so pleased to see that the majority of the comments under the article on Babycenter.com supported this viewpoint! Score one for the little folk!
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