Reply to Story about the "free birthers." Anyone read it?

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Reply to "Story about the "free birthers." Anyone read it?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am not a freebirther but I did have three homebirths with certified nurse-midwives and a hospital less than 10 minutes away.

I do think though that it's important to recognize as well the risks to women and babies both*from* the hospital. Some non-zero number of babies are born still due directly to medical interventions/malpractice. And a much larger than necessary number of women are harmed --many permanently -- or even killed by medical malpractice as well. One of the reasons that maternal mortality is so much higher in the US than in other developed countries is that women become secondary to babies in the labor and delivery process. Like so many of the PP upthread -- you cast aspersions and yes, hatred towards women who choose to freebirth (and/or homebirth) and accuse them of caring about their experiences more than their babies' lives, but there are very real risks to modern obstetric practices.

Women die *because* of medical practices -- and malpractice and not always for lack of them. In fact, half the maternal deaths are preventable! That's not about how dangerous childbirth is inherently -- it's how screwed up and flawed our obstetric system is.

Yes, a live mother and baby at the end of the process is absolutely the goal, but the mother should not have to sacrifice her own physical well-being because of the laser focus on delivering her baby rather than keeping her safe and comfortable throughout the process.

See this story just published today in the NY Times:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/opinion/sunday/maternal-mortality-rates.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

And of course this landmark series from ProPublica earlier this year:

https://www.propublica.org/series/lost-mothers

So instead of hating on freebirthers, maybe you could be a little more critical of our truly poor healthcare system and try to imagine why women would object to being part of that system. It's not a choice I would make -- but it's also not appropriate IMO to dismiss all concerns about the medical system as whacko.
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Completely illogical. The women who died in those stories needed more medical care, not less.[/quote]

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