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][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]
If by “more care” you mean “the most basic care available” then yes, they needed more care.

Because what’s really happening in Westernized countries is obstetrics providers (OBs and midwives) becoming too dependent on technology ($$$$$) to tell them if something is wrong. Modern women dying of 16th century childbirth killers is making them wake up to the fact that we’ve reached the point of over-dependence on technology to the exclusion of basic medical care. More isn’t always better.

I read through all the Lost Mother stories and have been following these articles on maternal mortality. Most of the deaths and near deaths detailed there were from complications that are treatable, but the providers missed something they would have picked up on had they paid more attention to the new mom’s symptoms instead of dismissing everything but a beeping monitor or a positive lab result. The miraculous medical advance California started implementing to reduce deaths from severe postpartum hemorrhage? Crash carts to weigh bloody pads on a scale rather than the old method of care, which was to assume a woman was bleeding normally until she started going into shock. Oh, and reducing elective inductions and c-sections to reduce the risk of severe postpartum hemorrhage happening in the first place. Novel approach medical community!

And doctors are generally hugely dismissive of the risks associated with the technology they use, believing that if something is life-saving in some circumstances it must be harmless when applied to everyone, even healthy people. It’s not! Especially not when you are getting the stellar combination of ultra-technology + minimum basic care.[/quote]

Can't you even see the contradictions?  You first write, that OBs are "too dependent on technology" and then you acknolege the proven efforts to reduce mortality (crash carts and other techniques to ACCESS technology).  There is some role for reducing c-sections, but again, that's STILL dependent on modern technology to monitor the labor.  And I don't believe there is any evidence about inductions increasing maternal mortality -- the research I've seen indicates the reverse.

Women need MORE and BETTER medical care. Not less.  [/quote]

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