Standing Up for Our Rights

I'm a bit late in responding to the whole AMA and ACOG uproar... but I'm going to put in my two cents anyway. They insist the safest place to birth is in the hospital, yet 1/3 of all women birthing there end up with a cesarean, which increases the risk for complications and death. Another 1/3 end up with an episiotomy, a surgical procedure that has been proven to be unnecessary.

I have heard horror stories of how women are treated in the hospital while giving birth. They suffer at the hands of people who just don't care about them, their babies or the process of birth. How can that possibly be the safest place to be????

The AMA and ACOG are willing to create model legislation to make it illegal to birth anywhere else. Excuse me? They want to make it illegal to birth anywhere but in the aforementioned torture chamber?

Now I know that not every nurse and obstetrician contributes to scenes like I have learned about. Some are truly caring, wonderful people who try to do what is best for mothers and babies. But it sure seems that they are few and far between.

I certainly could not walk willingly into a hospital to give birth knowing that I'd have to fight for every little bit of freedom I may need to birth optimally. My first was a cesarean. One that probably could have been avoided if my CNM and the staff nurses had been willing to work with an inexperienced mother-to-be instead of pushing pain medications. But then, I may not be on the path I am today.

Women... stand up for your right to birth without intervention! While it isn't outlined specifically, it should fall under pursuit of happiness if nothing else.

Midwives... band together. Sue the AMA like the chiropractors did in the late 1970s for preventing them from practicing their trade.

We can do this. The AMA and ACOG are worried about midwifery and home births because more women are finding out they don't need to be treated like idiots and sliced open unnecessarily.