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.

Outlawing Homebirth

Oh my goodness. I can't believe what ACOG (American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists) and the AMA (American Medical Association) are up to. ACOG sent out a position paper against homebirth and CPMs, saying the safest place for all women to give birth is either the hospital or an accredited birth center. The AMA is backing them up and is planning on creating model legislation so groups can push for this to become law. This is outrageous! They want to take away my choice to make an educated decision to birth at home. This choice should be available to all birthing women.

Actually, I can believe they're doing this. It really isn't much different when they went around badmouthing midwives at the turn of the 20th century so women would choose to go to the bright, shiny hospitals rather than stay at home with the "illiterate, unwashed midwives." Uh huh. Give me a midwife any day to those people in the white coats who just cannot leave anything well enough alone!

Take the typical hospital birth. You check in. They make you change your clothes so they can give you a vaginal exam. They put a heplock in your arm so they can add pitocin whenever they want. They strap you to the electronic fetal monitor, which has not been shown in studies to be any more effective at detecting a baby in true distress than if the nurse checks the baby's heartbeat for a few minutes every coupld of hours. They break your bag of waters. Turn up the pitocin. OH..... you DIDN'T get tested yet for GBS? Then they'll add some antibiotics you most likely don't need too. There goes the nurse turning up that pitocin again. Oh, the contractions are getting unbearable? Let's give you something for the pain. You'll have to stay in bed now.... you can't walk around or be upright with an epidural.... that's better, now, isn't it? Hmmmm. You're not making enough progress according to the clock, so we're going to take you to the operating room for a cesarean. You're obviously not progressing and this baby will die if it isn't born RIGHT NOW.

Yeah, right. Seems to me most labors are meddled with until there is no other choice. All the natural hormones mom and baby experience in undisturbed labor are all messed up and the body doesn't know where to turn. It's a wonder we've survived as a species. Cats and dogs couldn't birth under those conditions!

Ladies, we need to stand up for our right to choose the place we birth and who we want to attend it! Write to your state congressmen now, before the medical interest groups present that "model legislation." Write to your national congressmen to let them know that the AMA is trying to prevent midwives from practicing their trade. The AMA was sued successfully by chiropractors in the 1970s for that reason... and the chiropractors won! Let's protect our right to birth and parent our children (more on that soon... the AAP has issued a new stand on vaccinations....) how we think is best.