This Isn't a home birth debate blog

After reading the article on "normal birth" from ICAN's latest newsletter, I just couldn't help but marvel over how completely some people miss the point of my blog.  This blog is about empowering birth, and unfortunately hospital birth has become less and less empowering.  In the article, "The New Normal," Elizabeth Payne discusses the new book written by American journalist Jennifer Block,"Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care.  The book argues that the "increasing intervention in birth is not only unnecessary but dangerous."1  Payne shares with us a particularly telling story from the book, which I feel obliged to share with my readers:

One of the most telling anecdotes in her book takes place at Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Centre in Sebring, Florida. When Hurricane Charley hit in 1994, it knocked the power out. The hospital had an emergency generator, but its capacity was limited. So the hospital sent most women home and asked them to come back when they were in active labour.

During the few days following the hurricane, nurses noticed a change in the way babies were being born: most babies made it into the outside world without medical intervention and within hours of their mothers arriving at the hospital; nurses saw no cases of fetal distress or respiratory distress in newborns; and the hospital's C-section rate dropped dramatically -- from more than 29 per cent to 17 per cent (six per cent if several scheduled repeat C-sections were excluded from the stats).

Prior to the storm, most mothers were induced so that their babies would be born during the day, and labours were electronically and chemically managed. Once life returned to normal, a number of nurses quit the hospital, convinced its management of labour was doing more harm than good.2

As the nurses in the above story discovered, hospital birth is becoming less and less safe and not at all empowering.  Birth becomes a series of dictated medical events that are done to the mother.  Birth can be beautiful, powerful and passionate but unless something changes, there will be fewer and fewer women who experience it as such. 

1 Elizabeth Payne, The Ottawa Citizen, "The new normal."  Published Saturday, August, 18, 2007.  Accessed on-line, http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/arts/story.html?id=428f0c90-dc95-4ecc-b95f-89e962a5a9e8, September 18, 2007.

2 Ibid.

Comments

[heather clark]

i just started researching home births after seeing the documentary film, "the business of being born". this is truly a fascinating story. thank you for sharing.

[Kat]

Thanks for stopping by! There are so many stories like the one above.

[Kristen Warner]

Love your site and this recent post on "The New Normal." I had a pushed-along hospital birth under a CNM's care (she had to consult the head resident OB/Gyn for my case which I found insulting to her experience). My son's nose was permanently damaged due to a monitor that was inserted and didn't even work anyhow.

I ended up with a C-section for my son and he ended up with two plastic surgeries to repair his nose so far (it will never be like God made it).

I have chosen home birth as the safer option since then and have delivered two beautiful babies at home and am due with my fourth to hopefully have a similar home birth this spring.

I thank God for my home birth midwives and would only go to a hospital if we had an emergency. Not only is home birth safer, it is so much more respectful of the mother and baby (not to mention peaceful). I can't say enough about it and wish our medical system would open their eyes to this economical, safe, peaceful choice.

Thanks for your blog.

[Kat]

Thanks for commenting!

[kamagra]

very pretty baby.

[Shantelle]

Wow!! That is so inspiring. Thanks so much!
Shantelle
http://babybumpfour.blogspot.com

[Whitney Willoughby]

When it comes to the choices in medicine and the information we are handed about diseases and all other possible sicknesses the material we have access to is abundant; so much so that we are becoming a nation of either complete apathetic do nothings or total hypochondriacs. In health classes we are bombarded with diseases to watch out for and things we must stay away from, in other words prevention, for our own physical and moral well-being. When we turn the television on many of the adverts we see are telling us what diseases or medicines one should talk to their doctors about, as well as the magazines, billboards, taxis, internet, and other modes of advertisement. Even our doctors plug medicines that they are plugged by drug companies with their own interests. However, what options do most people know that women have when it comes to giving birth? Most people in the U.S. would not even know why that question should be posed. I mean are women not meant to give birth in hospitals and what is the point of such a dumb question? Clearly we all know the answer is with an obstetrician. However, that is not the answer to my question, so what is wrong with that answer? The issue is that there are many other options when it comes to giving birth and most women are not aware of them. Education in women’s health is lacking of late, not covering all the options women have, particularly concerning birthing practices in America today, which has led to women taking a passive role in their health care, and a widening gap between health care providers and their patients; revamping women’s health education (particularly birth options) is necessary to preventing rising health care costs, and a lack of responsibility for the quality of care on the part of both patient and provider.