Community | June 13, 2011 | 23 comments

Are We Having Babies All Wrong?

source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2062393,00.html

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love_is_my_religion
Ina May Gaskin started delivering babies in 1970 while on a hippie cross-country trip known as the caravan. She had no medical training, just a master's degree in English and a gut feeling that women deserved kinder, gentler births. When the hundreds of caravaners settled in Tennessee on what they called the Farm, Gaskin and several other women began delivering the community's babies at home and also opened one of the first, nonhospital birthing centers in the country. Word got around when Gaskin wrote about her successes in Spiritual Midwifery, and a movement was born.

Today, women still travel far and wide to give birth on the Farm, and Gaskin's methods have the respect of clinicians around the world (there is even an obstetric maneuver named after her). Now 71, she is credited with reviving what was essentially a dead profession in the U.S., inspiring scores of women to enter the field and helping found the Midwives Alliance of North America. But even while midwives attend more births in the U.S. — about 7.5% in 2008 — they're finding it increasingly hard to get practice agreements with doctors and hospitals. In her latest book, Birth Matters: A Midwife's Manifesta (Seven Stories, April 2011), Gaskin argues that America needs midwives more than ever.

You started attending births with no formal medical training. How did you know you could do it?
I knew how to deal with potential complications because kind doctors helped me. But basically I was behaving the way my aunt, who had a farm, would around any laboring mammal. You don't disturb her, you don't upset her. She deserves peace and quiet and respect. Doing that meant that no C-sections were necessary for the first 200 births on the Farm.

The C-section rate on the Farm is very low, under 2% for about 3,000 births, while the average in the U.S. for low-risk women is 20%. Can you explain?
It's very rare to see an undisturbed birth in a modern U.S. teaching hospital, but when you see a woman who isn't frightened, who's giving birth without interference, you stand back in awe and realize how little needed you are except in the rare circumstance. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't be around in case there is a problem. It just means that you should be able to tell when there's a problem, and you should be able to tell how not to create problems.


-Continued-
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2062393,00.html#ixzz1P9FhJMRx
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    Community,   Culture,   Earth and Science,   Science,   2 more
  2. tags:
    Pregnancy,  midwifery
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23 comments // Are We Having Babies All Wrong?

  • PoliticalAmazon
    • 0
      PoliticalAmazon  

    • I think research on birthing is important--it gives us more informed options regarding delivery.

      But the title, "Are we Having Babies All Wrong" is just irritating.

      Maybe it's the increased pressure from the right to turn America back to a "choice-by-coat-hanger" nation, but I'm just so sick and tired of others micromanaging my beaver.

    • 12 months ago
  • love_is_my_religion
    • +1
      love_is_my_religion  

    • After reading Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First, among numerous other books on natural child birth, I knew I was not not birthing in a hospital. Went with a midwife at a birth center instead, which was a wonderful experience. We need more midwives and doulas more then ever now!

    • 12 months ago
  • letsliveinpeace
  • Wicks934
  • squarethecircle
  • love_is_my_religion
  • Incredulous
    • +3
      Incredulous  

    • I have long known of the Farm, enjoyed this interesting article about one of the original members.

      Somewhere in the last 100 years, giving birth began to be seen and treated as a medical condition, rather than a human one.

    • 12 months ago
  • PIANORAMA
  • Warren_Merrill
    • -5
      Warren_Merrill  

    • "The C-section rate on the Farm is very low, under 2% for about 3,000 births, while the average in the U.S. for low-risk women is 20%. Can you explain?"

      Lawyers. The medical malpractice business forces doctors to take low risk routes. If Obama was serious about lowering medial costs instead of attempting to take over the medical industry, tort reform would have been part of ObamaCare.

    • 12 months ago
  • onemalefla
  • squarethecircle
    • +3
      squarethecircle  
    • Warren_Merrill:

      This is about doctors making doctoring convenient for themselves as well as using as many pharmaceutical products as possible. They tell you when you will give birth and if you don't then you are given pitossin to get the ball rolling. Too many in this field decided on it for the monetary gain not the personal satisfaction and it shows. The same can be said for attorneys. Cops chose to be cops so they can harrass not protect, politicians chose to run for office so they can selfserve. All symptoms of a sickness in our approach to life on this planet that must be altered.

    • 12 months ago
  • ArchDruid
  • Warren_Merrill
    • 0
      Warren_Merrill  
    • onemalefla:

      Based on the comment I'm responding to there's a simple connection:

      C sections
      CYA/medical liability
      outrageous cost of medical liability
      medical costs
      cost of insurance

      Tort reform would lower medical costs. There would be less CYA medicine pratice. If medical costs were lowered so would insurance premiums.

    • 12 months ago
  • Warren_Merrill
  • Warren_Merrill
    • 0
      Warren_Merrill  
    • ArchDruid:

      Why would you assume I wasn't there? It was great. I can still play it back in my mind even though it was 23 and 18 years ago. The hospital my oldest was born in was on the leading edge of making hospital birth as natural as possible. The room was like a bedroom.

    • 12 months ago
  • squarethecircle
  • good_stuff
    • +2
      good_stuff  

    • There are explainations for why c-section rates are so high in hospitals now, and they have to do mostly with liability (i.e. sued if you do, sued if you don't metality). Clearly a C-section is going to cost a lot more and also takes more time to recover, so it is in the hospital's finacial interest to perform them more frequently. Sometimes the insurance companies pay the full rate, but usually they argue it down to something more reasonable.

      The only surprising thing here is that people/government can't figure out why insurance and medial costs are going up so fast in this country.

    • 12 months ago
  • PIANORAMA
    • +2
      PIANORAMA  
    • good_stuff:

      Hospitals are not safe places, statistically, to deliver babies. There is so much pressure on women to have their babies in hospitals. I have a lot of admiration for those who choose home births when they can, i.e., there are not extenuating circumstances such as health risks or other factors.

    • 12 months ago
  • squarethecircle
  • squarethecircle
    • +2
      squarethecircle  

    • Another symptom of letting others make decisions for you that don't care about you. We had 3 out of 4 kids at home after the first in the hospital. There is no comparison between using a mid-wife who considers everything down to your diet vs a doctor scheduling you for a c-section so they might make tee time. There is also an enormous difference in money, stress and comfort for all parties involved.

    • 12 months ago
  • PIANORAMA
    • +3
      PIANORAMA  

    • In the 1970s when I was living in Woodstock, NY, a medical doctor lost his hospital privileges and license to practice because he was . . . get this, assisting in home births!

    • 12 months ago
  • samthesixth
  • PIANORAMA
    • +1
      PIANORAMA  
    • samthesixth:

      Hopefully it's easier to have a homebirth nowadays. What a catch 22, to need an MD signing off on your work and the MDs who might be available in a small town disenfranchised for assisting with home births . . .

    • 12 months ago
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