Katie Prown is afraid of me

When it comes to homebirth, the truth hurts.

The truth is that homebirth midwives are grossly undereducated and grossly undertrained. The truth is that homebirth increases the risk of neonatal death. The truth is that the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA), the organization that represents homebirth midwives, knows that their own data shows that homebirth has an unacceptable neonatal death rate. That’s why every effort must be made to suppress the truth.

That’s an old story, but the new story is that women who have been hurt by homebirth and those who care about them are speaking up and having a major impact, an impact so great that homebirth midwives have decided to take action.

No, they haven’t decided to improve education and training of homebirth midwives.

No, they haven’t decided to honestly inform women about the increased risk of neonatal death at homebirth.

No, they haven’t decided to investigate the homebirth midwives who have presided over preventable neonatal deaths.

Evidently the Big Push for Midwives Campaign is so frightened by the truth that they’ve decided to mobilize their followers to suppress it.

Check out the following email from Katie Prown, the Campaign Manager of the Big Push for Midwives Campaign.

From: Katherine Prown

To: “”thebigpushformidwives@yahoogroups.com”” ; birthpolicy

Sent: Friday, September 2, 2011 7:12 AM

Subject: [BirthPolicy] Comments needed!

Hi everyone–

As many of you know, Amy Tuteur’s followers have become much more organized and are now swarming every online article about CPMs and out-of-hospital birth with highly negative, but to the average person, highly plausible, comments. I’ve linked to the latest example below and I’d like to ask all of us out there with our Google alerts set to make a point of posting these stories and asking the community to comment.

Registering on these sites can be a pain, but it’s worth creating a gmail account and username just for that purpose because we can’t afford to have an entire army of commenters out there reinforcing every negative stereotype about midwives and home birth that the general public and worse, legislators, already hold.

http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/26790141-47/midwives-oregon-licensed-birth-direct.html.csp

Hmm, highly negative, but to the average person, highly plausible comments? No mention of why those negative comments are wrong, because they aren’t wrong. The Big Push For Midwives is evidently officially committed to responding to these comments because they are negative. The truth is irrelevant.

In light of this, I want to give a big shout out to the many new bloggers who are producing terrific blogs filled with correct information (and some, like The Mama Tao, incredibly entertaining as well). YOU are having an impact. YOU are educating women about the risks of homebirth and the lack of education and training of homebirth midwives.

You should be proud to learn that Katie Prown is afraid. She and other homebirth midwives aren’t really afraid of me, and they aren’t really afraid of you. They are afraid of the truth and we are just the messengers.