The folks at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists should be profoundly ashamed of themselves. They have participated in the creation of new clinical guidance that is fundamentally unethical. I’m referrering to Making sense of commissioning Maternity Services in England, produced in collaboration with the Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust. […]
On its website, Midwifery Today features a timeline entitled The History of Midwifery and Childbirth In America. The timeline extends from 1660 to the late 1990’s. It contains interesting tidbits of information about childbirth practices, interspersed with general historical events. It seems quite comprehensive with the exception of one curious omission. It barely mentions mortality […]
Homebirth, and natural childbirth advocates insist that “Peace on Earth Begins With Birth.” That’s not what my research shows. I’ve discovered an astounding fact about natural childbirth and attachment parenting: both are risk factors for tyranny, mass murder and a variety of other ills. Consider: Of history’s greatest tyrants, men such as Hitler, Torquemada, Henry […]
Republican Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri reminds me of certain natural childbirth advocates. When asked whether he opposes abortion in cases of rape, Akin declared: If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. Akin ought to win an award for cramming the largest amount of […]
Hi, I’m Jen, lay nuclear physicist. I just returned from the gynecologist and I am so pissed off. I went for a routine annual visit and exam and I am completely fed up with the way that gynecologists pathologize menstruation. Here’s what happened: As soon as I got into the exam room, the nurse asked […]
Compare and contrast: Mother #1 … So yes, I had preeclampsia and I needed to have my baby in the hospital just in case something went wrong. This isn’t the part of my story that makes me angry. The diagnosis does not make me angry. Ok I am angry about my diagnosis, but that’s my […]
Natural childbirth advocates have been caught, proverbially, with their pants down. After making the specter of posttraumatic stress disorder a centerpiece of their efforts to promote natural childbirth, they are shocked to discover that it is natural childbirth itself that may cause post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after birth. Hypocrites take your mark! Set! Go! […]
In light of yesterday’s post about “birth defeat,” I thought it might be worthwhile to revisit the issue of whether “trauma” is in the eye of the beholder or whether it is reasonable to expect people to put disappointments in perspective. I’ve written several times about feelings of depression, inadequacy and even trauma regarding the […]
Here’s a term I haven’t heard before: birth defeat. As in What the heck happened? Still dealing with birth defeat… It’s been nearly 4 months since I gave birth and I’m still coming to terms with the fact that my birth was not natural like I wanted. The main issue I’m trying to figure out […]
It’s like doing a study on dogs (for whom chocolate is poisonous) and announcing that chocolate is poisonous to humans. I’m referring to a new study that claims to show that vaginal delivery, but not C-section, improves brain function. The authors showed nothing of the kind: They did not look at humans. They did not […]
Dr. Amy Tuteur is an obstetrician gynecologist. She received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in 1979 and her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine in 1984. Dr. Tuteur is a former clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School. She left the practice of medicine to raise her four children. Her book, Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting (HarperCollins) was published in 2016. She can be reached at DrAmy5 at aol dot com... More
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