The Skeptical OB

Having an unassisted homebirth after five c-sections was an awesome experience. It was my easiest labour and birth. I could do whatever felt comfortable with and be in any position. There was just one teensy, weensy problem: the baby died. We had many discussions about how and where we should have this baby. Having had […]

I’ve noted in the past that homebirth and natural childbirth advocates love mantras and memes. They represent simple ways to communicate complex ideas, make wonderful sound bites, and for advocates, whether or not they are true is irrelevant. I’ve written about the “obstetricians ignore the scientific evidence” mantra, which doesn’t make sense if you think […]

Is jumping out of plane without a parachute dangerous? Suppose that the folks at the Cochrane Review searched the scientific literature for randomized controlled trials that compared jumping out of plane with and without a parachute. Not surprisingly, there aren’t many studies like that. Suppose that they discovered one study that looked at 11 people […]

So, homebirth and natural childbirth advocates, let me see if I get this straight: You trust obstetricians to save your baby’s life, regardless of the nature of the emergency, regardless of the complexity of the medical problem, regardless of how much time you have wasted because you had no idea your baby’s life was in […]

Chalk up another perinatal death to inane affirmation that a woman’s body is perfectly designed to give birth. After professing her belief in her body’s ability “to birth this baby naturally,” and “every confidence” in allowing the baby to choose her own birthday, the mother refused a postdates induction. She did not want to put […]

With apologies to Laura Joffe Numeroff.   If you give a homebirth advocate a baby She’s going to ask if it was born vaginally. When you tell her the baby was born by C-section She’ll ask you why. When you explain that the baby didn’t fit She’ll blame the pitocin. Then she’ll insist that the […]

You have to give American University assistant anthropology professor Adrienne Pine credit for attempting to divert everyone from the real issue. Instead of accepting blame for her unprofessional behavior, Pine has decided to pretend that this is a referendum on public breastfeeding. The story is straightforward. According to the Washington Post: Adrienne Pine was in […]

The unalterable bedrock of natural childbirth advocacy is that women should refuse effective pain relief in labor. The “ideal” situation is for women to embrace their pain and pretend that it is “good pain” or “pain with a purpose.” Of course, there is no such thing as “good pain”: NCB advocates just made that up. […]

Midwife Jessica Weed has helpfully provided yet another example in the seemingly endless parade of homebirth midwives who demonstrate emphatically that the CPM (certified professional midwife) credential is completely inadequate and should be abolished. The stories share the same pattern over and over again: 1. High risk candidate taken on for homebirth? Check. 2. Serious […]

Benjamin Disraeli famously said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” Midwife Hannah Dahlen, in her ongoing efforts to blacken the reputation of obstetricians, corroborates Disraeli’s claim. Her latest paper, Rates of obstetric intervention among low-risk women giving birth in private and public hospitals in NSW: a population-based descriptive study, published […]