To understand why I created this class, let’s go back to March 2006 when ACOG released Practice Bulletin 71 restricting the use of episiotomies.
But I don’t like it. I’ve been waiting years for ACOG to retract it so I could cut women to my heart’s content, but apparently that’s not going to happen.
So here’s the bad news. The ACOG Bulletin on Episiotomy is not going away anytime soon.
But who cares about scientific evidence? My opinion is more important than anything the scientific evidence shows.
What is the good news?
I designed the “Bring Episiotomy Back, Baby!” class to help you prevent or reverse bans on episiotomies.
So if episiotomy has been restricted in your local hospital, or administrators are talking about suspending it, or if you were about to start a episiotomy program and it’s been put on hold because of the statement, then this class is for you.
Wait! What?
It is wrong to hold a class designed to promote a practice proven to be dangerous and discouraged by ACOG??!!
Are you sure? Because that’s what Rebecca Dekker of “Evidence Based” Birth is doing.
See: Class on How to Bring Waterbirth Back!
You remember Evidence Based Birth? I wrote about it not long ago, Rebecca Dekker’s “Evidence Based Birth”: you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
Dekker wrote to ACOG explaining why she thinks they are wrong about waterbirth, and was shocked, shocked to learn that they believe scientific evidence is more reliable than Dekker’s personal opinion.
So Dekker is only going to charge you $49 for a class (“valued at $79”! By whom? By no one, but it sounds so cool to say that!) to explain why it’s okay to ignore scientific evidence in favor of her personal opinion as a cardiology nurse.
The “Bring Waterbirth Back, Baby!” course gives you the tools, tricks, and tips to help you bring waterbirth back to the hospital in your community. We will start by talking about how change occurs in hospitals, and talk about why it is so important that you form a team to tackle this issue.
But wait! There’s more!
When you download the Waterbirth Ban Toolkit (included in the class), you will receive:
PowerPoint file you can use to critique the Opinion Statement
Change.org petition language for you to use
Printable petition to gather handwritten signatures
Sample press release about bringing waterbirth back to your community
One-page handout of “talking points” about waterbirth
Two-page handout on tips for dealing with the media
Sample letter to hospital administrators from a mother
Printer-friendly PDF of the Evidence Based Birth blog article on waterbirth (42 pages)
Evidence Based Birth Annotated Bibliography of all the research ever conducted on waterbirth (80+ pages)
Formal letter that you can give to hospital administrators about the flaws in the ACOG/AAP Opinion Statement
Who is teaching this class?
This class was designed and organized by Rebecca Dekker, PhD, RN, APRN, a nurse researcher and the founder of Evidence Based Birth. In 2014, Rebecca spent four months conducting a systematic review of the literature on waterbirth, which she published at Evidence Based Birth.
FOUR WHOLE MONTHS! OMG! OMG! The woman is a wonder!!! Obstetricians have to spend literally YEARS to master the practice of obstetrics, and Dekker, a CARDIOLOGY NURSE, did it only four months.
Can Dekker (WHO SPENT FOUR MONTHS CONDUCTING A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON WATERBIRTH!!!!!!) guarantee that we will be able to reverse waterbirth bans by taking this class?
There are no guarantees. To be totally honest and up front with you—there are many barriers to waterbirth, and by simply taking this class we cannot and do not promise that you will be able to reverse waterbirth bans in your community.
However, this class is the first time all of the knowledge, skills, and tools to fight waterbirth bans have been gathered into one online resource.
So your efforts to overcome waterbirth bans will be made exponentially stronger by what you learn here and through access to materials that will make your fight both more productive and more strategic.
Exponentially stronger!!
Bad news, Rebecca, zero to the 5th power is still zero.
But wait! There’s more!
And that’s not all, folks:
To celebrate the launch of this new class, I am doing a GIVEAWAY for a free waterbirth t-shirt from the soon-to-be-launched Evidence Based Birth online store.
To enter the giveaway, simply click here to visit the giveaway site and drop your email in the box below before Monday, October 6th at 9 PM Eastern Time.
Once you enter, you will be emailed details on how you can get your name entered in the giveaway up to three more times by sharing the link to the contest.
Believe me, you are going to LOVE this waterbirth t-shirt. I am planning on releasing it by November, so you will receive your prize then once the t-shirts are printed. The t-shirt design is top-secret, so I can’t show it to you right now, but I promise you– you are going to gasp and say, “AAAH! I LOVE THIS SHIRT!!”
And yes, there will be lots of options for you to choose from– V-neck, unisex, plus-size, or maternity style. And we will ship it to you for free, too!
That’s right folks. One lucky winner will get a FREE T-shirt!
No doubt this is a great deal in the fantasy land that Rebecca Dekker (WHO SPENT FOUR MONTHS CONDUCTING A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON WATERBIRTH!!!!!!) inhabits. But in the real world, the whole thing is just a way to enrich Rebecca Dekker.
I have a better offer.
For the low, low price of nothing I will give you important knowledge about waterbirth (valued at $3 million dollars!) and unlike Rebecca Dekker, cardiology nurse, I’ve spend the last 30 YEARS reading the obstetric literature.
Here it is:
Water birth is unnatural. No primate gives birth in water.
Waterbirth is giving birth in a plastic pool of water that is inevitably fecally contaminated. It is the equivalent of giving birth in a toilet, and has similar risks, including the risk that the baby will breathe in or swallow the fecally contaminated water.
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Fetus and Newborn in conjunction with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists reports:
Some of the reported concerns include higher risk of maternal and neonatal infections, particularly with ruptured membranes; difficulties in neonatal thermoregulation; umbilical cord avulsion and umbilical cord rupture while the newborn infant is lifted or maneuvered through and from the underwater pool at delivery, which leads to serious hemorrhage and shock; respiratory distress and hyponatremia that results from tub-water aspiration (drowning or near drowning); and seizures and perinatal asphyxia. (my emphasis)
Rebecca Dekker can’t fleece the gullible make a profit on giving away her worthless opinion for free. so she charges for it.
Let me end by offering my heartfelt thanks to Dekker (WHO SPENT FOUR MONTHS CONDUCTING A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON WATERBIRTH!!!!!!)
Thank you for making my job of debunking the nonsense of the natural childbirth industry so easy. Reading and responding to your website is like shooting fish in a barrel. The amount of crap you spew forth in an effort to profit from the gullibility of your followers is truly impressive. If I wanted to make money by hoodwinking the foolish, I would absolutely use you as my role model!
In the meantime, I’ll keep debunking your self-referential, self-indulgent, self-enriching idiocy for free.
