The Skeptical OB

Yesterday I wrote about uterine prolapse. When the muscles of the pelvic floor are are stretched or torn by childbirth, the uterus can slip down into the vagina. This can distort the relationship between the sphincter that controls release of urine from the bladder into the urethra leading to stress urinary incontinence. But the uterus […]

FullSizeRender We need to speak more honestly about the risks of childbirth. Vaginal birth can lead to a lifetime of serious, embarrassing and life altering problems. Uterine prolapse, with or without incontinence, is an entirely natural consequence of an entirely natural vaginal birth. What is uterine prolapse? As the animation above demonstrates, uterine prolapse is […]

Despite ubiquitous recommendations to breastfeed and notwithstanding sincere intention to breastfeed, women often quit for two common reasons: not enough breastmilk and too much pain while breastfeeding. For decades we’ve done nothing about either problem for the simple reason that lactation professionals have engaged in a massive campaign of denial. The most cherished article of […]

Today comes news that Sheffield maternity services have been rated as inadequate. This follows on the heels of the Ockenden Report that revealed the preventable deaths of hundreds of babies, and comes nearly seven years after the Morecambe Bay Report about the preventable deaths of babies and mothers. How did this happen? The proximate cause […]

UK midwifery is a cult. Don’t believe me? Consider Caroline Flint, former President of the Royal College of Midwives, previously found guilty of serious professional misconduct. A FORMER president of the Royal College of Midwives was found guilty of serious professional misconduct yesterday after she mishandled the delivery of a breech birth which left the […]

UK midwives love to claim they are the “guardians of normal birth.” Type “guardians of normal birth” into Google and you get page after page of midwives declaring their commitment to a specific vision of birth. I’m not sure why they boast because it’s actually an unwitting indictment of the moral rot at the heart […]

Ideas have consequences. Bad ideas about childbirth have deadly consequences. If you want to understand what went wrong with UK midwifery, read what midwives have written and said: 1. Royal College of Midwives (2006): “Louise Silverton, the RCM’s deputy general secretary, said it was the responsibility of midwives to encourage women to have a more […]

Transgender individuals make up less than 1% of the population but they’ve been inspiring a lot of fear and anger. In my view that’s the result of inappropriately conflating gender and genotype. Gender fundamentalists insist that genotype (chromosomes) and gender (identity) are ALWAYS the same. They believe that this justifies excluding both trans women and […]

Earlier this month, Gill Walton, head of the Royal College of Midwives, apologized for the RCM ‘Campaign for Normal Birth’ that has harmed so many babies and mothers. Why now, more than a decade after grieving families began complaining, billions of dollars after multiple payouts for dead and brain damaged victims, years after multiple reports […]

Natural mothering is a cultural pre-occupation of both the Right and the Left. Consider the lifestyle of fundamentalist mothers: every moment of the day consumed with child and family care. From homebirth to homeschooling, from growing her own food to baking her own bread, from extended breastfeeding to rejection of conventional medical care, women are […]