Hi, folks! It’s Ima Frawde, CPM (counterfeit professional midwife) here with a retelling of that favorite children’s story, The Three Little Pigs. I and my colleagues have performed a hermeneutical analysis of the story and uncovered role of the hegemonic patriarchy within. We’ve rewritten the story to more closely reflect our values. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” […]
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Breastfeeding and the obsession with representation
Yesterday I wrote about the role of class and race in natural childbirth and breastfeeding advocacy. Natural childbirth and breastfeeding advocates, whether they realize it or not, define themselves in relation to poor women, often women of color. One one hand, advocates claim to emulate poor indigenous women, whom they view as exotic, authentic and […]
Birth, breastfeeding and class: indigenous poor women are exotic, but poor women in this country are ignorant and lazy
I just finished reading ‘The New Reproductive Regimes of Truth,’ a chapter in Alison Phipps outstanding book The Politics of the Body: Gender in a Neoliberal and Neoconservative Age. Phipps explains her project: In this chapter, I have introduced what I see as the new reproductive ‘regimes of truth’: the consensus around ‘normal birth’ and […]
The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative is coercive and violates women’s medical autonomy
The American College of Obstetrician Gynecologists Committee on Ethics recently issued an important position paper entitled Refusal of Medically Recommended Treatment During Pregnancy. Their most important conclusion is this: Forced compliance—the alternative to respecting a patient’s refusal of treatment—raises profoundly important issues about patient rights, respect for autonomy, violations of bodily integrity, power differentials, and […]
Lactation consultants care about breastfeeding; pediatricians care about babies.
To a hammer, everything looks like a nail. To a lactation consultant (LC), every problem looks like it can be solved by breastfeeding harder. And just as hammering a screw harder will make things worse, breastfeeding harder in the face of infant weight loss may make things much worse. In the first situation you could […]
Guest post: Here’s what happens AFTER the shoulder dystocia
Natural childbirth advocates often imply that shoulder dystocia is not big deal when successfully resolved. But the consequences of shoulder dystocia don’t end when the baby is born safely. Rachel Acosta and her son have been living with the consequences of his shoulder dsytocia: a brachial plexus nerve injury leading to a partially paralyzed arm […]
Is midwifery/breastfeeding research real scientific research?
There’s a critical difference between midwifery/breastfeeding research on the one hand and real scientific research on the other. Indeed, midwifery/breastfeeding research has more in common with Big Pharma research than it does with actual science. What’s the difference? Scientific research seeks to learn, specifically to learn how the human body works and how to maximize […]
False dichotomy: the favorite logical fallacy of the natural childbirth and breastfeeding industries
Natural childbirth advocates and lactivists don’t do nuance. For them, everything is black or white. You’re either with them or against them. Consider the response of The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine to my comments on their recent piece It’s time to disarm the formula industry. The piece itself is a classic example of rallying the […]
A fine natural childbirth whine: don’t listen to Dr. Amy!
If you can, head over to Medscape to read the comments on an interview with me, OB/Gyn Wants Women to Stop Feeling Guilty About Birthing Process. How evil of me! Natural childbirth advocates are appalled and fall back on a rather nonsensical whine, the same whine I see whenever I appear in a major media […]
If we ban formula advertisements surely we should ban homebirth advertisements, right?
Lactivists don’t trust women to make their own decisions about infant feeding choices. Hence they have come up with a never ending series of coercive and shaming tactics promote breastfeeding over formula. The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiatve insists that women must be “educated” about the benefits of breastfeeding, deprived of access to formula, forced to […]
Amy Tuteur, MD
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
