The pace of homebirth deaths appears to be accelerating. When I first started the predecessor of this blog back in 2006, I heard about a few homebirth deaths a year and wrote about every death I heard about. Gradually the pace picked up to one or more a month. Earlier this year I acknowledged that […]
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Saving healthcare dollars with unmedicated home vasectomy
Homebirth is often promoted as a way to save healthcare dollars. No hospital use, no medications, no doctor. Unmedicated homebirth costs a lot less than hospital birth (barring complications, of course). Treatment intensity is lower, interventions are fewer, and the mortality rate is only slightly higher. In the same spirit of cost savings, I suggest […]
New Dutch study shows homebirth increases the risk of death — and not just for the poor
You may have read about a new Dutch study of homebirth that shows that homebirth increases the risk of neonatal death. You may have also read the spin, that the risk of homebirth is confined to poor women. This piece in The Washington Post is typical: The infant mortality rate is also higher in the […]
I’m a feminist. That’s how I know natural childbirth has nothing to do with feminism.
Mariah Sixkiller claims she is a birth feminist. Birth feminists simply believe in a woman’s right to make empowered choices about her birth experience. We believe a Mom should have evidence-based information about all her birth options, which all too often does not happen. We believe a Mom should be supported through her decision-making process […]
An open letter to BJOG about homebirth huckster Melissa Cheyney
To the Editors of the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Thank you so much for response to my tweets about the recent publication of Safe for Whom? by Melissa Cheyney et al. and your suggestion to submit a Letter to the Editor. The format for Letters to the Editor is too restrictive, so I […]
What gun violence denialists have in common with other science denialists
Another day, another gun massacre. In Louisiana last night: A “drifter” sat silently in a movie theater for 20 minutes before shooting 11 other patrons in an incident that was over in matter of seconds, witnesses and police in Louisiana said early Friday. [He] 59, was seated in the theater “just like everybody else” before […]
How could Modern Alternative Mama determine whether natural remedies actually work?
As I wrote yesterday, Katie Tietje (Modern Alternative Mama) claims that natural remedies work to cure disease. She provided no evidence for that claim, but that doesn’t mean that it is impossible. Let’s look at what Katie would need to know in order to determine whether natural remedies work: The study of drug efficacy and […]
10 Reasons why you shouldn’t use natural remedies
Katie Tietje (nom de quack Modern Alternative Mama) continues to grace us with her own charming brand of scientific illiteracy. Because, really, who doesn’t consider someone with no scientific knowledge and no medical training to be an excellent source of medical advice? Recently she offered 10 reason for using natural remedies. Paradoxically they are actually […]
She used WHAT as a dildo??!!
I no longer practice medicine, but I sometimes miss it. One of the reasons is that the amazing thing about practicing medicine is that every time you think you’ve finally seen everything, you see something new. Not just something that you’ve never seen before, either, but something that you could not have even imagined. Consider a […]
Donald Trump and Stacy Keibler subvert the language of war
Trump is toast. He may not know it yet, but Donald Trump has destroyed his always meager chances of being his party’s presidential nominee. How did he do that? By abusing language to self-aggrandize. Specifically, he denied that former POW Sen. John McCain is a hero. Here’s what the uber-narcissist Trump blustered when asked by […]
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
