The books are flying off the shelf. The hangers-on are making a fortune. And the reputation of the author — elderly, frail, suffering from memory, vision and hearing loss — has been destroyed. Simply put, the publication of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman (the discarded first draft of her iconic novel To Kill a […]
Latest News
Shouldn’t women be having speculum orgasms?
Debra Pascali-Bonaro and Christiane Northrup, inquiring minds want to know: If, as you claim, women have orgasms at the moment of birth, shouldn’t they be having orgasms during speculum exams? As Dr. Northrup explained: “When the baby’s coming down the birth canal, remember, it’s going through the exact same positions as something going in, the […]
Anyone who claims there is an ideal C-section rate is lying … including the World Health Organization
Suppose I told you that research shows that the ideal C-section rate — the lowest rate compatible with the lowest rates of perinatal and maternal death — is 75%. You’d balk, right? That couldn’t possibly be true. Suppose I told you that research shows that the ideal C-section rate is 15%? Most people, particularly non-obstetricians, […]
Who benefits from shaming formula feeders? Hint: it’s not those mothers or their babies.
Shame is integral to the contemporary lactivism movement. Indeed, it is so integral that there’s actual a blueprint on how lactivists can shame other mothers. Entitled Watch your language it was written by lactation consultant Diane Wiessinger and published in the Journal of Human Lactation in 1996. It is a primer on how to mobilize […]
12 natural pregnancy lies that Modern Alternative Mama hopes you’ll believe … so she can keep selling you stuff
You want to become educated about pregnancy? Whom should you believe, an obstetrician with 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 4 years of hands on obstetric training delivering hundreds of babies, multiple years of clinical practice, having read hundreds or thousands of obstetric papers from the scientific literature or altie-shill Katie Tietje, […]
Breastfeeding and white hat bias
Rank the following in order of dangerousness: Term infants exposed to A have a death rate of 5.6/1000. Term infants exposed to B have a death rate of 0.5/1000. Term infants exposed to C have an excess death rate of 0. They’re already ranked in order of dangerousness, right? What if I pointed out to […]
Motherhood and the tyranny of the N-words
Words have power. Therefore, I am rather surprised at the vehemence with which some people in our multi-day Twitter conversation are defending the use of the word “normalizing” in reference to breastfeeding. Perhaps they simply don’t realize the viciousness with which many mothers wield the two ugliest N-words in contemporary parenting discussions: normal and natural. […]
Stop “normalizing” breastfeeding!
Apparently I hit a nerve. I wrote a post last night comparing admonitions to breastfeed with admonitions to continue unwanted pregnancies. I used the following images to illustrate my point: On Twitter, journalist Tara Haelle commented on the image on the left. She promoted it as “normalizing” public breastfeeding and I’m confident that she is […]
What’s the difference between promoting breastfeeding and promoting continuing unwanted pregnancies? Nothing.
Promoting breastfeeding is about policing women’s bodies in the exact same way that promoting continuing unwanted pregnancies is about policing women’s bodies. It is a sad fact of history that men have spent a tremendous amount of time policing women’s bodies. And an even sadder fact is that women have often been the prime enforcers […]
The “I’ve done my research on birth” quiz
Think you’ve done your reseach on birth? Take the quiz to find out. Click on the image for a larger view.
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
