Dr. Neel Shah wrote a foolish, poorly researched article on homebirth, A NICE Delivery — The Cross-Atlantic Divide over Treatment Intensity in Childbirth, and The New England Journal of Medicine published it, apparently without having it reviewed by anyone who knows anything about American homebirth. Then he penned a piece for The Conversation, Are hospitals […]
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Scientific efforts to demonize C-sections bear an ugly resemblance to scientific efforts to demonize abortion
What’s the difference between: We argue that a detailed assessment of these risks should be taken into account in guidelines … And this: … [W]e are committed to educate … patients, the general public … and our medical colleagues regarding the medical and psychological complications … Sounds pretty similar, right? But the first comes from […]
It’s official: men are too emotional for a career in science
I know it’s not politically correct to say it, but it has become unavoidable: Men are too emotional for a career in science. Nobel Prize winner Tim Hunt has made it official with his blithering about “trouble with girls” in science labs: A Nobel Prize-winning British scientist apologized Wednesday for saying the ‘trouble with girls’ […]
Childbirth and the invisibility of women’s needs
I have often commented that the philosophy of natural mothering (natural childbirth, lactivism, attachment parenting) rests on fundamental assumptions that are often unrecognized and therefore unexamined. I’ve written about the social construction of risk within our culture and the social imperative that everyone (mothers and doctors) do everything possible to minimize risks to babies without […]
It’s morally repugnant to recommend saving money by forcing women to labor in agony at homebirth
I wrote last week about Dr. Neel Shah’s piece in The New England Journal of Medicine musing on the desirability of homebirth. Dr. Shah piously presents his musing as a way to save women from overtreatment from C-sections, which he derides as like an airbag exploding in a woman’s face. Apparently, Dr. Shah views the […]
What message do we send to women when we deride their C-sections as “air bags that explode in your face”?
Dr. Neel Shah owes a lot of women an apology. I wrote yesterday about Dr. Shah’s endorsement of homebirth, both for Time.com and in this post. My rebuttal of Dr. Shah’s claims was simple; he appeared to be entirely unaware of the published literature on the dramatically increased death rate at American homebirth, and equally […]
Are hospitals the safest place to have a baby? Without question.
This is an expanded version of a piece I wrote for Time.com. Dr. Neel Shah, Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School has written two pieces on the safety of homebirth. The first, A NICE Delivery — The Cross-Atlantic Divide over Treatment Intensity in Childbirth, appears in The New England […]
Breastfeeding advocacy fits perfectly into our “blame the mother” culture
On the face of it, there’s no reason why breastfeeding, which in industrialized countries has only trivial benefits, has become a public health cause celebre. There are so many, many issues that have a much greater impact on child health that are being ignored, while breastfeeding advocacy benefits from millions of dollars of public and […]
OMG! OMG! It’s a lactating breast!
I know, I know; what was I thinking? Here I am, a 56 year old woman, old enough to be a grandmother (hint to my married and engaged children!) and I violated the standards of Facebook by heading a post about lactation with a picture of … [Stop reading now if you are easily offended. […]
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
