When one of my sons was in the third grade, we had an argument about arithmetic, specifically division. He had been struggling over his homework, trying to determine the answer to a word problem: If Jack has 18 pennies and wants to separate them into 3 groups, how many pennies will be in each group. […]
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Anti-vax organization to merge with Flat Earth Society
In a move sure to have far reaching implications, leading anti-vaxxers announced that they are merging their organizations with the Flat Earth Society. Spokesperson Gull E. Bull explained that this exciting merger grew out of a chance encounter that occurred in the lobby of Trump Tower. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The merger grew […]
Not much thinking going on at The Thinking Moms’ Revolution
George Orwell introduced the concept of “doublespeak” in his masterpiece 1984. Doublespeak is language that deliberately obscures, disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words… It may also refer to intentional ambiguity in language or to actual inversions of meaning (e.g., “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really […]
What anti-vaxxers taught me about Trump supporters
I despair for the future of our country. It’s not simply because I am a liberal, though political liberalism is my bones. It’s not just because Trump is an ignorant, narcissistic bully, though he most certainly is. It’s because Trump and his supporters remind me of a group that I have written about and dealt […]
The social dimension of anti-vaccine advocacy
Last month I noted that the mainstream media has suddenly discovered fake news and has written extensively on the willingness of people to believe complete lies. I pointed out that while fake news may be relatively new within the political context, it has been a potent force in alternative health for decades. Most alternative health […]
Parenting and the tyranny of the natural
Sociologist Jan MacVarish’s latest book is entitled Neuroparenting. Neuroparenting: … relies on the authority of nature as providing an eternal, universal, cultureless blueprint for child-rearing but also on the authority of science, as nature’s modern interpreter. That’s also an excellent description of natural parenting. Both rely on assumptions about human beings, nature, culture and science […]
More C-sections = fewer lawsuits
Defensive medicine works. A recent study shows that obstetricians who have higher C-section rates are far less likely to be sued than those who have low C-section rates. Why? [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]There is a potential solution but insurers won’t pay for it.[/pullquote] There are two possible reasons: obstetricians who have higher […]
Are C-sections changing the maternal pelvis? Maybe, but this paper doesn’t show it.
A new paper in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Science is getting a lot of buzz. According to the BBC, Caesarean births ‘affecting human evolution’: [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]There is no cliff-edge in fitness. A mother who needs a C-section for a 7 pound baby could subsequently deliver an 8 pound […]
Milli Hill shows that natural childbirth — like all cults — cannot tolerate criticism
I’ve written before that the philosophy of natural childbirth is the philosophy of a cult. Like most cults, has its own mythology, in this case a mythology that is both racist and sexist. The cult was started by Grantly Dick-Read, author of Childbirth Without Fear, and a eugenicist who was preoccupied with visions of “race […]
Another VBAC group, another dead baby
This came from the VBAC group set up in the wake of the implosion of Jen Kamel’s VBAC group. You may recall that the group imploded after they cluelessly boasted about their VBAC rupture rates, not realizing that they were 70% higher than typically quoted rates. Someone asked Kamel to comment on the fact that […]
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
