The Skeptical OB

One of the biggest lies of the many lies told by homebirth advocates is that unexpected childbirth complications can be managed by immediate transfer to the hospital. Some can, but the worst emergencies cannot. Why? Because in the case of a serious emergency, the baby is often left without oxygen. Think about it: could you […]

The obstetrician wrote: Occasionally I’m asked why we so often congratulate women on “beautifully natural births?” Some have commented, “all births are beautiful, why do you specifically call out natural births as though medicated births are somehow less beautiful?” … I realize that this is a marketing message. This physician is trolling for more business […]

It’s not unusual for new mothers to seek out other new mothers for support. They share information and experiences about birth, breastfeeding, sleeping and the awe of having created a new life. In contrast, in freebirth groups they share information about their dead babies. It’s not really surprising that there are lots of deaths in […]

Imagine if every time a gay man or woman interacted with the healthcare system he or she was offered gay conversion therapy, instructed that heterosexuality was normal and forced to sign a consent form for medical care that proclaimed “Hetero is Best”? Ugly, right? As GLAAD explains: Anti-LGBTQ activists have argued for years that sexual […]

The most tragic of the many ironies of the natural childbirth movement is that the recommendations proposed in good faith to improve outcomes for babies and women has ended up killing them. This is particularly true in the case of maternal mortality. For years the conventional wisdom has been that outcomes improve as interventions are […]

Yesterday I wrote about doula Maddie McMahon who equated obstetric providers who do vaginal exams with sexual predators. Midwives shld be debating the pros and cons of routine VEs and exploring the evidence, or lack of, for regularly fossicking around in a normal labour. I’m just a woman telling you that you need a damn […]

If you want to see how badly the midwifery philosophy of “normal” birth has been discredited, there’s no better place to look than the UK. For over a decade the Royal College of Midwives, the midwifery trade union, promoted a Campaign for Normal Birth on the grounds that it would save money, save lives and […]

Are women receiving the information they need to make informed decisions about vaginal birth and C-sections? This may sound dramatic, and may offend some, but speaking from the lived experience of life after forceps birth injury some days I feel I would rather have died, or my baby died, than the everyday reality of these […]

Earlier this month I wrote about The Lancet series on reducing C-section rates that used a benchmark rate of 10-15%. This despite the fact that the World Health Organization, which made it up, acknowledges there is NO EVIDENCE to support the safety of a 10-15% rate and considerable evidence that the minimum safe C-section rate […]

Yesterday I came across a heartbreaking comment from a woman suffering from the long term risks of vaginal birth: This may sound dramatic, and may offend some, but speaking from the lived experience of life after forceps birth injury some days I feel I would rather have died, or my baby died, than the everyday […]