The Skeptical OB

Last week, I wrote about the preventable death of a baby at freebirth. So the surges keep coming every day, but still no baby. Just making me more and more tired and my body ache everywhere. Nothing I could do would ease the pain but I tried so hard to stay positive. My water broke […]

The fundamental conceit of the philosophy of natural childbirth is that it recapitulates childbirth in nature. But there’s nothing natural about books, courses, hired attendants, birth pools and refusing available pain relief. The ultimate irony of the philosophy of natural childbirth is that it isn’t about the physiology of birth but rather about the monetization […]

I have written many times about freebirth (unassisted childbirth), the practice of giving birth without any birth attendant. The stories differ but they are united by a personal trait shared by all freebirthers: emotional immaturity. What do I mean by emotional immaturity? Consider toddlers. Toddlers are the standard for emotional immaturity. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” […]

Homebirth has a #MeToo problem. Homebirth advocate Rixa Freeze has proudly announced her scientific paper published in conjunction with convicted sexual predator Stuart Fischbein, MD. The paper is Breech birth at home: outcomes of 60 breech and 109 cephalic planned home and birth center births. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]How can homebirth advocates, […]

Unassisted brake repair. Supportive comments only. No scaremongering. Sounds stupid, right? [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]As a baby struggled, suffered and died, her mother was receiving encouragement to avoid medical assistance.[/pullquote] What conclusions could we draw about an internet forum with that description? The people who created the forum have no interest is […]

The internet is buzzing with the latest story of a woman who let her baby die at a freebirth. Freebirth is the bizarre practice of giving birth without a medical professional of any kind because “nature.” Women who choose freebirth seem to have no knowledge of childbirth; if they did, they’d know that the day […]

I’ve written many times about the obstetric lie that will not die: the unsubstantiated “optimal” C-section rate of less than 15%. It was fabricated from whole cloth in 1985, apparently to suit the prejudices of the man behind it. There was never any evidence to support it. It was officially debunked in 2015 when it […]

Politicians lie. That fact is as old as the oldest forms of government, but recently there’s been a new innovation, Trumpification. It used to be then when caught in a lie, politicians either walked back the lie or apologized for it. Trumpification calls for those caught in lies to double down on them. The current […]

Kudos to the Journal of Human Lactation for publishing a paper that challenges a central lactivist assumption. The paper is Breast Is Best . . . Except When It’s Not by Lynne M. McIntyre, MSW, Adrienne Marks Griffen, MPP, Karlynn BrintzenhofeSzoc, PhD. Each woman suffered postpartum depression: We come to the intersection of PMADs [perinatal […]

Over the years I’ve made a variety of arguments about contemporary midwifery and lactivist philosophies: 1. They subvert science by exaggerating benefits of favored treatment options (unmedicated vaginal birth and breastfeeding). 2. They threaten safety by ignoring risks of favored treatment options. 3. They falsely declare favored treatments save money but neglect to include costs. […]