The Skeptical OB

The latest scandal in American midwife attended birth out of hospital birth is occurring in Cary, NC. According to the The News & Observer: Three-and-a-half years after its splashy debut in Cary, the Baby+Company natural birthing center has stopped delivering babies after the deaths of three newborns in the past six months. The spa-like facility […]

Under the guise of what is “best for babies,” the government has wrongly brought its considerable power to bear on promoting breastfeeding. In a fascinating paper entitled State power and breastfeeding promotion: A critique, political philosophers Balint et al. advance a compelling political argument against government promotion of breastfeeding. Simply put, the government misuses its power […]

Ever notice that most midwifery “studies,” like those of chiropractic or homeopathy come to the same conclusion? It’s always something like this: “we studied ourselves and we are the cure for everything!” The latest midwifery “study” from Australia is destined to be a classic of this type. According to the headline in The Age, Childbirth […]

Suppose I told you that there was a substance that when used judiciously in the first few days of life increases breastfeeding rates, reduces hospital readmissions and has no impact on the infant gut microbiome? That substance exists; it’s called: formula. Surprised? You might be if you believed the endless stream of lies that the […]

I have the deepest admiration for Dr. Christie del Castillo-Hegyi and Jody Seagrave Daly, RN, IBCLC. They created and maintain the Fed Is Best Foundation in the face of tremendous opposition from the breastfeeding industry. Their initial goal was simple: acknowledgement of the widespread risk of insufficient breastmilk and its harmful consequences including dehydratrion, hypoglycemia, […]

I’ve been writing recently about the moral panic surrounding C-sections. A moral panic is a widespread fear, most often an irrational one, that someone or something is a threat to the values, safety, and interests of a community or society at large. The handwringing about the high US C-section rate of 32% is a widespread […]

The natural childbirth industry — midwives, doulas and childbirth educators — have a firm idea of what childbirth should look like: an unmedicated vaginal birth, supervised by a midwife and supported by a doula, complete with elaborate birth plan (she’s “done her research), immediate breastfeeding and 24 hour rooming in with the baby. They appear to […]

In the world of childbirth, it is axiomatic that C-sections are “bad,” high C-section rates are “epidemic” and massive efforts should be directed toward lowering the C-section rate. But what if C-sections are better and safer than vaginal birth? What if — despite initial risks and costs — they prevent serious, life altering, expensive complications in […]

A few weeks ago I wrote about the farce that is the World Health Organization recommendations Intrapartum care for a positive childbirth experience. How could the WHO determine what women consider a positive birth experience? Surely they asked women, right. No, they didn’t. They asked midwives to opine on what THEY believe women want and, […]

Two new books have just been published about women and pain. Abby Norman wrote Ask Me About My Uterus; A Quest to Make Doctors Believe in Women’s Pain, about her efforts to find physicians that would take her pain from endometriosis seriously. [pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Ignoring women’s pain has been raised to […]