Letters to the Editor
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oxytocin, no?
the oxycontin rush women get during the vaginal delivery, and how it leads to bonding between mother and baby.
Surely you mean oxytocin?
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Yes, it should be OXYTOCIN
NOT oxycontin. BIG DIFFERENCE. I know the author meant well, but isn't there anybody fact-checking these articles???
Nice article, though, and bravo for Rikki Lake and for her healing second birth!
Signed, an advocate for supported, natural homebirth and breastfeeding...
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Congrats to Lake and all involved
My wife and I chose two midwife delivered babies in a hospital. We were a bit uneasy about having to drive crosstown in an emergency, and the midwife was licensed to deliver in homes or hospitals.
It was a great experience for everyone, and yes the babies and mom were able to bond and nurse immediately, and NEVER left our sides or were out of our sight at any time.
I think that the modern day midwife movement has a lot to thank from Jerry Brown who legalized the practice in California when he was our Governor Moonbeam.
Thank you Jerry!
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Avoiding Lawsuits?
So doctors just want to "avoid lawsuits" and that's a bad thing? But a lawsuit doesn't just come out of nowhere. Its existence is predicated on an alleged injury to someone, which in these cases would be the mother, baby, or both. So doctors are bad for wanting to avoid causing injury? Fortunately for my family, we just listened to those bad doctors and my wife gave birth twice via cesarean section to two perfectly healthy children, with no complications for anyone. Looking back, I don't believe their bonds could be any stronger, and taking needless risks in order to have the perfect home birth experience just looks foolish and self-indulgent.
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choices
As in all things, women should be allowed to make choices about their own bodies without society judging them.
I find it hypocritical for women who are critical of the estabilished medical community for not listening to women about their bodies to then turn around and tell other women who elect to deliver by c-section that they are unnattural and interfering with 'bonding'.
Women should be free to do what they wish- natural home birth or elective c-section without society slamming them. It seems like the 'you're not a good enough mother because you didnt do...' syndrome is now starting even BEFORE the child is born.
I'd find the message of 'let women make their OWN choices about childbirth without the intereference of know-it-all doctors' a lot more powerful if the film didn't then go on the bash women who make their OWN choice to have a c-section. My body, My choice. People who elect to have c-sections aren't 'too posh to push' any more than people who elect natural birth are all 'granola crunching hippies'. Each has advantages and disadvantages, which are up to the mother to weigh. Butt out society.
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Choices would be good
Yes, women should be encouraged to make their own choices, but when very few of them are really offered the choice of a home birth, because MD's are generally strongly opposed, then they have no choice.
We have a 1 in 4 rate of c-sections in this country. This is not OK. There is no way that these numbers make sense from a medical point of view. OBGYNs are most often terribly uneducated about childbirth. They over-manage and mess things up. They're just trained to do this and there's no arguing with them. So good for Ricky if she can raise some awareness.
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crazy
I can't respect anyone who says things like "it's about art vs. science". People who can't reconcile art and science should be receiving therapy, not attempting to dole it out. But back on topic...
I know someone who's home birth quackery resulted in serious complications during her delivery - complications that would have been dismissed handily by a doctor in a well equipped hospital. Giving birth is a serious business - lives are at stake. I'm happy everything has turned out so well for Lake and friends. It doesn't always. It's truly unfortunate that a film like this was made, because it will encourage more women to let emotional responses outweigh statistics, and thereby put their baby's lives at risk.
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Ummmm....
News Flash: Childbirth is a natural process. It happened majillions of times prior to the advent of the modern US approach to a medically mismanaged childbirth. It will always remain a natural and safe process, no matter how badly we gum up the works with narcotics, sharp knives, and ill-informed people.
Next news flash: Statistics show that home birth is safer by far than a hospital birth as measured by infant mortality. Further the US is not even in the top 20 in the world in expected life span as applied to infants. (Meaning of course that for all our supposed technology we are falling behind third world nations in infant mortality.) I think it follows that if Costa Rica can manage to get more babies through childbirth with non-invasive techniques then perhaps we should at least listen to the alternatives??
Individual people infuse the idea of natural childbirth with the same fervor and intimidation that other individuals use to promote the fear of terrorists. Natural childbirth is not dangerous, in fact statistics show that it is by far the best, safest, and most NATURAL way for a person to enter into the world. Yet if you advocate for this approach in America you are promptly labeled as a risk taking loon.
Evaluating and criticising the implementation of a natural process like childbirth is like invading a sovereign nation for no reason other than that existent in your own head. (They tell me he is bad, thus he must be bad, thus I must accept whatever they are telling me because they say he is bad..)
We may well be the dumbest and most willfully ignorant society yet placed upon this planet, (American Idol for Pete's sake??) and our childbirth methodology is reflective of this fact in so many sad ways. Lest you stone me for being a tree-hugging midwife please know that I am male, conservative, and an otherwise observant person.
Cheers!
dce