You have heard it. But, like most midwifery proponents you claim it states the opposite.

The study in the BMJ by Johnson and Daviss is cited by midwives to “prove” it is safe.

They have 3/1000 deaths after birth, when the rate for low risk hospital birth is .7/1000.

That’s only because they kill most babies before they are born and they are classified as stillbirths, not infant deaths. In Johnson and Daviss, they killed 5 about of about 5000 during labor. That’s 1/1000 or 10/10,000. The low risk rate of death during labor in a hospital is 1/10,000.

That’s 10 times the death during labor, and 3-4 times after birth for a total of about 14 times more deaths.

They dropped and ignore about 50% and then, out of thin air, claimed a jacked up the hospital death rate. Why bother with Quality Control at hospitals? All you have to do is claim half your deaths didn’t matter and that every one else is as bad as you are.

These midwives are so obsessed with childbirth and gaining control of pregnant women that they will say and do anything. Why don’t journalists, legislators, and (uh-um) physician bloggers **read** the study upon which claims of “safety” and “equality” are based?

I definitely agree with everything man-nurse said…especially the part about changing the practice of obstetrics to a “high risk” category.

Annecdotally, I’d like to add that I always laugh when I read “why would you want to risk…at home when you could be {safe} at a hospital?” as if bad things don’t happen in hospitals! I’ve had 3 children and my first was a horrible (unfortunately very necessary) cesarean-gone-wrong. Well, its up in the air whether or not the cesarean actually “went wrong” but the recovery sure did. Let’s just say it took two additional surgeries and a good 3-4 months of recovery just to “fix me”. Oh, and that doesn’t even mention the PPD, breastfeeding issues….. so life isn’t always perfect, even if you *are* in a hospital!

Midwives benefit everyone but the patients. They are almost always used by women who don’t have the finanical means to get an OB and have no choice. Midwives get careers treating patients when they should die out because women don’t want them. Administrators rake in the money by charging doctor rates for nursing services. Public officials pretend to meet their obligations to public aid patients at a bargain basement price.

Meanwhile, women and babies bear the brunt. They are injured or killed at much higher rates. Women bear the burden of the depression that goes with loosing a child, the burdens of another pregnancy to complete her family, or the extra burdens of raising a child hurt by midwives failure to recognize problems.

So-called research by midwives is frought with huge methodological and statisitical errors. They routinely drop huge numbers of deaths (about 2/3s) by making implausible excuses (they all had SIDS in the first day of life/ they all had fatal anomalies). They also fail to count the huge number of stillbirths they fail to prevent because they are soooo bad that the babies never make it to birth.

I think a better organization of our medical resources, let alone a better collaboration between OBs and midwives, could be achieved by defining obstetrics as the practice of high-risk labor and delivery, and transitioning all other birthing mothers to CNMs and other midwives. I don’t see how it’s an efficient use of resources to make a physician study and apprentice for years in order to attend births that mostly don’t require his or her high level of skill. I think that high level of skill applied to ‘normal’ births in turn artificially raises the medical intervention and c-section rates, which is not good for the mother, the baby, or the insurance companies. In a perfect world, my wife would be attended by midwives who were free to practice in the hospital or at home, and would only ever see an obstetrician if conditions warranted or an emergency arose.

Medicine has already divided family practice from intensive care. Critical care physicians don’t spend 95% of their time taking care of healthy adults. Likewise, I don’t think obstetricians, who possess the management skills for critical births, need to be taking care of every healthy mother and child.

I see this comment almost verbatim on various sites. I have always assumed it’s a joke but I’ve never asked. It’s a joke, right? It’s a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that it’s not fair that some birth attendants presumably get to walk away from a bad outcome and others get put through painstaking, ridiculously personal, reputation-crushing litigation that can take years and drain one’s life savings, right?

A tad condescending and presumputous, no? Evidence? I suppose in the popular active management of labor scenario, the first Pitocin induced or augmented contraction might knock a woman’s socks off and blow her plans to forego an epidural out of the water.

“…will send every 18-24 year old gravid woman who hears about it running TO the hospital to make sure it “won’t happen to me and my baby.”

Do the younger women lack judgment or something?

Hopefully I’m just reading it wrong. It could be the case. I am presently in grave need of coffee.

I find this condescending towards woman.

After two hospital births, I would not choose a hospital birth for a third child. My preferences for delivery were ignored and procedures were done without my consent for the convenience of the doctor.