the thing that kills me is they give this statement like their disapproval makes it law. how delusional do you have to be?

I would rather pay an out of network midwife than an in network OB even if it’s 5 times more expensive out of pocket (though I am sure the OB charges the insurance companies out the wazoo).

When I decided to have a sonogram for my second, just to find out if he was going to need pink clothes or could wear his brother’s (I really wanted to go shopping but didn’t get to) they found a low lying placenta and wanted me to come back for follow up. I decided to wait AS LONG AS POSSIBLE into the pregnancy for the follow up to make sure the placenta had moved up higher and I wasn’t going to have to have a c-section for placenta previa. The OB who did the sono seriously tried to scare me by saying that if you are at home and have a home birth and placenta previa you can bleed out in 5 minutes.

I knew she was just trying to scare me so I talked to my midwife and she said there would be signs of that in labor and you would transport. But it was moot since I knew it wasn’t placenta previa anyway.

IMHO OBs just want to scare moms so they can keep their power over us. It doesn’t make for a very peaceful pregnancy or delivery or postpartum period, that’s for sure.

The same is true of hospital nurses and pediatricians with all their scaring you into giving the baby formula for “excessive weight loss” (actually usually caused by their advice, drugs, or the IV making you think the baby was large when really he was overinflated with fluid), scaring you into giving the baby expensive vaccines for which they could triple bill and over charge the insurance company since they are administered in office, etc.

The nurses at my hospital where I delivered Isaac pressured me into letting him go to the nursery for which they charge $700 per night, and he was there for less than 5 hours, and asleep the whole time.

I wonder how much money the pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and the OBs would lose if everyone had home births or natural vaginal births in the hospital instead of incredibly profitable c-sections which take only an hour.

By the way I saw the Business of Being Born and it was great! If you can all get to a screening you should!

I am sure that our children are in far greater danger with some of the babysitters and caregivers people sometimes hire than they are in our bellies for 43 weeks, or born at home.

It’s so funny that they can talk about complications happening super fast when the complications that happen like that are so incredibly common in hospitals and caused by the interference and overreaction on their part.
Example: pitocin, epidural, continuous electronic fetal monitoring
Gee I wonder why your baby might be in distress
Could it be that you are starving him of oxygen because you would rather have your baby’s birth scheduled / induced / whatever so you can go to the oh-so-safe hospital so you decided to induce and get your hospital birth out of the way because you needed child care?
Pitocin… epidurals… HELLO!!!!! OBs don’t be so freaking stupid!

If you just had your baby at home or waited to go into labor before going to the hospital then a lot fewer of these mommies and babies would be dying.

But OBs don’t tell women that and women don’t seem to want to know.

I have tried to warn SEVERAL pregnant friends about the risks of induction, epidurals, etc. They did not listen. Instead they went along with whatever the doctor wanted. They ended up with c-sections.

I have SEVERAL friends who were told by their OBs: let’s go ahead and induce at 38 weeks (this being the first trimester that they decided this) or Let’s induce at 37 weeks or you won’t be able to have this baby vaginally because it’s going to get too big, your baby is already (fill in the blank) pounds!!!!

I even had one friend deliver a 4 or 5 pound baby who was I think a second c-section. Oh, so good on that timing there.

Let the baby come when the baby is ready!

We brought her home and she did nothing but EAT (my milk!) for about two weeks, during which time she put on a half an ounce a day. Tell me they were feeding her enough! Thank God, our regular doctor is a sensible man. He said, when he saw her at one day out of the hospital, “I’m a little concerned about her weight. What are you doing for feeding?” I replied, “I’m letting her nurse whenever she wants.” He said, “Good. Keep doing that, and she’ll be fine.” And, lo and behold, she was, and still is!

Incidentally, total cost for the delivery and care of this baby, who wasn’t even really sick: $30,000. You have to wonder why insurance companies aren’t the ones coming down on hospitals for their unnecessary interventions!

Here’s the statement that had me reeling!

Apparently the World Health Organization’s target figure of around 10% was not discovered scientifically.

When I was in Bradley birth classes I learnt that 5-10% of pregnancies will have some problem that would genuinely need a cesarian to save the life of mother and/or baby. So I guess that figure was derived from the same science that is part of WHO’s investigation.

Plus let’s talk about grammar for a moment. You don’t need some special “scientific way” to make a recommendation - you can use the same ordinary technology with which you publish a press release. I suppose they mean “there is no science that would support any ideal goal figure”.

Except there is.