Baltimore City Paper writes a good Homebirth Article!
Home Made; Inside Baltimore’s Home-Birth Underground by Michelle Gienow Really good. Long, in depth, presenting homebirth in a positive light. I especially like this part, in which a Dr. attempts to explain his ‘practice’:
Well, yes, says Khouzami. “If you are here long enough, we are going to do something to you. It’s a matter of time. I will be the first one to admit that,” he says. “The trade-off is that I am going to make sure that nothing happens to you or to the baby.
wow! and hmmmm? how ’bout someone look into Dr. Khouzami’s practice percentages…c-sections? How much infant or maternal mortality? how many dire outcomes? How many hysterectomies after cesareans? I’d like to know.
If you have a few hours ;o) to while away this happy unassisted homebirth week, you could spend them perusing the comments below the article where a lively debate between some homebirth advocates and a certain “dr” who appears whenever the word ‘homebirth’ is uttered are head to head. At the bottom there’s even a comment by a certain *ahem* cowgoddess.
I hope you have an awesome 4th of July, don’t forget to read the Declaration of Independence!
Love,
Heather
hippyfreek said,
July 3, 2008 @ 12:58 pm
I wrote “dramy” an email. Her complete lack of regard for reality was disturbing, if not disgusting. But it is true what they say: “What do you call the person with the lowest grade in a graduating medical class?,,,Doctor.”
I must say, I’ve read your comics for almost two years now and they never fail to deliver so much joy or debate into my life. keep up the goodwork!
A Super-fluffy homebirth-hopeful (someday) momma
Holly
Aditi said,
July 3, 2008 @ 4:17 pm
Isn’t it a crime for dramy to give medical advise when she doesnt have a liscence to practice any sort of ob/gyn or midwifery? I say we document it and maybe get her arrested? it’s really not safe for people like her to be out there coning people into thinking that she’s authorized to say such such atrocities.
and hathor may i say that you single-handedly helped me convince my other half to let me homebirth, considering he’s super overprotective of me. so thank you for providing all the sources to convince him it was actually safer to homebirth than hospitalbirth.
I really look forward to more of your comics, too.
Hindu-cow-goddess-in-training-and-mother-to-be-in-another-8-months
Aditi
(lol sorry holly, it was too fun not to copy)
wiffersnapper said,
July 3, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
I did a paper on childbirth mortality when I was in college… and discovered that, although my baby has a better chance of surviving these days, I had the same chance of dying during childbirth that my great-grandmother had. I grant you, I might die for a different reason (lack of sanitation back then versus unnecessary c-section today), but that really doesn’t matter when we’re talking about me being dead.
I had (many years later) one baby vaginally and one baby by c-section. I now feel qualified to say that anyone, especially a doctor, who says that a c-section is “easier” or “better” is on CRACK. My first baby, I was up and walking around and pretty much myself after like two days. (Except the burst blood vessels in my eyes, but that was my own dumb fault for pushing wrong.) The second one, who was a section, it took me a good month before I could really say I was “all better”. I STILL, after three months, have “twinges” from my incision, and trouble with the nerve that was bumped when they did my spinal. I am told it could be years before that ends… these years that I want to spend taking care of and playing with my babies.
It raises an interesting question… could the high rate of medical intervention have anything to do with the troubles we’re having with kids? How many children with autism were born by c-section, to mothers who were too busy trying to recover to bond with them properly? I have to wonder if that’s ever been researched.
As for this “Amy” person, she seems to be forgetting that, in America, you have the right to make a choice. Even if someone else thinks it’s the “wrong” choice, you still have that right. It’s why our founding fathers and mothers came here in the first place… and I’ll bet most of them were born at home!
mamaluxe said,
July 4, 2008 @ 7:10 am
I want to leave a comment but I have to create an account there.
Why hasn’t anyone challenged “Dr Amy” about her fixation on perinatal deaths (late fetal deaths [> or = 28 weeks’ gestation])? Seems like the fact that the US is low there means that US women are fairly healthy. The statistic to look at would be early neonatal deaths (
mamaluxe said,
July 4, 2008 @ 7:11 am
I want to leave a comment but I have to create an account there.
Why hasn’t anyone challenged “Dr Amy” about her fixation on perinatal deaths (late fetal deaths [greater than or = 28 weeks’ gestation])? Seems like the fact that the US is low there means that US women are fairly healthy. The statistic to look at would be early neonatal deaths (less than or = 7 days of life) . And what about maternal death?
Doctors have certainly saved lives–but they are for sick and injured people, not healthy people. If midwives were allowed to practice legally in all states, then they could attend births and help make the call as to when intervention is necessary…instead of women getting unnecessary interventions that lead to more complications.
MilkyMama07 said,
July 4, 2008 @ 8:37 am
That was a great article! And yeah, that “Dr.” Amy needs to give it a rest! She acts like birth is an accident waiting to happen. “Dr’s” like her are the reason I’m not stepping foot out of my house when I go into labor!
frontierpsychiatrist said,
July 4, 2008 @ 11:14 am
On the pitocin comic:
It absolutely makes ,me wonder what doctors’ priorities really are.
I was given pitocin due to post partum hemmorhage (and still ended up with a transfusion)
And of course the doc was all proud of himself for his efforts in “saving my life”
… and of course, he’d say, the hemmorhage just couldn’t have been caused by him reaching his arm INTO MY UTERUS to remove the placenta (about 15-20 minutes after I gave birth).
Now I am no doctor. In fact, I’m a 21 year old housewife, but even I’ve done the research to know that agressive management of the third stage of labour has been known to cause post partum hemmorhage and retained placenta (and I had jut that, along with an emergency D&C to remove said retained placenta). Surely they go over something this basic in medical school?
Oh, and here’s the kicker: It’s all my fault. Yeah. After I’d been given enough blood to regain more than sporatic consiousness, the doctor tells me “This isman blood, so don’t be surprised if you start feeling smarter.”
Uh huh, you know, they’re just here to make sure we’re safe…
wiffersnapper said,
July 4, 2008 @ 1:55 pm
I truly respect you, frontierpsychiatrist, if you didn’t punch that doctor square in the face for that comment. Lord knows someone should, and I am quite sure I would have. I personally don’t think men have any place being ob-gyns UNLESS they have a DEEP respect for women and truly want to help them and see them be healthy. (My mom goes to the only one of those that I’ve ever met.) Any guy going into that branch should be screened to make sure that he doesn’t just want to control women and put them down!
jeanette said,
July 4, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
“This is man blood, so don’t be surprised if you start feeling smarter.”
My jaw drops and my blood boils upon reading this. How dare anybody say that, even as a joke. That definitely needs to be reported to whichever agency has control over this guy’s license. Grrrrrr.
And to think that some women believe that there’s not much more we can do for women’s rights today. Pah!
Aditi said,
July 4, 2008 @ 9:36 pm
everyone will be pleased to know that i have reported this fake doctor to her local athorities, so with any luck, we won’t her her terrorism anymore (^..^)
Aditi said,
July 4, 2008 @ 9:37 pm
*hear her
sheepdoc said,
July 5, 2008 @ 9:16 am
Yes there has been research on pitocin and autisim. Its on Dr. Odent’s page. Also, the chicago MD w/ the homebirth practice is also an epidemiologist and has an article somewhere about the fact that in over 30 years of practice he has almost 10,000 babies born into his practice. He has never yet had one baby born into his practice be autistic. All the autistic babies have been adopted in or transfered in later. Same for asthma. His practice is home-born whenever possible, delayed vaccination, and 2 years of breast-feeding minimum. It includes Amish and high powered corporate execs so it covers lots of the socio-economic spectrum.
Hathor said,
July 5, 2008 @ 3:13 pm
Hi Sheepdoc,
I’d love to read the article from the chicago MD, can you find it for me? and thanks everyone for adding comments to the homebirth article, you guys are a savvy bunch, even if the adversary is exceedingly difficult to reason with. I especially loved the compliments *I’m a goddess, you know *.
I find it so surprising that my comic(s) about Michel Odent’s oxytocin/love theory is so “offensive”, when in our circles it’s a ‘favorite’ (I sold a ton of prints of it)
http://www.thecowgoddess.com/2008/03/12/oxytocin/
http://www.thecowgoddess.com/2008/03/14/neocortex-turned-off/
http://www.thecowgoddess.com/2008/03/19/is-oxytocin-obsolete/
http://www.thecowgoddess.com/2008/03/21/without-love/
I received ‘love’ mail and ‘hate’ mail about them, an example of how when two sides are coming from completely different paradigms they just don’t GET what each other are talking about.
Love,
Heather
Anniee451 said,
July 6, 2008 @ 5:00 am
I left a comment on the Baltimore article, and the rest of the entire comments section disappeared. Can anyone else still see them? I hadn’t even made it down to Hathor’s comment yet
I want to read it!!! (Who IS this Dr. Amy character? I’ve seen her a buttload of places already! What a crank - quack quack.)
Frontierpsychiatrist, I hemorrhaged after my first birth too - because as soon as the cord was cut the doctor started pulling the afterbirth out by the cord. He got it out within about 5 minutes of the birth, I’d say. Since it didn’t hurt, I didn’t complain or realize that it was dangerous; though I will say it struck me odd and I didn’t like it. When I got back in my room and was still hemorrhaging, he came in and reached up into my uterus just like yours did - this time to pull out giant blood clots - one after the other, one or two the size of the afterbirth itself, the nurse told me. He reached up there with his arm even though I was stitched up from the episiotomy. I was screaming and writhing in pain far greater than the labor or birth. (I didn’t scream during the birth, that’s for sure.) After he was done playing in my blood, he said I had to have an emergency D&C, and that if that didn’t work, I’d have to have a hysterectomy. I was 21 and it was my first baby. I was horrified. But the D&C did work - so I guess he thinks he was a good doctor because he saved me from the hemorrhage that HE caused. My vulva was swollen up the size of a cantaloupe for several days (which I spent in bed with no panties, an icepack sitting on my labia) in excruciating pain. I had to have a transfusion.
Later when he sent me a bill for $5000 I told his office that he had practically killed me and I wasn’t ever going to send them a dime, but if they sent me another bill I would be filing a malpractice suit. I never did get another bill.
I tried to get a midwife for my second, but pretty much everyone was labeled high risk, and my insurance balked, so it ceased being an option.
With my second child, the Dr. also pulled on the cord to detach the placenta, but this time my husband was with me (they didn’t allow him in the first time because we hadn’t gone through Lamaze - so I picked a different hospital) and when he saw her pulling on it, he immediately snapped, “Hey! Don’t pull on that!” Hehe. She said, “I have to help it along” but she DID stop. Which is pretty awesome, now that I think about it. It’s insane - you don’t yank on an animal’s umbilical cord when it’s birthing do you? No, they do NOT have to “help it along” - they just do it because it’s quicker. Never mind how dangerous it is.
After that I swore if I ever had another child I’d never go anywhere near a hospital. (There were plenty of other horrible things that went on as to why, but that’s one of them.) I envy and admire those of you who have done it. Not many people were thinking about it 20 years ago
Anniee451 said,
July 6, 2008 @ 10:06 am
Well, “Dr. Amyteur” is utterly dishonest, a poor debater, and an attacker of strawmen, tilting at windmills - clearly very afraid of…something. Of the 1% of people in this entire country who utilize midwives and homebirth. Ooooh - I’d be afraid too, if there were a vocal 1% who didn’t agree with my propaganda - not. She’s not worth the time to engage on these boards except for a brief dismissal, but she might make a heck of a cartoon.
Hathor said,
July 6, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
Ah yes, Anniee451, a comic perhaps! I was thinking the same thing ;o) I’m off on another tangent altogether, at least once I post the last of the corporate-friendly hospital comics and then on to the UKs new ‘equality law’…
xox,
Heather
mrs.mama21 said,
July 7, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
Lol, I LOVE the idea of a Dr. Anyteur series!!!
Your work is always awesome Hathor!
I was thinking the same thing as Anniee… what exactly is Dr. Amy so afraid of? Homebirthers are such a tiny minority! Why spend so much time and energy going after us? She’s got to have some deep personal issues about it, to care so dang much about something that should effect her so little!
mrs.mama21 said,
July 7, 2008 @ 1:34 pm
oops, to my “Anyteur” typo!!! Supposed to be “Amyteur” of course.
julie said,
July 7, 2008 @ 7:26 pm
Ah, but there are many who are scared of homebirth.. If there wasn’t a threat of it becoming more common, why would there be resolutions by two huge organizations to dismiss it? There are those who truly feel that it is dangerous to put so much faith into ourselves, who, like my mother and grandmother, remember some very bad things about the “good ol days” that anything that goes against technology and seems to be a step away from “progress” or back toward the way things used to be think that those making such decisions don’t really know HOW it used to be.. like my mother who thinks that a trend toward “organic” could mean a food crisis for some.. since people “used to go hungry.” Holy run-on sentence! Well I’m not going to rewrite.
Anyway, there are also those who did have bad experiences and seem to need to reassure themselves that what was done was necessary and the best decision. I totally understand that, and most don’t say that everyone else should do things the way they did.. but some do and I guess that’s the way they deal with it. I certainly don’t think everyone should get an episiotomy(sp?).. I did and it was probably the biggest damper on an awesome birth experience.. and only happened, I know, because I was in a hospital.
There are also those that will REALLY suffer if homebirth becomes more common… namely, Hathor’s Dollar Sign drawn in the latest series. We are already having less babies.. they need every one they can get if they want to keep up that bottom line, right? After reading about the population decline in Europe in NY Times magazine, I can only imagine what the hospitals in Europe would be doing right now if they had the capitalist system we have in the US. Imagine what the decline in birth rate would do to profits!