![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
TIME article on homebirth...and my rebuttal
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl
Dear Editor,
Thank you for your recent coverage of homebirth in "Giving Birth at Home," published August 7, 2008. While I was thrilled to see an article in TIME on this topic, I was disappointed to see that some of the facts were misinterpreted.
For example, the discussion of a prolapsed umbilical cord states that this occurs in one out of every 300 births. Thus the reader is given the impression that midwives must address this complication frequently outside of a medical setting. However, what is not mentioned in the article is the fact that a prolapsed cord occurs in one out of every 300 HOSPITAL births -- this data cannot be generalized to apply to homebirths as well. Complication statistics quoted by physicians and the American Medical Association are based on births that have been chemically or mechanically manipulated in the hospital. Those same complications have a lower risk at home with a midwife, because midwives favor a noninterventionist approach.
The second distortion of the facts I would like to point out is in regard to the decline in maternal mortality. The article claims that the decline in mortality is due to birth moving into the hospital setting. However,
hospital birthing has an alarming history that reveals greater devotion to money and power than to mothers and babies. Indeed, the tick marks along the hospital birthing timeline reveal mothers dying in droves from childbed fever, children born with devastating defects, and, as of late, many ruptured uteruses and dead babies from Cytotec induction. Research indicates that moving birth into the hospital had little to do with the decrease in mortality -- rather it was the introduction of antibiotics, public health advances, improved sanitation and nutrition, and better working conditions for women that improved outcomes. I do not understand why physicians want to cite the maternal mortality rate as a point in their favor -- there has been zero improvement made in maternal mortality rates since 1982, and more mothers die in the U.S. than in forty other countries.
Lastly, I would like to point out the error in reporting that non-nurse midwives have been outlawed in Missouri for the past 25 years. It was actually 49 years that midwives were criminals in my state, but as of July,
certified professional midwives are finally legally recognized here and can practice freely. I am rejoicing with families across Missouri that we now have access to legal, certified midwives to birth our children at home --
the same way women have been birthing babies safely for thousands of years.
Sincerely,
Halley L. Watson
Clinical Nursing Student
Aspiring Midwife
University of Missouri
Dear Editor,
Thank you for your recent coverage of homebirth in "Giving Birth at Home," published August 7, 2008. While I was thrilled to see an article in TIME on this topic, I was disappointed to see that some of the facts were misinterpreted.
For example, the discussion of a prolapsed umbilical cord states that this occurs in one out of every 300 births. Thus the reader is given the impression that midwives must address this complication frequently outside of a medical setting. However, what is not mentioned in the article is the fact that a prolapsed cord occurs in one out of every 300 HOSPITAL births -- this data cannot be generalized to apply to homebirths as well. Complication statistics quoted by physicians and the American Medical Association are based on births that have been chemically or mechanically manipulated in the hospital. Those same complications have a lower risk at home with a midwife, because midwives favor a noninterventionist approach.
The second distortion of the facts I would like to point out is in regard to the decline in maternal mortality. The article claims that the decline in mortality is due to birth moving into the hospital setting. However,
hospital birthing has an alarming history that reveals greater devotion to money and power than to mothers and babies. Indeed, the tick marks along the hospital birthing timeline reveal mothers dying in droves from childbed fever, children born with devastating defects, and, as of late, many ruptured uteruses and dead babies from Cytotec induction. Research indicates that moving birth into the hospital had little to do with the decrease in mortality -- rather it was the introduction of antibiotics, public health advances, improved sanitation and nutrition, and better working conditions for women that improved outcomes. I do not understand why physicians want to cite the maternal mortality rate as a point in their favor -- there has been zero improvement made in maternal mortality rates since 1982, and more mothers die in the U.S. than in forty other countries.
Lastly, I would like to point out the error in reporting that non-nurse midwives have been outlawed in Missouri for the past 25 years. It was actually 49 years that midwives were criminals in my state, but as of July,
certified professional midwives are finally legally recognized here and can practice freely. I am rejoicing with families across Missouri that we now have access to legal, certified midwives to birth our children at home --
the same way women have been birthing babies safely for thousands of years.
Sincerely,
Halley L. Watson
Clinical Nursing Student
Aspiring Midwife
University of Missouri