By Megan Bochum
There’s a revolution afoot.
After years of tirelessly working for women’s rights and reproductive freedom, childbirth advocates are taking time to bask in the glory of mainstream public attention. With the release of The Business of Being Born, a new documentary produced by talk-show host Ricki Lake, many Americans are being exposed to the harsh realities of maternity care in the United States. And the picture isn’t pretty.
The film examines the flawed U.S. healthcare system, which spends more money per person than any other nation and yet maintains higher infant and maternal mortality rates than some developing countries. In fact, recently published studies and reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF reinforce the assertions made in the film: the U.S. ranks 41st (out of 171 countries) in maternal mortality rates and 26th (out of 44 industrialized nations) in infant mortality.
Save the Children, an independent organization dedicated to improving the lives of children around the globe, published its annual State of the World’s Mothers Report, which considers such factors as maternal and child health as well as women’s political, educational, and economic status. The U.S. ranked 26th (out of 41 industrialized nations) on the Mother’s Index in 2007.
Statistics show that countries with better maternal and infant mortality rates have one thing in common: midwifery care as the standard of healthcare for normal, healthy pregnant women and births.
Through interviews and footage of births, Lake shines a light on out-of-hospital birth, educating viewers about the training and competence of modern midwives while dispelling erroneous notions about the safety of homebirth. A 2005 study published in the British Medical Journal validated the safety of planned homebirth and concluded that homebirth with a professional midwife was as safe or safer than hospital birth.
Modern hospital birth is a well-orchestrated event. Some data suggests that more than half and maybe as many as 80% of women receive synthetic hormones to facilitate birth; as many as 80% of women receive epidural analgesia to numb the pain of childbirth; and over 31% of all women have their babies surgically removed from their bodies by cesarean section.
The overuse of these procedures is articulately chronicled in Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care, a 2007 book by author Jennifer Block. In spite of scientific evidence and volumes of research statistics that show the detrimental effects of these procedures, they continue to be employed at unprecedented rates. Block takes the examination one step further and spotlights the influence of the malpractice insurance industry and trade organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). These entities, which dictate the accepted protocol for modern maternity care, operate by default rather than as governing bodies.
In response to the current national exposure, ACOG issued a press release on February 7, 2008 to reiterate “its long-standing opposition to home births.” It went on to say that “(c)hildbirth decisions should not me dictated or influenced by what’s fashionable, trendy, or the latest cause celebre,” -- an obvious reference to the release of Lake’s film and the acclaim it has received.
The International Cesarean Awareness Network, an organization dedicated to educating women about cesarean prevention and recovery as well as the safety of vaginal birth after cesarean (VBAC), quickly issued a response to ACOG’s statement, countering that a woman’s childbirth choices “should not include weighing the choices of (her) doctor’s malpractice payments,” rather it should be a consideration of the health and safety of the mother and baby.
For decades iconic figures like Ina May Gaskin, a Certified Professional Midwife and author of the revolutionary book Spiritual Midwifery; Michel Odent, physician and founder of the Primal Health Research Center; and Marsden Wagner, a physician and the former Director of Women’s and Children’s Health at the World Health Organization, have been tirelessly advocating for the rights of birthing women including the use of midwives to attend normal births.
Perhaps now, their voices will be joined by many more as the public begins to understand the personal, economic, and social ramifications associated with the current maternity healthcare system.
Megan Bochum is a Mom to four amazing people, a Certified Childbirth Educator, a Student Midwife, & Chapter Leader of International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) of SLO. She can be reached at icanslo@yahoo.com . For references to the above article please write Megan.
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