Hatch Family one week after Benjamins Home Birth!
Jenny and Ben three hours after our Home Birth. I felt GREAT!!!
Posted on 06/22/2008 6:23:28 AM PDT by Jenny Hatch
Lately Ben and I have been playing alot of Monopoly. He loves it and we have both enjoyed the leisure hours spent playing this fun Capitalistic board game.
These past few days I have been pondering the recent document TMZ published from the American Medical Association.
The OB's currently enjoy a near monopoly with birth in America. And the usual suspects are claiming that AMA resolution 205 on Home Deliveries statement is NOT a step towards criminalizing home birth. It says:
"RESOLVED, That our AMA develop model legislation in support of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is in the hospital, or a birthing center within a hospital complex, that meets standards jointly outlined by the AAP and ACOG, or in a freestanding birthing center that meets the standards of the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, The Joint Commission, or the American Association of Birth Centers."
Now, I don't know what all of you think "model legislation" implys, but to me it leans towards outlawing or banning/criminalizing homebirth and homebirthing mothers.
Or making the rules of engagement so tightly conformed that only a woman between the ages of 34 and 35 who has already sucessfully given birth to four children vaginally in the hospital, who only gains 23 pounds during her pregnancy, who has an ambulance waiting in the driveway, who goes into labor at midnight at week 39 of gestation, and lives within four minutes of a NICU (with pre paid doctor standing by), and who pays out of pocket four thousand dollars to the MEDwife who has been trained, credentialed, and sanitized by the AMA, will be allowed to give birth at home.
So for the twelve women in America who meet the criteria outlined.....You Go GIRLS!!! Have your babies at home. The American Medical Association says you can if, and only IF you meet their "model legislation" rules of engagement.
The rest of us, who have previous c-section scars, who have bled out after a birth, who have been troubled with post partum emotional illness, and/or who dare to go past our due dates with a ten month gestator well, sorry Mama, you are NOT WORTHY to give birth at home, because we have RISKED YOU OUT!! Too bad...so sad. Now conform to our rules or we will take your baby away, lock you up in jail, and rip your family apart...because hey, we are the Gods of Modern Medicine and we know what is best for you and your family!!!
Barf!! Gag, Gag...
More bloggers weigh in on this topic:
Hatch Family one week after Benjamins Home Birth!
Jenny and Ben three hours after our Home Birth. I felt GREAT!!!
Like everything else these days,”gubmint knows best” seems to be the attitude of the American people. That is a very dangerious position to place ourselves in.
Throw socialized medicine into the mix and we are talking lots and lots of dead mothers and babes.
I’m staying home for my births!
Jenny
That said, the third world is full of women who die, or have the baby die, or who have massive tears that make their life hell.
There is no reason to make modern medicine an inhumane experience, nor is there any reason to run away from modern medical capability. I'm fairly certain that I can perform a successful appendectomy if I were given two hours of instruction, but to purposely do so outside of the confines of modern medical facilities is simply tempting fate.
Simply because we CAN pull our own teeth doesn't make it a good idea.
If these gals want to give birth at home against the doctors advice, then the more power to them! Unfortunately, I don’t think they will be able to sue the OB’s who have recommended otherwise—at least I hope not! I also hope they won’t be expecting the taxpayers to help with their babies who ran into trouble at home. Can we have all those moms sign on the dotted line? I thought not.
Look freeangel,
I pay my bills, don’t expect anyone to pick up the pieces of my life. 92% of homebirthers give birth at home with NO PROBLEM WHATSOEVER. You as a taxpayer should be much more concerned about our conversion to socialized medicine and paying for the abomination of hospital birth with all of its bells and whistles and useless interventions and protocols.
Talk about a straw man. The whole system is set up to rob families of financial solvency and use as many medical interventions as possible to cut and drug mother and baby from each other, when most women if properly trained and educated could easily give birth without the surgery. Some American hospitals have an 80% C section rate. Do you honestly think all of those surgeries are required for the health of the mother?
Jenny
I absolutely agree with you that there are way too many C-sections. What I AM saying is that a large majority of them are done to cover the Dr. butt in case anything is wrong with the baby(besides a large number being done for the “convenience” of parents who want to have their child on a certain day). I’m afraid that much of the high cost of medical care, interventions, etc. is all being done for this reason. I worked with a nurse anesthestist who was 27 when she got pregnant. No hx. of anything unusual and the Dr. did not recommend an amniocentesis. She then had a Down’s baby and sued for all he was worth because he hadn’t done the amnio. Medical professionals are damned if they do and damned if they don’t use “interventions”. What would you recommend?
“What would you recommend?”
Complete privatization of the whole medical profession.
Get all government money out of the birthing business, and watch the prices come down and normalize. Let parents pay out of pocket for those C-sections the same way that women pay for cosmetic surgery.
The market is king in every endeavor, especially in healing, and the market will ALWAYS balance buyers and sellers more efficiently and effectively than government rules and regs. Sure, that will mean docs and hospitals will earn less, but when parents are paying doctors directly for services, the whole behemoth will crumble down to something affordable and managable.
If parents want to hire a six thousand dollar midwife and have a home birth, let them pay for that service out of pocket.
And if parents want to give birth alone with no professionals present, all power to them. Many parents are terrified to give birth alone out of concern that the medical gestapo will come rip the family apart if anything goes wrong.
Freedom is the answer to all of these problems. Freedom and personal responsibility.
The fact that we are moving towards socializing the whole mess just sends chills down my spine. Doctor accountability will be gone when the red tape of government beauraucracy steps completely in between the patient/doctor relationship, hospitals will have every incentive possible to vamp up the tests, procedures, and interventions, and ignorant parents will think they are getting it all for “free” while the good taxpayers of America are soaked in yet another nationalized government mess.
I recomend all parents get the hell out of the hospital as American Birth gets socialized. Then when it all collapses as it is doing in the UK right now, be ready to step in with ideas and evidence for a market approach to the birthing industry.
That is what I recomend.
Jenny
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