Did you know that electronic fetal monitoring (EFM), lauded in the 1970s as an inroad to prevent cerebral palsy and other birth injuries, has only resulted in an increase in the percentage of C-section births–up to 33% (double what it was 10 years ago). (Cerebral palsy occurrence hasn’t changed since 1945.)
Do one-third of all women need major abdominal surgery in order to bear a child? Really?
Did you know that in the last 20 years the incidence of induced labor has doubled to 22% of all births in the U.S.?
Do women really need to be injected with a drug in order to have a baby?
Did you know that the incidence of maternal death is actually three times what is reported, because the U.S. is the only country that shortens the tracking time for such deaths to six weeks post-natal. (All other countries track it for a year.)
Why?
Did you know the number of maternal deaths in the U.S. has jumped from 7.5 per 100,000 births to 15.5 in the last 23 years?
Doesn’t that appall you?
Did you know that midwife-moderated home deliveries for low-risk births result in:
- a 2.1% rate of episiotomies (33% for doctors and a hospital)
- a 9.6% rate of induced labor (21% for hospitals)
- similarly-reduced rates of C-sections, forceps and vacuum deliveries, and epidurals
Now you know.
Consider the option of a midwife. What would you rather have?
a hospital, unnecessary drugs and medical procedures, and unconsciousness during one of the most important events in your life (and the most important of your baby’s)?
or
the comfort of your home, the loving assistance of your partner, and a midwife who knows what you’re going through and has any required medical assistance available at a moment’s notice?
Talk to your OB doctor, and don’t take that “Doctor knows best” condescension and the warm pat on the shoulder. Take charge of your births, just like you take charge of your life.
