I really can’t think of any other word for this than infuriating. Okay, perhaps I can: bullshit, condescending, paternalistic, sensationalistic… you get the picture. Hedonistic? Spa treatment?! Some spa. Not to take it too much into “Mommy Blog” land, but please show me the spa where you spend 3 days in agonizing back labor only to end up with a not-medically-indicated major surgery?
Maybe the best way to get out all the “feelings” is to just post the letter I sent to the producers of Today.
Dear producers of Today,
As a pregnant woman, I was disappointed to see your biased coverage of home birth on the most recent episode of Today. To say that home birth is “hedonistic” and “like a spa treatment” is belittling and insulting to the decision-making process that pregnant women undertake when they choose their prenatal care provider and method of delivery. ACOG’s “cause celebre” statement was both paternalistic and disrespectful, and I am very disappointed that you chose to ratify the statement and embellish upon it. Pregnant women deserve more credit for their informed choices than you give them when you imply that we would choose to birth in a particular location simply because celebrities may have done so. Let it not be lost that for every celebrity who has a home birth, there are several more who have elective or medically-indicated cesarean section (in fact, this is the case in the general population, where only 1% of women have home births, but over 30% have cesarean sections). Pregnant women understand what Today fails to grasp: other women’s choices in childbirth are their own, and what may be right for one woman may not be right for another.
Furthermore, I wanted to point out that your onscreen runner, “The Perils of Midwifery,” was not only inaccurate, it is offensive. First of all, while my heart breaks for the unfathomable loss that the MacKenzie family suffered, no practitioner, whether they be the most medically-aggressive Ob/Gyn or the most hands-off lay midwife, can guarantee a birth; nor does the location of the birth ensure a particular outcome. Their tragedy was not one of the perils of midwifery, but rather one of the perils of childbirth. Second, that runner ignores the fact that midwives practice in a variety of locations, from homes, to birth centers, to hospitals. In fact, Cara Mulhahn is a CNM (certified nurse midwife), the exact certification of the midwife that deliver a vast proportion of the babies in New York City hospitals. Midwifery is a skilled, learned profession that is no more or less “perilous” to its patients than any other health profession, and to call it such as a part of a piece against home birth conflates the issues in a disingenuous way. Surely oncologists or EMTs lose more patients than midwives do, but people don’t refer to them as “perilous.”
Lastly, I wanted to point out that the questions that the featured doctor suggest that patients ask prospective midwives are absolutely absurd, and do not in any way reflect the quality of care a person can get from a midwife. How does malpractice insurance make a healthcare provider better than another? How does a practice agreement (mandatory for CNMs, by the way) make a midwife better than another? If you are interested in helping mothers make informed decisions, you can contact any of the vast number of organizations that actually do have knowledge of the midwifery model of care (including Choices in Childbirth, an NYC organization, the Big Push for Midwives, Citizens for Midwifery, Childbirth Connection and many others) for suggestions on choosing a midwife rather than having someone give poor advice on something they are clearly biased against. You would find that much more relevant questions for an informed consumer to ask would be things like: where would we go in the event of a transfer and would you be able to stay with me, what sort of resuscitation equipment do you bring to a birth, what sort of complications would indicate transfer or a referral to obstetrical care.
I hope that you will be more thorough in your research in the future, and afford pregnant women and the healthcare professionals who attend them the respect that they deserve.
Sincerely,
Courtroom Mama
