BTW in your case, you’d not be included in that study. It compared uncomplicated planned c-sections (in the case of the study, healthy people who had breech babies) with vaginal deliveries that did not result in c-section. Meaning it excludes loads of real life scenarios- including your own which is a vaginal birth…

There are a lot of things that are shit about the modern world, but modern medicine is a miracle! Glad it worked out so well for you and your family.

wow, imagine that. Is this for everyone or a private luxury? 

Yes that’s all true, thanks.

Yes exactly. I get the desire to proceed with a vaginal delivery, but I think the framing of a c-section as something to be avoided is wrongheaded. The whole “birth experience” thing sometimes sets people up for bad decision making- sort of like when you overplan a vacation and then something goes “wrong” and you let…

I’m trying to make this short, but even in that study, risk of some things increased while others decreased, and risk of mortality did not have a statistically significant increase. I could say a lot more, but I’m trying to cut to the chase.

I can’t see what benefit it would be to anyone to have women go off on their own- especially in small tribes. Usually women in places without modern medical traditions would have the woman attended by female family members or older women who were specialists through experience and reputation. It would seem…

They are in some states. In others, it’s the midwife lobby that stops them. They claim it would be an assault on a tradition of women passing down knowledge and experience from one to the other and then being co-opted by the medical and pharmaceutical industry. You’d never be able to get a job with any health care…

A medical provider wouldn’t have let her go on that long in the first place.

It’s weird how these people rationalize it. I read an article some time back about the number of dead babies in midwife-attended home births that were not from high risk pregnancies (meaning they’d no doubt have survived in any hospital). The way the midwives and parents rationalized the deaths was unbelievable. In…

I don’t understand that desire (having a baby at home with as few interventions as possible). I understand the second part, but I don’t see the benefit/appeal of being at home. There is nothing relaxing or special or safe about needing to call 911 and receive emergency care from a paramedic or being transported to an…

Yes you are making a good point. I think a lot of the fundamentalism comes about because women were given no options for so long, and also they had real reason to distrust a medical establishment that mostly did not listen to them. Things are better now but still not perfect. So a lot of this bullshit is reactionary-…

I agree about the skepticism around many unnecessary medical interventions. I also think it’s really no one’s business if a woman and her doctor decide to schedule a c-section for whatever reason. We have to move away from this idea that vaginal birth is somehow objectively preferential to c-sections. I’ve known some…

What natural experiences? I mean, I like breathing and eating and fucking and running and stretching and feeling the sun on my skin, etc. I dislike infection and maggots and dysentery and rotting teeth and bleeding to death. Defecation isn’t all that fun, menstruation either.

Look, not saying you are wrong because it’s a big bad world and I’m stupid about a lot of things, but what tribes ever did/do this?

YES. It’s rage inducing.

The whole natural childbirth and extended breast feeding attachment parenting thing is very cult-like. Just like with any ideology, there are some basic and true things at its core but taken to the extremes, it’s antifeminist, antiscientific fundamentalism.

Seriously. My brother was born this way too. I don’t see why you’d put yourself in a situation to rely on an ambulance getting there in time when you could just be in the place with emergency services.

So what was the advantage of being at home?

What is the point of doing it somewhere where you’d have to transport rather than just being in the place that has emergency services from the get go? Was it financial? Hospitals will allow you to only have an attending midwife as well so why do it at home? I just don’t get this.