A Great Article About Birth Choices

I found the article, Home Made Inside Baltimore's Home-Birth Underground to be a very well-rounded article. It nicely presents the many facets of the current home vs. hospital debate. I say current, because as is pointed out in the book that I am currently reading, Safer Childbirth? this debate has been going on for years. I will discuss this book in another post, as I am considering starting a monthly book review for this blog. For now, I will turn my sights back to the forementioned news article.

Like I said, it is a good an article as it gets. There is of course the usual fare of Dr.s quoted, stating their opinions against homebirth. But the journalist gives a fair shake to all sides, which is not always done.

The following quote interested me:

Well, yes, says Khouzami. "If you are here long enough, we are going to do something to you. It's a matter of time. I will be the first one to admit that," he says. "The trade-off is that I am going to make sure that nothing happens to you or to the baby.

"So which risk do you want? You can't have it both ways."

Khouzami oversees Maryland's most prolific labor and delivery hospital ward: GBMC physicians and staff delivered nearly 5,000 babies in 2007. Almost half--42 percent--of those babies arrived via surgery.

No, you can't have it both ways here in America. Rarely, (if ever) can you have a homebirth and have the backup of an OB on call for you, ready in case complications arise. Instead it is all or nothing. Home OR hospital. And the way things are going it seems like SOON it will be HOME = VAGINAL, HOSPITAL = C-Section. It is incredible to me that any hospital could have a 42 percent c-section rate! I dare to say that this is where modern medicine is headed people. 100% cesareans.

I like Marsden Wagner's quote from the Business of Being Born, "If you want a natural birth, get the heck out of the hospital!"

This reminds me of homeschool. One state we lived in allowed for homeschoolers to participate in the school system. My daughter attended a couple of classes twice a week, went on a field trip and even participated in a play. She loved it. We were able to pick and choose according to what worked best for our family. However, when we lived in another state it was all or nothing. You either homeschooled or public schooled. We didn't like this arrangement, but we chose homeschool.

I don't understand why we can't get past this divisiveness and lack of choice in America. We are the land of the FREE. We should be able to homeschool and participate in public school (since we are taxpayers) and we should be able to homebirth with the assitance/cooperation of those who have sworn to help those who need it (since this is a consumer based society and we are consumers!)

We must speak out and fight for our rights.