[Vision2020] FW: [Spam 4.70] Home Birth and Birthing Clinics

Tue Apr 30 12:37:24 PDT 2013

Hi Roger,

I am glad that you daughter was fortunate enough to have a healthy pregnancy and delivery.  Not all patients are that lucky.  A uterine rupture (due to previous C sections) is a life threatening complication for mother and baby.  A desire for a “natural birth” (and by the way a C-section is not “unnatural”) is not sufficient reason, in my opinion to risk one’s life – and certainly not the baby’s life.  It is curious to me that those who are most adamant about the sanctity of life are often engaged in offering their undereducated and ill-trained services for a hefty fee.  We have several Reformed evangelical midwives in this town.  When the latte sipping liberals jumped on the bandwagon to feed their birth junky addiction the community traveled further down the troubled road of women treated as less deserving of the best possible care.  If Idaho certified midwife professionals gave a real hoot about the women and babies they deliver they would obtain the kind of education i.e., nursing degree with post graduate training that is required in every industrialized nation.  Do you know that American women who are certified professional midwives would absolutely be forbidden to practice in Canada, Great Britain, and every European country?  They are,  and reasons related to education and training.   Did you know that none of the certified professional midwives in this state carry malpractice insurance because insurance companies have the mother wit to recognize how ill equipped they are for the profession they claim they  to love.   They are not permitted to deliver in local hospitals for the same reason.  How can anyone love a profession that they are unwilling to seek out formal education and training for?

I am heartsick about the damage the licensing of certified professional midwives has done and will continue to do across this country.  We owe pregnant women and their  babies more than an opportunity to pay for third world medicine in the comfort of their own homes.

Rosemary Huskey

From: lfalen [mailto:lfalen at turbonet.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 12:01 PM
To: Moscow Vision 2020; Rosemary Huskey
Subject: Re: [Spam 4.70] [Vision2020] Home Birth and Birthing Clinics

I won't argue that a home birth is less safe, it probably is if there are complications.  However if that is what a woman wants it should be up to them. My youngest daughter had her second child delivered by a local midwife ( Nancy Draznin). There weren't any problems. Her first child was a C-section and she wanted to have one as a natural child birth.

Roger

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-----Original Message-----
From: "Rosemary Huskey" <donaldrose at cpcinternet.com>
To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Date: 04/30/13 08:38
Subject: [Spam 4.70] [Vision2020] Home Birth and Birthing Clinics

Recently a proposed “birthing center” in Moscow has received publicity in the local newspaper.  The providers of this do-it-yourself style medical care who are self-educated in obstetrics/pediatrics and apprenticeship trained by other similarly self-educated lay people continue to defend their services as reasonable and safe for most pregnant women, including women who have had previous Caesarian sections.  Professionally educated medical personal have a different understanding of the risks involved based on their formal educational training and years of supervised direct experience.  (A compelling source of a lay person’s awareness of obstetrical and pediatric emergencies can be acquired in an afternoon by wandering through a 19th century cemetery.)  It is my profound hope that in the near future our community will have access to the services of nurse midwives (practitioners who have a BS in Nursing and post graduate training in midwifery) so that the granny-style midwife  – known in Idaho by the manufactured title “certified, professional midwives” – an example of extraordinary hyperbole - will be a distant, embarrassing memory.  I agree with the position held by American Academy of Pediatrics described below, except, in my opinion, a “birth center” staffed by self-educated, apprenticeship “trained” midwives obviously carries the same risks as a home birth attended by the same women. 

Rose Huskey

source <http://www.skepticalob.com/2013/04/aap-to-homebirth-advocates-dont-trust-birth.html>   

“The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a policy statement on homebirth <http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/04/24/peds.2013-0575.full.pdf+html> . It has been getting a lot of press, but most mainstream media sources seemed to have missed its true significance. NBCnews.com, Time, The Huffington Post and The Atlantic, among others, have highlighted the fact that the AAP issued guidelines at all, and haven’t noticed that most American homebirths fail to meet virtually all the guidelines. Rather than supporting homebirth as it currently exists, the AAP is actually condemning it.

The policy statement starts by stating the obvious: the homebirth is not as safe as hospital birth.  The American Academy of Pediatrics concurs with the recent statement of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists affirming that hospitals and birthing centers are the safest settings for birth in the United States …

But for those women who would rather choose the less safe option, the AAP offers guidelines to minimized the increased risk, summarized in the following chart.  [Please follow the link provided above to see the chart in its original form.]

They can be summarized as follows:

No homebirth midwives (only certified nurse midwives are safe practitioners.)
No twins.
No breech.
No VBAC.
No postdates.
No macrosomic babies.
No pregnancy complications of any kind.

Contrary to the prattling of homebirth midwives, NONE of those issues are variations of normal; ALL are complications.

Once all complications are excluded, there are still additional safety steps that should be taken:

The midwife must be practicing within the medical system.
A second midwife (or pediatrician) must be available to care for only the baby.
Physician backup.
A PRE-EXISTING arrangement with a hospital for transfer.

In other words:

Don’t undertake homebirth when there is ANY increased risk of complications. Don’t undertake homebirth without 2 midwives, integrated into the health care system, who have physician back up and a pre-existing transfer arrangement with a nearby hospital.

The AAP recognizes that childbirth is dangerous, complications are common, any risk factors mean that the mother is not an appropriate candidate, and systems must be in place for the additional complications that will inevitably occur.

The AAP guidelines can be summed up very simply:

Don’t trust birth!

Even leaving aside their inadequate education and training, American homebirth midwives (CPMs, LMs, DEMS and lay midwives) routinely violate every guideline set forth by the AAP. That’s why they are unsafe practitioners and why the CPM credential must be abolished.

Mainstream media sources seemed to have missed the central point of the AAP guidelines, homebirth as it is currently practiced in the US not merely less safe than the hospital, it is unsafe.”

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