Our Maternity System: Can It Be Fixed?

Those of you who regularly read this blog know that I am a strong supporter of natural childbirth, especially homebirth, for those women who wish to have one. This is because I personally believe that the maternity system in our country is simply broken and needs to be fixed.

Now, I am not saying that OB/GYN's are evil people who are out to make a profit at all costs. Rather, I believe that it is the system itself that is faulty. It is the system that these people are working in that has created the situation where the Cesarean rate is 30% and where a large proportion of medical students never even see a natural birth during their training. OB/GYN's are simply trained that women need intervention, that they need drugs, epidurals, that they need the doctors help to give birth to their babies and that the women can not do it alone. In what other system would the situation described by Mardsen Wagner in this interview occur?

I learned that in the rural town of Madera, California, doctors had decided that they no longer wanted to attend births in the Madera County Hospital. They complained that it took too much of their time and didn't pay enough. So in 1968 the county recruited two midwives to fill the gap. After two years, the rate of babies dying around the time of birth in the hospital was cut in half. Alarmed that their style of maternity care was being made to look bad, the doctors in town agreed that they would once again attend births in the hospital if the two midwives were fired. The hospital fired the midwives, the doctors returned, and
soon the rate of babies dying around birth rose to its earlier higher levels.

This is horrible. And I think that more and more people are realizing this.

Documentaries are popping up that discuss this problem, such as Birth as We Know It and Pregnant in America. Recently I've received word that Ricky Lake is also planning on releasing a documentary on being pregnant in America, titled The Business of Being Born, in which she will also discuss her experiences with her own homebirth. You can read an interview she did about the documentary here.

Two other articles that have been in the news lately about homebirth and midwives:
Elizabeth Larsen describes how the maternity system needs to be improved.
Darleen Dunn writes about just what services a midwife can provide for an expecting woman.

I think as birth becomes more and more medical, as the rates of intervention increase, women are beginning to take action. I hope this trend continues. I hope women continue to find the strength and courage to take their pregnancy and child's birth into their own hands, and to help "fix" the maternity system.

Our Maternity System: Can It Be Fixed?