A repost from my response to an article on Babble.com

See the original article here.

This is becoming a big issue right now, because the American Medical Association is considering a resolution that proposes individual state legislation to prevent home birth. This is driving me mad with anger. I consider their actions an affront to my personal privacy and my rights as both a woman and a citizen of the world. What if I told all the AMA members that they can only have bowel movements on Sunday and only when supervised by someone adequately trained to assist them? Sometimes I get so fed up that I have to say something. After I read the article, I had to post a comment. I'm thinking of sending a modified version of this to the editors of some newspapers, and perhaps the American Medical Association, and a few other "health professional organizations." Perhaps the poop reference should be avoided, so here is my more official sounding write-up. I'll be looking for links to the referenced statistics. I'll provide them to you as I find them.

There are plenty of good studies to show that planned home birth for low-risk mothers is as safe as or safer than giving birth in the hospital. Check the British Medical Journal for one of the best studies. I believe it was 2005. Most of the women in the world give birth outside of the hospital. The countries with the best maternal and infant mortality rates utilize midwives more and often have a larger percentage of their babies born at home.

Somehow, the human race survived prior to the advent of maternity wards.

Sometimes bad things happen. Simply spending millions of dollars, and giving birth in a hospital doesn't prevent bad things from happening. The United States spends more money on health care than any other country in the world, but our maternal and infant mortality statistics are near the bottom of the list of industrialized nations. In fact, the number of women in the US who die as a result of pregnancy or childbirth is rising. So clearly, hospitals and money alone are not the answer.Instead of crying wolf over the five percent of women in this country who have their babies at home, perhaps our energy would be better spent lowering the c-section rate, improving infant and maternal mortality rates, discovering the reason for and rectifying racial disparities in these rates, and giving women both the right to choose where to birth and dignity and respect during the process.

Rock on Madeline!