Basic HTML Version
Who ls the Medical Childbirth
''Establishment''?
T
he primary opposition lo
home and alternative
childbirth stems from several
professional organizations:
the American College of Ob–
stetricians and Gynecolo–
gists (ACOG}, the American
Academy of Pediatrics.
(AAP) . !he American Acade–
my of Family Physicians
(AAFP) and. of course, the
American Medical Associa–
tion (AMA) . No! surpris1ngly,
such groups seem commit–
ted lo the standardized ap–
proach lo childbirth. regard–
less of how
dehumanizing
it
makes what should be a ·
¡oyous and triumphant event.
In sorne cases . such pro–
fessíonal organizations make
absolutely ridiculous state–
ments lo back up their resis–
tance to home birth. The
most tamous is Warren H.
Pearse's statement made in
the ACOG Newsletter of
July,
1977,
" Home delivery
is maternal trauma-home
delivery is chíld abuse!"
(quoted in
Reason,
Febru–
ary,
1980) .
Alternative birth propo–
nents pinpoint ACOG as the
prime mover behind the
backlash. ACHI notes a
1975
ACOG policy state–
ment on home birth:
"The College supports
!hose actions that ... pro–
vide the mother and her in–
tan! with accepted stan–
dards of safety available
only in hospitals. . . . "
The key, ot course, is
that word
only
lt assumes
that
every
pregnancy, no
matter how unlikely lo suffer
complicatiens, requires the
wt:lole artillery of medical
technology available in hos–
pitals, including " force.ps de–
liveries."
Of course. the
availabilify
of a hospital in case of
un–
foreseen
complications is
desirable. As such. the
move on !he part of sorne
hospitals to
deny their facili–
ties
to women choosing
home births or to doctors
attending such births repre–
sents nothing less than ab–
solute criminal (in a moral
sense) hypocrisy. Not to
mentían doctors who say
al/
births should be in hospitals,
yet seek to deny hospital fa–
cilities in certain cases
where they are
genuinely
needed!
The statements ot the
medical association also
have a certain vague, lofty
pomposity about them. "We
support ... accepted stan-
dards of safety available
only in hospitals"; the "po–
tential hazards" ot childbirth
"require standards of safety
which are provided in the
hospital setting and cannot
be matched in the home sit–
uation"; " The health team
necessary to provide optimal
maternity care must be di–
rected by a qualified obste–
trician-gynecologist.' ·
The exasperating aspect
of such statements is that
they
assume
the doctors
have already won the argu–
ment! They assume no rea–
sonable person could believe
that their precious (and
sometimes brutal) standard–
ized hospital childbirth is any–
thing less than a heaven-sent
boon to all mankind. And, of
course, " qualified"
by defini–
fion
only includes physicians
who subscribe lo the "hospi–
tal only" philosophy.
(11
is fascinating that, on
the subject of evolution,
scientists are forever pro–
testing that science is not a
" monolith," meaning it is
open lo new discoveries.
But organized medicine,
which deals with the most
complex " scientific" system
in the universe-the human
body-rather arrogantly as-
sumes that all new knowl–
edge outside of a
certain
preset pattern
must be dis–
regarded!)
Even sorne doctors asso–
ciated with ACOG admit that
there is at least a reason–
able case to make in favor
of alternative birth. Dr. Saul
Lerner, a participan! in a
1979
ACOG round table dis–
cussion on hospital versus
home delivery, was candid
about orthodox medicine's
prejudice
against home
birth:
" 1
did a survey for a de–
bate on the home vs. hospi_–
tal delivery issue and carne
across a majar public health
problem.
1
carne up with a
book of horrendioma on
home birth.
But if l'd been
assigned the other side
1
c.ould have called hospitals
and come up with horrendio–
ma that would
make us look
sick " (Reason,
February.
1980.
emphasis added) . An–
other doctor. al the same
symposium. while still saying
that embracing home birth is
"unacceptable, " admitted
that orthodox medicine had
an "arrogan! opposition to
home birth"
(id.) .
Perhaps sorne day orga–
nized medicine will realize
that !hose problems that on
occasion
do
happen with
home bi rth are the result of
poverty or lack of prepara–
l ían or proper prenatal care,
and
not
necessarily part of
home birth
itself.
County, Ohio, passed a resolution
to "advise any physician i n Frank–
lin County from
participating in
prenatal care
or delivery of any
patient planning home delivery"
(emphasis added).
employed in many hospitals!
M idwives have a l so come
under attack. They are increas–
ingly being prosecuted for various
"crimes" associated with attend–
ing a home birth, mostly practic–
ing medicine without a l icense.
state med i ca! au thorities were
"out to do away w ith home
births:"
1
t also reports that an
Alaska home birth physician was
told by local doctors that they
intended to "get him."
At least in sorne instances, it
would appear that "establ i sh–
ment" doctors are less concerned
with the health of living mothers
and their unborn babies-even to
the point of denying prenatal
care!- than they are with uphold–
ing the standardized, overly inter–
ventionist way of chi ldbi rth
August. 1981
T he attacks on those invoived
in alternative births seem to stem
from the deliberate efforts of
more orthodox doctors and
not
from disgruntled patients.
NAPSAC reports that in l owa,
one doctor engaged in a home
birth had heard, unofficially, that
And Dr. H ai Abdul, a natural
chi ldbirth physician facing simi–
l ar pressures in Californi a, notes
that the California Medica! Asso–
ciation in its January,
1981,
bul–
Jetin, made its
"#
1
priority an
all-out attack on home birth and
the practice of Midwifery." (You
would t hi nk their number one
37