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Notable Quotes
On Homebirth Safety
While there have obviously been no controlled studies of unassisted birth, studies have always proved homebirth safer than hospitals, and most of those even prove favorable toward UC. Read on!
Quotes from the medical establishment, calling for a non-interventionalist approach!
"Excellent outcomes with much lower intervention rates are achieved at home births. This may be because the overuse of interventions in hospital births introduces risks or the home environment promotes problem-free labors."
Henci Goer, Obstetric Myths versus Research Realities: A Guide to the Medical Literature. Bergin & Garvey, 1995
"Most of American obstetric practice in hospitals is not based on science but on myth. What obstetricians do may be the utmost in high-tech, but it is not true science. What you don't know about modern medicine can hurt you and your baby, perhaps permanently."
By David Stewart, Ph.D., as found in "Is Homebirth For You?". Copies still available. Contact us for one!
"It is safe to say that a woman should give birth in a place where she feels is safe"
Maternal and Newborn Health / Safe Motherhood Unit of the World Health Organization, Care in Normal Birth: A practical guide. WHO, 1996.
"Several methodologically sound observational studies have compared the outcomes of planned home-births (irrespective of the eventual place of birth) with planned hospital-births for women with similar characteristics. A meta-analysis of these studies showed no maternal mortality, and no statistically significant differences in perinatal mortality risk in either direction."
Murray Enkin, A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth. Oxford University Press, 2000.
"It is inherently unwise, and perhaps unsafe, for women with normal pregnancies to be cared for by an obstetric specialist."
Murray Enkin, A Guide to Effective Care in Pregnancy and Childbirth. Oxford University Press, 2000.
"The woman’s choice itself may influence her level of anxiety and apprehension, and in obstetrics levels of anxiety have been shown to predict obstetric complications" (pg. 3--from Wiegers et al 1996).
The "medicalized approach to childbirth (the obstetric approach) is based on medicine’s belief that every birth has a high potential for pathology…It is no wonder then that the obstetric approach focuses on the pathologies in the labor and delivery phase, and the physician tends to take charge in the patient-doctor interaction and sees himself as the decision maker" (pg. 4—with contributions from Davis-Floyd 1994 and Rooks 1997).
"Treating normal labors as though they were complicated can become a self-fulfilling prophecy" (pg. 6—from Rooks 1997).
"[Birth] can be a most empowering act of creation in a woman’s life…"empower" the pregnant women…. Dr. Michel Odent argues that "experiences have clearly shown that an approach which "demedicalizes" birth, restores dignity and humanity to the process of childbirth, and returns control to the mother is also the safest approach"’ (pg. 7---with contributions from Odent 1984 and Rooks 1997).
"several observational studies carried out during the last two decades suggest that out-of-hospital birth is as safe as hospital birth for women with comparable low-risk profiles (Kloosterman 1984; Mehl et al. 1976; Tew 1977b; Van Alten, Eskes and Treffers 1989)
…Marjorie Tew showed that …birth in obstetric hospitals was significantly less safe than in general practitioner units or home birth…[and] that birth at home and in General Practitioner Units (GPU) was not only safer for low-risk pregnancies, but also for the high-risk cases (Tew 1990, pp. 241-245)." (pg. 12, 13, 16---from studies cited in quote)."’reluctance of the obstetric establishment to consider the implications of objective evidence which runs counter to their preconceived assumptions -- without refuting it on statistical grounds" (Zander 1984, pg. 128)’" (pg. 17--- quote from Zander).
"For the Netherlands, as the only country with a sizable proportion of natural childbirths (home birth as proxy)…Dutch national perinatal statistics from 1986 …found that perinatal mortality rates were much higher for obstetricians in hospitals than for midwife-attended home care or midwife-attended hospital care, at all levels of risk when controlling for gestation, maternal age and parity" (pg. 17---from studies by Treffers and Laan 1986 and Tew and Damstra-Wijmenga 1991).
"The WHO [World Health Organization] commissioned in 1979 a Perinatal Study Group to examine the "problems surrounding birth and birth care" and …the recommendations …strongly argue for a non-interventionist approach to childbirth" (pg. 17---from WHO 1985 #6).
Critical Quotes from the Review of Literature in Peter F. Schlenzka, "Safety of Alternative Approaches to Childbirth," Stanford University, March 1999.
Copyright © 2002 Christian UC All rights reserved.
