Love this!

I love this excellent parody/response to the ACOG anti-homebirth press release posted by Tienchinho on the MotheringDotCommune Forum. Here are my favorite excerpts:

"As a home birth after cesarean mom (HBACM), I reiterate my support of home births. While complications can arise with little or no warning even among women with low-risk pregnancies, childbirth is a normal physiologic process that most women experience without problems. Continuous monitoring of both the woman and the fetus during labor and delivery in a hospital or accredited birthing center has not improved maternal or fetal outcomes."

"Childbirth decisions should not be dictated or influenced by what's fashionable, trendy, or the latest cause célèbre. Despite the rosy picture painted by hospital birth advocates, a highly medicalized labor and delivery can physically and emotionally scar both the mother and baby. . . . Unless a woman is in a supportive birth environment that allows the birth process to unfold on its own schedule, she puts herself and her baby's health and life at unnecessary risk."

"It should be emphasized that childbirth comes with inherent risks. Implying any guarantee otherwise is misleading and unjust to a birthing mother and her family. Although able to perform live-saving [sic] emergency cesarean deliveries and other surgical and medical procedures, board-certified obstetricians have been cornered into practice styles that perpetuate the need for these same measures. They have lost skills such as detecting and adjusting a baby in the occiput posterior position. Untreated, this condition can result in prolonged labors mislabeled as 'dystocia' and in cesarean sections. They minimize the profound impact of a woman’s birth experience on her future relationship with her children as well as her own view of herself. Since suicide and substance abuse are leading causes of maternal mortality, disregard for a mother’s emotional health can lead to tragic consequences for her and her baby."

Click here to check it out!