Freebirthing

>> All these women who are indulging in "natural childbirth" should be made VERY AWARE of the many real dangers of doing so. <<

Of course it's dangerous. But so is American health care, whose outcomes are the worst of any developed nation; and regarding maternal and infant mortality, worse than some undeveloped nations. For anyone whose body/mind puts them at odds with conventional systems and/or having traits that make people not listen to them such as being female, poor, of color, trans, etc. then no care may be more survivable than bad care. That doesn't make it good, or ethical that people have to make that choice. It just means denying people a chance to hurt you.

>> Maybe I'm a cynical old witch, but I'm just waiting for the day WHEN a news article reports a mother or newborn having died as a result of not being in a modern medical establishment during childbirth. When not if.<<

I'm sure it happens. But people also die in hospitals because nobody will listen to them (or their parents, in case of children).

I won't calculate those odds for anyone but myself -- and I've gone without a lot of health care because the quality of what's available is so often low. What they don't know about cannot be used against me. I resent having to do that, because everyone deserves good care; but I'd rather go without than invite people to abuse me.

>> I will say this though--I very much agree that women giving birth definitely need to be better treated than they currently are! <<

Agreed.

>> All too sadly true--and I've seen it happen.
There are way too many doctors who stay one step ahead of malpractice lawsuits only because their patients are too ignorant to know they were mis-diagnosed/mis-treated. <<

Now add in the patients who know damn well they're being mistreated, but cannot afford a lawyer and/or are averse to the legal system.

>> I spook about 75% of the doctors that see me as a patient because I start asking them informed questions.
:^{ <<

Health workers almost always hate that. They expect to be obeyed and quickly become belligerent if that doesn't happen.

My stance is that this is my body and I make the decisions about it. Doctors don't give orders; they give advice. If it seems viable, I follow it; if not, I ignore it. Almost nobody wants to work with me on that basis. Almost nobody believes the ways in which my body differs from their textbooks, and then they're "shocked" and "sorry" when my predictions prove accurate and theirs inaccurate. If I can pinpoint a problem and its solution, and only need providers for goods/services I can't access on my own, there's a pretty good chance of fixing the problem. But if I haven't already done the lion's share of the work for them -- if I don't know exactly what's wrong and how to fix it -- then the chance of an effective solution plummets rapidly. It's all but impossible for me to get good care, so going without is usually safer. "Climb UP into a lifeboat from a sinking ship" is a shitty way to interface with health care, but often the most survivable. It's very frustrating.

Now balance that against the number of women murdered because doctors ignore what the woman is telling them, or refuse to give her care because they disagree with it. These are not small numbers and are key in why America's maternal death rate is so ruinously high -- especially, why it's worst of all in conservative states. Frex, religious hospitals don't have to provide best practice; they are allowed to refuse services they disagree with, which can and does kill people. Women who have had negative experiences may well feel safer at home. This is unfortunate, but sometimes no care is better than bad care.

>> I think I mentioned that if there was a well equipped birthing center in or connected to a hospital, I'd prefer that, because there *are* crazy situations that can occur too quickly to allow an ambulance to help. <<

Birthing centers make a fantastic compromise, if they are woman-identified rather than doctor-identified. Women give up having the baby at home for the sake of better backup; doctors give up the full equipment for an atmosphere that produces better results for healthy deliveries. (Don't forget to count the risk of giving women PTSD from a traumatic hospital experience: some hospitals run a PTSD rate for severe conditions around 33%, the same as multiple deployments in a war zone.) It's especially popular for women who don't work or can't conveniently arrange a home birth, yet don't want a really clinical atmosphere. But if they're doctor-identified, they have the same disadvantages as hospitals for minimal gain, and women avoid them.

>>How high should the risk be before we'd consider it malpractice to allow a woman to give birth in X_Situation? If the attending professional has made *every* effort to convince the mother-to-be to be somewhere safer, when do we say that a professional must walk away, rather than try to make the best of a bad situation?

And when do we say that "our fears and our discomfort do not allow us to force your action?" <<

You don't. Her body, her choice. An oracle's job is to warn, not to convince. Document what BOTH people have said; this is utterly crucial. Nobody ever gives a flying fuck what clients say, and that gets people killed. If someone says "I need non-drug pain control because I am allergic to painkillers/have addicts in the family/religious objections" then you must respect that. A professional may choose not to participate, but this leaves many people without health care, because doctors care more about covering their own ass than about helping people. And that's what leads directly to women refusing to waste time asking them for help so they just have babies at home.

>>With no disrespect intended, you might have a harder time saying "fine, do a home birth" than I. You also might not - but my thoughts on home births are "hell, so many pregnancies have low risk deliveries, why not?" while you have a resonating counter-example. It's hard to be objective about this. <<

Most pregnancies are healthy; there's no reason not to do those at home if a woman wants to. Sure they could die of unforeseen circumstances, but they could also get killed in a car crash on the way to the hospital. Pregnancies with concerns would be better handled in a birthing center or women's health clinic. Pregnancies with known problems are best handled in a hospital. But it's still the woman's decision, because ultimately she's the one who will have to deal with the consequences both positive and negative. Let's not forget that even a healthy hospital birth is ruinously expensive, which many women can't afford; trying to force them into that is life-wrecking because the collectors will destroy everything you have trying to get what they want.