AMA Opposing Home Births?
July 21, 2008
The American Medical Association (AMA) is once again tampering with your health freedom.
AMA has agreed to support proposed legislation that could make having a planned birth in one’s home difficult, to virtually impossible.
While no actual legislation has been written, the AMA has agreed to back a measure called “Resolution 205,” which is a request to support the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ (ACOG) position that home births are not safe. ACOG says that women who give birth outside of a clinical setting risk put themselves and their newborns at risk.
This puts the AMA and ACOG at odds with those who say women should have the choice to give birth at home or in a hospital. The American College of Nurse-Midwives has issued an unequivocal statement in support of planned home births, citing a study in the British Medical Journal that showed home births to be no riskier than hospital births.
Although only about 1 percent of babies born in the United States are born outside of a hospital, the debate has been framed in some circles as a battle between our country’s troubled medical system and mothers-to-be who want to break free of it.
ACOG’s call for support came after the release of “The Business of Being Born,” a recent documentary by actress and former talk-show host Ricki Lake, in which she depicted the final stage of her pregnancy, up to the point of giving birth. The ACOG appears to be stung by the film’s criticism of the medical establishment in regards to hospital birthing. The ACOG denies that their decision to ask the AMA to support legislation to curtail home birthing (and criticism of what they consider under-qualified “lay-midwives”) had “nothing to do with Ricki Lake. Yet, in the ACOG proposal to the AMA’s annual June conference, Lake was called out by name.
The ACOG’ says their goal is not to criminalize home birthing. Still, the group’s moves may leave key questions unanswered: If the medical group wishes to let the public know how it feels about home births, why not simply issue a public service announcement? Why the call for “legislation?”
One of ACOG’s dissenting members, Dr. Stuart Fischbein of California, told ABCNEWS.com he has no doubt ACOG wants to ban home births. Even if officials never pass legislation, the effect of their statement — now approved by the AMA — will have a chilling effect on the practice, he said.
To read the full article, visit: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5340949&page=1
When my daughter was born at a small town hospital she developed jaundice. The equipment the local hospital had been gifted was of such poor quality that it did her no good and she had to be airlifted to a larger hospital where she contracted an in house infection such that she could not, as would normally happen, be transported back to the local hospital where she was born and we had to travel 2 1/2 hours each way to go get her! Some safety!
This is pure stupidity. Anything can happen in a hospital, not just a home. When I gave birth to my son, who is now 2 1/2, he was diagnosed with meningitis right at birth. There were students watching the birth, and the OB, and plenty of nurses. Just because you’re in a hospital doesn’t make it safe. I told my current OB how my son got sick at birth, and she said that is very serious to get that disease so young, and that something is fishy. Also, the nurse that was in the NICU with my son told me that they get a lot of sick babies from that hospital i delivered at to their NICU. now what is safer? being comfortable in your own clean home? or trusting that a hospital is clean, but you never know for sure? exactly.
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The American Medical Association is supporting legislation that would give our government complete control over birth documentation. How dare a woman have the choice to give birth at home. If all births are regulated by the government, all money is flowed through the government run health fiasco, thus the AMA made up of doctors and medical professionals, reap the benefit. I’m sorry to say, it seems the AMA is following the money, i hope i’m wrong.