“DOES HOME BIRTH EMPOWER WOMEN, OR IMPERIL THEM AND THEIR BABIES?” ERIN E. TRACY, MD, MPH (AUGUST)
Although I believe Dr. Tracy’s comments on home birth are justified, and her heart is sincere, I also believe she left out a huge piece of the puzzle: the over-use of cesarean section.
I have experienced cesarean deliveries, although my babies were never distressed—in fact, they were born with perfect Apgar scores. I was forced to have one cesarean section because my baby was not born within the doctor’s desired time frame.
In two of my cesarean deliveries, I was damaged in ways that could have justified a lawsuit, if I were the suing type. In one, a main artery was accidentally nicked. I bled a lot, was given two transfusions, and had to stay in the ICU all night. I was not even told about the problem until I asked why there was “red stuff” in my IV.
The other injury involved my intestines, which were somehow manipulated during the surgery. After the operation, I had a bulge like a water balloon below my navel. Both of these operations were forced upon me as “safe and necessary.”
Doctors are scaring women into staying home to have their babies! But not every woman’s body can deliver a baby “on schedule.” As long as everything is going fine, there is no reason to intervene in the woman’s natural process of giving birth.
Please make the same effort you did to warn women about attempting home birth to warn doctors that they are the biggest reason this is happening. Any woman in her right mind would choose to be in a hospital “just in case” there was an emergency, especially those who desire vaginal birth after cesarean delivery. Believe me, I am one of those women.
Angela Prowant
Adams, Tenn