Why Are Homebirths Illegal in Alabama?

[PoliticalChic]

i am really wondering if any of you have any experience with midwives etc? I am also amazed at the attitude that childbirth is something one must endure the pain or have an epi or what....maybe it is because midwives are used a great deal in the nc mountains that I cannot see limiting a woman's choice.

anodaotal shit: the only person i know who has died in childbirth...died in a hospital.

Seems to me...today's women are scared of childbirth...that is hardly a good thing.

That's a good point, strollingbones. I haven't had any experience with midwives, but I know plenty of women who have had successful births with them. Why take that away?

Anecdotal stories have value, but we have to look at the whole picture.

The hospital experience is not for all moms and babies.

Obviously, if baby's or mom's life is in danger, I wouldn't recommend staying at home just to go the natural route.

I am glad that the hospital and doctors and nurses were there to help out those moms who had difficult/dangerous situations.

 

[jillian]

and gunny nails the real question.

I don't think I'd agree. I would think it's about the safety of women and children and if I were a woman's advocate, I'd have fought for a certification requirement. That way we'd be assured that someone calling herself a midwife has certain basic skills.

And I'm not unsympathetic to women who want that type of assistance at the birth of their child, but thankfully, we've come a ways from medical assistance being limited to bringing towels and hot water. I'm also not certain how one gets from the (to me) logical requirement of certification to the thought that midwifery is somehow being "taken away".

 

[strollingbones]

midwives do a lot more than hot water and clean towels. In nc you can do most of your prenatal care under a midwife. They are normally p.a.'s who have returned and gotten an education in midwifery.

and many have totally ignored the "birthing room" option. Taking place in a hospital.

 

[Silence]

midwives do a lot more than hot water and clean towels. In nc you can do most of your prenatal care under a midwife. They are normally p.a.'s who have returned and gotten an education in midwifery.

and many have totally ignored the "birthing room" option. Taking place in a hospital.

perhaps you missed my post where I said I had a midwife through my entire pregnancy who did my pre-natal care but I thank God every day that there was a doctor there during the birth because I would've died otherwise. I needed emergency medical intervention to keep from bleeding to death and a mid-wife is not trained to handle those situations.

 

[jillian]

midwives do a lot more than hot water and clean towels. In nc you can do most of your prenatal care under a midwife. They are normally p.a.'s who have returned and gotten an education in midwifery.

and many have totally ignored the "birthing room" option. Taking place in a hospital.

Sorry, SB, I didn't mean to imply that hot water and towels was all they were good for. But, like Silence, I or my son (or both) would have died if I'd had a midwife with no doctor nearby, though not for the same reason.

My own personal feelings aside, I was talking about the reasonableness of requiring a minimum standard to certify a midwife. And, truthfully, I don't understand why anyone would endanger themselves or their child to give birth at home.

 

[Luissa]

Woman dying in childbirth is perfectly natural.

Do come visit me here in Maine, a place loaded with cemetaries which are hundreds of years old.

The number of mothers and newborns buried together in these graveyards will very quickly wake ya'll up the fact that childbirth is one damned dangerous undertaking.

All that being said, I still think it is WRONG AS HELL to FORCE people to have children in a hospital if they choose not to.

I think that is WRONG AS HELL for exactly the same reason I think abortions are nobody's business but the woman's, and for the same reason I still smoke hemp...because our bodies are our own, and the government has absolutely no fucking right WHATEVER to tell us what we can do with them.

I agree with what you are saying! I would never have homebirth, well now I can't anyways but if one wants to it is your choice. Midwives have been around longer then obgyns but more women and children used to die from child birth also, and I am saying that is due to midwives.

 

[strollingbones]

I agree with what you are saying! I would never have homebirth, well now I can't anyways but if one wants to it is your choice. Midwives have been around longer then obgyns but more women and children used to die from child birth also, and I am saying that is due to midwives.

let me say this...could it be from the fact that rh negative was not understood for how long....medical advancements have changed prenatual care and delivery. you cannot blame the high death rate a 100 yrs ago on midwives. you do realize that was the only medical help many women could get at that time...normally an older woman with a lot of birthing experience.
going into the hospital to give birth is a really recent thing in the timeline of history. It was not until the late 1940's that women began to go into hospitals to give birth.

all medical care people should have training in their field. How many non board certified plastic surgeons are out there practing....midwives are like any other medical field. You have to research whomever you use. I never think the choice should be taken away from a woman.

 

[Gunny]

Sorry, SB, I didn't mean to imply that hot water and towels was all they were good for. But, like Silence, I or my son (or both) would have died if I'd had a midwife with no doctor nearby, though not for the same reason.

My own personal feelings aside, I was talking about the reasonableness of requiring a minimum standard to certify a midwife. And, truthfully, I don't understand why anyone would endanger themselves or their child to give birth at home.

Your personal feelings AREN'T aside. Your opinion is based entirely on them. And you apparently have no problem projecting that opinion via legislation of everyone else.

 

[jillian]

Your personal feelings AREN'T aside. Your opinion is based entirely on them. And you apparently have no problem projecting that opinion via legislation of everyone else.

Where did I say it shouldn't be allowed?

We're talking about MINIMUM STANDARDS for certification. Doctors are required to have them. Hell, taxi drivers are required tohave them. But someone who has life and death power over two lives shouldn't?

Kinda silly... not sure where that type of thinking is coming from.

 

[editec]

The libertarian approach to this might be considered (yes, I can think like a libertarian at times It's not entirely wrong on every subject, that's for damned sure).

How about offering midwifery certifications if midwives want to get them.

Then the consumer can decide if they want a certified midwife.

 

[PoliticalChic]

The libertarian approach to this might be considered (yes, I can think like a libertarian at times It's not entirely wrong on every subject, that's for damned sure).

How about offering midwifery certifications if midwives want to get them.

Then the consumer can decide if they want a certified midwife.

I am not opposed to the required certifications, but I am opposed to the government saying that they can only participate in births at hospitals.

 

[editec]

I am not opposed to the required certifications, but I am opposed to the government saying that they can only participate in births at hospitals.

My guess would be its the INSURANCE COMPANIES that would be the number one opponents to having unlicensed midwives involved.

Now it would not at all sruprise me to learn that the insurance companies, the RN association adn the AMA are colluding to exclude those woman.

After all those organziations have an unholy alliance, a licensure monopoly over health care, don't they?

 

[jillian]

I am not opposed to the required certifications, but I am opposed to the government saying that they can only participate in births at hospitals.

Actually, I agree with you. Missed that part of the OP that said it could only be in hospital.

Still and all, I wouldn't think it safe.