Will the real Dr. Amy please stand up?

If you have ever heard of Amy Tuteur, then you have also probably asked yourself-
Who IS this woman and why is she constantly telling me homebirth is dangerous?
And, why does she feel it is her place to tell me where and how I should birth my child?

Well, if you have wondered this, you are not alone. Many of us have been intrigued by this random woman on the net who spends so much of her time and energy trying to make homebirth and midwives look bad. You would think, if homebirth was truly as dangerous as she claims and midwives were really as awful as she makes them about to be, she would have taken some action by now to actually do something about it.

Writing a blog is.. well.. writing a blog. It certainly won't make homebirth safer and as far as I know, midwives won't become more educated or experienced by anti-homebirth blog posts, either.
So, you may have wondered..What IS the point in what she is doing? You may have even asked yourself.. What in the heck happend to this woman to make her so rabid about homebirth?

Unfortunately, I just do not have an answer for that. I have speculation... Oh, yes, I have speculation, but I surely cannot prove, that besides being completely and utterly bored, this is all based on her ego and desperate need for attention.

What I can do is this.. I can present you, the reader with a little insight into the infamous doctor
and then you, yourself, can make a judgement call on the kind of person she is. You may want to ask yourselves a couple of questions at the end of this post.

1. Does Amy Tuteur use fact or opinion as a source of information?
2. Is Amy Tuteur a good source to look to when searching for scientific evidence?

A couple of years ago, Dr. Amy was a writer on a site called Science Based Medicine.This is a place where skeptics like to go to get to the truth of the matter through science, data and other fact based information. She lasted there for three months and due to some unknown reasons, decided and/or was asked, to leave.

This is what the majority of skeptics had to say about her departure..

We have all heard Amy Tuteur accuse many, many people of lying, twisting the truth, and making false claims based on pure opinion. Now, I am beginning to wonder.. exactly who is the one misrepresenting the truth? I know what I believe but I'll let you be the judge...

Can we agree to disagree?

Ahhh.. the Birth Wars. They're exhausting aren't they?

I think we can all agree that things cannot continue the way they have been..
the "Birth Wars" are not going to get us anywhere. And in the midst of all the drama, the arguing, the pointing of fingers.. there are mothers to be, trying to prepare for their births, trying to
 make the right decisions. We are not helping those women when we argue.

From what I have gathered in my relatively short time involved in this battle is that one very significant factor in all of this, is perspective. We have very different perspectives.. but it's not just on birth, it's on everything. Our perspectives on life and healing, anger and trauma seem to be on opposite ends of the spectrum. That doesn't mean that there aren't things we agree on, because there are. And I would say, those are the things that we really should be focusing on.

I want to say, right here and now, that I support making homebirth safer. I support raising the bar for homebirth midwives. Every woman who gives birth at home and at the hospital deserves the very best care. I do not support negligence nor do I excuse careless midwives, simply because they are midwives. I do not think women who have had bad experiences with their homebirths, should be hushed or that valid concerns should be swept under the rug.

Let me explain what I do have a problem with. I cannot abide and do not support, bullying, ridiculing or name calling. It's an embarrassment to us all. We are women and mothers, sisters and wives and we are better than this! Or at least, we should be. Is this is the example you want to set for your daughters? Your sons? Your grandchildren? Do you want to show by example that when you don't agree with someone the best course of action is to make fun of them? What kind of children are we going to raise for the future if that is the example we are setting for them? The very first lesson we all learned as children was- do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Four year olds are capable of doing this yet grown mothers are not? It's shameful.

Yesterday a nurse posted this on my wall. It was disheartening to say the least..

And a couple of the comments that followed:

Many were like the one below. Pointless and childish. I will spare you and only show one..

Sigh. The fact that I even need to defend myself on this is beyond ridiculous. My page is about birth and since we discuss our births, inevitably, details will  come up. Details that include giving birth without medication or giving birth by c-section or giving birth vaginally. The details are usually a big part of the conversation when you discuss birth. 

This is the sort of nonsense I have a problem with. Our pages and words are not being attacked by random teens on the net ( although it feels like it sometimes) these are mothers, just like us!

This is why we are having "Birth Wars" despite the fact we are grown women with children of our own. It's because some people choose to be disrespectful and narrow minded. We should all have the capability to discuss issues with civility and understanding. We should be able to listen to one another. Unfortunately, there isn't anything worthwhile to hear when  nothing of substance being said. I think it's a real shame that the people who claim to want to make improvements in midwifery care and claim to want to protect mamas and babies resort to the above behavior. How can we possibly take them seriously? How can we believe that  they really care when this ^ is all we see? I can't support it and I won't be a part of it.

I only hope that those who choose to partake in this futile and empty behavior will just be ignored by everyone else. I hope that those of you who do care, will continue helping and supporting women. 

If these are the kind of people hoping to protect us, we need to make sure we are doing it ourselves.

We need to unite .. we must make sure birth is as safe as possible for everyone.  Both negligent doctors and negligent midwives need to be on our radar. 

For those of us who are truly interested in improvement, let's agree to disagree. For those of you who have nothing better to do but ridicule.. you can either change or get out of the way.. because we really are not interested. We have better things to do.

A Message for Dr. Amy

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” - Steve Jobs




Dr. Amy,

I have a message for you. 

I am not interested in what you have to say. You have no wisdom. You have no solutions. Nothing you have to say inspires me.  Your "idea's"- if that's what you want to call them, bore me. To put it simply, you are boring.

I understand that you don't get.  I understand that you are not capable of seeing the big picture.
You cannot grasp anything that is not within your tiny, narrow view. Too bad for you. I am not interested in living my life in fear. I have no desire to constantly worry about what "might" go wrong. I am interested in being awake and aware and I am curious about what the truth really is. I think we both know I won't be discovering any of that if I listen to you.


In my world, intuition matters. In my world, magic exists. I know you laugh at what you don't understand but that is your fault, not mine.


Your knowledge does not make you wise. Your education does not make me respect you. How could anyone respect someone who shows no compassion no wisdom, no humility and no kindness? You respect nothing yet you expect us to listen to you.


You can continue spreading hate, I know you will. And I will continue to ignore you. You can continue creating a divide, it will do harm. Your choices do not protect anyone. What good has ever come from hate?


I will continue to listen to those who inspire me. I will continue to be moved by people with brilliant ideas and solutions for improvement.


You will continue spreading tired lines and messages of anger. Don't you want more?

The Blame Game...

I have to admit, I was completely oblivious to the "Mommy/Birth Wars" not that long ago.

I miss the blissful ignorance of being unaware that others viewed my choices so harshly, even though it shouldn't matter what they think. I simply had no idea people could care so much about the choices I made involving my own body and own child!

It wasn't just the judgments on homebirth mothers that I had noticed, I also began to see a lot of blame being passed around and very little responsibility being taken for our own choice-making.

Women were angry. Really, really angry. They were tired of people telling them that their C-sections weren't real births or that they were less-than for getting the epidural. They were upset that they had been told that doctors were evil and hospitals were cold and unfeeling.  That had simply not been their experience and they felt they had been lied to.

I could understand their frustration. I had empathy that their births were being discounted. It certainly wasn't fair or right.

But, my then my empathy began to wane. I could understand being angry and being hurt but what I could not understand was turning that anger into blame, continually, over and over again.

Blame was put on thousands of women.. women who had no connection to those specific situations where these women had felt judged and belittled. All of sudden every single homebirth mother or woman who advocated for natural birth deserved retribution for what had happened to them. All of a sudden we were all lumped together into this one huge group of women who had demeaned them and their births.

I know full well, I had never said a harsh word to any of these women for the choices they had made as mothers or what had happedned to them by no fault of their own. So, why were all of  us getting blamed for something that one random person had said? Even if 100 people had said it, it still does not mean that thousands upon thousands of women feel the same way.

But the blame did not stop there. I also began to notice that anyone who was viewed as an "advocate" for homebirth or natural birth was not only accused of putting women and babies in danger but was also being held responsible if a baby or mother died. I saw facebook page owners, bloggers and mothering boards being blamed when homebirths went wrong or women had stillbirths. This was going too far. When you start blaming the wrong people for anyone's death, baby or adult, you have gone too far.

Think about the myriad of reasons that are involved when a mother is making a choice about her impending birth. I would say this choice probably begins with the mother's upbringing.. her relationship with her parents, her religious beliefs, her spiritual beliefs, her husbands beliefs and so much more.

How can we possibly blame a facebook page if the choice a mother makes ends in tragedy? I think we need to give women more credit than that. Women are intelligent and thoughtful and will do anything to protect their babies. If someone is looking for guidance on an online forum, I would assume that she is using every avenue possible for information and resources. I would argue that she has put a lot of thought into her birth and sometimes, despite doing all that, things will still go wrong.

Why do we always feel such a need to blame? What possible good comes out of that anyway? I see blame as one of those useless emotions, like regret and jealousy. It causes more harm than good, there is no question about that.

So, instead of blaming, I think we should try something new. If someone says a hurtful comment to us about how we gave birth or how we parent our children, we need to confront that person right then and there. Let's not run off and let that anger fester. Let's not put the blame on someone else. Let's talk about it and try to resolve it, the best way we can.

If something goes wrong during our birth or someone else's birth, instead of trying to find someone to blame, let's try to find ways to heal. It is so much more productive and will end with peace of mind rather than anger in our hearts.

I think we can take what would have been blame and turn it into proactive change. Whenever there is an opportunity to blame, there really is an opportunity for growth. It's in our hands, which one we want we to choose.

The Power of the Mind..

One of the aspects of Natural Childbirth that I strongly agree with, is the belief in the connection between mind and body. Advocates of Natural Childbirth believe that our thoughts and our state of mind during pregnancy and labor can have a remarkable affect on it and it's outcome.

When I discovered I was pregnant I had an immediate interest in hypnotherapy for labor. As someone who has suffered from anxiety and panic attacks, I am well aware of the power the mind has over the body. Fear is an incredible thing, and will make any experience unbearable.So, I was really thrilled to try Hypnobabies and I had a strong faith that it would work because I truly believe in it.

Unfortunately, some people see no connection between the body and the mind and actually use this belief as a source of sarcasm and ridicule. Their belief is that if your labor was short or lacking in pain, it was purely luck. I'm sure that is true in some cases, but certainly not all. If you attempt to explain all the preparation you took to ensure a positive birth experience, they accuse of you wanting to pat yourself on the back and take credit for "good luck". They say that there is no scientific evidence to prove that the mind has any effect on labor and birth.
Perhaps no formal studies have been done on a woman's state of mind and the outcome of her labor, but I do know this.... fear, anxiety and negative thinking, will make you perceive that your experience is much worse than it actually is. If you had a choice between preparing and taking ownership of your birth experience, over not preparing, wouldn't you want take whatever steps possible to try to make your experience as positive as possible? I know I did.

The interesting thing is, there IS a lot of scientific evidence that proves there is a mind-body connection. There is plenty of evidence to support how powerful the mind can be and that by harnessing that power, we can truly do extraordinary things with our bodies.

A few years ago, I read a book called, "The Intention Experiment". It's a fascinating book about the study of intention and thoughts. One specific chapter of the book talks about a study that was done by a Harvard Medical Professor on a group of Tibetan Monks in India...


In a monastery in northern India, thinly clad Tibetan monks sat quietly in a room where the temperature was a chilly 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Using a yoga technique known as g Tum-mo, they entered a state of deep meditation. Other monks soaked 3-by-6-foot sheets in cold water (49 degrees) and placed them over the meditators' shoulders. For untrained people, such frigid wrappings would produce uncontrolled shivering. 

If body temperatures continue to drop under these conditions, death can result. But it was not long before steam began rising from the sheets. As a result of body heat produced by the monks during meditation, the sheets dried in about an hour. 

Attendants removed the sheets, then covered the meditators with a second chilled, wet wrapping. Each monk was required to dry three sheets over a period of several hours. 




Benson is an associate professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School and president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He firmly believes that studying advanced forms of meditation "can uncover capacities that will help us to better treat stress-related illnesses." 



Benson decided that he needed to locate a religious setting, where advanced mediation is traditionally practiced. His opportunity came in 1979 when the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, visited Harvard University. "His Holiness agreed to help me," recalls Benson. That visit was the beginning of a long friendship and several expeditions to northern India where many Tibetan monks live in exile. 

During visits to remote monasteries in the 1980s, Benson and his team studied monks living in the Himalayan Mountains who could, by g Tum-mo meditation, raise the temperatures of their fingers and toes by as much as 17 degrees. It has yet to be determined how the monks are able to generate such heat. 

The researchers also made measurements on practitioners of other forms of advanced meditation in Sikkim, India. They were astonished to find that these monks could lower their metabolism by 64 percent. "It was an astounding, breathtaking [no pun intended] result," Benson exclaims. 

To put that decrease in perspective, metabolism, or oxygen consumption, drops only 10-15 percent in sleep and about 17 percent during simple meditation. Benson believes that such a capability could be useful for space travel. Travelers might use meditation to ease stress and oxygen consumption on long flights to other planets. 

In 1985, the meditation team made a video of monks drying cold, wet sheets with body heat. They also documented monks spending a winter night on a rocky ledge 15,000 feet high in the Himalayas. The sleep-out took place in February on the night of the winter full moon when temperatures reached zero degrees F. Wearing only woolen or cotton shawls, the monks promptly fell asleep on the rocky ledge, They did not huddle together and the video shows no evidence of shivering. They slept until dawn then walked back to their monastery. 


The next time someone tells you that mentally preparing for birth and releasing fears has no significance on your labor you might want to tell them about this study. Yes, this study is about meditation and not labor, however it does prove the powerful effect our minds can have on our bodies, when we focus and prepare and practice.


Due to using Hypnobabies and giving birth at home in an environment where I felt safe and protected, I ended up with a labor under 6 hours, with mild pain comparable to period cramps. I found pushing to be painful but still bearable. I wonder what would have happened if I had not prepared.....  It's interesting to me how many women have such completely different experiences giving birth after they have prepared mentally opposed to not preparing at all.


Keep in mind, though, that we don't have control. We can do all the preparation in the world and still might not end up with what we hoped for. Relinquishing control, actually gives us more control. So, have faith that events will unfold the way they are supposed to and be prepared for the unknown. But never forget the power you hold.


“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” Buddha

The Truth about Midwives.. Part I

There is a lot of misinformation out there about midwives. Generalizations about their character, why they choose midwifery and how much money they make, have all been misrepresented.  I think we deserve to know the truth about midwives and all the different areas of concern. There's a lot of ground to cover and there is a lot I have to learn, so I am beginning this post as Part I and will continue with Part II in time. I want to discuss where there is room for improvement, as well as the best aspects of midwifery care. I am also interested in interviewing a CPM, so if anyone reading is interested, please let me know. In this post I'd like to look into a misconception I've been seeing a lot lately..  the salary of the CPM.

For awhile now, I have watched silently as people discuss the very large amounts of money CPMs must make. The theory, is that they make 4k a birth, do 4 births a month and therefore make 16k a month, which would almost be 200 thousand dollars a year. I'm assuming that the people who claim this about midwives must not know any. It's a nice thought but entirely unrealistic. When I had my homebirth I had two midwives attending. These women usually spent at least two hours with me at every appointment. Looking back, they were very kind to let me ramble on with my questions and concerns, well past my time slot with them, every time. I never felt rushed, I never felt they had somewhere more important to be. They both have three children each and are part of a large, busy practice, yet I always felt like I was their only patient. They each made $1500 from my homebirth. Probably less because a third midwife also helped with my prenatal care and I know some of that money went to her. That is $1500 for the six and a half months of  pregnancy care, the 5 hours they stayed with me during labor and giving birth and the 5 hours afterwards where they cleaned everything up- which included doing our laundry. That included the 6 weeks postpartum care and the time when I called at nine at night, crying  because I couldn't get my baby to latch and my midwife rushed over to help me. I could go on and on about everything they did, all the time and effort they put in to giving me the best care possible, and I still don't think I could do an accurate job of displaying how amazing and dedicated these women were.  In all honesty, I actually think they were underpaid for all the time and effort they put into me and my family.

Now compare that with the 2 or 3 months I saw an OB, had 15 minute appointments each time and still had to pay him $1000 after insurance. I understand this is not everyone's experience with midwives or with OBs but it was mine and I thought I'd share it. I do think OBs are getting a bad rap and I don't think that's fair, considering there are many compassionate and caring ones out there. I think part of the problem is that OBs are very busy and if someone is wanting more one on one time, they might be disappointed with their OB experience. I am also well aware that there are some really negligent midwives out there. I have heard horror stories that absolutely no woman should ever have to encounter. But I'll get more into that later.

However, I think it is really inaccurate to tell people that midwives, in general are in it for the money or that they make more than OBs. Yes, I have even heard that one being claimed!

According to this link, OBs make around 200 thousand a year.

http://www.ehow.com/info_8381509_much-obgyn-make-month.html

It's more difficult to know exactly how much midwives, CPMs specifically, are making a year because there can be a pretty distinct difference in what each midwife charges. Also,  there isn't always a guarantee a midwife will be paid in full or even paid at all. 

Here is a discussion between those who think midwives are making a killing and a woman who is in her early trainings to become a midwife. 

I thought it was interesting to read first hand knowledge of how much midwives are making and what that money goes to.  My feeling is, if most midwives were in it for the money, if they only saw their clients rarely or always showed up late for births, homebirth would die out. Word spreads pretty quickly and I don't think we'd be seeing such an increase in homebirths if the majority of midwives, as it has been suggested, are just in it to make a buck.

To be continued...

Let's look at the source..

It is my belief that when someone is trying to convince me of something, one way of knowing if they are legitimate or not, is by looking at their actions. How ethical is this person? How consistent is this person? The actions of somebody can tell a lot about them. Now, nobody is perfect obviously. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes. People have their moments of frustration and might display some immature behavior. But to me, the person or persons who continually show hypocritical behavior, immature behavior and downright rude behavior over and over again, are not people I would personally take seriously.
I have often seen this type of behavior coming from the group that is adamantly against homebirth.
They want to convince you not to give birth in your home, no matter what the reason may be, and if you decide not to listen to them, then you really just don't care about your baby's life. Example:

This is a response to someone who said their homebirth went well and the midwife was knowledgable enough to pick up on some breathing problems so the baby was taken to the hospital. There was no mention that the birth itself caused breathing problems, as we all know sometimes babies need some time in the NICU even when born with all the best technology around them. But this is the kind of judgment that people get for choosing homebirth.
The problem is, are the people who are judging us worthy of judging us? What kind of people are they that they can act so holier than thou? What do their actions reveal about them?
Well, here are just a few examples of their behavior.. Are these sensible, compassionate women? You be the judge....

And this is what they said about me for simply disagreeing that there is enough evidence to claim homebrth is dangerous... They got really angry at me for exposing the truth and even began to say I was lying and then banned me from their page..

But then they just want people to stop judging them..

Because they don't judge people, they just judge ideas..

And the kicker...

In all honesty, this just makes me sad. We are all mothers and women and we  probably have a lot in common when you take how we birthed our babies out of it. Remember, these are THEIR words and they need to own them. Are these the actions of women wanting to keeping mothers and babies safe?

*Update: Yes, these words were taken out of context and my response is, so what? I can't think of a single situation where I said things like this- no matter how horrible the people were. If you disagree with someone's actions, you attack the *actions* not the person. Any mature, reasonable adult would do that. Resorting to name calling and threats are signs of immaturity and cruelty. The majority of these words were taken from two separate posts. If I had spent the time going through numerous posts and taking screen shots of the *many* instances of ugly behavior, the results would be much worse than this. This is a only small example of what I have seen.

The screenshots were found here and here