Home-birth viewpoints

Re “Babies, the old-fashioned way,” Opinion, July 9

Congratulations to Jennifer Block on a well-written, solidly researched article on the politics of birth in the U.S. As a home-birth family physician and a home-birth mother, I’ve been thinking, reading and writing about this issue for nearly 20 years. I don’t think I’ve read a more clear summary.

Push-back from organized medicine is nothing new. What is new is the national, organized and well-funded effort in support of home birth. Finally, we can answer concerns and arguments clearly and publicly, with science and human rights justifications. I feel a little safer with this kind of public discussion.

Elizabeth Allemann

Columbia, Mo.

The writer is medical director of the Columbia Community Birth Center.

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Someone should clue Block into a few things. First, many women do not relish the idea of a home birth. We want a clean, well-equipped place and well-trained people to assist us.

And guess what? We want medicine. As lovely as Block finds the idea of squatting in a kiddie pool screaming in pain, counting on statistics to keep her safe, that’s simply not the kind of experience we’re looking for.

Any woman who says the “physiological birth process is automatic” has no idea of what can happen at a real human birth. Labor stalls for hours, babies enter rear end first or throw their heads back instead of down. Cords wrap around necks. So there’s a 95% safety record at home? That means a 1 in 20 chance you’re going to need medical intervention.

Block’s measure of a successful birth seems to rest on a political point she’s trying to make. She insults women when she assumes we aren’t getting the kind of birth experience we want.

Chris Calcote

Los Angeles