Sam wrote:

"Just as it is difficult for a formula-feeding mother to hear the truth about
breastfeeding, it is difficult for medical care providers to hear the truth
about childbirth. "

I would suggest that it is even more appropriate to correlate practitioners with one another and consumers 
with one another. For example, is that it is just as difficult for a ped who has been telling moms for years that 
AIM is safe (just as good as breastmilk, etc) to admit it is dangerous, in spite of all of the evidence. It would
be the same for an OB to admit what all the research proves--that homebirth is safer in the US (likely true
just about everywhere) than hospital birth and that most mortality and morbidity is caused by the hospital setting 
and the interventive practices therein. 

By the same token, it is difficult for moms (and HCPs) who AF their own children to admit its dangers, even
in light of the evidence, and it is equally difficult for mothers and HCPs who have had medicalized births to admit 
that they likely never needed such intervention and that there was surely a priced paid by themselves and their
babies for the intervention. I think it is actually more difficult to see the realities about birth than infant feeding
b/c we at least pay lip service in our culture to the "benefits of breastfeeding", while continuing to blatantly lie
about the risks of medicalized birth. Whether intervention is necessary or not--in either birth or feeding, there is 
always a down-side and while the up-side may clearly outweigh it in some situations, in most cases the loss is
greater than the gain, but we use outdated and inappropriate tools fro measuring success, so that.the damage is 
never even recognized and hence never healed.

On the up side, when someone gets it, they really "get" it. I have seen the most remarkable transformations in both
consumers and HCPs who finally come to understand the implications for interfering in the birth of a new human being. 
I have to believe we have reached something close to the bottom in the way we treat human infants in utero and at birth
and that a mass epiphany must be close at hand, otherwise I would be very discouraged indeed.

Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
Intuitive Parenting Network LLC

 








 


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