In a message dated 1/2/99 3:20:42 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<<  When was the last time you
 saw a natural birth?  There are VERY FEW in hospitals, if any -- >>
The small community hospital where I work does quite a lot of natural births.
If some of you can get out of those big centers with all those
interns,residents, and NICU's, you'd see that it is, indeed, possible to have
a baby with little or no intervention (except maybe for some external
monitoring). It's also possible to have a baby without a septic work-up, even
if mom has had an epidural and an elevated temp along with it.

My point is that there are hospitals, docs, and midwives with the low-
intervention approach. They are probably among the minority, but I think the
numbers are growing as more practitioners see the good in minimal intervention
and more parents demand this type of approach.

Betsy, R.N.C. in Connecticut (where it is in the teens with a high wind).