Betsy wrote:
"The best we can do is educate our clients and encourage them to ask=20
questions. Change comes from positive consumer demand."

For me, this begs the question, if change comes from positive comsumer 
demand, how did we get where we are, b/c where we are is a change from 
where we once were? Did consumers make positive demands for medicalized 
births, interventions that are barbaric, brutal and completely 
disrespectful to our humanity? When you read books like "Birth As An 
American Rite of Passage" and "Pursuing the Birth Machine" and "An 
American Way of Birth", and anything by Michel Odent, it is impossible 
to argue that contemporary American birth practices have been 
consumer-driven.

Besides, what is the point of asking questions, when the people being 
asked are so often eiither ignorant or worse, even willing to lie 
(remember that obstetrics is the least evidence-driven area of medicine 
and of course that birth is not a medical event to begin with). I agree 
with Pam and Andrea, parents should not have to ask for the physiologic 
norm--it should just be done. Why shoudn't we expect that ALL HCPs 
should function from a "first do no harm" perspective? And why 
shouldn't families expect HCPs to protect their well-being--after all, 
the medical establishmenthas  put a lot of effort into creating the 
myth that they are the experts to be trusted and even obeyed. Sadly, I 
have seen many parents completely disparaged for expecting a 
non-medicalized birth. I have heard HCPs laugh at them, criticize them 
and completely dismiss them. "Requests" are rarely respected and it is 
absurd to expect famileis to ahev to be their own advocates while 
giving birth or in the post-partum period. We as a society should be 
their advocates!
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA

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