Category Archives: Politics

Misleading home birth headline

By The Midwife | Published: September 19, 2013

Yet another scary press release regarding home birth has come out today in advance of research which is set to be published in the upcoming issue of AJOG.  We’ve already seen in the Wax report how relying on birth certificate data can mar research, as the intended place of delivery is often not captured on a birth […]

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Independent Midwifery in the UK threatened

By The Midwife | Published: April 25, 2013

It’s easy to get sucked into your practice bubble when you’re a midwife, and put your nose to the grindstone and not look up much.  Midwifery is like that; it’s one of the hardest jobs out there, demanding huge amounts of your energy and time, and it’s hard to take a moment to catch your […]

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A man’s take on breastfeeding

By The Midwife | Published: May 12, 2012

This story has been making the rounds, but here’s a really fantastic post on the (Wo)Men Speak Out Blog about a man’s reaction to his wife’s breastfeeding, and his eventual evolution as a man because of it.  Yes, breasts can be sexual, but they’re also incredibly functional.  He wonders if it’s our discomfort with the […]

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The history of Planned Parenthood

By The Midwife | Published: February 11, 2012

This is a few weeks old, but it’s absolutely fascinating: Jill Lapore’s article Birthright: What’s next for Planned Parenthood in the New Yorker chronicling the history of  Planned Parenthood and the birth control movement, and how that movement became politicized, and then later violently attacked, and now so deeply partisan and entrenched in the public consciousness that […]

Also posted in Choice, Contraception, Feminism, Women's Health | 1 Comment

Wax Study Revisited

By The Midwife | Published: October 9, 2011

Imagine the following scenario:  a meta-analysis comparing planned homebirths to planned hospital births is published, but it has so many statistical flaws in it that the journal which originally published it goes on to print several letters to the Editor critiquing the flawed research, in order to give the authors a second chance to explain […]

Also posted in Choice, Complications, Homebirth, Hospitals, Issues, Labor and Birth, Midwifery, Research | 1 Comment

More Business of Being Born

By The Midwife | Published: August 24, 2011

Back in 2007, I was lucky enough to attend an advance screening of The Business of Being Born in New York City, and I wrote this review of it at the time.  Since then, it’s become widely popular and widely viewed, loudly praised and criticized by opposing sides of the birth debate, and has served as […]

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The Obstetrician’s Lament

By The Midwife | Published: May 19, 2011

There is an astounding collection of writing going up on The Unnecesarean regarding the growing rift between obstetricians and the out-of-hospital birth community.  All of this is in response to the The Obstetrician’s Lament, written by OB-GYN Anette Fineberg, MD, which came out in the May edition of ACOG’s Green Journal (Obstetrics and Gynecology).  I […]

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CPM bill introduced in Congress

By The Midwife | Published: March 24, 2011

I have already written extensively on the differences between CNMs/ CMs and CPMs, about how there is a national divide between these qualifications which may prove very hard to bridge, and about how the lack of a unified standard of midwifery in the US continues to divide and destabilize our profession.  Part of the problem […]

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The Fight for Planned Parenthood

By The Midwife | Published: February 23, 2011

And now, on to the national scene.  As I’m sure everyone knows by now, the House voted last Friday 240 – 185 to defund Planned Parenthood, which has 800 clinics across the nation and provides thousands of women with family planning, birth control, STD treatment, pap smears, and primary gynecological health care annually (and yes, […]

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Oh, South Dakota!

By The Midwife | Published: February 22, 2011

The good people of South Dakota had the sense to vote down referendums trying to outlaw abortion in 2006 and 2008.  However, there is a current bill still on the table (unfortunately not yet off the table) called H1171 which is taking the entire fight against abortion to a whole new level.  If abortion itself […]

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