Monday, June 8, 2009

Birth links

In honor of the people who have already started asking me OMG WHAT WILL YOU DO IF YOU GO OVERDUE SINCE YOU'RE PLANNING A HOMEBIRTH (even though I am only 35 weeks, already 1cm dilated, and having maddeningly regular Braxton-Hicks contractions--thank you, coworkers), I give you an excellent post by Adventures in (Crunchy) Parenthood called "Overdue is not an emergency." She does a nice job of synthesizing the evidence that exists surrounding post-dates pregnancies. Here's a shocker: the way obstetrics is currently practiced is WAY out of line with what the research suggests.

On a related note, Keyboard Revolutionary notes that what enables the maternity care system to be such a broken-down and dangerous yet multi-billion-dollar business is the same thing that drives the rest of our consumerist, commercialized society: making people feel like crap about themselves. I love her tone and her observations, since it echoes what I see everyday and what rings true to us about American society in general.

And the Citizens for Midwifery blog explores the difference between health care and medical care.

1 comment:

Virginia Ruth said...

Great articles! The "Overdue is not an emergency" one took me back to many days of ranting and eyerolling at Reston.

This is Ginny, by the way... I've meant to come look up your blog for ages, and finally sometime last week I thought, "I wonder if Katie's about due yet," and then remembered I could check here! I look forward to reading all about your lovely home birth.