To Maria:  Apologies, but Amy's stats have been rebutted ad nauseum in both this thread and at least one other thread on this Forum. She has shifted her ground now to the CDC data, but she lost all credibilility permanently when her initial accusation compared Johnson & Daviss' perinatal death rates (stillbirth + neonatal death) to neonatal death rates, and she refused to acknowledge this error when pointed out to her and went on repeating it. That tells you all you need to know about the honesty of her intentions and whether any more time should be spent trying to establish the validity of her claims. As the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." If you want any further data from Amy, you will have to review this thread and the others (a search on "tuteur" should bring them up) on the Forum or go over to Amy's own blog.

Maria's confusion illustrates the serious problems someone like Tuteur causes for people who want to understand an issue outside of their sphere of expertise. They fall into the trap of thinking they are hearing a legitimate difference of opinion by experts of similar standing when they are not. You know this is so in Amy's case because of her continuing to repeat the same accusation after her basic error was pointed out to her--more than once, I should add. However, the result of her tactics is that those wanting to understand the issue may end up throwing up their hands in frustration, thinking neither side has the right of it or it's just too complicated for the nonexpert to understand. That's a win for the Tuteurs of this world. 

Her mud slinging also serves a purpose. Even if you try to ignore it or understand that it applies to her, it plants the pernicious idea that you can't trust anybody: everyone in the debate has an agenda and will cherry pick or distort data to support their position. Ernst's post suggests this. That's another win for the Tuteurs of this world.  

Amy's tactics achieve another purpose as well. They misdirect attention from much bigger issues with much greater impact on childbearing women. While everyone is in an uproar over the baby's safety in the tiny percentage of women who plan home birth, the focus is off the far greater dangers posed to the health and wellbeing of the millions of mothers and babies who undergo conventional obstetric management. You saw another example of this strategy in the Amer. College of Ob/Gyn's anti-home birth statement (no supportive data, of course) that came out after laceName w:st="on">RickilaceName> laceType w:st="on">LakelaceType>'s movie, the Business of Being Born, began making a splash. The point of the movie wasn't that every woman should birth at home, but the systemic problems with hospital birth that made home birth a good, if not a better, option for low-risk women. However, by shifting the ground to the irresponsibility of home birthers, they took control of the message and the grounds of the debate.

This brings me to one more related thing:  I moderate this Forum parttime. While my time and attention have been taken up with this discussion, I have been neglecting others who are posting on different topics. You all are free to continue the discussion, but I need to turn my attention to them.

-- Henci