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Subject:	ACOG statement
Body:	<div class="NTForums_Quote">Posted By Archived User on 11/14/2006 7:57 PM<br>We have abundant evidence of the safety of planned home birth with a qualified birth attendant and birth in certified birth centers. Note: Coming soon: [i]Evidence Basis for the CIMS' "Ten Steps to Mother-Friendly Childbirth"[/i] will be published in the spring of 2007 and will include definitive evidence that birth at home and in free-standing birth centers results in equally good or better outcomes with much less use of potentially risky medical interventions such as cesarean surgery. <BR> <BR>Here's what I think this is about: As the professional organization for obs, ACOG sets the legal standards for obstetric care. This is a sweet deal for them as they are, in effect, setting the guidelines under which they are regulated just as if logging companies and coal companies could write their own regulatory guidelines--oh, wait, they already do that. At any rate, by putting out a document that says that out-of-hospital birth is dangerous and they don't approve, they are hanging home birth midwives and providers of care at out-of-hospital birth centers out to dry along with the few obstetricians still willing to back up out-of-hospital providers. Those midwives and doctors can then be sanctioned in any way regulatory boards or hospital obstetric departments see fit, even subjected to prosecution, and they won't have a leg to stand on in court should something, however unavoidable, go wrong at a birth. At the same time, ACOG is ducking the ethical obligation their obs have to provide back up care to women choosing to birth out of the hospital who develop complications and need obstetric expertise. I didn't think my opinion of ACOG could sink any lower, but somehow they manage to continually exceed expectations. <BR> <BR>-- Henci By: Henci Goer</div><br><br>
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