June18, 2008

Dear BOBB Friends and Supporters:

We wanted to make sure you are all aware of the news story that has exploded
over the last 24 hours regarding the recent AMA Resolution against homebirth
and Ricki's response to being named in it.

In February of this year, one month after the premiere of BOBB, the American
College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) reiterated its
long-standing opposition to home births. In an obtuse reference to The
Business of Being Born, ACOG stated, "Childbirth decisions should not be
dictated or influenced by what's fashionable, trendy, or the latest cause
célèbre." If that wasn't enough, ACOG, this past weekend, introduced a
resolution to the American Medical Association (AMA) at their annual
meeting. The resolution commits the AMA to "develop model legislation in
support of the concept that the safest setting for labor, delivery, and the
immediate post-partum period is in the hospital...". The reasoning for this
resolution begins, "Whereas, There has been much attention in the media by
celebrities having home deliveries, with recent Today Show headings
such as "Ricki
Lake takes on baby birthing industry: Actress and former talk show host
shares her at-home delivery in new film...".

Since when did Ricki become an evidence-based data point? What are they so
afraid of?

Just last week, Medical News Today reports that "about 8.2% of infants born
in the US in 2005 had low birth weights, the highest percentage since 1968."
US infant mortality rates continue to rank us below 30 other countries, 22%
of pregnancies are induced, and most worrisome of all, in the last 4 years,
the maternal mortality rate has risen above 10 per 100,000 for the first
time since 1977. To us, these seem like the troubling trends, not home
birth.

News outlets including the AP quickly picked up this story yesterday as it
hit TMZ, E!, USA Today, Daily News, FOX.

Ricki will be featured on Good Morning America this Saturday discussing the
controversy. (If you Google "Ricki Lake, AMA" you will see the bloggers are
all over this!)
Filmmakers Abby Epstein and Ricki Lake teamed up with journalist
and Pushed author Jennifer Block to pen the response (following at the end
of this email) for the Huffington
Post.

Late yesterday, the AMA changed the final wording on resolution 205 to omit
the mention of Ricki. (Hmmm...) The AMA says that the American College of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) drafted the initial statement so any
issues should be taken up directly with them.

Stay tuned for more news to come...

The BOBB Team
DOCS TO WOMEN: PAY NO ATTENTION TO RICKI LAKE'S HOME
BIRTH

Ladies, the physicians of America have issued their decree: they don't want
you having your babies at home with midwives.
We can't imagine why not. Study upon study have shown that planning a home
birth with a trained midwife is a great choice if you want to avoid
unnecessary medical intervention. Midwives are experts in supporting the
physiological birth process: monitoring you and your baby during labor,
helping you into positions that help labor progress, protecting your pelvic
parts from damage while you push, and "catching" the baby from the position
that's most effective and comfortable for you-hands and knees, squatting,
even standing-not the position most comfortable for her.
When healthy women are supported this way, 95% give birth vaginally, with
hardly any intervention.

And yet, the American Medical Association doesn't see the point. Yesterday
it adopted a policy written by the American College of Obstetricians and
Gynecologists against "home deliveries" and in support of legislation "that
helps ensure safe deliveries and healthy babies by acknowledging that the
safest setting for labor, delivery, and the immediate post-partum period is
in the hospital" or accredited birth center.

"There ought to be a law!" cry the doctors.

The trouble is, they have no evidence to back up their safety claims. In
fact, the largest and most rigorous study of home birth internationally to
date found that among 5,000 healthy, "low-risk" women, babies were born just
as safely at home under a midwife's care as in the hospital. And not only
that, the study, like many before it, found that the women actually fared
better at home, with far fewer interventions like labor induction, cesarean
section, and episiotomy (taking scissors to the vagina, a practice that
according to the research should be obsolete but is still performed on
one-third of women who give birth vaginally).

Which is why the American Public Health Association supports
midwife-attended home birth. The British OB/GYNs have read the research,
too, and have this to say: "There is no reason why home birth should not be
offered to women at low risk of complications... it may confer considerable
benefits for them and their families. There is ample evidence showing that
labouring at home increases a woman's likelihood of a birth that is both
satisfying and safe"

The other trouble with the American MDs is that they seem to have lost all
respect for women's civil rights, indeed for the U.S. Constitution - the
right to privacy, to bodily integrity, and the right of every adult to
determine her own health care. The "father knows best" legislation they are
promoting could indeed be used to criminally prosecute women who choose home
birth, say, by equating it with child abuse.

Research evidence be damned, the doctors want to mandate you to go to the
hospital. They don't want you to have a choice.

We think they're spooked. The cesarean rate is rising, celebrities are
publicizing their home births (the initial wording of the AMA resolution
actually took aim at Ricki for publicizing her home birth on the Today
Show!), people are reading Pushed and watching The Business of Being Born,
and there's a nationwide legislative "push" to license certified
professional midwives in all states (The AMA is against that, too, by the
way).

The docs are on the defensive.

After all, birth is big business-it's in fact the most common reason for a
woman to be admitted to the hospital. And if more women start giving birth
outside of it, who will get paid? Not doctors and not hospitals.
"The AMA supports a woman's right to make an informed decision regarding her
delivery and to choose her health care provider," the group said in a
statement. But if it really supported women's birth choices it wouldn't
adopt a policy condemning home birth and midwives.
Because if U.S. women are to have real birth choices, everybody needs to be
working together to provide them, not engaging in turf wars at their
expense.

By Ricki Lake, Abby Epstein and Jennifer Block for The Huffington

It would appear that Phoebe inherited my flair for the guilt trip.

A few weeks ago, while I was in the midst of finals (having been dealt the crushing blow by a prof that I was in danger of failing a class from what turned out to be a mess of misunderstandings), and dealing with the end of year kid-school stuff, including a preschool graduation, dance recital preparation, and Phoebe's angst over leaving her one-and-thusfar-only school for a new one, Phoebe informed me that I "never" pay her enough attention, and that I "never" snuggle her, and I "never" do anything fun with her. In the meantime she's got all her own activities, and "snuggle time" is defined entirely by her schedule and sense of need. I have to remember the 8 year old world is very egocentric.

Yet, at the time, all I'm thinking is "please God (or Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whoever you believe in) let me survive the next week and a half, and I'll be able to give this girl the attention she's needing".

Now, school has been out for a week, and I worked my arse off, barely sleeping for many nights in a row to time the completion of my finals with her last day of school, and we've spent EVERY day together. No joke, no more than an hour apart each day (gym, that sort of thing). Yesterday we went to the local amusement park together, just the two of us, we held hands, we snuggled, we went in the wave pool, on rides...

And tonight, I'm hearing again about how I never snuggle her.

Methinks the girl is losing her imagination. I let her play a bit too much computer today - and I REALLY think that's it. When she plays less on the computer, she remembers how to use her imagination, and plays well with her sisters, etc etc. When she has too much computer time, that all goes to hell.

So which should I feel more guilty for? Not snuggling her while I finally got to eat dinner (which was when she ultimately demanded it and started giving me a hard time for not complying with her every need), or for letting her play too much computer which ultimately resulted in her complete breakdown? And I thought the Terrible Two's were hard.

Smart advertising, they know I"m a cyclist, and I live near Hellyer Velodrome.



But it was pretty cool seeing Hellyer get some "face time" on Facebook, and frankly if I didn't have nine million family members coming into town this weekend, I'd suggest going down and checking out the action!

We left town for the first time in over a year this past weekend. It was short, but perfect.



Carmel, CA is a beautiful destination. We enjoyed it immensely.