Home births: it’s time to broaden the focus of the debate

[Snacks]

I would like to marry Hannah Dahlen.

[The[cookie]Doctor]

I would like to marry Hannah Dahlen.

Yeah that.

[onthefly]

I loved this. So true.
It does my head in every time I read or hear someone or other saying what women should or should not do. It's precisely that arrogant attitude that neatly demonstrates what is fundamentally wrong with the maternity system in this country and why more and more women want to avoid hospital care.
I just want to scream: What about us? What about me? What about my baby? For goodness sake get on with what you're supposed to be doing - helping mothers to birth - and stop grandstanding about how much better you are at getting babies out.

[Ree*Ree]

Fabulous, thanks for sharing

[Arcadia]

Total warm and fuzzy for me! Thanks for sharing! This paragraph especially:

The debate around home birth is about more than place of birth or associated perinatal mortality, it raises deeper and more complex issues: the right of women to have control over their bodies during childbirth, the rejection of the prevailing medical model and risk paradigm of pregnancy and childbirth, societies’ belief that they have an investment in the product of childbirth and therefore should determine what is considered safe, the culture of childbirth in a country and the position and status of women within a society.