One of the blogs I read frequently is The Skeptical OB, a site run by a now-retired OB-GYN named Dr Amy Tuteur. She blogs about science, childbirth, and the craziness of homebirth and even crazier Natural Childbirth Advocates (NCBs).
NCBs are people who think it’s fine and dandy to risk the lives of mothers and babies just to uphold antiquated and often sexist views about how and where women should give birth. They’re not shy about telling complete strangers how they think things should be done (no drugs, no interventions – which often lead to dead babies. But apparently dead babies are irrelevant, as we’ll see).
Background: Up until I stumbled across the “SOB” (a fitting self-styled acronym for the feisty Tuteur), I was mostly unaware that people even considered having their kids anywhere but hospitals if they could help it. Unfortunately that’s not always the case. Some people choose to risk their lives and that of their babies by having them at home, with little more than a high-school graduate attending.
That brings me to the reason for this post, and the new link on the right side of my pages that you may have noticed:
StillBirthday.com
For parents who have lost a pregnancy – a place to find support and to grieve.
The relevant post from the Skeptical OB is here.
The gist of what’s happened is that an NCB advocate named Gina doesn’t like the fact that some people who read her blog (The Feminist Breeder) also go to StillBirthday.com in search of support. StillBirthday is run by a woman named Heidi.
Excerpt from the Skeptical OB post:
“What did a sweet, caring, devout woman like Heidi do to warrant the Narcissist Breeder’s ire? Nothing, of course. But in classic mean girl fashion, Gina is trying to punish others through Heidi. Since Heidi is friendly toward everyone in the world, it is inevitable that she is friendly with women who refuse to praise Gina (a veritable maw of approval seeking desperation). If Gina can’t hurt those women, she’ll hurt Heidi instead.”
The Skeptical OB post ends with this request:
I know a secret, though. It really doesn’t matter whether Gina supports Stillbirthday. Everyone else does. I’d like to suggest that in a show of solidarity, anyone who has a blog or website put up a link to Stillbirthday. Let’s boost the popularity of a site that does an amazing job of providing support for an extremely vulnerable group. And let’s show mean girls like Gina that we’ll be friends with whomever we like … and there are very few people more worthy of our friendship than Heidi Faith.
Even though I’m not religiously-minded (which the StillBirthday site leans towards), I’ve never lost a child, and initially when I heard about it, the name of the StillBirthday site creeped me out, I had a look-see around it. The title now makes a little more sense to me. It’s not for everyone, but I do think that the Feminist Breeder bashing StillBirthday is a nasty, silly and immature thing to do, especially since Heidi is trying to do is help devastated, grieving parents deal with the death of their child.
Religion or atheism is irrelevant: the death of a child not something any parent should live to deal with. Good sites like StillBirthday should be supported.
I got to know Heidi and many other sensible women through Fed up with Natural Childbirth, the Facebook group that was founded as a result of the SOB. Dr Tuteur also created a website to bring attention to the dangers of homebirth, which contains stories of families who have been Hurt by Homebirth – ending up with a severely compromised infant, or, more often, a dead baby.
That doesn’t deter people like The Feminist Breeder from being assholes.
Before you go around calling names like we’re all still in high school (or wait, ARE you still in high school?) you should try researching the ridiculous delusions of the people you follow. Every word that Heidi wrote about me is a total figment of her imagination. None of that ever happened. When I tried to respond to her to ask why she had created an entire pack of lies about me, she refused to respond. Some of the “mentors” behind her site are stalkers – complete lunatics – who have repeatedly threatened me and many mothers I know. WHY? Because I blog about my life. I’m not hurting anybody, and my homebirth with a CNM didn’t hurt anybody either. People who make a whole life out of directly hurting other people have NO business “mentoring” grief-stricken families. Can we grow up now?
I am just shocked that women like you continue to think you have enough brains to breed. Homebirthing saves lives. Most CNMs and CPMs have YEARS of training. OBs know drugs and surgery. Which is great, if you need them. Thing is, honeycakes, most women do not, and are putting their babies at risk having them delivered by people who are not trained to deliver babies normally.
I know many more people who have lost or had their children hurt by doctors than by midwives. Posts like this are offensive and cruel to those families. Grow up, learn to research, and stop thinking the ability to maintain a blog makes you smart.
I suggest you get some therapy for your guilt and personality issues, then take some remedial classes at the Open University. Us adults can be pretty understanding, and will be happy to welcome you back to the fold once you have healed.
Wow. So by your point of view all baby’s unlucky enough to be born out of a hospital are down syndrome or dead. So what your tells us is that you are mentally handicapped because your great-great grandmother birthed at home and your grandmother/grandfather uncle’s and aunts (families back then usually had at least five to seven children) and seeing as how you are alive now to rant this, you must be mentally slow or incapable. Well I would agree with you but that is incredibly offensive to any one with mental or physical disabilities. For your to say that home birth doesn’t work is to say that your ancestors are liars and that alien doctors somehow dropped from the sky to save every baby born before hospital birth was the norm. And hone birthers are crazy? I would like to say that 99% of natural birth advocates are looking out for the family (mother, child, father or partner) and we would NEVER tell a women to avoid the hospital in her hour of need. That is why they are there, but because of Americas horrible death rate for moms and babies and the masses go to the hospitals to birth I think your facts are a little…indulgent in fantasy. How do other mammals give birth on a daily basis without doctors? Are we no longer mammals? I’m sure you believe in science and possibly evolution so you telling me that both of these are lies as well? Human beings have no link to mammals whatsoever? Your killing me here. literally its nearly hilarious.
“How do other mammals give birth on a daily basis without doctors?”
Sometimes fine, but often with a lot of dead offspring. Something homebirthers don’t seem to mind.
It’s one thing to believe in evolution, and another thing entirely to actually understand the process apparently.
@disgusted,
I’m sorry, can you have someone edit that and repost it because I can’t understand your post in its present state.
@Elizabeth K,
“will be happy to welcome you back to the fold”.
Thanks for your kind offer and many helpful suggestions. Could you tell me more about this “fold” you refer to? I want to make sure I am thoroughly educated and undergone sufficient therapy before I apply to join your circle of friends. Do you have any links I could use to start my research?
@Gina,
“Can we grow up now?”
I’m so glad you brought that up…
I hate the fact that as a childbearing woman, we are constantly compared to animals in the wild. Yeah, I’m pretty sure my dog has given birth before. No one gives her a medal or has “mommy wars” with her. She just does it. And like a previous poster says, they have huge litters because many of the babies die either before, during or shortly after birth. Please stop comparing women of childbearing age with wild animals.
Let me tell you about a cat in my neighborhood. She got knocked up at around a year old. She gave birth to a ridiculous number of kittens – eight or more. One of them was stillborn. Two more died within the first few days. At the end of the first week, the cat abandoned her kittens in the woods, allowing them to starve to death.
Yeah, that mother stuff is instinctual.
Reminds me of many examples in the animal kingdom of fathers who eat their newborns.
Er, Disgusted, you really should think before you type. Hate to break it to you, but Steph, the blogger you just told off for being offensive to disabled people, is herself severely and permanently disabled. This is her knitting blog. Congratulations to you and Gina and EvilE! You have just behaved abominably in a public place to someone who is making baby blankets and afghans and blogging about it. You win the internets!
Amused, YMMD! Thank you.
Disgusted, if you require concrete medical documentation, I can get it.
Hundreds (literally) of CT scans, for one thing.
Apparently, nothing by James Herriot has ever been read by anyone in the natural childbirth world…
“Homebirthing saves lives.” I want someone to show me a situation in which homebirth really and truly saved a life. Because if I have a sudden emergency during childbirth (like a pph, shoulder dystocia, cord prolapse, placental abruption, etc.), I just don’t see how having it happen in my home where there is no access to an O.R., blood products, and a NICU team (just to name a few things) is going to make things better for me or my baby.
LOL, moto! I read that as “I just don’t see how having a hippie in my home…is going to make it better…”
I (mis)read things as much funnier than they are, all the time.
All comments about Gina aside (I don’t have much of an opinion in that matter), I think Dr. Amy’s comments are some of the most insincere, disingenuous words I’ve ever read. In a twist of irony, she very often behaves the same way she accuses Gina, and clearly uses women and their tragedies to capitalize on her agenda in exactly the same way she claims NCB advocates do. She once had the freakin nerve to ask me if I was a NCB advocate because of Ricki Lake, and I laughed out loud. I am more of an advocate because that’s how my mother gave birth to me! I find her comments ridiculous and think anyone who believes she actually cares any women is a fool.
Dr. Amy gives full quotes and links back to posts. Gina paraphrases and then blocks anyone who tries to take a look for themselves. Which do you think is the more honest method?
So, essentially, your contention is that Dr Amy and Gina are both “mean”?
What do you mean by “[Dr Amy] clearly uses women and their tragedies to capitalize on her agenda in exactly the same way she claims NCB advocates do”? Dr Amy doesn’t make money from her website; Gina is asking for money for legal funds (so she can sue Dr Amy), and now is charging for access to her site.
She asked a simple question; why not give her a simple answer? If you either are or are not of the NCB persuasion (for whatever reason), then say so. Laughing out loud without responding isn’t a response that conveys information.