Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

I've been sucked into a show on Discovery Health called Freebirthing.  The show follows 3 different women as they decide to forgo modern, Western medicine and take their pregnancies and births into their own hands- do things how they've been done for thousands of years.  Back, you know, when women and infants died unnecessarily of things that a hospital or at least the use of a registered midwife at a home birth can prevent.

For the umpteenth time, I know many people have given up on Western medicine because it's let them down or failed them.  Right.  Fine.  But during this show, I watched these things:

- A woman try to diagnose an abnormally implanted placenta with a fetoscope that she purchased off the internet.  A simple ultrasound would've answered that question, if she perhaps was actually getting prenatal care.

- The same woman considers her "prenatal visit" as a stop off at the local drugstore to take her blood pressure in the automated BP machine (which are notoriously uncalibrated, but whatever- free!) and then listens to the fetal heart beat with the fetoscope and has her husband measure the size of her abdomen.

- She also gave birth at home, laboring in a blow up kiddie pool, and then gave birth on a bed while her mother filmed and her 2-3 year old son watched.  Watched.  The whole thing.  They then washed scissors in the kitchen sink, used them to cut the cord and then tied it off with shoestring.  Quote of that scene: "You don't think this hurts, does it? Does it hurt the baby to do this?" Husband's answer, "I'm sure it doesn't because they do it in the hospital." *sound of me slapping my forehead with my palm*  Maybe if you'd done a bit more research and at the least had someone there QUALIFIED then you might know the answer to your profoundly stupid question.

- Some woman in Britain getting snarky because the local hospital withdrew support of her home birth and would not supply her with a free home birth kit when they found out that she was refusing to have a midwife present at the birth.  Yeah, it's called COVERING THEIR @$$ when you screw this up and you or the child dies or is permanently injured in your quest to do things "the natural way"- who wants to be known as the facility that aided you in your stupidity?  Knew what was happening and did nothing but stand aside and let you carry on?

And then, shockingly, Miss Kiddie Pool still hasn't delivered her placenta several hours after birth and must give in and go to the hospital.  Where she absolutely refused an IV (totally within her rights, I get this) and then complains that the physician treating her obviously has a distaste in his mouth for her (which she deduces from the MD asking her, "What do you want us to do?).  And I wonder why?  You show up, say you want your placenta out and when they try to start treating you to do so, you refuse their treatment.  Tell you what, your way obviously isn't working because you've still got a placenta inside you, so right about now is when you pull your head out of your butt and realize the hospital is not a hotel where you waltz in, call your own shots and sleep your delivery off and hope your placenta comes out and all the while have paid staff around to observe you.  Am I the only one taking crazy pills?  These people are having children?  And then she has the nerve to be annoyed that community health has been notified and a social worker will be nosing around making sure they're good parents.  

You know what?  Screw it.  For those of you that hate doctors, hospitals and all that- go ahead, do natural childbirth, hire a midwife/doula (or don't, like these women) and push your baby out at home with your entire extended family as an audience.  But I can't for the LIFE of me understand the logic of all this. Women hemorrhage, get infections and infants die even in the hospital- but at least the staff and equipment to fight these awful things are present.  You say you want what's best for your child- not getting prenatal care and risking their lives (not to mention yours) is best?  

One of the first things they teach you in nursing school is that in order to provide unbiased, ethical nursing care, one must first analyze their own beliefs and feelings on certain issues before they can competently care for patients because it can affect the way they deliver care. And with that, I can now safely say that I will mostly likely not be involved in women's health! Apparently, I'm just a little too judgemental for that area.