but I get pretty tired of how blithely holistic birth advocates forget that the leading cause of death of women of childbearing age used to be CHILDBEARING.

It's not always blythe forgetting though. A lot of what killed women in childbirth is no longer a factor in home births due to germ theory and nutrition.

I don't have the percentages at the tip of my fingers, but childbed fever (which, pre-cleanlieness standards killed more women in hospitals than at home) and rickets or polio(which could make the pelvis, shall we say unsuitable for childbirth) were widespread and account for a large percentage of deaths in childbirth. They aren't factors in a modern home birth.

Again, not saying there aren't Natural Assholes, just not willing to let them be the sole proprietors of the Natural world.

I blame the woo.

In things that are cool news. Kid barters his way from a phone to a Porche. [link]

Hey, it's Pi Approximation Day! I may need to approximate some pie.

DJ, I read that yesterday. Cracked me up that the porsche is too expensive to maintain so he's looking for an Escalade.

I simply don't understand the whole thing about a desire to avoid modern medical technology. I mean I can understand wanting a less impersonal environment (though from my perspective I was happy to know we were already in a hospital if anything went wrong, and our daughter needed some attention after was was born), but I don't understand the negative stigma of taking advantage of medical facilities and pain management.

Because sometimes it makes things, in some ways, worse.

An epidural manages the pain, but it can lead to slowed or stopped contractions. Then the pitocin is administered but it can lead to incredibly hard contractions.

Some people feel strongly that a cascade of medical interventions can lead to an emergency c-section anyway after 16 hours of hard labor. My one cousin wound up having hers before the next epidural could kick in. They shot her full of morphine once the cord was cut and she doesn't much remember her unanesthetized abdominal surgery, but it was no picnic.

Now, we have a living cousin and a living cousin's child. It was indeed a positive outcome. Nobody failed.

But when it came time for my sister to have her baby she opted to labor at home for longer than many people might have (and I won't say how long in this context lest I be accused of shaming or bragging or whatever) because she didn't want those interventions. She was four minutes from the hospital and in close contact with her doctor and did it safely -- but if she'd been in a hospital she would not have been allowed to labor that long.

After laboring her ungodly amount of hours, she went to the hospita. She went from 3cm to fully dilated in four hours. She delivered my niece in three pushes. Apparently, my sister's uterus, when allowed to do what it was going to do opted for a long labor and a short delivery.

Now before anyone tut-tuts about risky it wasn't. Long early labors aren't unusual or dangerous. Its just that most people would rather not have them. My sister rather would.

I always figure, if mother and child survive and the kid lives through adolescence without any major physical or psychological scars, it's a resounding success. But I don't have kids, won't be having any ... and I get nervous around little ones ... so what do I know?

We just had an unplanned fire drill.

It was nice to be outside, because it's gorgeous here today, but 8 flights of stairs was probably about 7 too many for me today.

Also, ow.

I love showering with peppermint soap in the summer!

And now I am going to mop the kitchen floor and dust and sweep. But I couldn't stand my hair being so lank and gross one more second.

but I don't understand the negative stigma of taking advantage of medical facilities and pain management.

What I have heard from a friend who gave birth at home after being with her sister giving birth in a hospital, is that she felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her, and my friend wanted to avoid that.

felt like her sister wasn't taking advantge of the various interventions, but rather that they were done to her

And that, I think, was what the author of this particular article was trying, and not being very successful at, to get across: that how a child is born - the labor and delivery part - should be primarily in the hands of the woman who is doing the birthing and not the doctors, midwives, nurses, etc. I was lucky - I had a fantastic doctor. I had pretty good nursing care until the shift change and then I got MAGNIFICENT nursing care. I didn't feel as though anything was done to me but rather for me. Not all women feel like that and don't have that experience and that's horrible, IMO. The fact that woman's doctor broke her water without telling her what he was doing after being asked several times is inexcusable and I'd love a shot at his nuts with a crochet hook.