For every parent who is feeling the pressure of the so-called ‘Natural’ parenting movement a reprieve is coming in the form of a new book written by an actual doctor who feels ‘Natural’ parenting isn’t always better and can sometimes be incredibly dangerous.
Dr. Amy Tuteur, obstetrician gynecologist and blogger at The Skeptical O.B., has been speaking out against home births since 2009 and now in her new book Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting, she offers comfort to all the parents who used all the drugs they could get their hands on during child birth or, God-forbid, had a c-section. Then there’s those parents who chose to formula-feed their child, and every other parent who has broken the rules of ‘Natural’ parenting.
Twenty years ago, when I began writing on the web, I thought that the problem could be solved with more and better information. Most of what passes for knowledge within natural childbirth, lactivist and natural parenting communities is flat out false. Yet simply correcting that myriad of falsehoods seemed to be fruitless. I came to understand that natural childbirth, lactivism and attachment parenting actually is about privileging the process over the outcome.
Excerpt from Push Back: Guilt in the Age of Natural Parenting
Death threats are not uncommon for Dr. Amy Tuteur due to her stance, and yet that just adds weight to her complaint that the ‘Natural’ parenting movement has become more about privilege, status and money instead of the health and wellness of the parent and child.
Dr. Tuteur's thoughts on intervention during child birth:
Natural birth is all well and good until it doesn't go well. Then, modern medicine is a gift, saving countless lives of mothers and children all over the world. She says, "Nothing screams privilege louder than ostentatiously turning down something that a poor woman would trudge five miles to get for her child."
Dr. Tuteur's thoughts on home births:
The number of home births is increasing and this is cause for alarm according to Dr. Tuteur due to the inadequacy of some midwives' training. She also reminds home birthing advocates that "planned home birth has a death rate 450 times higher than comparable risk hospital birth."
Adam's ''Naturalist' sister Caroline attempts a home birth but soon finds herself being forcibly carried to the nearest hospital. Article continues after this video.
Dr. Tuteur's thoughts on c-sections:
Instead of seeing c-section births as some sort of maternal failure, Dr. Tuteur views them as a life-saving procedure that attract too much guilt. "Many C-sections done for fetal distress are probably unnecessary, but then a lot of biopsies of breast lumps are also unnecessary in retrospect."
Dr. Tuteur's thoughts on breast-feeding:
Controversially, Dr. Tuteur says the proven benefits of breast-feeding are short-lived and not as important as giving babies enough milk over all. “Women do or don’t breast-feed for lots of reasons, and you’re not going to do any harm by formula feeding. Stressing out about it will probably cause the baby harm, though.”
It certainly seems like common sense but that's normally the first thing to go when extreme parenting styles are being forced upon us.
Let's see how many people become outraged by this doctor's scientifically proven thoughts.
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