One of my letters to the editor

I will be very curious to hear the medical lobbyist’s arguments against the Midwife and Birth Center bills in the Health and Human Services committee hearing this year – SB107 and HB1183.

Last year, a medical lobbyist used a hospital-based statistic to “prove” why babies should be born in the hospital, not at home. His misuse of statistical data was downright deceptive, saying that over 25% of all babies born have “serious birthing complications”.

I beg to differ. If he were shedding light on hospital-based statistics in the US, and thus, why many women are choosing homebirths, he would have been more on target.

The truth of the matter is that the national c-section rate is over 30% and climbing; but Certified Professional Midwives, the midwives who specialize in homebirth, have a c-section rate of 3.7%. To help put these numbers in perspective, the optimal c-section rate recommended by the World Health Organization is 5-10%.

It is a moot point to apply the 25% “serious birthing complications”, a.k.a. - the 30% national c-section rate - to Certified Professional Midwives. Any individual can do the math and see that for a normal, low-risk pregnancy, a midwife-attended homebirth is actually the safer choice under current conditions.

My hope is that the legislators on the HHS committee will have done their homework and worked hard to see the truth vs. shady half-truths and slanderous misconceptions that the medical lobby would like them to believe.

Not everyone wants to have a homebirth, and that is okay; but South Dakota deserves access to Certified Professional Midwives.