VBAC.com

It seems that the trend to demonize women who choose a home birth with a midwife is not limited to the United States. In Britain, as reported in the Telegraph, women who want to have a home birth are being told  by  their physicians  that they are too young, too old, or too overweight to risk giving birth at home. The National Health Service in the U.K. has established guidelines for low-risk women who want a home birth, but leaders in the Royal College of Midwives are protesting that physicians are treating women as abnormal  and scaring them into having a hospital birth.

Although the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists  (ACOG) states that the safest place to give birth is in the hospital, research shows that for low-risk women, a planned home birth with a licensed midwife is a safe option. With a home birth women are less likely to end up needing  a cesarean and outcomes for mothers and babies are as safe as for hospital births.

Last August the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) published revised VBAC guidelines that encouraged women to plan a VBAC and removed some of the barriers that led many women to have repeat cesareans. However, what ACOG did not do is change its recommendation that VBACs should take place in hospitals where emergency cesareans are “immediately available.”

In a Sept. 9, 2010, letter to Dr. Richard Waldman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), the Coaltion For Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) and 18 co-signing organizations urged ACOG to revise its current recommendation and its patient education publications as well as its online consumer resources to include comprehensive information on the benefits and risks of cesarean section and VBAC. Current ACOG pamphlets on cesarean section and VBAC do not fully provide  their short- and long-term benefits and risks so women  cannot realy make an informed choice about how they want to give birth.

CIMS posted the letter on their home page and is asking consumers, health professionals, and organizations to add their name to the petition. CIMS will collect the names of additional organizations and individuals in support of this request through October 31, 2010, and will send the updated list of co-signers to Dr. Waldman.