Think Ricki Lake Is Behind Home Birth Popularity? Think Again

Ah, Ricki Lake. She is an easy lady to love. That talk show (I am old enough to have watched it- yikes!), that birth movie (I saw her naked!) and now Dancing with the Stars! She genuinely seems like a nice person to share a cup of herbal tea with. How does this somewhat small-time actress manage to get so much hatred and smear from some of the obstetric/anti-home birth world? Well, the obvious reason is that little movie she made: "The Business of Being Born."

The movie (BOBB) has an obvious pro-home birth slant and covers a few mothers birthing at home (or attempting to) and their journeys, their joys and their disappointments. (One mother -the director no less- has a home birth transport because the baby is too early.) She runs through some common hospital interventions, interviews some fabulous doctors and midwives (on both sides of the fence) and basically makes home birth look like it is not such a bad thing. If the former director of the World Health Organization thinks it is a good idea, how bad can it be, right?!

I love that movie and I have seen people consider home birth after watching it, or at least question some of the assembly line procedures so common in the hospital. So why is a woman who wanted a better birth, and found one at home, being attacked by the anti-home birth people? ACOG- (also sometimes referred to as "the enemy" -well maybe I am the only one that calls them that-) even came up with a whole STATEMENT in which they refer to her and the movie,

"Childbirth decisions should not be dictated or influenced by what's fashionable, trendy, or the latest cause célèbre."

I have even heard people say that she has "blood on her hands"! Really?!!! Ricki Lake kills babies? Well, that is reaching...

Maybe people are angry because of the HUGE rise in home birth. (I am being sarcastic.) Home birth has risen 20% in the last few years, it is true but...

"In 2008, there were 28,357 home births in the United States. From 2004 to 2008, the percentage of births occurring at home increased by 20 percent from 0.56 percent to 0.67 percent of United States births. This rise was largely driven by a 28 percent increase in the percentage of home births for non-Hispanic white women, for whom more than 1 percent of births occur at home"

You can read the abstract here. Twenty percent sounds like a huge jump, but we are still looking at only about ONE PERCENT of women in total birthing at home- this isn't exactly mainstream yet.

So, Ricki Lake makes a movie, home birth jumps in the US, it must be her fault, right?

Wrong.

Ricki is an easy target. Especially if you don't want to take any responsibility for the fact that your patients hate you.

Yeah, I said it. Home birth is on the rise because women no longer want to birth in hospitals with obstetricians. Obstetricians, not Ricki Lake, are the reason behind the jump in home birth. Why? What happened to women?

~They thought the pitocin hurt like hell.~
~They wonder why breastfeeding was so hard.~
~They struggled to recover from an epidural.~
~They felt out of control while they were half numb.~
~They felt like a slab of meat on a bed while the nurses came in and rather than actually talking to or looking at them, just looked at a print out of their contractions and their babies heart rate.~
~Over 30% of them birthed via abdominal surgery and they don't even know why. ~
~They were ignored, forgotten, and then they were told that none of that mattered, because they had a healthy baby. ~

What drives women toward out of hospital birth is not a misplaced desire to be more like a former TV talk show host, it is their dissatisfaction with the obstetric and hospital system.

If OB's, ACOG, and angry anti-natural birth bloggers really want women to keep birthing at the hospital (lets be honest- the vast majority still do) they need to forget about Ricki Lake and BOBB, they need to look in the mirror.

It is much harder to admit that people just don't like you or the kind of care you are giving them. Easier and involving much less self-reflection is blaming somebody else. But that doesn't fix the problem. The problem lies in dysfunctional maternity care.

If you really want to see women leave home and birth in the hospital, the answer is actually quite simple.

Respect them.
Talk to them.
Look at them.
Answer their questions.
Learn their names.
Give them good breastfeeding support.
Give them their babies.
Comply with the mother/baby friendly hospital initiative.
Give them a real chance to VBAC.
Only push medical procedures like induction when it is really needed.
Be somebody they can trust.

Many hospitals and care providers already do this. Many don't, but women either don't realize that there is another option, don't care, or are afraid of birthing without pain relief medication.

The truth is that the obstetric model of care doesn't really need to change anything. The vast majority of women already believe that birthing in a hospital with an OB is the best thing they can do. But if they want to keep (or woo back) those women who are dissatisfied with the run-of the-mill care, they can simply do the above. It is often harder, more expensive (if insurance doesn't pay) and less culturally acceptable to birth at home. Making the choice to birth outside of the hospital, is still a rather revolutionary one, no matter what Ricki Lake does.

Or, rather than looking in the mirror and actually NOTICING that maybe Ricki Lake was simply a reaction to bad hospital births rather than a rebel promoting home birth for no good reason, they could just point the finger at a small movie and a talk show host. That is much easier than changing themselves.

If "they" really cared about women and babies and really thought that home birth was less safe, they would happily start treating women and babies with respect. Maybe they just don't care about us. Maybe they just care about their bottom line, their schedule, and their convenience.

That is fine with me though- I know a great home birth midwife.