Why is this an imporant issue?

Many people wonder when a grassroots organization like this pops up, why is this even an issue?
My answer always echos something along the lines of
"How important is it to you to have the birth you want?"
"How important is it to you to have a healthy baby?"
"How important is it to you to have a safe birth?"

Many women do not equate medical interventions in pregnancy and birth to complications, but the reality is in most cases where heavy intervention is uses, such as non medically necessary labor inductions, the complications that come of it, in many cases such as fetal distress, are caused by these interventions. It is a pretty simple equation, and path that the interventions take place in.

My favorite explanation of the cascade of interventions is in The Business of Being Born. The famous Ricki Lake birth flick that ACOG went crazy over. Anything that is going to take money out of the pockets of OB/GYN's they are going to boycott of course, but I bet you they all watched it at some time or another!



Now, these people in this video are not just anyone. They are professionals in the birthing community, people with medical degrees, and have researched this extensively. But we still want to believe that all these interventions are the safest.

Which is why we are challenging all the local hospitals to lower their intervention rates.