The Unequivocal Safety of Home Birth

by Jock Doubleday

(published as "Show Me Proof" in

The Union, Grass Valley/Nevada City, CA,

March 30, 1998)

FCAT (Foothills Community Access Television) ran a program, last year, called "Nature Rules: A Man Speaks Out For Natural Childbirth."

On the program, I offered $1,000 to anyone who could produce a published medical study showing hospital birth to be safer for most mothers and their babies than home birth with a trained midwife in attendance.

[Note: The offer has since been increased to $50,000:

$50,000 Reward

The absence of science behind the safety of technological childbirth for the vast majority of women and babies allows me to make the following offer, which begins officially on December 25, 2005 (the publication date of the first e-book edition of Spontaneous Creation: 101 Reasons Not to Have Your Baby in a Hospital, Vol. 1):

I, Jock Doubleday, will pay $50,000.00 (fifty thousand U.S. dollars) to the first person who sends me by email, and in its entirety, a controlled comparative study published in a recognized industry journal from any country, in any time period, demonstrating hospital birth to be safer in any category (i.e., infant morbidity, infant mortality, maternal morbidity, or maternal mortality) for most mothers or babies than home birth with a midwife in attendance. The term "midwife" does not include Certified Nurse Midwives, who, because of their conventional medical training, and in spite of their good intentions, may bring the fear-based medical model of childbirth with them into the home, thus skewing home birth outcomes toward the technological. The sample size of the study in question must be, at minimum, 2,000 persons, with a minimum of 1,000 persons in each of two matched groups. The groups must be matched, at minimum, by age, socioeconomic status, nutritional history, nutrition during pregnancy (including the ratio of raw to cooked foods), drug history (including pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, alcohol, and vaccines), drug use during pregnancy (including pharmaceuticals, cigarettes, alcohol, and vaccines), and partner status. Any written claim to the $50,000.00 reward is also an agreement to pay the 501(c)3 California nonprofit corporation, Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc., $100.00 (one hundred U.S. dollars), should the study attached to such claim be found to be either 1) irrelevant to the offer or 2) methodologically or structurally flawed and thus invalid. This offer has no expiration date unless and until superseded by a similar offer of higher monetary compensation made by Jock Doubleday.

Contact: director@SpontaneousCreation.org

http://www.spontaneouscreation.org/SC/50,000Reward.htm] . . .

The program ran 22 times. The money has not been claimed.

One would think that $1,000 would be incentive enough for someone to take the time to page through a few medical journals to find a study meeting these criteria. Surely one study must have been published in the history of obstetrics science that shows the superiority of obstetrics technology to natural birthing.

But no such study has been published. All studies on this subject conclude the same thing: hospital birth is less safe for most mothers and their babies than home birth with a trained midwife in attendance.

Many women have asked me: "What right do you have to tell women how to give birth?"

The answer is simple: I am not telling women how to give birth. It is written in their genes. It is (predominantly male) obstetricians who are telling women how to give birth, and charging them an arm and a leg for their "services."

I am offering information on what has been termed "alternative" childbirth. The information is primarily from books 1) citing published medical studies, 2) published within the last five years, and 3) written or edited by women.

Anyone interested in information regarding alternative childbirth can e-mail me at: director@SpontaneousCreation.org. Or go to a bookstore. Or call a midwife.

In health,

Jock Doubleday

Director

Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc.

http://www.GentleBirth.org/nwnm.org

http://www.SpontaneousCreation.org

director@spontaneouscreation.org