In Push Back, the book we’re covering this week, Dr. Amy Tuteur asks an important question: How the

In Push Back, the book we’re covering this week, Dr. Amy Tuteur asks an important question: How the fuck did we get to the point where many parents distrust life-saving interventions during childbirth?There are many answers to this question, but one of the most compelling Tuteur offers up is the notion that we have simply forgotten the reality reflected by this tombstone from the late 1800s.  Before modern obstetrics began making huge progress against maternal and neonatal mortality, around 7% of babies died within their first month of life, and about 1% of mothers did not live through labor.To put those numbers in perspective: If OBGYNs hadn’t gotten their shit together, then more women would die in childbirth than are killed by breast cancer every year.Unfortunately, this danger is not truly past: It is only “past” when we make liberal use of the interventions that natural childbirth advocates so enthusiastically demonize.  Without electronic fetal monitoring, or inductions, or C-sections, babies and mothers would still be dying at appalling rates.  And in countries where these interventions are not widely available, they still do.  To listen to the first of our two episodes on Push Back, click any of the following links:ItunesSpotifySoundCloudStitcher -- source link

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