Nate and I watched the documentary, The Business of Being Born last night. It's about the billion dollar industry that's made up of women having babies in hospitals. After taking a very serious look our values and at my experiences with the OB/GYN these past few weeks, we've decided to go with a Certified Professional Midwife and have a natural birth in a birthing center. Now, before you think I'm totally nuts, allow me to explain the decision.
First of all, there are options available besides having a baby in a hospital. I've taken a lot of time researching these options. We don't have a TV, so all that extra time goes into scouring the Internet, reading books, and talking with others. I like being able to evaluate my choices, and I'm sure that not all babies need to be born in hospitals. Of course, there are times when medical intervention is absolutely necessary.
In addition, I have not appreciated the way I've been treated with the various medical offices that I've been dealing with. My first prenatal appointment was aggravating. I felt like I was an inconvenience to them; like I was another cow having a calf. I didn't like that so much. I also have had nothing but scheduling problems with them--canceling two appointments on me and having to be on hold for ridiculous amounts of time rather frequently when calling them back. The cherry on top was how long that first appointment lasted--they said it would be the longest, and it turned out to be only 20 minutes. "All your other appointments will be much shorter." Shorter??!?! What, like 5 minutes??!? Perhaps I'm wrong, but that seems incredibly unsafe to me.
I'm also married to a man who was born at home in Vermont with the assistance of several midwives. He turned out just fine and so did his mother...
So, we interviewed a midwife last weekend, LaNette McQuitty. The plan is to have the baby at the Well Rounded Maternity Center in Menomonee Falls. Of course, the whole set up is not remotely understood by the insurance company, so we've got some work to do in that department. What's baffling to me is that a hospital birth can cost on average, $11,000. Using a midwife for all my prenatal care and during labor costs about $4,000. The use of the birth center is about $2,500. That's quite a savings, isn't it? But the insurance company doesn't recognize it.
Anyway, we'll see how this all turns out. If you have 90 minutes free sometime, check out The Business of Being Born, even if you don't agree with me.
I'm going to a birth center, too. It's an absolutely sane and safe choice to make. My insurance doesn't have a problem reimbursing me. Aetna was the only one I would have had trouble with. They need to get with the times!
ReplyDeleteI think this is a hard decision, and you both have really researched this. I commend you for that. Not going to a large hospital is completely against the American way of doing medicine. We usually associate hospitals with better care, better outcomes. However, this is not always true. There have been many scientific studies on outcomes for baby and mother with the use of LESS interventions like operative procedure or medications. People don't realize for every medication we give, or every procedure we do, there are side effects and bad outcomes that can actual harm and hurt the mother and baby.
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