The Childbirth Connection is not "listening to mothers"

Oh, the irony!

The Childbirth Connection is a lobbying and advocacy organization for the natural childbirth industry. In an ongoing effort to promote the socially constructed values of a small subgroup of women, it publishes papers that purport to show that natural childbirth is supported by the weight of scientific evidence, and is desired by the majority of American women. There's just one problem; it's not supported by the weight of scientific evidence and it does not represent the desires and values of American women.

Its widely publicized Listening to Mothers Survey II is a perfect example. The report concludes that obstetric technology is overused, there are too many interventions, there are too many C-sections and women are not appropriately informed of the risks of interventions. Yet the conclusions are completely belied by the evidence in the report.

Mothers generally gave high ratings to the quality of the United States health care system and even higher ratings to the quality of maternity care in the U.S... [M]ost felt that the malpractice environment caused providers to take better care of their patients.

By law ... women are entitled to full informed consent or informed refusal before expriencing any test or treatment. Most mothers stated that they had fully understood that they had a right to full and complete information ... and to accept or refuse any offered care...

A small proportion of mothers reported experiencing pressure froma health professional to have labor induction (11%), epidural anesthesia (7%) and cesarean section (9%)... Despite the very broad array of interventions presented and experienced ... just a small proportion (10%) had refused anything ...

The Childbirth Connection wrote a report about listening to mothers, and then proceeded to ignore that mothers were pleased with American obstetric care.

Why did they ignore their own evidence? They ignored it because it did not match the predetermined conclusion that the socially constructed values of the natural childbirth industry represent the "ideal" way to give birth.It's worth reading the report as an object lesson in the ways in which childbirth organizations misuse, misrepresent and ignore data to serve their own ends.

As usual, they start with the conclusions and work backward. As usual, they present no evidence to support their claims. Here are three specific examples of the way in which the Childbirth Connection attempts to pass off personal opinions as scientific evidence.

First, the title of the report is truly Orwellian, Evidence Based Maternity Care: What Is It and What Can It Achieve. The title is Orwellian because virtually none of the conclusions are supported by evidence in the paper or any evidence at all. The fundamental claim, that "natural" childbirth with minimal intervention is better, safer and healthier is not supported by scientific evidence. This is a classic example of using "scientese" to trick people. Obstetrics is evidence based medicine. Natural childbirth is values based opinion. Trying to hide that fact does not fool anyone who is familiar with the actual scientific evidence.

Second, the willingness to place personal opinion above scientific evidence is best exemplified by the section of the report on epidurals.

... Labor epidurals alter the physiology of labor and increase risk for numerous adverse effects. Undesirable maternal effects include immobility, voiding difficulty, sedation, fever, hypotension, itching, longer length of the pushing phase of labor, and serious perineal tears.

The authors provide no references to back up these claims. The central claim, that epidurals alter the physiology of labor is flat out false. The scientific evidence shows the opposite.

The authors have simply fabricated several of the so called "undesirable" maternal effects including immobility, and sedation. That begs the larger question: undesirable to whom? The answer is that the side effects (the real ones, not the made up ones) are undesirable to the members of Childbirth Connection. The authors provide no evidence that the patients consider these side effects to outweigh the benefits of effective relief.

Indeed, the authors acknowledge that the majority of women do not share their disdain for epidurals, but in the classic manner of "natural" childbirth advocates, they ascribed it to ignorance without offering any proof.

Many laboring women welcome the pain relief of epidural anesthesia, but they do not appear to be well-informed about the side effects.

Once again the authors present no evidence for their implication that women would forgo pain relief if they were "better" informed.

Third, the report, like virtually all natural childbirth and homebirth advocacy is filled with deliberate distortions. The authors compare neonatal mortality rates among countries, and fail to compare the more accurate measurement of perinatal mortality. The authors discuss the "charges" for obstetric procedures instead of the actual reimbursements. The authors claim that systematic reviews "give the most trustworthy knowledge about beneficial and harmful effects of specific health interventions," but that is flat out false. Systematic reviews are completely dependent on the quality of the studies that the authors choose to include and whether those studies are representative of the existing scientific literature. Systematic reviews are a good starting point for evaluating obstetric procedures, but they are hardly the "most trustworthy" sources of scientific information.

This report from the Childbirth Connection is not consistent with the scientific evidence, and is not consistent with the desires and values of the majority of American women. It is more aptly titled Ignoring Mothers: Our Advocacy Efforts Aren't Working.



Adapted from a piece that first appeared in October 2008.