Yey! Let's model our birth care on the Netherlands!

Having had to fight for a natural birth in Australia, I can imagine this woman's shock at how things are done here. Poor thing. I can't imagine how angry she must have been when she was made to lie on her back.

(For those of you who think that having a baby on your back is a good idea, next time you need to poo, lie down on your back with your feet in the air and see if it's easier to push out than if you are upright...)

Women have only been having babies on their backs for the last 300 years, and all for the convenience of doctors. Doctors who get bored when nothing goes wrong and there's nothing for them to do so they invented "managed labour". Stick with midwives I say, bring in the doctors for actual pathology.

Just yesterday I heard a woman on 774 saying, "Normally in Australia the woman gets an injection to help her deliver the placenta."

"Normally"

It made me want to claw away the car interior in frustration. In a normal birth a woman does not need help delivering the placenta at all. Mother and baby snuggle, possibly breast feed, oxytocin is released, uterus contracts, placenta comes out. Why waste taxpayers money interfering with something that is, in 97% of cases (I think that's still the correct figure), perfectly ok if it's left alone?

Grrrrr.