Mom’s Talk: Midwife or MD?

 In the documentary The Business of Being Born, Ricki Lake and director Abby Epstein examine the history and scope of modern science’s involvement in the childbirth process. While midwives guide deliveries in 80 percent of European and Asian countries, in the United States, that number is only about 12 percent, according to the documentary. There is a billion-dollar business model surrounding the most natural human process in the world.

Most babies are delivered in hospitals; scheduling c-sections or delivering under regimented birthing plans is the norm in any doctor/patient relationship. So are drugs and epidurals to speed along the process.

So the question this week:

Do you think medicine has taken away from the natural birthing process, or do you think that modern complications make it best to deliver in a clinical, hospital setting?