THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW

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What we have to do is to create public pressure to expose this double standard. Once the public comprehends that if home birth is wiped out, people's chances of getting the kind of birth experience they want — even in a hospital — are going to be limited or nonexistent, maybe they'll get behind this effort.

PLOWBOY: Then ultimately it's the parents and families — not the prosecuted birth practitioners — who have the most to lose.

TOMPSON: And what's more, some parents are now being directly harassed, even though no state outlaws home birth per se. I know one couple of dedicated Mormon parents, for instance, whose first child — a toddler who'd been born at home — died of severe burns in a freak accident. They were accused of having abused their child, so the courts took custody of their second baby.

In another instance, after a veterinarian (who was at our ABCC conference) and his wife had their baby at home, his ex-wife reported the parents to the authorities . . . she claimed the infant wasn't gaining enough weight. Police then came to the house while the mother was nursing her baby, removed the child from her arms, and took it to the hospital. They even handcuffed the father — in front of his office patients — and threw him in jail.

And a couple in Texas, after the police had snatched their home birthed baby, had to fight in court for the mother's right to give pumped breast milk — for her own child! — to a welfare worker. Eventually, they got the baby back, had it taken away again, got it back again . . . and finally ran off and became fugitives just to keep their own offspring.

And all these parents are people who really care about their children. After all, that's why they're nursing and choosing home birth!

PLOWBOY: You've certainly made it clear that many home birth people are having serious difficulties. Perhaps that's why a number of the speakers at the ABCC conference used battle and combat imagery. Do you feel that the home vs. hospital birth dispute is serious enough to be called a war?

TOMPSON: I believe it is — although I don't like to use that kind of rhetoric — because the medical establishment isn't going to back down. Those doctors have too much to lose. Home births threaten their income, their reputations, and the system they feel is right. Remember, many obstetricians — because of their training — believe very strongly that out-of-hospital births just aren't safe. And you can understand why they feel threatened. Home birth, in effect, questions their competence and puts them on the defensive. Still, out-of-hospital birth is becoming more widespread, even though in some states those who practice it have to be as careful as liquor drinkers were during Prohibition. In fact, hospital deliveries in this country have been declining ever since 1973. David Stewart now estimates that no less than 2% or 3% of the births in the U.S. today — or a total of at least 60,000 a year — take place at home. And the number of lay midwives, which was below 100 through much of the 1970's, has climbed to at least 3,000. These increases are both a reflection of people's dissatisfaction with hospital care and a natural result of women's increased confidence in their ability to function as mothers.

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