Natural Health, Midwifery, and Chuck Graham

Since Tuesday, I have wondered to myself why the lay midwifery advocates have gone after Chuck Graham with such fury. then I started to talk to some people who are not necessary midwifery proponents, but supporters of natural health. Through this inquiry I started to understand , in my opinion, the misguided anger towards Senator Graham. I actually attended a Health Freedom Expo in Chicago in 2006. I have never been to Chicago and thought why not. At this Expo they were many vendors selling anything from small miniature sauna that looked like a pup tent to the latest in super juices. Many folks who support natural medicine believe that the medical profession is too pharmaceutical based and going back to "natural methods" will heal the body. There are many states that have considered or are considering legislation to ban or restrict these natural medicine practices, hence the health freedom movement.

Personally I do not agree with the senator, but I don't believe Chuck is against midwifery because he "in" with the AMA. Can he just be against it just because he believes it's unsafe?

For me, some of the natural health philosophy makes sense. I do believe people are over-medicated and natural methods seem less intrusive and have less side effects. Other practices like iridology I don't buy.

Maybe there can be room for compromise.

Midwifery

According to an article in the Columbia Tribune, a Cole county judge has thrown out the midwifery part of the health insurance bill, citing that since midwives can't bill insurance companies, their presence in the bill wasn't related to the purpose of the bill. Confused? Essentially there is a train of thought that midwives should be licensed and under supervision of a physician. While the proponents of the midwife measure believe that since midwives have been around for thousands of years and have safely delivered babies comparable or even exceeding the survivability of infants born in hospitals. There also point to the alarming rate of cesareans that are performed in the US. The rate is 29.1% of all births, according to the CDC. I do believe that women should choose where and how to give birth, but i do believe in some sort of oversight. It doesn't have to be a government entity. It can be a non-profit accrediting agency like CARF or any other reputable accrediting organization. The proponents will be appealing the judges decision