@ Health – I am not “one of these doulas” as you put it. I am a woman who went thru a completely unnecessary c c-section, was unable to see my baby for over 24 hours after birth because not one nurse thought it was important to help me get up to see the baby, and not allowed to nurse her for almost the whole time I was in the hospital due to the drugs they had me on. I then did significant research and reading to make my next labor better. I feel empowered with the knowledge I have and I feel bad for those who are left in the dark. Homebirth is not for everyone but the stigma attached to it makes people not even bother looking into it and judge others who have done it.
“I would liken many OB’s and nurses to reading Torah without any knowledge of the Oral Torah. There’s a rich knowledge of birth through thousands of years of midwifery that gets overlooked in the name of medical births…” Maybe frumladygit can confirm but I don’t believe Ina May Gaskin has actual medical training, rather everything she knows, does, and teaches is thru “learning on the job.” It could be she eventually received training but when she first started delivering babies her only knowledge base was from reading.
Again, homebirth is not for everyone but the stigma associated with it is absolutely ridiculous and I have found that women who choose homebirth are extremely educated about labor and delivery.