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As someone who works in a hospital, I know there will always be people who will avoid a hospital/clinical setting at all costs, for anything from a vaccination to cancer treatment to labor & delivery.  From everything that I have seen, the doctors/NPs/CNMs/RNs out there genuinely want happy and healthy parents and babies.  Many practitioners would gladly allow women to attempt "riskier births" if the insurance companies would allow it AND if they believed that the parents were really willing to accept the risks.  (Parents will often demand what makes sense to THEM, but when things go south, they expect the doctors to step in and work miracles.)  And it's not just the health insurance companies that are dictating care, it's also the companies that provide malpractice/liability coverage to practitioners.  Practitioners get frustrated when parents vehemently reject the prenatal care that they can provide, accusing them of not caring about women or babies, and then show up at the hospital in need of critical care because the home setting could not provide a safe delivery and healthy baby.  And then they blame the "cold" and "uncaring" hospital and doctor for ruining their experience and talk about suing for damages, even though they now have a healthy baby.  (No wonder malpractice premiums are mind-boggling high in this day and age.)  As many posters here have said, there is common ground and a lot of good people ultimately want the same things.  Doesn't every parent, when they look down at that perfect little face, want to know that they and their care providers did the best they could?

posted 2 years, 10 months ago
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