Doctors vs midwives

Too frightened that if WE give an inch, THEY will take a mile.

We do not court the middle, the sensible midwives, without set-in-stone, us-versus-them viewpoints and suggest that they sensibly conduct homebirths. We allow the untrained, unaccredited health workers to practice without making any effort to stop them, and when we do, the constant, low-key current of antagonism that exists between doctors and midwives allows the rational voices to go unheard.

We are entrenched in a battle, with both sides taking ever more extreme positions, but in truth, when two extremes sharply exist, the truth almost certainly lies somewhere in the middle. We need acknowledgement from the midwifery profession that doctors do, in fact, care for patients, and with few exceptions, are trying very hard to keep caesarean section rates down.

We, in turn, should acknowledge that midwives have something to teach us about keeping our hands off until intervention is actually required. It would be a good compromise for a start if we acknowledged midwives' primacy in caring for uncomplicated patients, and if they in turn stopped referring to our concern with safety as 'playing the dead baby card'.

We need to stop being hostile and irrational in our discourse. It is time that both sides engage in rational debate, not only in policy and health care initiatives, but also in the suburban bookshops, where expectant mothers take their first, hesitant steps into the one-sided politics of birth.