The San Francisco Tesla Society

presents a free presentation featuring

Faith Gibson, LM, CPM "Medicine Gone Mad: The Death of Normal Birth" Sunday, June 11, 2006 1 - 5 p.m. at 330 Ritch Street South of Market near 3rd Street & Townsend San Francisco, California

This event is dedicated in loving memory of Jacob Martinez, an enthusiastic SFTS supporter who made a difference.

Jacob Martinez 1980-2006

The Obstetrical profession would like you to believe that normal birth is old-fashioned--damaging to women and dangerous to babies. In their strange political mindset babies are no longer to be delivered by their mothers, but instead by obstetrical surgeons performing conveniently scheduled but medically unnecessary Cesarean Section operations. In 2004, the CS rate in the US was just under 30%.

Obstetrical politicians don’t want you to know that cesarean surgery doubles maternal deaths and costs three to six times more than normal births. Delivery by C-section leaves a trail of dangerous downstream complications. We are told that none of this matters, as it is "buying us better babies". However, the dramatic increase in Cesareans over the last 30 years made no difference in the perinatal mortality rate. We are 22nd in the world, below Cuba.

Obstetrical politicians have been surprisingly effective in promoting elective Cesarean as the ultimate form of a "woman’s right to choose". Will their "Maternal Choice Cesarean" (better birth through major abdominal surgery) be the new standard of care for the 21st century? Will a normal vaginal birth become something that a woman does "against medical advice"? Will Child Protective Services consider normal birth to be medical neglect?

Organized medicine has already convinced the National Institute of Health and a significant number of OB’s to sign on to this absurd agenda. In the "build it and they will come" mode, hospitals have begun replacing labor rooms with operating rooms, in anticipation of a 50% CS by 2010. That’s two million Cesarean surgeries in a medical system that already has 80,000-120,000 iatrogenic deaths (caused by physicians or their procedures) each year.

What are the hidden effects on mothers and children of modern allopathic delivery drugs & procedures? What are the hidden effects on our generation from drugs & procedures used when we were born? Are there better alternatives? We’ll be talking about how to bring an end to flat earth obstetrics and in its place, launch a rehabilitated maternity care system that is fiscally conservative, responsible, and provides science-based maternity care to healthy women.

Faith Gibson, LM, CPM, is the founder & director of the American College of Community Midwives (ACCM) & founder/facilitator of the Consortium for the Evidence-based practice of Obstetrics (CEO). She is a former L&D nurse, current licensed community midwife, web-wife, birth activist, digital video producer and liaison between California licensed midwives and the California Medical Board. Faith has 3 children and 2 grandchildren. On the web, see www.collegeofmidwives.org and www.ScienceBasedBirth.com for details.