Talk:Unassisted childbirth

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 29 June 2020 and 21 August 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Carrie bi, H.K.Barton, Ucsfjchen, Mxphan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 11:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Fuck that photo is a shocker - bit of warning would be appreciated
That is a bit of an eyeful
 * This article is about childbirth. Perhaps you meant to look up stork? - Wormcast (talk) 06:03, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

Solo birth
In this paragraph, all but the first sentence contain the word 'may' as form of speculation. I have added a tag in the meantime. 86.91.173.215 (talk) 22:53, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Archive
I have archived all of the comments from 2005, 2006, and 2007. It appears that no comments were made during 2008. You can read the comments by clicking the link in the archive box on the right, but please put your new comments here, where everyone will see them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

'Sources' section
It is my impression that some, if not most, of the works listed under 'Sources' have been placed there in the spirit of "Additional reading". This is not what such a section is intended for. In any case, sources used in writing the article should be referenced with in-line citations, not with a general citation at the end. None of these have been so cited. Anyone who has used any of these sources in creating or improving the article - please indicate which parts of the text they apply to with in-line citations. -- Wormcast (talk) 01:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

A check of the history of the section confirms this ("For more information and a list of discussion groups, see below"). Accordingly, I have deleted it. If any of these sources of information were actually used as sources of information for the article, please restore just those via inline citations. --Wormcast (talk) 13:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Tagged for multiple problems & questionable neutrality
Yesterday I was made aware of another proliferation of anti-UC sentiments on the UC Wiki article. I know that others here have worked on this page over the years, and of course, everyone's efforts are very much appreciated. The absence of any discussion from the year 2008 is a red flag, particularly since the history is full of revisions during that period. This is part of why I decided it was time to tag the article, if not consider deletion.

As soon as I created the article back in '05, I was immediately thrust into the role of educating the ignorant and inexperienced who stepped in to flag-n-tag, correct and revise according to conventional wisdom (often losing the original intention in the process.) Not a big surprise as UC is undoubtedly a controversial subject, but babysitting the project quickly got old after going round and round with the naysayers. As a new Wiki article creator, I came to empathize even more with Laura Shanley and fellow UC advocates who are constantly under public scrutiny.

Frankly, I'm not impressed with the way a non-mainstream article can be so easily mangled beyond recognition by anyone with a point to prove, legitimate or otherwise (see the original discussion page for more on that,) and seriously considered having the whole page deleted before members of the Unassisted Childbirth community offered to help develop the article further.

Bottom line: The last thing I want is an anti-UC article linked to my username as original creator, yet I realize there is so much worthy content in amongst the non-neutral phrasing that continuously creeps in! Just as the article begins to evolve into something as unbiased as humanly possible, it's not long before someone comes along and turns it upside down again. After watching from the sidelines for the past few years, I have come to the conclusion that there is simply too much potential for abuse here. Many contributors have put in a lot of effort to be sure the facts are presented in their true light, but no one I know (including myself) has the time or energy to play watchdog over antagonists.

Feedback from others: I would have to say that the last sentence about UP is disturbing. As well as how "dangerous" it is to give birth unassisted, and the statistics seem VERY skewed. Of all the stories I have read, the ppl that I have talked with about UC, and all that for many years, I cannot see how the mortality or morbidity is any higher than traditional birth. I would say that morbidity is a LOT lower.

Just recently, I have read and skimmed over TONS of birth stories on Mothering.com. They have over 1700 stories, many are easy and successful UCs. I can NOT see how the stats in this article can be ANYWHERE close to being correct.

...perhaps it would be better to delete it than to perpetuate lies. It may be one of the first things that comes up when searching UC, for family members or ladies considering it. ...

It would be nice if the controversy part mentioned how UCers believe it IS the safest for their babies, and when the UC mom (and even UP mommas) have determined it has become unsafe, that it is quite COMMON practice to transfer to prenatal care or the hospital to birth. Maybe mention the rights of the woman that her body be treated with respect, that the rights of the woman (and unpredictability of the speed of some births) is one of the reasons UC is legal in every state. I am not a feminist or pro-choice, but if we illegalize a woman's right to decide what is best for her own body (and the baby within), I know that HB and UC WILL become illegal. I think that woman's rights to her own body be put in the article. That way, ppl may not agree with our choice, but they may be able to appreciate it more if they are feminist or pro-choice.

PenneArdICS (talk) 23:48, 20 June 2009 (UTC)


 * First, I think that that your reference to the article's 'intention', your talk of deleting it outright now that it no longer reflects what you consider to be that intention, your complaint of being "thrust into the role of educating the ignorant and inexperienced who stepped in to flag-n-tag, correct and revise according to conventional wisdom", and your reference to this article as a "non-mainstream article" are all rather indicative of your intention - namely, to create and maintain a pro-UC article. This is not what Wikipedia is about: it is not a soapbox for your beliefs, and it is not proprietary - once you launch an article, you do not maintain some sort of special claim on it. Generally speaking, if you feel that the article is now biased against UC, then by all means, please supply information or changes that rebut or balance this bias - but make sure that any and all such changes are appropriately sourced.


 * Second, with respect to your concern over the "mangling" of the article over the past two years: prior to your edits of today, the last time you bothered to edit the article it was little more than a stub, and contained quite controversial medical claims made with no supporting citations. In fact, there were no inline references at all, just a rather lengthy list of links to pro-UC websites. When I began editing it, some three months ago, the language of the article was blatantly POV, and there was still virtually no referencing. There are now over two dozen citations of newspapers, journals, and medical reports supporting the information that appears here. There is still quite a bit of work to be done - as I and others have indicated with tags, unsourced portions dating back to edits made several years ago still remain. Perhaps you could work on this problem?


 * Third, with respect to your posting of "feedback from others": if others have the desire to discuss, criticize, or otherwise comment on this article, then they should take the time and show the courtesy to log in and do so themselves. Wormcast (talk) 08:01, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

RESPONSE
 * First of all, please understand that this recommendation is not a personal attack on you, Wormcast. It is the result of outright frustration from years of watching this article serve as grounds for a continuous debate (through the guise of creative editing) on whether or not the practice of UC is safe or dangerous. The original intention was to provide a brief article explaining what the practice of UC is, including its origins, and reference links to more information for further exploration. I believe this is in line with Wikipedia's scope & purpose.


 * Those who have contributed in the past have since moved on to other projects, for one reason or another, and those who would consider getting involved now see the writing on the wall. Since an entire year of discussions is missing, there's no way you or anyone else who visits can know everything that has been going on behind the scenes here, or form a true opinion of past contributors (including me.)


 * In the beginning, you can see that there were quite a few of us holding lengthy discussions on the subject of developing the article from my original stub, which got the ball rolling. As a courtesy, we held off from making significant revisions during that time without first consulting other contributors.  I was well aware that my birth experiences (three in-hospital, six UC's with no complications, if you can call that bias) may have interfered with my abilities to create a completely neutral piece, but certainly didn't want to see others with no experience making random revisions without doing research of their own.  We had some disagreements, but we were working them out, then a few of us got busy with outside projects and others never returned.  That's when I solicited help from the UC birth community, and stepped back to make way for others to get involved.


 * Instead of reverting back to a reference which clearly has incorrect information (citing that Laura Shanley -- please note correct spelling -- bore six children rather than five,) why not simply post to the Talk thread and give the editor a chance to provide additional reference links or correct a grammatical mistake? I see you edited the reverted paragraph to the correct number of children, but incorrectly changed the order of birth for the child which died, without seeking confirmation.  The coroner's statement was clearly linked to Laura's website and book, and whether or not you or I determine a reference to be legitimate is not the issue.  I removed your link because you used it in reference to the number of Shanley children, and since it was incorrect, I replaced it with a more authoritative one (the author and mother of the children herself.)


 * Those two sources contain ample evidence of Laura's work in birth consultation -- admittedly, I'm not the most savvy Wikipedia editor, but I see no need to cite every single media outlet, any more than you cite every single anti-UC sentiment listed. I certainly do not understand the need to use derogatory terms such as, "self-styled" birth consultant when referring to a well-known authority on the subject of Unassisted Childbirth, which is why I removed it as non-neutral and potentially inflammatory.


 * You needn't be concerned that the article will be deleted outright -- I do not have that power since I am not the sole contributor. Wiki will have to determine whether to make that move themselves, based on the missing discussion page and the fact that this article has been tagged for NPOV multiple times since its inception.  While your revisions are not a blatant attack on UC, the subtle nature of the language and references, in addition to the immediate reversions without consulting with other contributors, gives me cause to question your own intentions.  From my personal experience in watching this project progress (and regress) over nearly four years, I do not believe that it is possible to achieve lasting neutrality in a controversial topic such as this one.  Therefore, I recommend removal of the article as original creator.PenneArdICS (talk) 19:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Penne, as far as I know, all discussion about this article has been retained; it was only archived, since no discussions were active. See here. I have, in fact, reviewed some of these posts for context while making new edits.


 * With respect to the intention of the article: definition, history, motivations, frequency is fine, but with a highly controversial subject such as this, it is also part of the job of an encyclopedia to present the controversy. And in this case, this has centered largely on whether or not the practice of UC substantially increases risk to mother or child. Take, for instance, the article on another controversial issue, the practice of Female genital cutting (but please note that I am only making this comparison to highlight the point of an encyclopedia's responsibility with respect to a controversial practice - nothing more): it would be rather bizarre for an encyclopedia to write an article about FGC without presenting the views of the mainstream medical community with respect to its safety, or lack thereof.


 * Concerning my revert of your Shanley edits, see section below. -- Wormcast (talk) 07:10, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, you've certainly passed the flamer test by keeping your head about you, Wormcast. Thank you for taking the time to discuss the issues with me in a civil manner.  I did see the archive link, but please notice that it only covers 2005-2007 -- the odd thing is that I was sure I saw much activity on the history during 2008 when I first posted above, but now only one item remains.  Mysterious.  Your comment about my "ownership" of the article gave me the impression that you weren't all that familiar with my contributions or past discussions, since this point had been covered at length years ago.


 * Yes, I could have discussed the proposed revisions for the paragraph on Laura beforehand, but I had already seen you revert without researching the matter or posting for discussion, so I decided to go ahead and do a bit of tweaking myself to see if the initial response was simply a knee-jerk reaction to an anonymous contribution, or if a registered user would be afforded a little more leeway to make corrections and work on developing the content, according to Wiki standards, of course. Btw, the Washington Post article did have the correct number of children listed, and it was a minor, yet significant, correction worthy of further investigation.


 * So, you can see why your note insisting Laura had more children came as a complete surprise, and led us to wonder what other items had been modified, with or without proper research or malicious intent. Presenting a different point of view is one thing, but skewing the facts and using language which amounts to an attack on someone's character, is grounds for action as far as I'm concerned.  When I was informed of the state of the article last week, I really had no idea what could be going on here, and figured anything I posted (revisions or otherwise) would be immediately removed or vilified, so I was admittedly on the defensive from the outset.


 * I'm still not quite sure what to make of it all, and gave up trying to keep track of the misinformation being fed into this article long ago. I've been considering this for a long time, but left it up to others till now.  I finally decided to step in and speak my peace on the matter, for the record.  No other major contributors have voiced objections to deletion of the article, so my recommendation stands.  Hopefully, one of our wandering Wiki minstrels will pick up on this discussion and put this piece out of its misery.  Live and learn. Regards, PenneArdICS (talk) 23:20, 24 June 2009 (UTC) (Forgot to Log in!) 65.35.226.189 (talk) 23:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Comments on my revert of the 19:22, 20 June 2009 edits by PenneArdICS
I reverted these edits made to the paragraph about UC advocate Laura Shanely for the following reasons:

1) Birth consultant: "She is birth consultant to individuals, television and movie production companies, and media outlets, including ABC News, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, Disney, Granada Factual London, the New York Times, Reuters, and the Washington Post." Perhaps so, but please supply some objective sources supporting her employment as a birth consultant to the companies named in this claim.

2) Prenatal care: from the cited source deleted by PenneArdICS, "Predictably, Shanley also had no prenatal care during her four pregnancies. "We call it 'prenatal scare,'" Shanley says."

3) Attribution of statement to coroner: The claim that the attending coroner "stated that the baby would not have survived, regardless of where it was delivered." Perhaps this is true - but the only source of this statement that I could find - and the only sources that you cite - was Shanely herself - hardly an objective party. If you can find objective sources for this claim, then please add it to the article. Or add it in a way that makes it clear that this is a claim being made by Shanely, not an official or confirmed statement made by the coroner.

4) Grammar: if you are going to delete or substantially alter text in this article, please take the time to write in complete sentences. -- Wormcast (talk) 07:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * "Instead of reverting back to a reference which clearly has incorrect information (citing that Laura Shanley -- please note correct spelling -- bore six children rather than five,) why not simply post to the Talk thread and give the editor a chance to provide additional reference links or correct a grammatical mistake? I see you edited the reverted paragraph to the correct number of children, but incorrectly changed the order of birth for the child which died, without seeking confirmation.  The coroner's statement was clearly linked to Laura's website and book, and whether or not you or I determine a reference to be legitimate is not the issue.  I removed your link because you used it in reference to the number of Shanley children, and since it was incorrect, I replaced it with a more authoritative one (the author and mother of the children herself.)


 * "Those two sources contain ample evidence of Laura's work in birth consultation -- admittedly, I'm not the most savvy Wikipedia editor, but I see no need to cite every single media outlet, any more than you cite every single anti-UC sentiment listed. I certainly do not understand the need to use derogatory terms such as, "self-styled" birth consultant when referring to a well-known authority on the subject of Unassisted Childbirth, which is why I removed it as non-neutral and potentially inflammatory." -- comments by PenneArdICS (talk) 19:32, 22 June 2009 (UTC), reposted for continuity here by Wormcast (talk) 07:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)


 * First, with respect to your complaint about my reverting without discussion, this could also apply to your own edits. For my part, the child number/sequence error in the normally rather reliable Washington Post was not clear to me at the time of my revert - if that was the only change, then I would have confirmed the data and of course left it. More importantly, you did not simply correct the number of children Shanley had (a piece of data that is ultimately of limited consequence to either the article subject or Shanley's profile), you inserted major claims about a controversial person's business with major corporations and about a very significant event in her history. The fact that a major advocate of UC has herself suffered a childbirth-related death during UC is quite relevant to the subject of this article.


 * Concerning Shanley's employment, if she functions as a consultant to people about how to give birth, then I suppose that she is in some sense a birth consultant. Of course, the loud opinionated guy at the end of the bar could also call himself a political consultant. I am not sure what wikipedia's policies are concerning the identification of uncredentialed, controversial 'experts'. But I am sure that before Wikipedia claims that she was employed in this capacity for major companies, then the claim needs to be supported by more than the word of the person in question (which is, ultimately, all a personal website or book amounts to).


 * With regard to the claim made that the attending coroner told Shanley that "the baby would not have survived, regardless of where it was delivered" - again, attempting to support this claim by citing the works of Shanley herself is completely inappropriate. It is akin to claiming that a judge found a defendant innocent because the defendant wrote a book saying that the judge did. You need objective references for such a claim, unless you want to state it in a way that it is clear that the source of the claim is Shanley herself (e.g. Shanley claims that the coroner told her..."). --Wormcast (talk) 07:44, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

PerfectBirth making vanity edits
The fact that your user name here happens to be the same as the title of the book you cite as your source, which appears to be personally published, makes it patently obvious that you are making changes to this page to promote your own book. You can't do that. Please stop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dnalalal (talk • contribs) 20:34, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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Foundations II 2020 Group 29 Proposed Edits
-Citation needed for definition from Vital Statistics Canada -Update references 5 and 7, preferably to scientific journal article -Update reference 6 to statistics from American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology -Citations needed under the "Types" heading -Research the prevalence of UC in other countries in addition to US and Australia

H.K.Barton (talk) 21:59, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Please be sure to use secondary sources for citations ..l if text cannot be cited to a secondary review or source, it may better be removed. “Journal article”s re not always secondary and are most often primary sources. See WP:MEDRS. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  22:02, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Gaps in article concerning the cause of unassisted birth
In this article, see the paragraph starting at "But as restrictive midwifery regulations increase..."

Unassisted childbirth can take the form of a birth equivalent to "back-alley abortions" in states where midwives are regulated or prosecuted more often. Elsewhere the article mentions "others for financial reasons or lack of insurance". What this is entails is that factor is health insurance either does not compensate midwives much or not at all.

Likewise, in this interview, it states "Once I realized I would have to pay for the midwife and birthing center out of pocket, I decided to do home birth."

Lack of access is briefly mentioned in the lead. There are a number of articles on Google about how in rural areas in the US today some women live 100 miles or further from a hospital certified for births and staffed with OB-GYNs. The distant larger hospitals which have OB-GYNs may expect women to schedule an induction, or be more likely to mandate C-sections.

Several generations ago the requirements were lower, but now small hospitals which cannot do a C-section are not supposed to assist in childbirth. This could be included somehow in the article.

And this article describes COVID leading mothers to shun medical assistance. There are other articles ?(from the UK, Canada, and NZ) discussing women led to unassisted birth after midwives were not attending births do to coronavirus concerns.

Another factor that doesn't quite fit under the section heading is that there is no article discussing "born before arrival" births. According to this article, born before arrival does not count as unassisted. Yet this article in its current form seems to disagree. Possibly this would need to be its own article, with some clarification added here--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 03:34, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 05:08, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Giving Birth at Home Unassisted.png