Home Birth Misrepresented

The following is from the Midwives Alliance of North America:

One Voice
Open Letter to the Today Show

You were probably as outraged as we were to see the NBC’s Today Show on September 11th entitled “The Perils of Home Birth.”  It was biased, inaccurate, and sensational, depicting women who choose home births as self-indulgent by likening home birth to a spa treatment. It also implied that hospitals are the safest place for all women to give birth, even low-risk women, making it clear that NBC did not do adequate research to verify its claims.

In response, the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services (CIMS) wrote an articulate and well-documented Open Letter to the produces of The Today Show and was joined by 45 co-signing organizations in a strong statement regarding the safety of home birth and midwifery care.  You will be happy to know that the Midwives Alliance was one of the early co-signers. 

The letter was sent specifically, by email to each of the seven staff identified below (email and letter were personalized for each recipient).

• Peter Alexander (reporter/anchor on piece)
• Jim Bell (executive producer of The Today Show)
• Ami Schmitz (health and medicine producer)
• Albert Oetgen (managing editor for Today Show and Nightly News)
• Phil Griffin (senior vice president: Today Show)
• Don Nash (senior broadcast producer)
• Cheryl Gould (NBC News Network Senior Vice President

The final copy of the Open Letter is attached here for you to view. Feel free to send it to others, blog about it, and post it on your websites. Consider sending an email of appreciation to the CIMS leadership and thank them for taking this timely step in the name of so many people.

Contact Nicette Jukelevics, MA, ICCE at  NicetteJ@aol.com
Chair, CIMS Coalition Building Committee
Chair, Communications Committee

By co-signing this Open Letter to The Today Show, we join thousands of citizens who demand that the media give childbearing women fair and accurate coverage of this important issue and that news media give equal air time to midwives, other healthcare providers and researchers, and especially parents who have made choices about different models of care and places of birth.

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