Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that terrifies you with the miracle of birth! I'm your host this week, Aaron, and with me are Shea, Jenn, and Steve! I'm Shea, and this week I learned that if our ass was split horizontally, it would clap when you ran down the stairs. And I'm Steve, and instead of reading the script, I'm going to yank on Shea's crumb-catcher. I'm Jenn, did you know that Freddie Mercury was raised in the Zoroastrian faith? Also, go see Bohemian Rhapsody. The dangerously stupid: it just gets worse and it’s BREEDING. * http://bit.ly/2TdxvzI* http://bit.ly/2TjqA7Y* https://thebea.st/2Tiw7M4* http://bit.ly/2TgezQX* http://bit.ly/2TgTdTC I’m beginning to find the GOOP quaint and almost helpful the more I learn about alternatives to alternative medicines. You know, fine, put some potentially harmful shit in your vagina, spend $800 on holistically harvested micro-ingredients to make a smoothie with no flavor, irritate everyone you encounter with your smug self-righteousness and BMI of 17. Just do you. I’m now currently here for it. So why the slight change of heart? Why have I softened a bit on the GP? Let me explain this latest manure pile of f*****g terrible I stumbled into and I think you’ll understand: I’m here to introduce you to the Freebirther movement, and the Free Birth Society specifically. What exactly is freebirth? Freebirth, or ‘home birth without assistance’, is a still-rare but increasingly popular practice in the U.S. Thanks in large part to social media, the phenomenon has gone from a back-of-the-cab accident to a conscious “lifestyle choice”. In blog posts and viral videos, its adherents extoll the benefits of birthing at home or even ...ahem...in the wild. There are entire podcasts dedicated to freebirthing, with women discussing the “ecstatic” experience of giving birth in a snowed-in yurt or on a remote Hawaiian island. One quick note: this is NOT about medically supervised home births. Those events can be a safe and positive experience if you're into the kind of thing that involves making another person. Per Bruce Young, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the NYU School of Medicine, roughly 80% of home births “go smoothly”, and for the remaining 20% midwives and doulas are on hand, and outside emergency care is sought when needed. Back to the Free Birth Society: What is it? It’s an online group of adherents of this frightening nonsense that was started by Emilee Saldaya (a former home-birth midwife’s assistant turned “radical birth keeping” coach; more on her later). Per her lack-of-historical-health-context and understanding-of-irony website: Free Birth Society is a movement of women reclaiming their autonomy during pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. You’re here because you’re an independent thinker and you know there is more to pregnancy and birth than what has been offered to you by the obstetrics and midwifery systems. You’re here because there’s a whisper (or a scream) inside you; a deep knowing that that(sic) there’s more to childbirth than the formulaic, generic, and regulated “care” that has become normalized in contemporary culture...