According to Thomas Purdon, MD, president of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, obstetricians and nurse midwives have recently made major efforts to make birthing rooms cozier and to intervene medically as little as possible (NY Times, May 7, 2002).

However....

According to Marsden Wagner, MD:

-Between 50 percent and 80 percent of births in most American hospitals involve one or more surgical procedures.

-A woman has a four to eight times greater chance of dying from a cesarean section than she does giving birth through her vagina.

-Twenty-three percent, or nearly one in four women, given an epidural block will develop a complication. One undesirable complication of an epidural is death.

-A epidural block for relief of normal labor pain results in a three times higher mortality rate for the woman than labor without epidural block.

-More than 70 percent of American obstetricians have been sued one or more times.

-In 1992 the average take-home income of U.S. obstetricians was $250,000 a year, and today it is even higher.

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