Contact CEO Updated ~ Wednesday February 16, 2011 01:34
Return to Index page The 2-minute guide to the CEO // A-CEO
Our sponsor is the California Citizens for Health Freedom (CCfHF). We are confident that a wide spectrum of organizations will join the Consortium. There are no dues.
A brief description of the goals of CEO
CEO is devoted to ending flat earth obstetrics, reforming our national maternity care policy and rehabilitating obstetrical practices for healthy women with normal pregnancies -- i.e., establishing the science-based model of pregnancy and normal childbirth care (physiological management) as the universal standard for healthy women.
A-CEO is an alternative to A.C.O.G (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) for physicians who are tired of being "a cog" in the wheel of medicalized obstetrics (i.e., routine inductions & scheduled CS) and wish to re-establish the scientific foundation of their profession and reclaim their expertise in the use of physiological management for normal birth.
Physiological principles are "in accord with, or characteristic of, the normal functioning of a living organism" (Stedman’s Medical Dictionary definition of 'physiological'). This provides the safest and most cost-effective form of maternity care for a healthy population, regardless of the category of caregiver (doctor or midwife) , the educational status of the practitioner (OB, FP, CNM or LM.) or the location chosen by the parents (hospital, home or independent birth center).
A rehabilitated maternity care policy would integrate the classic principles of physiological management with the best advances in obstetrical medicine. This would create a single, evidence-based standard for all healthy women used by all maternity care providers -- GPs, family practice physicians, obstetricians, and professional midwives, and would apply in all birth settings.
Management strategies would be determined by the health status of the childbearing woman and her unborn baby in conjunction with the mother’s stated preferences, rather than by the occupational status of the care provider (physician, obstetrician, midwife). At present, who the woman seeks care from (doctor vs. midwife) determines how she is cared for -- physiological versus medical management. This is inconsistent with scientific principles, which identifies physiological management as the foremost standard for providing safe care to healthy women.
A reformed maternity care policy would require the medical profession to teach physiological management to medical students and that practicing physicians learn and utilize physiological management. It would mandate that all hospital L&D units be staffed by professional midwives. It would recognize the fundamental human right of competent, adult women to have control over the manner and circumstances of pregnancy and normal childbirth. It would mandate that truly transparent informed consent be obtained before medicalized care (non-physiological management, immobilization in bed, anti-gravitational positions) and obstetrical interventions be used on healthy women ( IVs, continuous EFM, induction of labor, off-label use of Cytotec, epidural, episiotomy, instrumental and operative delivery, etc).
What went wrong . . . .
In order to provide the safest and most cost-effective form of maternity care for a healthy population, we must acknowledge the underlying historical problem -- the uncritical acceptance of an unscientific premise. A century ago erroneous assumptions about the biology of normal childbirth were made by the medical profession. These false ideas were institutionalized in medical education and practice and resulted in a hundred-year-old failed medical experiment -- interventionist obstetrics for health women. The policies and practices of this dysfunctional and expensive system produce what CEO refers to as "Flat Earth Obstetrics".
How to put it right . . . .
Obsolete policies must be re-thought in light of the scientific evidence. Harmful practices that resulted from faulty premises must be replaced by scientifically-sound, physiological practices. To bring this about we must mobilize an informed public and a large cadre of knowledgeable professionals who are willing to exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. As agents for change, citizens, consumers and professionals must bring pressure on the political system to reform this important aspect of our health care system. In the 21st century we must make science-based maternity care the foremost standard for normal childbirth and protect the ethical and constitutional rights of competent adult women to have control over the manner and circumstances of pregnancy and normal birth
We urge concerned citizens and consumers to join with CEO in its effort to replace an expensive and obsolete system with an evidence-based and cost-effective model of mother-baby-father friendly maternity care.
A Plan for all reasons ..
1. To create a cohesive, broad-based and effective constituency made up of consumers, taxpayers, childbirth and public health professionals committed to reforming our national maternity care policy, which includes a recognition of the ethical and constitutional rights of competent adult women to have control over the manner and circumstances of pregnancy and normal birth and the care of their newborn.
2. To bring about legislative hearings on the issues identified in the CEO White Paper, including the off-label use of Cytotec for labor induction, the ever-climbing cesarean section and maternal mortality rate, the danger in promoting the maternal choice cesarean as the so-called "ideal' form of childbirth and the physically damaging effects on the pelvic floor and pelvic organs associated with medical management of vaginal birth
3. To facilitate passage of legislation mandating that physicians obtain truly informed consent before substituting medical and surgical interventions in place of the safer, evidence-based principles of physiological management and provide full information about the risks of medical or surgical intervention they recommend
This would include medical interventions such as the off-label use of Cytotec, use of other 'cervical ripening' agents, non-medical inductions or those based post-dates or "big baby", routine use of IVs and continuous electronic fetal monitoring and other procedures or policies that keep a laboring woman confined to bed, the use of artificial hormones to stimulate or accelerate labor, narcotics and epidural anesthesia, requiring the mother to labor or push in anti-gradational positions, episiotomy, operative delivery (forceps or vacuum extraction or Cesarean), especially the 'elective' or 'maternal choice CS
The new web site, with all the info, is www.ScienceBasedBirth.com Check it out and pass it on person-to-person. Forward the website URL to your email groups.
CEO's relationship to the "midwife Problem"