“Women Deserve Data, Not Dogma.” This slogan stopped me in my tracks. In just five words, it captures everything that evidence-based medicine should stand for - and everything that’s gone wrong in how obstetric interventions are portrayed to pregnant women today. From birth bloggers framing cesareans as failures to “natural birth” educators teaching women to refuse fetal monitoring, pregnant women are being told that interventions are the enemy of good birth outcomes. The natural childbirth movement has learned that fear of intervention sells courses, and that “your body knows what to do” sounds more empowering than “your medical team knows when something’s wrong.” But feelings aren’t facts, and a birth plan isn’t a substitute for clinical judgment. Here are the facts - not fads - that every pregnant woman deserves to hear about medically indicated interventions.
