The gentlebirth.org website is provided courtesy of
Ronnie Falcao, LM MS, a homebirth midwife in Mountain View, CA

What's Up With Dr. Amy Tuteur?

Warning - Do Not Even Think About Following These Links Unless You Are an Open-Minded Person
 

These articles are written by Ronnie Falcao, LM MS CPM, the editor of the Midwife Archives and owner of gentlebirth.org

Homebirth Benefits - Why Homebirth Is Most Appropriate for Normal Birth

Dangers of Hospital Birth - Why Birthing in a Hospital Causes More Problems Than It Solves for Normal Birth

Here's some more information for the mom whose husband was frightened by what Dr. Amy Tuteur says.

Consider the following:

1. Dr. Amy Tuteur is no longer licensed as a physician.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine reports that her license expired in 2003.
2. Dr. Amy Tuteur implies that episiotomies are beneficial, despite the overwhelming research to the contrary.

As Henci Goer says about Dr. Amy Tuteur, "Don't feed the dragon."

Henci opines that she's a front for an organized disinformation campaign, and she points out that Dr. Amy Tuteur appears not to be an OB and not to be licensed anywhere.

Yes, I think we do better to focus our energies on getting out and getting information to the public.  I keep meaning to staff a little table at our farmer's market and haven't ever done it.  Maybe this spring . . .

Whenever Dr. Amy is questioned on how she arrived at her data she tells people they wouldn't understand because they're not epidemiologists. My friend is an epidemiologist and when she asked Dr. Amy to explain it to her she was ignored.

Dr. Amy Tuteur has lost two jobs in the past year as guest writer at salon.com and Science Based Medicine.  This was apparently because of her attitude and because she was writing about things she knew nothing about. Her accusations against MANA and her presence across the internet are nothing new.

I wonder if ACOG is secretly paying Dr. Amy Tuteur to engage in this persistent mudslinging against midwives?  Maybe it's the only job she can get?  I have to say that when I saw her on the YouTube video, she had kind of a startling appearance.

Do we actually know whether Dr. Amy Tuteur is even a real person or just an Internet "avatar"?

Well, a real person appears in a YouTube video as Dr. Amy Tuteur: CNM Jo Anne Davis and OBGYN Amy Tuteur Debate Home Birth

Dr. Amy Tuteur seems to have some issues with homebirth and with women's activism about protecting their own bodies.  Have you read what she writes about episiotomy?  It almost sounds as if she thinks women should be grateful to have their perineums cut up!  Anyway, her information is full of inaccuracies and half-truths.  She claims that homebirth activists ignore scientific studies, when it is *she* who ignores them.  Here you can read a comprehensive collection of scientific studies and here you can read lots more information. [Read more about Dr. Amy Tuteur's Issues.]

I won't go so far as to say that Dr. Amy Tuteur lies, but it does seem that her facts are a little shaky.  Anytime you're citing studies that include unattended births in homebirth safety statistics, you're skating on thing ice.

The MANA Board has made a decision not to engage Dr. Amy Tuteur because that just gives her more press and no matter who argues with her she just makes stuff up and goes on and on.........several have tried.  Most people agree to just not engage her.  she is a case.

I personally don't bother with Dr. Amy Tuteur, and part of me thinks she's just trying to create a stir to get more traffic to her website.  So I try to ignore her as much as possible.  People who are looking for good homebirth references will keep looking.

We shoot ourselves in the collective feet by visiting and commenting on her website.

I'm trying to come up with a little jingle about Dr. Amy Tuteur.  Heh, maybe a little limerick?

There was an ex-OB called Amy
Whose hobby is midwife DeFamy
She never has facts
Her thinking is lax
Like Wax and like Pang, she's to Blamy

Dr. Amy Tuteur does seem to have limited ability to learn new things.  For example, she simply cannot understand that homebirth midwives might be educated.  I'm wondering if she suffers from cognitive dissonance about the fact that some very smart people choose to become LMs and CPMs.  Heh, I know someone with a Master's Degree (in Science!) from Stanford University who chose to become a homebirth midwife because she WAS able to read the research about homebirth safety.  She also was able to grasp the reality that homebirth babies don't get hospital-acquired infections.

Yes, in this discussion about the Canadian 2009 study, Dr. Amy Tuteur acknowledges that homebirth is safer than hospital birth in Canada.

There's an article on the Huffington Post called ACOG Up to Dirty Tricks by Louise Marie Roth.  Dr. Amy Tuteur exposes this blind spot in her comments there.