Quote:
|
Originally Posted by onesnowyowl
One of the things that has bothered me about some of Jenny's arguments were the associations with drug use during labor and drug use later in life.
The fact is, drug use is a much more complicated issue than all of that. Genetics and socio-economic status play key roles in determining whether or not someone will be a drug user. The addictive personality is known to be a heritable trait. A lot of the psychological issues Jenny attributed to medical births have been shown to be heritable traits. How we are born has little to do with how we'll turn out to be. It's honestly more important to make it safe for the baby and pleasant for the mother than to make it "less traumatizing."
|
The comparison group used in the study cited by Jenny is composed of siblings of the drug addicts. This likely controls for SES (removes the variance in later drug use due to SES). The use of siblings as a comparison group also allows for some tentative conclusions independent of genetics. (Monozygotic twins would be ideal, but siblings as a comparison group is a better control for genetics than most studies I have seen). The study also controlled for "hospital of birth, order of birth, duration of labour, presentation other than vertex, surgical intervention, asphyxia, meconium stained amniotic fluid, and birth weight." I have seen heritability estimates for drug dependence ranging from .35 to .50. This leaves a lot of room for environmental factors (including gestation and delivery) to influence later drug use.
That said, the study that Jenny cited does not preclude the role of SES or genetics in later drug use. (And as I mentioned earlier, there may be other problems with the study cited).
Quote:
|
How we are born has little to do with how we'll turn out to be.
|
I think that freebirthing is very risky, far more risky than a hospital birth. However, it's inaccurate to state as fact that how we are born has little to do with how we'll turn out. How the birth process impacts "how we'll turn out to be" is an empirical question.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by abaya
You're right that in a peer-reviewing journal, at least it's all out there to be examined... but your average layperson is not going to know how to examine it. They are just going to say, "Look at this study, it says that this is true!"
|
I see similar conclusions drawn from studies all the time (from family, students, media outlets, etc.) Most laypeople seem to have little knowledge of basic statistics and experimental design. The biggest error I often notice was cited earlier: "Correlation does not necessarily equal causation".