Unassisted Childbirth on the news! Click here for the story.
Not sure how long this link will stay up, most news stations will only keep the vids up for a month.
In the story, web site traffic was mentioned. Some of the bigger Unassisted Childbirth sites get tens of thousands of hits a month, My site is not as popular as those, especially since I don’t host a forum, but what I have noticed over the years is that people tend to come in and really surf around the site, printing out many of my columns and sending links to friends.
Here is my traffic from the past few months, on this blog and on my web site, which is devoted to mothering issues. Those coming into my blog are not necessarily interested in birth, as I write about a variety of topics. For those of you who don’t know, Unique Visitors are the key indicator of a sites traffic in terms of individual readers, NOT overall hits.
Here are the stats for my Natural Family Company Web Site for the past few months.
February 2007 – Unique Visitors: 1,655 Hits: 74,598
March 2007 – Unique Visitors 1,835 Hits: 38,016
April 2007 – Unique Visitors 1,485 HIts: 26,776
May 2007 – Unique Visitors 1,655 Hits: 35,596
And here are the stats from my Blog from the past few months:
March 2007 – Unique Visitors 19,661 Hits – 196,245
April 2007 – Unique Visitors 12,972 Hits 94,336
May 2007 – Unique Visitors 15,154 Hits 83,340
What generates the most traffic on my sites is my Lotus Birth Picture Gallery. It has had hundreds of thousands of hits since I put it up on my web site, and just during the month of February 2007, it had a total of 46,645 hits!!!
One of the troubling sides of my work online is that the various people who have purchased books, transcripts, and video have freely shared those links with friends. For example last month I did not sell one book, e-video, or transcript, yet 99 people downloaded my book A Lotus Birth for free, 63 People downloaded my book Elijah Birth for free, and 54 People downloaded the transcript of our birth conference for free. Three people opened up A Mothers Journey for free, and 31 people watched the conference for free.
While it is gratifying to have individuals interested in my writings and work, it has been difficult to have so many just taking the information for free when it has cost me thousands of dollars of family money to put it up on the web, and hundreds each month to continue hosting. I have not made a dime off my sites in months, and while grateful for the traffic, I wish those who take for free would send along a couple bucks to help with my monthly costs. Especially if they felt the information was helpful.
I am overall thrilled that others find what I do and how we live interesting and informative. My writing has been a labor of love, and I devote all of this work to the generations of babies that will come in the future and into eternity.
Jenny Hatch
This globe and mail story will only be on the site for a couple more days….
http://www.canada.com/globaltv/national/video/index.html
Click on the link and then scroll down to thursday and hit FreeBirthing

Hey Guys,
I noticed you were having your big annual meeting this weekend, so thought I would take the time to share the blog entry I wrote responding to your recent media advisory about unassisted birth.
Dr. LaLonde, you said in an article:

“We think this is something that is really dangerous and irresponsible,” André Lalonde, the group’s executive vice-president, said in an interview yesterday. “Women are dying in Latin America, Asia and Europe because they don’t have skilled attendants for the delivery of their babies. And here in Canada we’re going to move back to this? I don’t think so.”

So my questions is, what do you propose doing to those of us who refuse to enter a hospital to give birth?
Lock us up?
Take our children away?
Put a little ankel bracelet on and put us under house arrest?
Hook us up to an EFM during the final weeks of pregnancy and then send the police out to pick us up when we are in active labor?
A mother in America was recently forced to the hospital with police escort, even though she was nine centermeters dialated and birthing perfectly at home. She was forced to have a second section, because the docs in the US have decided VBAC’s are too dangerous.
Again, what do you mean by the words “I don’t think so”.
Here is my blog post and response.
I suggest we have a nice big healthy debate with full media coverage. I would be happy to engage in that debate with any of you doctors so we could come to a meeting of the minds about DIY birth. We are not going away. We are not going to cave to the pressure to give birth with an attendant. And we claim our female rights of self determination over our own bodies.
The question is, just what exactly are you going to do with us? I’m really curious.
Jenny Hatch
Birth Activist and UC Birth Promoter
I thought since they were having the big annual meeting this weekend, they might like to hear from one of our group. You know, just so they could know exactly what I think of them and their little Media Advisory Notice to the mothers of Canada.
A nice big healthy roaring debate on childbirth would be such a healthy thing for everyone, don’t you all agree???
Jenny Hatch
UPDATE: June 25th, 2007
A response:

“Thank you for your email. Dr. Lalonde will most probably respond after our annual meeting.

Regards,

Geneviève St-Gelais”

Coordinator, Communications and Publications/
Coordonatrice au service des communications et publications
The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC)
La Société des obstétriciens et gynécologues du Canada (SOGC)
780 promenade Echo Drive Ottawa, ON K1S 5R7 (Canada)
Tel: 1-800-561-2416 or 1-613-730-4192 ext: 329
Fax: 613-730-4314
E-mail:gstgelais@sogc.com
SOGC Website: http://www.sogc.org