Is being pregnant and delivering still considered an illness?

I need people to settle something for me - are pregnancy and labour and delivery still considered to be an illness in the United States?

I know that there are women in the US who save their sick days so they can have a half-decent maternity leave. As a Canadian, where we have had generous maternity leave policies for a while now, especially in Quebec, this is so foreign to me. But, when I learned of the American Medical Association's (AMA) stand on home births, I really had to wonder.

First, I have to point out that I, personally, did not want home births but I fully support the right of a woman and her partner to decide what they feel is right for them. I am, however, a huge, huge advocate of midwives, something that is very slow to be mainstream here in Canada.

In this day and age of patients become more aware of their own health care issues and options, it seems so wrong for the one more natural of functions, childbirth, be taken out of the patients' hands. It's as if we're back in the days of the doctors being men, patting the little lady on the head, saying "there, there mum, we'll take care of everything for you."

To better understand what I'm talking about, I invite you to visit my pregnancy blog, Womb Within, where I have two posts that discuss this. The first one, Tsk, tsk Ricki Lake, discusses how the AMA didn't like Ricki Lake's documentary on the topic and yesterday's post, MANA editorial regarding “AMA Seeks to Deny Women Choices in Childbirth” is a published editorial from the Midwives Alliance of North America (NAMA).

What do you think?

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Today at Womb Within:

Celebrity pregnancy: Angelina Jolie has her twins
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