Midwife Jessica Weed has helpfully provided yet another example in the seemingly endless parade of homebirth midwives who demonstrate emphatically that the CPM (certified professional midwife) credential is completely inadequate and should be abolished.
The stories share the same pattern over and over again:
1. High risk candidate taken on for homebirth? Check.
2. Serious injury (or death) for baby or mother or both? Check
3. Midwife tries to convince mother to lie about midwife’s presence? Check.
This time, however, the debacle ended with the arrest of the homebirth midwife, who is now facing felony charges.
According to Alberquerque TV station KRQE:
According to a criminal complaint, six days after Weed helped deliver a friend’s baby, the infant and mother were admitted into UNM Hospital.
Doctors say the baby had bleeding in the brain and retinas, and the mom still had not delivered the placenta which caused an infection.
The complaint says Weed asked the mother to write a letter and tell hospital officials she did not help with the delivery.
The mother finally told hospital workers the truth.
You can view the TV report here:
Midwife charged with child abuse
Even for a homebirth midwife, this represents an egregious case of negligence. The baby was so profoundly injured by the breech birth that he experienced bleeding his brain and his retinas, yet the midwife did not transfer him to the hospital. The mother retained the placenta within her uterus for DAYS (and, not surprisingly, developed an infection) yet the midwife did not transfer the patient to the hospital. The fact that Weed went so far as to insist that the mother write a letter insisting that she was not present at the delivery indicates that she understood her culpability and wanted to hide it.
Way to go, CPM!
The baby faces permanent brain damage, blindness and possibly death and the CPM is apparently more worried about her fate than that of an innocent newborn.
The mother faces a major infection, possible sepsis and possible loss of her uterus and the CPM is apparently more concerned about her fate than that of the mother.
It is unethical to lie about involvement in a medical case and it is unethical to pressure the mother to lie, but the CPM apparently places her own interests anything so mundane as ethical behavior.
And let’s not forget the other feature commonly associated with a horrific outcome at a CPM attended homebirth.
4. The local midwifery association supports the midwife, not the baby and not the mother.
According to the Alberquerque Journal:
An advocacy group for New Mexico midwives responded Monday by calling the arrest an unprecedented move that threatens to worsen a shortage of maternity care in the state…
The New Mexico Midwives Association issued a written statement Monday saying that licensed health care providers are regulated under civil law and that it is extremely rare for medical personnel to be criminally charged.
“If we used criminal law to hold health care providers responsible for their patients’ outcomes, our prison system would be overwhelmed,” Cassaundra Jah, a spokeswoman for the association, is quoted in the statement.
“If we are telling providers that they not only risk being sued, but arrested and put in jail for anything less than a perfect outcome, then we can expect to see an exodus of maternity and other health care professionals leaving our state,” Jah said.
I can’t comment on the appropriateness of filing felony charges of child abuse in this setting, but something must be done to hold this woman accountable.
Homebirth kills and hurts babies and mothers. Certified professional midwives (CPM) lack the education and training needed to prevent these disasters. The CPM credential must be abolished.
crippling fear of doctors should not be a reflection of CPM as profession best manual can opener
um, what?
She does freebirth coaching training in multiple states now to make up for her loss of income. http://www.indigobirth.com/meet-jessica.html
Jessica Weed is a sociopath with her own agenda (this is from personal experience) her lack of moral compass and crippling fear of doctors should not be a reflection of CPM as profession. Home births are perfectly safe when handled by competent individuals as are hospital births. There’s just a lot more hands in the pot to make things go wrong in a hospital setting.
There are skills, but it doesn’t make breech birth completely safe (or safer than c-section). There are training videos for MD’s online if you want to see them. The maneuvers for resolving problematic breech births are limited and not always effective.
actully not true in any state thanks to the constitution, you can enroll your child in public school, daycare whatever, look up the laws! and no you dont need a letter from your pastor or doctor thats a lie. and if you trust your vaccines so much why do you fear unvaccinated children? if your kid is vaxed and you trust the vax so much isnt the point in the vax so it doesnt matter if he is exposed?
Read my comment again. Moreover, you’re mistaken “any state in the nation”; I direct you to Miss. Code Ann. § 41-23-37 and W. Va. Code § 16-3-4. You might want to read them yourself before admonishing others to do so. I’d also like you direct me to the section in the U.S. Constitution you refer to.
My children and I are fully vaccinated, so I’m not especially afraid of unvaccinated children. But strangely enough, I care about other people too. Like infants too young to have received a full course of vaccination (nine died in my state during the last pertussis outbreak.) Like people who are immunocompromised and can’t be fully immunized. Like people who can’t receive vaccines because they’ve had a serious reaction to one in the past.
im sorry but you do realize children who have been vaccinated have also gotten vaccine preventable diseases some even get them from the vaccine and outbreaks of many of these illnesses include very few non vaccinated children
before you inject your child with anything you should know the risks and hear the horror stories. im not saying stick on them but you should know what your getting into. i say id rather teach my kids safe sex then tell them a drug will keep them safe
Alaska, first of all, vaccines are not the same thing as drugs.
Second, here’s a study published on line showing the decrease in HPV infection since the vaccine was introduced in the US:
http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/06/18/infdis.jit192.abstract?sid=2cb30b64-802b-4bc2-ba4f-984646ea13f3
And for those who can’t make it past the paywall: a NYT articles in which the study’s lead author discusses the results
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/health/study-finds-sharp-drop-in-hpv-infections-in-girls.html?_r=2&
The JID article suggests a pretty spectacular success rate for the HPV vaccine.
Teaching kids about safe sex is great, and vaccines are great, but neither is a good substitute for the other. All the safe sex teaching in the world won’t prevent cervical cancer if a girl or woman ignores it (as teens are known to do) or if she doesn’t have the option of having safe sex, as is the case for most of the the estimated 10% (according to a 2000 DOJ report) of women who have been raped by the time they enter college. (Of course, this figure doesn’t include women who never go to college.)
each child has differant risks! thats why we shouldnt inject kids with anything before we know them! why would you inject your child with eggs before they have even had breast milk and there is no way to know his allergies? if my husband and i had vaccinated my son it would have cause serious long term issues for him or killed him. even if you belive in vaccinating you should at least wait a year or two so you dont inject them with something they cant handle
the world health organization theres your one go look that shit up. and as far as ANY birth related mortality rate goes we are not doing well. infact in the eyes of world health we are even behind some third world countries
and how many stories could we put up here about doctors?
leaving items in patiences. check. being over eager and pulling the cord leaving part or placenta behind to cause infection. check. schedualing a baby for induction before due date thus causing complicatitions. check. unnessary procedures incuding c-sections (making c sections the number one surgery preformed in the us) check. the list goes on and on and on. oh and this author has clearly never heard of the world health org.
It’s “patients”, not patiences.
Here is a list of the most commonly performed surgeries in the US. C-sections are not mentioned. http://nyp.org/health/surgery-common.html
They are on the list, look again (along with breast biopsies, most of which are also unnecessary. In retrospect.)
The CDC’s national discharge survey for 2010 lists inpatient procedures only, and in this order:
1. Arteriography and angiocardiography using contrast material: 2.4 million
2. Cardiac catheterizations: 1.0 million
3. Endoscopy of small intestine with or without biopsy: 1.1 million
4. Endoscopy of large intestine with or without biopsy: 499,000
5. Diagnostic ultrasound: 1.1 million
6. Balloon angioplasty of coronary artery or coronary atherectomy: 500,000
7. Hysterectomy: 498,000
8. Cesarean section:1.3 million
I guess it didn’t save my edit!
And yet, with all these failings, doctors manage to kill fewer babies than CPMs.
And you might want to read what WHO has to say about training for birth attendants.
Read this post, Mindy Rain:
http://safermidwiferyformichigan.blogspot.com/
they are charlitans pure and simple.. New agers messing around and spreading Bullshit!!