Woohoo! The Facebook page of Elder Midwives is a comedy goldmine!
Indeed, I am beginning to wonder if it is real or a parody, since it’s difficult to imagine anyone as thoroughly clueless as these supposedly experienced “midwives” are.
Consider this gem:
I want all your opinions! I have a new client who wants to birth at home so bad it breaks my heart. She may go US. She was in a car accident 2years ago and had surgery on her saccrum, where they placed a rod with screws. After the surgery she had an embolism in right lung. She was on Coumadin til she got pregnant, then was placed on Lovenox, and will be put Heparin at 36 weeks til birth. She feels none of these things put her at risk. I have not said I will attend, told her I have never faced these things, and would have to do some research before I commit. Have any of you faced either of these conditions? I’m off to look up these drugs.
Ii suppose that we should be grateful that this “midwife” hesitated, but the fact that she is even considering attending this birth is pretty horrifying. She has no idea what any of this means, but even she ought to know that this is not a low risk birth. Doesn’t that mean she is obligated to counsel that she is an inappropriate patient for homebirth under any circumstances, since homebirth midwives are only trained in “normal birth”? Apparently not.
Her colleagues are no less ignorant and irresponsible as she:
Has she done her research?
And:
I wouldn’t be overly concerned about the sacrum. Can you do a VE and see if there is any movement, but I would think even if there isn’t the pelvis and baby will adjust for it, just might mean more pushing.
And this astounding bit of blatant ignorance:
the goal of these meds is to make women who are hyperclotters into normal clotters — so theoretically — they should hve normal bleeding response if the levels are correct.
Wrong. These drugs are dosed to give the patient an abnormally prolonged clotting time.
Bur my personal favorite response comes from a patient:
i was on coumadin before my last pregnancy, then was on clexane during, due to previous postpartum cardiomyopathy and stroke at a later date. I had a moderate PPH after that pregnancy (my 4th) where as I had no previous history of bleeding… I chose to free birth again – mostly because I coudn’t get an attendant of any description. I am 25 weeks pregnant again at the moment, and this time I have decided to treat my tendency to coagulate naturally via lumbrokinase, nattokinase, and earthing…
So let’s see if I get this straight. A history of cardiomyopathy, stroke and postpartum hemorrhage. Just another variation of normal, amirite?
No artificial medications for her. She’s “treating” her increased risk of thrombo-embolism, not with evil heparin, naturally occurring in and harvested from mammals, but lumbrokinase obtained from earthworms and nattokinase from soybeans. Because, really, what could be closer to human anti-clotting compounds than those from earthworms?
I hear you asking: what’s earthing? No, silly, it’s not putting dirt on yourself. That would be ridiculous. It’s “an important health discovery!”
The practice of using the earth’s energy is called “earthing” and entails “grounding” a person to the earth much as an electrical current is grounded.
See, doesn’t that make sense?
As I say, the Elder Midwives are comedy gold … unless, of course, you stop to consider that the lives of mothers and babies are routinely put at risk by these fools. But what’s more important, really? Whether midwives can find enough paying clients or whether mothers and babies live or die?
Obviously, a midwife’s opportunity to get a birth junkie high is far more important that trivial matters like life and death.
As a newly minted general dentist, I’d be hesitant to even fill a cavity on a patient with a medical history like that!
At what point will these midwives stop and exam their motives???? It seems the over all picture of caring for the BABY and MOTHER have been lost for the sake of home births. It is unfathomable to even consider a home birth with those conditions! Thank you for this blog. Signed- Happy 4 Hospital Birth Mama, whose 2nd baby was SAVED by an attentive nurse, and well informed neonatal team
One thing I do feel for the midwives for is that a certain percentage of these women (like the patient the midwife is discussing) want a HB so badly that if the midwife turns them down, they will have the child alone. I can see the pressure put on the midwife to see that she has some level of care?
But you know, the midwife could take the ethically correct route and recommend the hospital. Maybe refer the woman to a good doula.
Jesus Christ, where is this patient’s partner? Does he/she know how INSANE this is?
Sure, natural birth, deprive your child of a mother! Deprive them of life, or brain activity!
CAN’T.
“Off to look up these drugs” Oh I want to cry. I wouldn’t want someone taking care of me that doesn’t know what these are.
This “midwife” and her sheep really get my prone-to-clotting blood boiling. I almost want to say that she deserves it if she collapses from a PE or bleeds out from PPH, but the poor baby doesn’t deserve the misfortune brought on by its idiot mother.
Sometimes when I read these articles about these silly midwives all I can do is shake my head because if you haven’t had a home birth go all the wrong then women have no idea what these midwives are fooling around with but hey if a baby dies on their watch they pretty much get off free. Sad.
Ugh, that first quote…even IF all those issues wouldn’t negatively effect a birth, the fact that the midwife has no idea off the top of her head means she shouldn’t even consider attending this birth.
They can’t even organize a Facebook group–the infighting and flounces are hilarious–but they want women to let them deliver their babies?
It’s like letting a group of kindergartners run a space shuttle launch.
Now now. I know a few kindergarteners who would be very responsible at a space shuttle launch 😉
It looks like all of the admins have hair flipped and now no one can take the group down or turn it private.
In the middle of my second high risk pregnancy, and VERY glad I am seeing an OB who can handle higher risk. What the friggity frack? I am just glad I live in the 21st century in a place where my children and I get a very good chance of surviving and enjoying the rest of our lives.
So, overnight one of them realized that Dr. Amy “hacked” into the group. If looking at a public FB page is now considered hacking. Another one said she changed the group settings to private. But…nope. Still there.
I hope they read here, especially the original poster that was considering taking this high-risk patient.
Apparently, they’re unclear on who can change the privacy setting and are trying to contact the group administrator. The site may go private. This might be a good thing since that would mean that it would not be available to mislead lay people stumbling onto it, but it would mean less comedy gold for this site.
If you read the comments, they have made a new private group called Elder Birthkeepers. Or Elderbirthkeepers. Proper grammar isn’t their strong suit, either.
Did you notice the comments about how every time a baby is born safely at home, Dr. Amy “looses?”
I’m really starting to believe many of them didn’t make it through high school.
Agreed.
And every time a drunk driver makes it home safely, MADD looses (sic).
LOL LOL LOL
Hey, Dr. Amy already supplied the name – Elder Babyslaughterers. I wonder how many deaths and disabilities they all have between them, including those of the midwives they have proctored.
What a shock, they can’t comprehend basic logic (Public group is public!)
Any doubt that lay midwives are untrained, unprofessional and not the sharpest tools in the shed are dispelled when you read the elder midwives page. Their buffoonery is shocking. And crowd-sourcing hcp issues? O.M.G. O_o
I love the accusations that Dr. Amy has hacked into a completely open public group on FB. Also that she should be sued for doing this.
I think they’d rather see her arrested (for what, I have no freaking idea).
For “hacking.” And reading a public group on Facebook.
Felony-level charges, there.
People should be required to take some kind of test before posting on the internet.
Maybe they should file a DMCA takedown notice.
Oh, wait.
i was on coumadin before my last pregnancy, then was on clexane during,
due to previous postpartum cardiomyopathy and stroke at a later date. I
had a moderate PPH after that pregnancy (my 4th) where as I had no
previous history of bleeding… I chose to free birth again – mostly
because I coudn’t get an attendant of any description.
I really want to know why this woman can’t get an attendant. Is she in a remote area and unable to travel to high-risk OB appointments? Is she underinsured? Was she fired from every local practice? Or was she looking specifically for midwives who would tell her it was fine, and does every local midwife have the sense to hear “previous postpartum cardiomyopathy” and run screaming? If this woman continues on this course, she is going to die. Maybe not this pregnancy, but not far down the road.
Presumably she means that she couldn’t get a home birth attendant, as the local midwives quite reasonably refused to take a client with heart problems.
Though the OB might have fired her for noncompliance, also.
From the Elder Midwives group: “Gail to of my students were discussing this list at my last birth but of more concern a patient quoted a post of mine.”
I can certainly see why she would find this concerning – her client might decide to have a safer delivery, doing her out of some revenue.
Translation: Oh, no! They read what we post on the internet!
If you don’t want your clients to find something out, step one would be not to publicly announce it.
Covering up their mistakes and lack of knowledge would show a disturbing lack of empathy for their fellow womyn. Wouldn’t that put them in the same category as those evil OB/GYNs?
I had hospital-based CNMs for my last pregnancy, and when the shit hit the fan, they were totally unapologetic about moving me to the next level. It was the right thing to do. Responsible transfer is awesome.
Really, what a midwife should be saying to the lady on blood thinners is along the lines of “I am so sorry. I can see how much you want this, but there is no way to make it acceptably safe for you and your baby. Professional ethics forbid me from taking cases that involve this level of risk.” IF really moved, she might move on to ask if she can help the mom find appropriate labor support (like an MFM who is known to be good with patients who have various kinds of past traumas, a hospital with a blood bank and a caring staff, a doula who can work with her before and during labor in the hospital).
I completely agree! There has to be a better way of handling these things than posting about them in either an open or a closed/secret Facebook group.
My CNMs were awesome too, as were the OB/Gyns that I met even though I didn’t end up needing them.
Wait, they still haven’t realized they are on a public group? Lollollol
I worked at a coumadin clinic for a little while..The patients always had tons of bruises from bumping into things.. Blood thinners are not intended to make hyper clotters into ‘normal clotters’ (at least in every case I’ve seen, there might be exceptions). I’ve seen patients in the ER who were upgraded to trauma status because of being on blood thinning medications combined with an injury. I don’t know how midwives would manage an event that involves an expected bleed like child birth besides having a lot of extra blood on hand. This will end so poorly.
We got into the “normal clotting” issue way the heck down below, but the upshot is that no, we can’t make people into normal clotters by medicating them. In some cases, blood thinners are prescribed specifically to prevent normal clotting.
I agree that the midwife is totally unqualified and it will end badly.
Frightening. When a coagulated woman gives birth in my hospital, we have 2 units of packed red cells type and cross-matched ready to go.
Yep. And you call the hospital bloodbank as soon as she arrives in labor. And you’ve talked to the OBs about her case ahead of time. And you actively manage the 3rd stage. And you run through the PPH drill in your mind again and again remembering that even with an anticoagulated patient it starts with “Tone, Tone, Tone….”.
These fake midwives are such clowns.
Oh good Lord. This latest exchange from mothering.com defies belief:
(In reference to a discussion about the risks of unassisted home breech deliveries:
Poster 1: I was just thinking about this myself a little bit ago that this whole thing is nonsense because I don’t care what the “facts” are, I would do whatever I felt best for me and baby at the time.
Poster 2: Yeah, we totally need to take back our bodies, this has been going on for far too long. And arguing about the percentages just gives credibility to the notion that our bodies aren’t our own, doesn’t it? I mean, is it really about whether the risk is %5, 3 of 5%, 0.06%, or some other %? And one of those %s is the magical one where if we do it we’re – what – monsters? It’s no one’s business but our own what we do with our bodies. I refuse to play the numbers game… because it misses the point entirely, imo
Poster 1: I agree.
————-
http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1393534/please-explain-to-me-why/60
“Don’t confuse me with the facts!”
All risks are the same to someone who has no comprehension of probability (or percentage) and relies entirely on personal and anecdotal experience to make choices.
It’s as if she sees no connection whatsoever between “the facts” and what is actually best for her baby. These people are insane.
Oh no, you sucked me into that vortex of derp once already today. I’m not going back! Also, why is relative risk such a difficult concept?
I have to think that people who say things like that can’t fully grasp the reality of what words like “bad outcome” really mean here. Ambulance ride with a dead baby hanging out of your vagina. Of course by their logic thinking about it could make it happen. Best to stick your fingers in your ears and continue on your merry way!
Weird. Midwives make up enough “facts” that I don’t know why someone would decide they don’t matter.
At what point do numbers prompt them to do something? 50%? 90%?
Sort of reminds me of that old Barbie that said, “Math is hard!”
Yet the NCB fanatics don’t think women should be able to have elective c-sections or formula feed because of the “risks,” which are really quite minimal compared to homebirth, much less unassisted homebirth.
I like how the numbers game matters when “6% of babies born in ‘murica DIE IN HOSPITALS!!11!!” or “30% of women end up with c-sections!!!11!!”
When you think the numbers are on your side, they always matter. Even when they are wrong.
I would be mortified to find out that my health care provider told me that they were going to do some “research” on my condition and followed that up by posting a question in a FB group for a bunch of midwives (with equal experience in such a condition) and laypeople to speculate on instead of consulting with a highly trained medical professional who has actual, preferably extensive experience with such a thing. She could even attempt to track down the doctor who did the initial surgery and ask some questions.
She shouldn’t even be considering this case. She is well and truly out of her depth.
Not to mention the privacy concerns!
Holy MooguhlyOOguhly that second lady is plain fugnuts! Even by the breathtaking standards that Dr. Amy mines for so diligently! That 25 week lady might as well say she plays Russian roulette with two to four bullets, or has had a “Died in Childbirth” Head Stone on layaway for a few years. The sad sad thing is that the stroke may have further eroded her judgement. It’s like watching a battered woman refuse to press charges, or watching a twelve year-old huff gas…
“The practice of using the earth’s energy is called “earthing” and entails “grounding” a person to the earth much as an electrical current is grounded.”
te he! I wonder if she’s walking around wearing insulated shoes? If not she’s no more or less “grounded” then anybody else is.
I read further below..Funny what people believe. Any large metal item in a home is grounded and connected to an earthing point in your home electrical system. Touching a bath, sink, fridge, washing machine will also ‘earth’ you.
Tragically, she and her baby might end up more literally ”interred” if they don’t do something rational.
Dear lord….they have to look up medications to know what they are and do? Heprin could potentially turn her into a hemophiliac, right? It’s a blood thinner. I know my FIL takes it and will bleed forever if he happens to cut himself. F.F.S
And the rod in the sacrum! I was concerned enough about my oddly healed coccyx that I asked for advice, and I was delivering in a hospital.
I don’t even know what exactly the sacrum is, but that’s okay! I go to doctors to figure out those things.
It is the bone at the bottom of the spine that the two “wings” of the pelvis join onto.
The cute little dimples some people have just above their bums are the top of the sacrum.
If it has been broken and fixed with metal you will
1) have an unusually shaped pelvis that may not have normal dimensions.
2) have a very rigid pelvis that will not expand normally during childbirth.
Fun times!
No, no, apparently it’ll just require “a little more pushing.” :rolleyes
After all, according to Gloria Lemay, “Any baby can slide through any pelvis with a powerful uterus pistoning down on him/her.”
“Pistoning down on him/her”? And this is the “gentle” alternative compared to c-section? Um…
Is she confusing the uterus for an in-line engine?! I understand the denigrating joke about the uterus not being a clown car, but c’mon now, honey…
I think NCB rhetoric really plays on women’s insecurities and it is worrying. Especially that there are women with a good education who are doing homebirths.
I believe there is a connection with the amount of violence women experience (sexual and otherwise), and the level of self-hatred most women direct at their bodies. It is easy to get lured into the idea of healing a relationship with your body via natural childbirth (the “I can do anything” feeling people report). I know that’s what suckered me in.
I just don’t get that. As a survivor, it was far more empowering to opt out of the pain and lack of control involved in vaginal childbirth. The last thing I wanted to associate with my son was pain/physical harm in an area that has seen so much pain and physical harm. So I had a c-section and the moment of his birth is the happiest moment of my life. Really, I was so at peace, and he happily tells me that he came out of my “happy line” (his name for my c-section scar– kind of laughable of course, seeing that it has a bit of a double meaning!)… the other day he asked me if it hurt when he was born (he’s smart 3 YO) and I could honestly say, “Baby, it never hurt me! It was the happiest moment of my life and of course it didn’t hurt at all! Dr — and Dr — were there and we all were so happy to meet you! And I was so happy, I was the happiest I have ever ever been!”
This is so satisfying to me. My life has been hard. Childbirth was not hard. It was euphoric. It’s true that I may have had the same result with an epidural but I would have had a problem with the recovery had it been poor or with playing roulette on providers had I not been able to have my team. I wanted NOTHING to get in the way between meeting baby and me. No pain, fear, no conflict with providers who don’t understand PTSD, etc. The only way to make that happen was to schedule a highly controlled c-section first thing in the morning with a team that I knew well. I was able to have my family physician at the birth and my OB/GYN and they both are now watching my son grow up and I am grateful he can have that continuity. My therapist visited immediately after the birth and brought us a stuffed animal and so he has her, too– he knows that there is a team of people in his life that care, and have cared, since the moment he entered the world. I can tell my son he has known mama’s docs since the moment he was born because it was true, and he sees how much I care for them/am cared for. All in all, the entire thing was a good idea. I have very positive feelings about my c-section and anyone who tells me you cannot have a triumphant “healing” c-section can dance on my “happy line”. Ha. If others want to feel powerful by rolling the dice on a totally uncontrollable experience, then I don’t know what to say except I wish that more providers gave women information on c-sections after assault because they may find women prefer that.
All women should be given the information and empowered to make the choice for themselves. Those who choose cesarean should expect that choice to be as respected as those who choose planned VB.
How beautifully put! You should ask Dr. Amy to post this on Childbirth without Guilt.
Anyone interested in human rights I recommend you check out this petition.
http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/michel-sidibe-executive-director-at-un-aids-organisation-to-prevent-the-legalisation-of-prostitution-and-support-abolition?share_id=LPSdLcIDNN&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition
rebecca mott is inspirational. thanks for alerting me to the petition!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do9h7iCMtzM The Nordic Model on the sex/rape trade.
For a good commentary on the exploitation of sex workers, I recommend the video of American rock singer Pat Benatar’s song ‘Love Is A Battlefield’. Apart from the emotional catharsis of seeing Benatar throw a drink in her pimp’s face, you also get the infamous ‘titty shake’ at 3:21 in the video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGVZOLV9SPo
I always Liked Reba’s “Fancy” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zplc4Ienkws
Surprised no one posted this: http://youtu.be/6l96ckv_Jbg
I think this is probably the most resonate song, at least for me, on sex work. Maybe that’s just my own experiences, I don’t know.
What is the Nordic Model on sex trafficking?
Sex trafficking is a criminal industry that operates on the market principles of
supply and demand. Demand is created by the men who pay for commercial sex.
Traffickers, pimps and facilitators profit from this demand by supplying the women
and girls who are exploited every day in the commercial sex industry. Sex
trafficking does not just exist because its victims are vulnerable – it exists because
there is a demand for commercial sex that traffickers can exploit and profit from.
Thus, addressing the demand for commercial sex is a key component of any plan to
prevent sex trafficking.
Men who buy sex and provide the demand that fuels trafficking have stated that
greater criminal penalties, having to spend time in jail and having a letter sent home
stating that they were arrested for buying sex would deter them from buying sex.
http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/Nordic_Model_EN.pdf
What do you have against sex workers? Did you know that their vaginas have super-powers?
I don’t have anything against prostituted women. They are any oppressed class and I hope one day no woman will be prostituted. No one’s flesh exists to be consumed as a capitalist commodity. I am friends with many survivors of the sex trade who consider me an ally to the cause of sex trafficking survivors rights.
So you are opposed to the rights of women to receive money in exchange for providing sex?
Sex is not a commodity. This is an extremely high risk job and the legalization of sex trafficking has not improved the quality of life of women where they have tried it like Germany, Australia and the Netherlands. I am opposed to men’s pseudo right to human flesh.
Sex certainly can be a commodity or prostitution wouldn’t be the oldest profession. Women can want sex too. Women can like sex and want to have it for money. This anti-sex stand is one of my biggest beefs with radfem – and I minored in it
But since when is anti prostitution anti-sex? Prostitution is about women’s bodies being sold as a commodity and the argument that this hurts women and girls worldwide (despite there very certainly existing women who choose to be prostitutes) should not be conflated with being some anti-sex prude.
You’d have to prove to me that those who are willing are “hurt” by it. What could be the harm if a woman just enjoys having sex 5 times a day? What if that is just what gets her off so she might as well make money doing it? What about pornstars like Jenna Jameson? Is she harmed? She’s rich, but I don’t think she’s hurt.
You should read jenna jameson’s biography. Her career in the sex industry started after being gang raped as a teen and abandoned by family. She started stripping underaged to support herself. She does not recommend the sex industry to other women. She was absolutely forced into it by circumstance.
How does this differ from, say, a hotel maid? You think they choose their job because they love cleaning toilets so much? Or do they get forced into it by circumstance? For example, they need money for college….
Still, sex work is particularly dangerous. Sex workers are frequently injured or killed by their clients, for example. Hotel maids put up with a LOT, but very few of them are murdered on the job.
No, most of the sex workers on the planet are either slaves, or are in such economic desperation that they can only sell their bodies or starve. It’s not a good thing, although some very smart people disagree about the best way to improve the situation.
Are legal prostitutes frequently injured or killed?
No doubt, black market trade is risky, and I don’t deny that. Being a drug dealer is a lot riskier than being a pharmacist. But the question of economic desperation seems a red herring. There are a lot of things that people will do when they are desperate for money that they wouldn’t do otherwise. Seriously, all those people who work at McDonalds aren’t doing it because they like it. They need money.
Why can’ t they get a job as a hotel maid? I
have had zero money, zero food and zero electricity and I got help from the local social services. I didn’t sell myself. (This of course is only relevant to American prostitutes.)
*Edited to say, I guess what I mean is that you can’t say the only thing they could do was to become a prostitute. Not here in the states, and still we have many many sex workers. Now can they make $300 a night cash as a hotel maid? Nope, but if you are making $300 a night then you have to work a lot less to get yourself out of the pickle.
And the argument is that it is less dangerous if legal and regulated.
Teen runaways. Too young to get a straight job, no papers, etc.
OK so if they ran away from home then they could go to DSS and tell them about their abusive situation? Get into foster care? Go to a teacher? a Friend? A policeman? (Of course the “choice ” option I support only counts for consenting adults-clearly a child might not know about all these options. But again, I’m not support teen prostitution). Why are all these options not acceptable or available for the child? I can see how the child would “think ” they had no other options, but is this not an argument to have better resources available to teens in bad situations than an argument to end sex work among consenting adults?
If you have ever been arrested, you probably cannot get hired legally as a maid.
OK so maybe she was not a good example. I don’t know anything about her. There are examples of women who enjoy the work given above. However, given the ease of prostitution and sex work, I don’t know that there is anything to be done about willing sex work. How do you stop women or men from doing it? Make tougher laws? Make it a bigger crime for them to do it? I don’t think that is working now nor would it. Point is you can’t stop people from making this choice, and for many, no matter why, it is a choice. Lots of people who have drug problems and bad pasts don’t become prostitutes. We’d have a lot more prostitutes if everyone who was drug addicted, poor with a history of sexual abuse led to prostitution.
The answer of course is the treat the disease, poverty, drug abuse etc. No the symptom, prostitution.
I shouldn’t have said anti-sex – I didn’t want to dig myself in further and it doesn’t read right. But I was directly replying to …”men’s pseudo right to human flesh” with a defense that women desire “human flesh” themselves now and then.
With fava beans. And a nice Chianti. And a side of placenta tartare.
Sorry to bring my two cents… But have you ever heard of male prostitute? They do exhist, you know?
This whole thing making prostitution a thing about women is freakishly weird.
I live in a country where prostitution is banned.
It only made it worse.
You can commodify anything, that doesn’t make it right.
Prostitution is unique in that a young person with no experience is way more valued than someone older and well versed in the profession. That is because they are seen as a thing to be ‘used up’ instead of a professional who gains more experience with time. They get fucked and thrown away. They are forced to work in dangerous conditions that no other profession would tolerate.
That’s prohibition’s fault, not the sex work. That’s not entirely true. The sex workers I know are in their thirties and certainly not seen as used up. Believe it or not, men are human beings too and some don’t just want 20 somethings who know nothing about sex. Some prefer women who actually know what they are doing. And not all men who use sex workers are complete assholes. I don’t personally give a shit about the johns when I talk about this, but I don’t suppose that is fair. I’ve known men to use sex workers because they have lives that do not allow for relationships (camp work), they do not want a relationship, they have sexual dysfunction issues, etc. There’s a lot of reasons why a man may want to have a sex worker vs. a girlfriend or a lover or a wife, just as there are as many reasons a woman might want to work in sex work (such as the high rate of pay). I have seen all kinds of things in my life, from young girls coerced into sex work in group homes I lived in as a teen (with terrible results) to women supporting families on one income and choosing to work a few nights a week in the sex trade. And those women you’d never guess, I sure didn’t.
Ending sexual exploitation of girls is one thing. I was sexually exploited as a young girl, before the age of majority. Sex work between consenting adults is entirely different. A woman is not a girl. And johns are not all the same. And if sex work wasn’t illegal maybe women who were being abused could seek help without fear of losing their children, their homes, and putting their lives at risk from retaliation.
Ditto. Women Studies major here. Big beef. And like Lisa said, I can have sex with ten men a day if I want, but if I charge money for it, it’s criminal? WHY? Tell me why?
What about in Las Vegas? i honestly don’t know, I’ve never looked into it, but logic would point me in the direction that if people have a clean, safe and discrete place to do it, then they are less likely to go to a dirty, dangerous and public place..
It’s not legal in Las Vegas, just certain other places in Nevada.
Its legal in Las Vegas’s county (Clark), just not in city limits
hahahhaa. no.
Also, what exactly do you mean by commodity? Not snarkingnatural
And that is exactly what it is. Many people who argue against prostitution are leaving out the right (or what I believe is a right) of these women and men to do as they wish with their bodies….if we own our bodies then we may do as we wish with it.
Furthermore, it’s perfectly legal for me to sleep with 10 people a day (though I can assure you its physically impossible for me ) but I can’t accept money for it? Sex trafficking needs to stop, but I can’t tell a happy woman to quit her job. When you push too hard in one direction one often becomes a bit of an extremist. We can’t just end sex trafficking and forced sex work, we have to make sure that no one does it. We can’t just choose have a medicine free labor or to breastfeed, we have to make sure that hospitals are doing everything they can to make sure that hospitals offer less epidurals and never offer formula.
You should watch “very young girls”. THAT is what prostitution is about. The average age of entry into prostitution is 13.
I was coming here to add this. Very many sex workers enter into the trade as children and adolescents – they’re abused and runaways who are scooped up in train and bus stations or on the streets by hawk-eyed pimps who feign concern and offer help. These young ladies (but boys are hunted too) are hardly able to give consent and certainly not mature enough or physically strong enough to get out of the business. Combined with the threats of death or injury to themselves (and threats to their families) and actual abuse, how can you fault a child for not exercising the enormous courage to flee? And so they stay on…and on…and before you know it, it’s life.
I agree. Either we do or do not own our bodies. If women are being exploited doing sex work then that is a separate issue vs. women and men choosing to exchange money for a service. There is no real tangible difference between exchanging oral sex for money and cleaning someone’s house. Neither makes me an object nor is either particularly pleasant. Either way, you are using your time and your body. What’s the difference? If we start to make judgments we’re entering the realm of religion and moral judgments on what work is appropriate with one’s body, and I just don’t subscribe to this.
I don’t think it is fair to strip women of their bodily autonomy. All it does is leave the door open for the underground trade to flourish, where gangs and pimps and rape and so on can occur and women have no recourse. Women and men are going to exchange sex for services of some kind, sometimes. Either we criminalize it and it continues and women have no recourse when harmed, or we make it legal, and women can work openly, and we take one more step away from a puritan ethos where sex workers exist outside of society and are shamed. They do not exist outside of society and there is nothing different about the work they do with their bodies. I refuse to acknowledge that because a woman sells a service using her body that she becomes an object. It is impossible to turn a woman into an object. No matter what she is doing with her body, she is still a human being. So when we make judgments about criminalizing or “protecting” a woman in the sex trade we have to be careful, as feminists, that we are not ALSO objectifying her.
I don’t give a shit about the johns. If sex workers weren’t criminalized, and they were respected by society, johns would have a much harder time raping and killing them with impunity because the opportunities would be less. And our bodies are not crack cocaine– they are not objects– performing a sexual service STILL cannot make my body an object. Nor can the state: nothing can make my body an object, to be regulated and controlled. If I want to have bad sex for 200 dollars then so be it (talking hypothetically here) or if I want to pour coffee for 10/hrs, it’s my body. How the hell is that different than having sex for nothing? What changes? I get money instead of dinner and a movie?
There is nothing shameful about sex. If two consenting adults of the age of majority CHOOSE to exchange sex for money, then it’s not really anyone’s business. If a woman has been forced, coerced, or otherwise abused into it, it becomes a public safety issue and those who commit those crimes need to be punished. Nowhere there should a woman be punished, but they are.
THIS! You’ve put it perfectly.
No, its opposition to the ‘right’ of men to buy women. Its opposition to johns. You really need to examine the dynamics at work in prostitution- google the invisible men project. Its the reviews of prostitutes that punters put on the internet. Secret diary of a dublin callgirl also illustrates the problems that money brings into ‘choosing’ prostitution.
Some women actually do choose sex work
yeah like 1%. A bunch of white ladies with other options are poster children for the sex trade, which is disproportionately filled with poor people and people of color. People in any service industry are paid to pretend like they enjoy their job, its pretty hard to separate out who is telling the truth, considering.
Two survivors work I really recommend is Jacqueline S. Homan and Rebecca Mott.
http://godlessfeminist.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/jenna-jamesons-choice-seen-through-the-eyes-of-a-trafficking-victim/#comment-2442
http://rmott62.wordpress.com/
I recommend the writings of noted sex worker Xaviera Hollander, more commonly known as ‘The Happy Hooker’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xaviera_Hollander
The majority of women are coerced or forced into prostitution. I am aware of pro sex industry ‘sex workers’ like her. They are a tiny minority and do not represent the globally oppressed class of prostituted women. Most survivors are silenced by people who support people like her. They are just tokens of pimps who seek to make their violent industry look legit.
While this is true, of course there are exceptions to every rule. Sex workers in places where it is legal and thus regulated enjoy much greater protections, freedom from abusive Pimps and Johns, unions, better cleanliness and lesser rates of STDs and drug abuse.As long as its really a woman’s (or man’s) choice and they are not being forced into the lifestyle, I support legal prostitution.
*Edited to add the point I forgot, that if it were legal, people would likely go for the cleaner, safer, regulated type and I’d imagine the rates of illegal prostitution would go down.
Also C.O.Y.O.T.E, the sex workers union offers many services for women wanting to get out of prostitution and off of drugs.
The sex workers I know personally are doing it to support themselves and their children. They’re not addicts. They don’t like their job but they do it. For the most part, if you are working with an agency, it’s not as bad as it’s painted to be. Agencies insist on condoms, use drivers, have a suite, etc. They protect your identity and the cops seem to leave them alone. The one I am most familiar with and have had friends work for is run by women themselves and there are no men involved except as drivers/security. I’ve also known a professional dancer (who was a ballet teacher) who put herself through school doing erotic dancing on the side on short tours. I know quite a few women involved in the sex trade and you wouldn’t be able to pick them out. The two extremes (drug addicted and exploited on the street and sex-positive free-willed open sex worker) are not really representative of what I’ve seen in my real life. Like I said, mostly you wouldn’t be able to pick these women out in day to day life. And the women who are working in the sex trade who are not on the two extremes are not about to volunteer the information (due to prohibition) so getting a sample statistically would be difficult.
If it were legal, people who don’t want to abuse or rape prostitutes would go to legal places, and then pimps would exploit women to fill the illegal market for cruelty. Illegal prostitution hasn’t gone away in nevada or the netherlands, its just been easier to hide among the numerous legal prostitution operations.
ABSOLUTELY. Incest, rape, poverty, and addiction are recruiters for the sex industry. If you look at what a common prostituted woman goes through its pretty crazy to base policy off of women who have other options.
Have you read any Belle De Jour? AKA “Secret Diary of a London Call-Girl.
The trafficking and buying of human flesh should be criminalized while the prostituted should be decriminalized.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/should-prostitution-be-legal-lets-try-listening-to-the-real-experts-8829716.html
respectfully, what does this (and your last few posts) have to do with the topic of the blog post?
I just wanted to raise awareness because it is a public health issue and human rights issue I think more people should be aware of. There is also the problem of prostituted women in the US not having access to medical care. Maybe the blog author could do an awareness post on this. I am wondering if there are cases of prostituted women (who often have PTSD) being emotionally manipulated by lay midwives using scary terms like “birth rape” when these women have already gone through so much.
Not denying that it is, but this isn’t the forum for it. The people who comment here tend to be pretty well-educated, so I’m not sure 15 posts about prostitution are necessary to “educate” us. We come to this board to discuss the blog post. Occasionally, someone will post something off-topic, but relevant to the general NCB/natural health/pregnancy protocols, etc. theme. You’e getting spammy here.
I think people here are smart skeptics that is why I am posting it. I find the pro legalization is much more common in the mainstream media and a lot of people I talk to have never heard of it. Just like smart people are duped into supporting legalization there are smart women who are manipulated into having a home birth with a lay midwife. I will stop posting about it now and hope that it is appreciated by someone even if they aren’t a commenter.
Well it is illegal in most places now, and that i snot stopping it. Forced sex work can be hit a lot harder, but what about addicted who are simply doing it for money to buy drugs and have no pimp or anyone else forcing them to work, or the women who enjoy sex many times a day and love their job? I believe these cases will always exist
It seems a lot more like having a legitimate, legal option would prevent more damage (all of which boils down to you cannot be safe if you cannot call for help). Take away the black-market back-alley, or at least reduce it and have some level of protection for victims.
BTW same applies for male prostitutes.
And you too have a point. I seriously doubt any regular readers are unaware of this issue. Or anyone who has read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series.
I think you’re sort of on to something, in a sense that it has often appeared to me as though a disproportionate number of homebirthers are sexual assault survivors. I’ve definitely seen situations where this has been manipulated by the midwife.
happened to me. then when forced vaginal exams happened it became ‘standard practice’ in midwifery. None of them have any integrity.
That’s and interesting concept for a blog post and I am in agreement with you that forced sex work is appalling and needs to end. However its usually the rule here that we try to stay on topic as much as possible. You should e-mail Dr. Amy your idea and information. She uses guest writers sometimes too.
That’s an interesting hypothesis. Because I certainly felt that leaving my body in the hands of unknown doctors and nurses at the hospital was risky and a homebirth with a midwife less riskier, and at the very last minute, despite a scheduled c-section, I very nearly decided to UC (although I think I would’ve been forced to hospital once labour started because I would’ve panicked)… but the irony of all this was it was Penny Simkin’s book that made me decide to have a c-section and I am pretty sure that is not what she wanted when she wrote her book. LOL!
Any feminists on here I would really recommend this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpYegz1OqHA
Prostitution is a human rights violation of those who are prostituted.
http://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/12/06/dianne-post/prostitution-cannot-be-squared-human-rights-or-equality-women
What the men who buy prostituted women’s flesh really think of women:
http://the-invisible-men.tumblr.com/
It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.
What about men who buy prostitute men?
I would advise anyone who is interested in this sort of idiocy to check out this thread on mothering.com before it is inevitably closed/wiped clean: http://www.mothering.com/community/t/1393534/please-explain-to-me-why
I can’t get beyond the first few posts.
That is some nuclear grade stupid.
Like the woman who “knows” her breech baby would have been safely (!) born in the tub if she had UC’d, instead of that nasty emergency CS she got when her MW realised the baby was breech!!
If you can make it a little further you’ll find the fascinating claim that the rate of neonatal mortality in this country is… 6%!!!
Fortunately, that moron retracted the statement when it was pointed out that she was off by a few decimal places.
Just in case no one wants to wade through the burning stupid: The REAL sad fact is more than 6 percent of all babies die within 28 days in the US where 99 percent of births happen in hospitals. The chances of breech birth is 3 percent. The mortality rate of breech births delivered vaginally is somewhere between 1.5 and 5 percent. With a less than 1 percent chance that I am going to end up with a breech AND a dead baby, Bone hasnt convinced me of anything, and I would wager she hasnt convinced anyone else that had already made up their mind that UC.
(followed by)
Where are you getting the stat that 6% of babies born in hospital die within 28 days of birth in the US? Per the CDC, the perinatal mortality rate was 6.05 per thousand in 2011.
(followed by…more MATH IS HARD OMG)
Jesus wept.
Hey! She retracted her wrong math. Doesn’t mean she needs to retract the conclusion based on the wrong math.
That. Was. Awesome.
OP: so what’s the deal with UC? Can I get some info?
Most posters: I know my body. UC rocks. I’m educated!
Bone2Pick: yeah, there are some risks you should probably think about. BTW, not all medical professionals are evil.
Most posters: Bone, why are you posting scary information?? We’re not here to be educated!! We’re here for support. We know our bodies!
Bone: okay, just putting facts out there so you can’t say you didn’t know the risks should things go south.
Most posters: *sharpen pitchforks*
There. I saved everyone the headache of dealing with the “logic” of that thread.
Bone2pick:
“(Yes, I realize that there are lots of birth stories/videos/etc of women giving birth to breech babies on their own. The fact that something CAN be done without dire consequences does not mean that it ought to be done. I also know some college students who have managed to drink 21 shots on their birthday. The fact that they didn’t die doesn’t in any sense indicate that it was safe to do this.)”
I love this!
Thank you! (bows) And all I’ve had to do is give up a day of productivity in my real life to argue with these ninnies. I give it till the end of the day before I’m banned/the thread is closed/wiped. I’m right with Dr. Amy on this one– this would all be amusing if we weren’t talking about actual babies.
– Bone2pick
Indict, thank you. You have tried to insert rationality in that hub of whackos that is Mothering.
And you also made me laugh 😀
Keep it up, your responses are terrific.
You are Bone to Pick awesome!
Hey, I don’t need your stupid facts! My body tells me that I can fly this 747 and land safely, and that’s what really matters!
Wow. Just wow. what a thread and what determination to keep their heads in the sand. Love when they quote stats but at the end they are throwing out BTP’s incredibly patient argument with “numbers”…it can’t be understood with numbers…
If you are BTP bravo and you have more patience than I do. You could have saved a life, if not one of the posters perhaps a lurker.
I read the whole thread. Now I’m going to have to go sleep it off.
Long before I discovered this blog I once tried to argue with a bunch of UCers on BabyCenter.com. I remember talking about shoulder dystocia and pointing out that when it happens you have a very short window of time in which you can get the baby out before he/she dies. The posters all lol’ed and told me how stupid I was, because the cord is still attached so getting stuck doesn’t pose any risk to the baby at all! And 10 minutes earlier they were all claiming that you could educate yourself on how to safely deal with just about any childbirth complication. I just rolled my eyes and quit posting. I’m not a medical professional and even I get why shoulder dystocia is dangerous, but these women just make up whatever “facts” they need to make themselves feel good about their stupid decisions.
I have to say, though, the quality level between the Bone2Pick posts and pretty much everyone else was like switching between a piece of literature and a series of third grade essays. I don’t know how anyone coming there in search of “support” could fail to tell the difference between the educated person and the people pretending to be educated.
Oh dear – the torture of antenatal care: ”I hated all the standard procedures like the monthly, then biweekly and then weekly appointments.”
You know, I was just thinking about how maternal mortality in the developed world is so rare, you pretty much can’t do statistics on it. For example, you can’t compare hospitals on annual maternal mortality rates when most hospitals most years have zero maternal deaths! (That’s why they started tracking severe morbidity or “near-misses” instead.) Even at home birth, it’s really rare.
Ah, but luckily we have elder midwives working to change all that. Not satisfied with the intra-partum baby death rate, they really want to raise the maternal death rate to the point of statistical significance as well, don’t they?
Please God give these women some sense. Please let their husbands or sisters or someone drag them into a car and bring them to the hospital!
I think a slightly broader view of maternal mortality would be advisable. I often wonder how many mothers die as a result of pregnancy/childbirth but go uncounted as their deaths occur beyond the 6 week mark (ie. maternal suicides).
I think maternal mortality is deaths within a year of birth
Not in Canada: defined as follows:
Maternal mortality is defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy or within 42 days of the termination of the pregnancy. Deaths are included regardless of the duration and the site of the pregnancy (including ectopic pregnancies) and from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management. Deaths from accidental or incidental causes are not included in these figures [1]. The maternal mortality rate for any given country is considered a basic measurement of the country’s women’s health services, indicating access to health care services and quality of perinatal services [2]. Maternal mortality rates are typically measured by the maternal mortality ratio (MMR), which is the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The worldwide MMR in 2000 was around 400 [3]. In Canada, from 2002-2004, it was estimated at 5.8 [4]. The MMR for British Columbia from 2000 to 2006 was 7.8 [5].
Source: http://www.womenshealthdata.ca
Maybe they’re just trying to make the maternal mortality rate of White women (whom I assume are the most likely users of homebirth due to the financial ability to pay for it and what I just observe as the overwhelming Whiteness of the crunchy lifestyle) match the shamefully bad rate of maternal mortality among our women of color? PBS article on the subject: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/report-african-american-women-at-higher-risk-for-maternal-death-in-calif/
I’m wondering why there aren’t public service ads in this regard – it seems like everything else that poses even a modest risk to health and safety merits a PSA (ie. drunk driving, smoking, bicycle helmets) – why not pregnancy and childbirth and postpartum? Seriously, if the providers aren’t going to risk out, maybe women should know when to risk themselves out…
In a follow-up post, the midwife says the woman has had three previous inductions due to high blood pressure. So she’s going to recommend some herbs to help that.
Yikes.
Ouch! Hypertension (pre-eclampsia?) and high risk of bleeding. And clotting. Not a good combination. Not even slightly low risk.
Just for fun I googled hypertension and blood thinners. The University of Maryland Medical Centre mentions 4 herbs that may possibly treat hypertension. Achillea wilhelmsii (may interact with blood thinners), hibiscus (pregnant women should not take), Reishi mushroom (may increase the risk of bleeding), and garlic (may interact with blood thinners). God only knows what this midwife is going to recommend and whether the mother is going to mention taking said herbs to her PCP.
I hope this mw refuses the patient. And doesn’t recommend any herbs.
I hadn’t even gotten that far. I was just thinking about hypertension breaking little blood vessels in someone on heparin or lovenox. The results could be…bad. As in brain damage bad.
I was on Lovanox for 6 weeks post-partum. I still remember cutting myself in the kitchen (really minor) and being amazed at how long and how much the tiny cut bled. Those drugs are not a joke.
That is a really bad idea… I hope she ends of giving birth in a hospital instead.
Okay, so I looked closer at this ‘earthing’ thing and it’s basically walking around barefoot so you can get electrons from the Earth or some such foolishness. So it’s official; NCB people want womyn to be barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen (making kale smoothies). Progress!
Do they have to get the electrons from the kitchen floor, or does it have to be on the dirt? (’cause then they’d be barefoot and pregnant in the garden)
No, it doesn’t have to be the dirt. I quote: “How we do this? Walk barefoot on the earth. Take your shoes off at home
and let your feet touch the concrete floor. Eliminate rubber souled shoes and wear leather. Rubber is an insulator while leather conducts the earths current.”
Huh. So rubber insulates, but concrete doesn’t. Interesting. I guess concrete is made from mineral material and could count as “earth.” I wonder if wool would act as a conductor or silk. Maybe leaves too, wrapped around the feet. I’m surprised they allow shoes at all. I bet aluminum foil would be an insulator, but only on the feet…clearly these people are already wearing it on their heads.
Maybe they should just hold a lightning rod in a thunderstorm. That’s a great way to get a natural current running through your body.
And here when we were kids, we liked running around on the carpet giving each other shocks. Little did I know it was so good for us.
It is pretty funny some people think this way instead of just admitting they don’t know as much as a medical professional. But it won’t be if she or the baby is killed.
What if you are barefoot and pregnant while cooking outdoors? I did a bunch of that last summer, actually. Does that make me extra-earthy?
I didn’t realise that shoes have souls. Hooray for these enlightening websites
Is it just as good if I just listen to Rubber Soul a lot, or do I actually need to find the proper shoes, do you think?
For a second I misread your comment as “Do they have to get erections on the kitchen floor.” The sad thing is, it seemed like a completely believable thing the NCBers might be discussing. “If you get pregnant from sex on the kitchen floor, you must give birth there in order to properly bond with your baby! The mystical effects of giving birth right where the pregnancy occurred will mean your baby is more secure than any other baby ever. It’s the way nature intended it. Look at salmon!”
It’s actually radical feminists who spell woman with a y or o not hippies. We do this to reclaim language because it is has been created to express men’s reality more than woman’s and women are not simply an incomplete man. This is a patriarchal reversal.
If the result is women with no choice but to be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen, what does it matter how the word is spelled?
How is radical feminism resulting in women being barefoot in the kitchen?
Zonorph’s point is that NCB is revealing itself as essentially ANTI-feminist, by elevating reproduction above all other accomplishments of women, and by making reproduction less safe, less comfortable and less controllable.
Zonorph is sometimes sarcastic. On the internet, it can be hard to tell.
Oh okay I completely agree it is anti-feminist. Most feminists I have talked to online or protested with irl do support reproductive care because these grossly incompetent midwives certainly aren’t anything women should be subjected to.
Well, we’ve got women at least claiming to be radical feminists insisting that c-sections are the work of the patriarchy and that all women need to do is stay in the kitchen making a kale smoothy and “ground” herself by not wearing shoes. And that pregnancy is the most glorious state a woman can have. Also that she has “different ways of knowing” and shouldn’t bother her pretty little head about “patriarchal” science. How is this different from what the fundies want?
Well, I guess since it is women manipulating women then it isn’t patriarchal.
I parted ways with radical feminism when I was about your age because I got very uncomfortable with the gender essentialism. I’m still rather cynical about it.
I see you spelled it with an ‘a’ and and ‘e’. You representative of the patriarchy, you!
No I’m not. Women as a class are victims of patriarchy. They are simply making a point spelling it that way and I am well aware of the meaning behind it.
I see you lack a sense of humor. Reminds me of this joke:
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
A: That isn’t funny!!!
I don’t lack of sense of humor. Its just that with my beliefs I find different things funny. To most people making fun of dudes makes me hateful. Also posting a pic to make a point about language being constructed by men to suit their needs.
Uhm. Unsure about this.
Languages are not constructed. Languages are evolved, much like creatures are. The relationship between language and culture is complex, I agree. But to say that it had been ” constructed by men to suit their needs.” is like saying that “elephants evolved trunks to drink water”. Elephants didn’t set out to do no such thing. Men did not set out to construct languages for any reason at all. Languages belong to a culture, and are both molded by and reinforce the culture itself.
I read a great book about that guy. He cut off his own penis.
To be fair, you’re allowed to put more than just kale in the smoothies. Coconut oil, placenta shards, breast milk, greenwheat freekeh….
It should be “womben” because apparently that’s the only body part that matters…
I like walking around barefoot whenever possible. I also like cooking, and I have had several children. /start of snark/ Yikes! I didn’t know my walking around barefoot would have such an effect on my personality and reproductive choices! This “earthing” is serious stuff!
/end of snark/
I just can’t get over this woman being on blood thinners wanting to give birth at home with a moron of a birth attendant. My son is on Coumadin because he had a stroke at nine months. He has also taken Lovenox and Heprin while his doctors were oh so carefully trying to dissolve the blood clot that had formed in his heart. It is not something to mess around with. If my son gets a simple bloody nose we are in for a big mess. Scrapes and cuts take a longer time to deal with even when his IRN is in therapeutic range.
I just can’t wrap my head around wanting to throw caution to the wind and birth outside of a hospital when PPH is virtually guaranteed. If it was me I would actually schedule a csection so that I could control when the birth happened and insure that my numbers were as low as possible before the birth and that I was already in an OR if the bleeding was not controllable.
Agreed. I was put on ASA81mg during my last pregnancy and brushing my teeth was a mess!
When pressed on safety, MWs brag that they “risk out” patients who are inappropriate for home birth. I would LOVE to see a list of conditions/circumstances that warrant risking out for these ladies. Octuplets? Coma? Gunshot wounds? I truly can’t imagine.
Comas are natural and so are octuplets. Therefore, why risk them out?
LOL I misread that…. commas are natural…. does that tie into the language evolution vs intelligent dictionary design discussion earlier in the thread?
Ahahahah great!
PUNCTUATION IS A TOOL OF THE PATRIARCHY
I read a book once where a woman gave birth to the child of the anti-Christ…out of her rectum (she died). I’m sure this crew would have considered that a variation of normal, too.
Shadowbabies are also just a variation of normal. http://wicnet.tumblr.com/post/21632228845/kcvmh-the-night-is-dark-and-full-of-terrors
My husband’s mother was diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma about the time she found out she was pregnant with him. The CPM (the first in the state of Washington) didn’t think this was even a “variation of normal”, that is how stupid she was. She said it posed no risk to the baby, and that a home birth would still be fine.
That is scary. What did she end up doing?
A UC-although she intended to have the midwife there. When she called to let the midwife know she was in labor, the midwife said she would come after she was done at the party she was attending, since the midwife felt that labor would take awhile as long as mil tried to relax instead of walking like she did during her first labor.
My husband’s mother died when he was two, after pursuing a course of alternative treatment for her Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Oh that’s sad. Not the way to learn about alt-med..
My husband is skeptical about alt-med and anything that sounds too crunchy. He is ok with anything my doctor suggests (for example the iron supplement and folic acid). He isn’t a fan of homebirth because his siblings were born at home and while his step mother, the midwives and his father all believed that siblings should be present at the birth, he hated it and it scared him.
A condition that warrants risking out for these women:
unwillingness to pay the full fee up front; everything else is fair game.
So true but somehow I suspect that for some of these birth junkies the high risk birth is such a thrill and message to the man that it’s the one they will do as “charity”. I very much get the sense they get high off the riskier births.
Not only that, but then they get bragging rights and antipodal evidence – ‘Don’t believe that you can’t have a VBAC just because you have conjoined twins – I just delivered a set last year and everything was fine!’
A patient who asks too many intelligent questions, perhaps. That’s definitely high-risk.
That would mean they’re not trusting birth enough. Yet by the same token, they get called “sheeple”??
Clearly. Someone who asks questions, seeks multiple sources of information, and analyzes numbers is blindly following the dictates of scientism. Someone who ignores all external sources of information and goes on feelings, that’s a person who’s thinking for themselves!
I think Lorri Carr (Highland Midwife) makes clients sign a contract that states they (among other things) are going to eat healthy foods only, and that she can’t be held accountable for the outcomes in women who don’t.
Well, now there’s a witch hunt in their ranks for whoever “hacked” their public group so that you could read it. Comedy gold. This has been amusing me all day!
Hey, be fair. These folks are used to ignoring obvious signs like the “open group” one that’s still at the top right of the page.
Open is a variation of secure.
I don’t know, my doggie seems to try and cure any number of things by ‘earthing’. Just doesn’t make the neighbor happy when he does it in his garden.
I don’t know what are heparing and Coumadin. I gave birth twice, thought my friends how to BF and I don’t know most of the medical procedures and can not tell what is what… I am so qualified to be a lay midwife!
I can knit, so me, too!
oh dang it, I can not knit. I can not be a lay midwife now… how terrible!
It seems sad to me that some of these midwives spent more hours learning to knit than they did learning to assist women having babies.
Things it is OK to learn at home from YouTube videos: knitting.
Things it is not ok to learn at home from watching YouTube videos: midwifery.
But, knitting and midwifery are BASICALLY the same thing, right?
But can you knit with your vagina?
Heparin is an anti-clotting agent, coumadin is a blood thinner taken to help prevent blood clots (like for stroke.) I guess I am overqualified to be a lay midwife…too medwifey. Dang.
WTF????
What health care provider does not know heparin and Coumadin? Oh wait…
This was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever read.
Re “earthing”: when my patients are bleeding to death, I do like to have them grounded. It makes electro cautery do much more effective. I’m just going to pretend that’s what she meant so my head doesn’t explode.
I must admit, I had never heard of nattokinas or lumbrokinase before reading this. Lumbrokinase appears to be a fibrinogen depleting molecule being tested in China for use after acute stroke. It has no safety or efficacy data at all in PE or pregnancy, as far as I can tell. Nattokinase, apparently, also depletes fibrinogen. And she’s taking both of these in a completely unmonitored setting. She could have a fibrinogen level of virtually nothing and be at severe risk of bleeding. Not to mention the complete lack of data on teratogenic and mutogenic risk with these drugs. On the up side, she’s probably taking a prep marketed in the US as a “supplement”, meaning that it likely contains no actual active drug.
Let’s see…no safety or efficacy data, check. No monitoring, check. Severe risk…well, you know, “life” is risky. Sounds perfect. What could go wrong?? SMH
This is officially the scariest, most out of touch with reality material I’ve seen and I’m saying this having read NCB materials for at least 7 years. Wow.
This woman is going to die if she keeps having babies this way. She’s at high risk of both bleeding and clotting and of both venous and arterial thrombus. She probably has an antiphospholipid antibody, arguably the most dangerous of clotting issues. She needs to deliver in a hospital and then get a tubal ligation.
the goal of these meds is to make women who are hyperclotters into normal clotters
She’s kindasorta right here: That is the goal, more or less. Unfortunately, we’re nowhere near to it yet and people on anticoagulation should be considered at risk of BOTH clotting and bleeding. Especially with an underlying hypercoaguable state, which she clearly has. She should in no way be considered “normal risk” for hemostatic complications.
And seriously, what kind of health care provider has to look up heparin? I knew what heparin was when I was a lab tech, before even entering medical school.
On the hyperclotters vs. normal clotters issue – I developed a blood clot last year, after having a portacath placed. I wonder if the issue I had was similar to the one the first patient is having – problematic clotting developing after the surgical placement of a foreign body.
In those cases, the goal is not to produce a normal clotting response, it’s to avoid one. I was on heparin for a few weeks, and then had to go off because I developed a huge hematoma around the port after a chemo session.
You’re right. There are two basic reasons to use anticoagulants. First, in the setting of an acute thrombus, to prevent extension of the clot and promote clot breakdown. In short, to disable your clotting cascade in a controlled manner so that your body has a chance to clear the thrombus.
However, many people are on long term anticoagulation for hypercoaguable states (including, I’m afraid, cancers). In those cases, there is no clot to dissolve, but there is a higher risk of recurrent thrombus. We’d dearly love to be able to simply take away the excess risk of clot in this group without increasing the risk of bleeding (i.e. make them “normal clotters”). However, as you know all too well, we don’t have that drug: to decrease risk of clot is to increase the risk of bleed.
Do you mind if I ask how you’re doing? I hope the cancer is gone!
I hope the cancer is gone too! I had a CAT scan last week, and get the results tomorrow. The suspense is less then it would be because they promised they would call right away if anything alarming showed up.
Hope you get good news! 🙂
My first thought was DIC… And then I thought about the horror and abject sense of doom the paramedics would feel, arriving to a scene drenched in blood.
Longtime listener, first time poster here….WTF…I am just horrified. HORRIFIED at 99% of the comments on the Elderwives FB page. And the woman who is doing UC despite stroke and cardiomyopathy….WTF…
Welcome to the site.
At least the woman with the stroke has the excuse that part of her brain actually doesn’t function properly…
I was actually wondering, in all seriousness, how much of this faulty reasoning could be put down to that.
Just one horror story too many to keep silent? Welcome!
That’s pretty terrifying …. first semester nursing student, and I’ve already learned enough that with those meds and that history, I would advise against home birth if someone asked me. “Elder midwife”? How long has she been practicing? Is she licensed?
I never studied biology beyond high school and even I can tell this is a terrible idea. Of course, I also believe that science is real.
HILARIOUS. I’m dying laughing…haha wtf. I’m going to have a PE but that’s okay, I’ll EARTH the clot away…
And we can “send reiki” to you-all that long distance energy will “cure” your PE : )
Wow…so the first one sounds like a risk for baby unable to get out because of the pelvis issue, as well as huge PPH risk for mother because of the drugs she is on? Is that right? Not only is the midwife remiss in her duties but it seems the woman’s doctors are not explaining things very well to her, if she doesn’t understand what kind of situation she is in well enough to think homebirthing is a good idea. I guess she might just be really ideological, but still….
A woman this wacky is not likely to even have a doctor anywhere in the vicinity.
Here’s what this “elder midwife” (me) says: this is a perfect example of why the US needs (1) Federal regulation of midwives, with (2) explicit regulations regarding what sort of patients can be cared for by them. ANYONE transgresses the regulations loses her/his license to practice midwifery, or if practicing without one, is prosecuted and jailed just as an unlicensed “physician” is.
In the UK, for example, one of the regulations was that a woman who had ANY medical or obstetric problem inthe current or previous pregnancies was NOT a suitable candidate for a midwife. Full stop.
But I do agree that this situation sounds a lot like a spoof, it’s so extreme.
But where is she getting the Lovenox and Heparin from? I meant that doctor should be explaining why she is on those drugs and the implications of taking them and what the means for pregnancy and delivery.
Yeah they don’t just hand out those things to anyone. Lovenox needs to be made up special and only lasts a week and has to be refrigerated. The amount of special handling involved means there had to be a doctor closely involved.
Is she actually on lovenox, though? The midwife said she was but she talks about taking these ‘natural” products to control her clotting so she may not be taking real drug any more.
No, that was someone else responding to the midwife. It appears the patient is still on lovenox until wk 36 when she gets heparin, but some other lunatic responded and said she takes natural stuff and “earths” herself, so no biggie if the midwife’s lovenox/heparin patient bleeds to death or something like that. 🙂
Ah. Misunderstood that bit. It’s a different patient who is earthing and using fibrinogen inhibitors. You’re right, someone must be prescribing the lovenox.
The good thing about heparin (and the reason it’s used after 36 weeks) is that it goes away quickly so that if it is stopped at the beginning of labor it will likely not still be on board by the time of delivery, unless there is an unusually rapid labor. Of course, if there is or if there is placental separation, etc then things can get bad quick. This risk can be ameliorated by having the patient in the hospital, typed and crossed, with a large bore IV already in so that blood can be given quickly if needed. If she’s at home, “five minutes from the hospital”, things are likely to get…bad…if anything goes wrong.
Also, she’s still got a risk of thrombosis. VTE kills a fair number of women in pregnancy, labor, and postpartum. (The highest risk is actually the first 6 weeks after delivery.)
Which is worse…the chance of a long obstructed labour at home WITHOUT heparin on board, or the chance of a long, obstructed labour at home WITH heparin on board…
Bleeding to death from a third degree tear and PPH, or getting a big PE from not mobilising during labour and lying in bed for 2 weeks while your tear (repaired with seaweed) heals…both are quite possible outcomes.
It’s like a particularly bad game of “Would you rather…”
Say it with me: THIS IS NOT A GOOD HOMEBIRTH CANDIDATE.
THE ONLY ETHICAL OPTION FOR A MIDWIFE IS TO TELL THE MOTHER THAT SHE IS TOO HIGH RISK AND LET HER CHOOSE BETWEEN UC OR HOSPITAL.
Which is worse…the chance of a long obstructed labour at home WITHOUT heparin on board, or the chance of a long, obstructed labour at home WITH heparin on board…
Damned if I know. They both sound like disasters waiting to happen to me. PE and hemorrhage are both still major killers of women in the peripartum period. Not a good candidate for a home birth and if the midwife in question values her own reputation, much less the patient’s survival, she’ll tell the patient this outright. Maybe if she hears it often enough she’ll eventually believe it.
There’s no way federal regulation of midwives is going to happen. Not in this political climate.
To add, making midwife a protected class of job titles. Like dietitian – quacks have to call themselves nutritionists. Let the quackwives find their own name.
But babies are squishy, they can mold through any pelvis, no matter how big either. Then chew on some placenta whilst receiving cinnamon blows of breath from your midwife.