Oh, the irony!
Its motto is: Don’t Freak. Know the Facts.
You might think, therefore, that Jen Kamel’s website and Facebook page VBACFacts is committed to bringing you all the facts about vaginal birth after Cesarean (VBAC) so that you can make an informed decision. You would be wrong. Kamel is actually committed to bringing you all the facts about VBAC except the most important one; VBAC can and does kill babies and mothers.
The withholding of facts about the dangers of VBAC is intentional. How can we be sure of Kamel’s motivation? Simple, her destruction of evidence is an indication of consciousness of guilt.
Consider Kamel’s quick move to delete the fact that members of adjunct Facebook community have a very high rate of deadly uterine ruptures.
According to Wikipedia:
The spoliation of evidence is the intentional or negligent withholding, hiding, altering, or destroying of evidence …
The theory of the spoliation inference is that when a party destroys evidence, it may be reasonable to infer that the party had “consciousness of guilt” or other motivation to avoid the evidence. Therefore, the factfinder may conclude that the evidence would have been unfavorable to the spoliator.
Yesterday I wrote about that a poll of members of the VBACFacts community revealed a rate of uterine rupture 70% higher than the typically quoted rate. In keeping with the general cluelessness of VBAC activists, community members were actually congratulating each other on their “great” outcomes.
On the VBACFacts Facebook page, they were asked to comment on my post. There were any number of possible responses including acknowledgement of the hideous rupture rate, apologies that the significance was not recognized sooner, disputation of the meaning of the rupture rate, questions about the statistical validity of the poll, etc.
But Kamel and other members of the community offered none of those responses. Instead, Kamel deleted the question making her consciousness of guilt inescapable. Kamel did not dispute my post because she couldn’t. She did not deny the numbers because she couldn’t. She did not argue that the results weren’t hideous because she couldn’t.
She also did not discuss the results and what they mean for women contemplating VBAC. She did not alert the community to the high rate of deadly outcomes that their own survey revealed. In legal terms, she spoliated the evidence, because she recognized that it was unfavorable to her agenda of promoting VBAC and discrediting anyone who disputes the deadly risk of VBAC.
Jen Kamel KNOWS that her own website demonstrates that VBAC is deadly far more often than she acknowledges. She KNOWS that if women were informed of the real dangers of VBAC, they would be far less likely to attempt one. She KNOWS, but she doesn’t want her readers to know the facts, only the facts that she, in her infinite wisdom, believes should be revealed.
And that’s the primary difference between Jen Kamel (and other birth bloggers) and myself. I believe in the intelligence of my readers, not just those who agree with me, but also those who disagree. I believe that they are fully capable of reading and understanding ALL the evidence and drawing valid conclusions. I believe that when given ALL the facts about VBAC, women will make be able to make a truly informed decision. I don’t care what decision they make, just that they make it armed with all the relevant information.
In contrast, Kamel and other birth bloggers believe in the gullibility of their readers. They believe that withholding key facts is somehow ethical, or justified by the agenda of promoting VBAC. They don’t want women to make informed decisions; they want women to make decisions that reinforce and validate the decisions that the bloggers themselves have already made. They are invested in women attempting VBAC in nearly every case, and they will hide the relevant information to ensure that women make the “right” choice, NOT the informed choice.
Those who prefer to reject my claims out of hand have to ask themselves an important question: Do you want to get your facts from someone who respects your intelligence like I do, or do you want to get your “facts” from someone who assumes you are a gullible, easily manipulated fool?
It’s your choice. Think carefully before you answer; your baby’s life may depend on it.
You know you guys got me thinking. I remember when I first joined the group I had stated to a women who was planning a home birth; that my midwife had said a home VBAC is terribly dangerous. I further went on to say that our first priority should be the safety of our babies. I was referenced to the “tone” of the group and said that we support all births and mothers informed decisions. I remember being annoyed, but knew I didn’t know much about home births.
I’m not allowed to say home birth is unsafe , which was my opinion. Why can they tell people to have unassisted home VBACs. I am very disturbed by this and glad that I just found out I was deleted from the group because I was about to remove myself. SMH! UNASSISTED HOME VBAC! Why would you encourage a mother to ever ever ever do that! I’m appalled and truly disgusted! No birthing experience is worth that risk! SMH, SMH!
“UNASSISTED HOME VBAC! Why would you encourage a mother to ever ever ever do that!”
There are screen shots (in this comments feed I believe) of an admin for VBAC”Facts” doing just that.
That’s what I’m referring too. I just saw it a few minutes ago. I couldn’t believe my eyes!
As I understand, Griffin’s mother was a part of this group as well. She undoubtedly received “support” when she complained about her evil OB denying her VBAC. Her baby would be one of those URs VBAC”Facts” mentioned. They mention that there were 2-5 URs but leave out the circumstances of those. Yes, UR is a risk of VBAC but if they all occurred in the hospital to VBACs (i.e. not multiple Cs, or at home births) and all the mothers and babies survived, then maybe that’s an OK risk to take. But women should know not only the % of URs but that they are much more likely to have absolutely deadly consequences if they are at VBA2Cs and above or at home.
VBAC”Facts” doesn’t actually want to provide those crucial “facts” for their members because they have an agenda – the promotion of VBAC – that supercedes facts and safety.
Agreed! That’s why I decided for a VBAC. My provider told me that while a uterine rupture can happen the risk of death with so minimal because we were one skip away from the OR. That’s why I said even if uterine ruptures were 10% I would consider it as long as the infant mortality wars highly unlikely. My provider said that infant death from ruptures are generally from mothers who are not birthing in a hospital with immediate access to an OR.
And ultimately, that is the entire point of this blog. Dr. Amy supports maternal autonomy – women are free to make whatever choices they want. But they should have the right information. When they stumble into groups like VBAC”Facts” however and are fed a fairy tale of NCB, VBAC at all costs and how horrible every doctor everywhere is they make a decision thinking they are “informed” when they’re absolutely not. And large numbers of babies die 100% preventable deaths. I’ve had 2 homebirths. I refuse to do so ever again because I actually KNOW the risks I was taking. I didn’t know before. We’re NOT 100% anti-homebirth, anti-VBAC, anti-much of anything except lying and manipulating to promote a dangerous, non-fact-based agenda.
Stick around. I think there’s more here you’d agree with than you may originally have thought. I know that was true for me. 🙂
I am beginning to think maybe so. Shocking what an open-mind can do. Complete 180 for me! Sad really, I know I already said this, but NO birth experience is worth those kinds of risks.
What a breath of fresh air you are. 🙂
Ha ha! Thanks! I am very very open-minded. While I often think I’m right. I do know how to listen. Can’t ignore good points and facts.
As much as I hate your tone, Dr. Amy. Thanks for shedding some light. Very very dangerous consequences if mothers listen to that advice.
Dr. Amy wrote a post awhile back about why she takes the time she does. She said she’s tried to be “nice” in the past but that no one wants to read nice. Her tone gets readers. She’s really very caring.
http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/02/oooh-dr-amy-is-meen.html
All these sites have an agenda. I think that is why they exist, tjey feed an emotional need and desire and the use sci-babble and percentage signs to back it up. Homebirth is on the rise. My MIL just predicted to me that people are going to think it’s weird to give birth in a hospital in the future.
I have an opposite prediction. I think advances in surgery and neonatal care will cause vaginal birth to be passe. Why take a risk at all when your baby can have the best start in life?
Restricting access to hospital birth is restricting access to pain relief. That is inhumane and I certainly hope that doesn’t happen. Sadly some men in high places are spouting off in this direction.
Unfortunately I think it’s going to take a large number of visible (personally or famous folks) bad outcomes (dead mothers and babies) to decrease. The fact is, people react more to negative information than positive. I think that’s the only way for folks that stumble into the woo like myself or Heidi (it seems, from your posts) to see the light. The diehards (haha, not) will keep at it, but folks that just watched the BoBB and thought it looked nice will need to see some dead babies first.
Heidi, his was the poster and Bethany came in AFTER this poster said these things.
Bethany is an admin of that group and replied after the OP said what she said. She was not looking to hear other alternatives. And lucky she did not as she had an uterine rupture. Can you imagine how awful and how it could have ended in her baby’s death and/or hers had she been at home?
I know Bethany is an admin! That’s why I am so freaking mad right now!
Wow, just realized you had more screenshots. The mother wasn’t even asking about this!!! Wowsers! Just glad I’m deleted already because I’m a mad hornet!
A mother not even asking about something other than assisted birth in the hospital is, sadly, nothing new around here. It’ll be a while before I forget what Liz Paparella wrote: she was a member of MDC, maybe disenchanted with hospitals but with no intention to steer away from them. After she spent some time in the supporting all choices environment on MDC, she had a homebirth that went great. Then, she had another one. Her daughter didn’t make it.
Her midwife was charged 500 dollars for her inadequate care and mismanagement of the birth.
🙁
What does that mean? I have to admit I am particularly terrible with emoticons. The fact that my Discus doesn’t even display them is no help either.
It is a sad face.
I was censored too when I joined too. I spoke out when someone was mentioning a home birth to a VBAC mom. “Tone” was also referenced.
They have removed everyone from the group and making major changes. Why? Because they are wrong and know this. This is a win and hopefully babies and/or mothers have been saved in this process.
You should be appalled and disgusted as I am. Jen is no expert and her group is dangerous, she is in it to make money. They support dangerous and risky decisions of mothers and that has resulted poorly for babies and members in the group.
I’m beginning to see your point. It will be interesting to read Doula Dani’s stuff tonight. I am so appalled. I seriously enjoyed the support and conversation of the group because that is what I thought it was. A place for mom’s to go to discuss how they felt. I can’t believe they were advising women of something like that. Oh my god! Oh my god!!!!
Thank you. That’s all. 🙂
Heidi,
Being deleted was one of the first major red flags for me. I had experienced and read some troubling things about home birth by that point and my head was spinning with questions/concerns…. and then when I asked a question on a blog about one of my concerns, I was deleted…… and then banned.
That’s when I really realized I something was very, very wrong. It wasn’t that the outspoken home birth advocates were unknowingly passing around false information…… it was that they were/are intentionally misleading.
It’s really, really messed up and unethical.
Wow! Seriously. I guess that’s why I quickly got shut down for saying home births were unsafe.
Can’t wait to read your stuff tonight.
Enjoy it! I practically read her whole blog in one sitting. I loved it so much! It was refreshing to read something that was so straight forward and caring about the realities of birth.
Should of listened to my sister. She warned me about some support groups. She said they just tell you what you want to hear.
I don’t sit by this group and read everything that happens. I have a life. So I clearly missed what you guys keep referring too. Who is baby Griffin and Doula Dani?
As to Amy, not all women are looking for validation (I’m sure some are), but many women just want to talk to other women about their experience in a safe, private way. Many people (my mom being one of them) didn’t understand why I wanted a VBAC. It’s nice to have support with another mother who gets it and doesn’t just say “well at least you have a healthy baby”. Oh the things I could compare that comment too. Yes, I have a healthy baby that is why I choose the c-section because my goal was a healthy baby. It doesn’t mean you don’t feel you missed out on something and want to talk to other people with similar feelings.
To the person that said my OB didn’t lie. Yes, both my OB’s lied. When you tell a women her only option is a repeat c-section, that is a lie. Once confronted they sited hospital policies. Fine, but they should of said that upfront. My next OB and all her criteria that was not hospital policy (because once I transferred my care she said oh you didn’t have to be NPO, etc). She also kept trying to change my due date because I didn’t want to schedule a RCS at 39 weeks. She agreed to go to 41 then constantly pressured me into changing my due date. Yet I had date of conception and my 1st trimester ultrasound
That confirmed it was an accurate due date. The fact is you just need to get educated from a group of sources. You can’t sit back and just listen to one OB’s opinion or one groups opinion. Knowledge is powerful! I was armed and I made an informed decision about my birth.
How do you know it was an informed decision? How do you know it wasn’t an ignorant decision?
Because I did my research; anything I could get my hands on. I mainly went with ACOG and found a provider that supported their recommendations. In the end I was at an amazing big city hospital with experienced staff. I had a severe PPH and my decision to switch to a skilled hospital very well is what saved my life. I am alive and my son is too. I would say I made a very informed decision with very positive outcomes. Ignorant would be ignoring facts. I did not. I had continuous monitoring, IVF, etc. whatever my team deemed necessary I did for my TOLAC. When it failed, I immediately agreed with their decision and consented to a repeat c-section. So healthy mommy and healthy baby, that’s what it’s all about it my book! So ya, I was informed!
Being informed enough to know your options is great. You looked at ACOG and found a good doc, this was smart!
The dispute isn’t with this. Is with the idea of VBAC “facts” being the place to learn these things. That site is full of bad info, lies, and encourages really dangerous stuff.
Well if in fact this group is recommending unassisted home births I am unaware and SERIOUSLY would not agree with that practice. I utilize the group as support. Any suggestions that are offered, I researched to make sure they are accurate or discussed with my provider. Scary to think a woman would rely solely on a Facebook group to make their decisions.
However, I will say while in the Air Force I was a great candidate for a VBAC, suddenly I separate from the service and find myself in a battle to TOLAC. It’s a shame really. But glad I found a great providers who went with ACOG recommendations and said I was an excellent candidate for VBAC. Shame that women should have to fight so hard when for “a good candidate” VBAC is a safe option.
It’s very true. An admin of the group said this in a post to a woman asking about ways to naturally induce. The woman stated she wasn’t looking for a homebirth as it wasn’t an option, then Bethany comes and says to look into ping unassisted (mind you this woman was 39.5 weeks pregnant).
The lady was very lucky she didn’t listened as she ruptured a week later, thankfully she was in the hospital and her and her baby are healthy today.
Does anyone have a screenshot of this?
Yes.
Oh boy! That’s not good.
It was presumably at a different hospital, right?
Assuming so, it’s not surprising. Different hospitals will have different capabilities in this regard, and, consequently, different policies.
Very true. It was extremely hard to find a hospital that went with ACOG recommendations. So glad I did though because of my PPH. I was at a top hospital in the country. My husband said I saved my own life by making sure I was at the best hospital. I just had a bad feeling if that makes any sense. My first option was my small town hospital which likely would not have been able to deal with the magnitude of my very severe PPH. They very well may have, but still glad in my choice.
The ACOG recommendations are that women should be offered VBACS if the hospital has adequate resources to do it safely, as defined by very specific criteria.
Are you saying that there are hospitals that have adequate resources to do it safely but are not? I’ve not heard about that all that much. Most of the time when we hear complaints about hospitals not doing VBACS, it is because they don’t have adequate resources to do them safely.
Yes, the first provider and hospital did not inform me of my options, but could not provide VBAC’s. Understandable, but tell me my options. The second was supposedly VBAC friendly, but the provider was anything but. Insisting on changing my due date (when I had date of conception and 1st term ultrasound confirmation), stating I must have an epidural, could not be induced, wanted section at 39 weeks, but agreed to finally got to 41, but then insisted I change my due date, required me to be NPO. Once I confronted her with my transfer and ACOG recommendations she quickly changed her tune and said you don’t have to be NPO and you don’t have to have an epidural, etc. So long story short at 36 weeks I had to find another provider. A awesome team of midwives and OB’s. They didn’t try to give me scare tactics like my other provider (forgot to mention that: lots and lots of how I would have to go under general anesthesia if I refused an epidural to TOLAC, etc). My new providers gave me the facts, the risk and told me that a TOLAC was the safest choice based on MY history. They also told me the OR was next door and she would have my baby out in less than 5 minutes if we needed too. It was truly a much better experience. I felt I could TRUST their expertise. In the end safe momma and safe baby! 🙂
Have you seen the research that came out today showing how much more likely women and babies are to be seriously harmed in military hospitals? I am not sure you should use that as your benchmark for reasonable care.
Don’t get me started on military hospitals! I had a very bad experience with a miscarriage and D&C that well ended with my baby coming out whole later that night followed by bleeding for 3 months and my OB did nothing. I said I need an ultrasound, he didn’t even put me in as top priority. In the weeks I was waiting for my ultrasound. The placenta came out! Yes, over 3 months later. I could of died. What did they take from the D&C you ask, not the baby and placenta!
What I meant was the choice to VBAC. But extremely glad we separated before my son delivered. My PPH would not have gone well there. My husband and I talk about that a lot.
Yeah… Super scary!! One woman had contractions every 3-4 minutes but wasn’t dilated enough. They told her to go home but bc her second kid came after 90 minutes labor, she stayed in the hospital and went back up a couple hours later. They ONLY THEN looked at her chart and realized she was GBS positive. They have her the antibiotics but the baby came 42 minutes later and you need the antibiotics at least an hour before baby is born. He was infected and ended up profoundly deaf because the only medicine that works on the baby can cause deafness. The doctor and nurse admitted they hadn’t read her chart before telling her to leave. They are still practicing with no restrictions and nothing bad happened to them.
Griffin is a precious baby boy that did not have to die. His mother had a uterine rupture while in labor at home. Beth, his mother, is a RN and even when several OB’s did not support her and denied the VBAC because it was REALLY risky she did it anyways at home. Her baby died after the rupture. This was 110% preventable.
And she laid on the floor bleeding internally. After the transfer to the hospital the doctors worked on Griffin for quite a while trying to save him even though he was already gone.
http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/04/you-martyred-your-son-for-your-birth-experience-was-it-worth-it.html
That is so sad. There are no words. I contemplated a home birth after meeting much resistance for a VBAC. I personally felt the risk did not outweigh the benefit. While many mom’s have successful home births. That was not a chance I was willing to take. So I can’t argue with you guys on this one. My sons safety was my 1st priority!
I replied to you about Doula Dani in the other replies but here it is again and how Jen Kamel deletes posts and replies, see for yourself.
http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/04/jen-kamel-if-you-cant-acknowledge-when-you-are-mistaken-you-arent-doing-science.html
Thanks!
I’m Doula Dani. I’m assuming you heard about me through the comments here because Jen Kamel deletes any time my name or blog is brought up.
I asked Jen to participate in a Q&A for a post I was writing. She said yes then backed out later. I wrote a piece about VBACs and HBACs. I had the piece reviewed for accuracy by a VBAC-friendly OB/GYN and a statistics professor. (linked below)
Jen clearly hated my piece. I shared it with her afterwards, since she was originally going to be a part of the piece (in the Q&A at the end). She tore it apart. I took all of her suggestions into account – I even took down my post at one point because of her insistence – and made some changes based on her suggestions. But obviously she hated that the piece was up. So she wrote a blog post about it. Instead of critiquing the actual piece I wrote, she took our private conversation and blasted it for all to see. She did NOT ask for permission before sharing our PRIVATE conversation. Clearly, not a person of integrity. I would NEVER refer anyone to her because she is obviously not a trustworthy person. I could not believe it. She was clearly trying to hurt my reputation and damage my credibility by blasting our private conversation… not only that but she tried extra hard to make me look bad by adding in her nasty little after thoughts and snide comments. Awful. And so hurtful.
Why didn’t she go after the actual piece that I wrote? Because she didn’t want anyone to read it. My piece is accurate — I had the piece reviewed by two ACTUAL experts because I wanted to make sure it was accurate. She didn’t want anyone to see VBAC/HBAC presented in any other way than the way SHE thinks it should be presented. And because the truth about HBAC is that it’s dangerous and women deserve to know it is — but Jen chose HBAC, when she had the option to VBAC in her hospital — and perhaps reading about how dangerous her choice was made her feel bad. I don’t know.
Jen isn’t an expert. She *thinks* she is. She wrote it in a message to me that she doesn’t think she is “THE” expert (in the private messages that she shared with the public)…. but obviously thinks she’s an expert none-the-less. She thinks she is as much of an expert on VBAC as a cardiologist is an expert on cardiology (her words written on her blog). Except for the fact that she has only ever read about VBACs…. does not have any formal education on the matter, does not have any clinical experience, is not a professional or expert anything. Has she ever even attended a VBAC other than her own? She is a lay person who has convinced everyone that she is a VBAC expert. Meanwhile, she wants VBAC presented a certain way and CLEARLY wants to hide/minimize risks involved with HBAC.
Here are some links you might want to read….
Here, Dr. Amy wrote about what Jen did (her piece she wrote about her private conversation) and how she deleted everything to try and CYA:
http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/04/jen-kamel-if-you-cant-acknowledge-when-you-are-mistaken-you-arent-doing-science.html
Here is my piece that wrote about VBAC/HBAC:
http://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/2014/04/mana-study-part-4-vaginal-birth-after.html
Here is a follow-up piece I wrote to address the sample size and other HBAC risks:
http://whatifsandfears.blogspot.com/2014/05/hbac.html
Lots of material. I will sit down later when I can get on my laptop.
Thank you Heidi for being open and not close minded.
Doula Dani was very hurt but Jen and what she publicly did.
Dani is an amazing woman who provides accurate information and speaks out about the dangers of home birth. The real true facts that Jen “VBAC” Kamel doesn’t want us to know.
I joined her group after my VBAC’s and I saw some support within the group but Jen hardly replies and if it is it’s always the same thing (copy and pasted). She has her admins post replies and support Home births after Cesareans and/or in assigned births.
Highly dangerous.
I’m no fool, I won’t ignore information. I am always open-minded. I love to debate and learn things I may not have been aware of.
I think this article might reach more people if the “tone” wasn’t so cruel.
Standby. I will read this all tonight.
I think you’ll enjoy Doula Dani’s tone.
Heidi, you’re welcome to join this VBAC support group on Facebook, as well. https://www.facebook.com/groups/289408731231663/
Thanks!
Someone should again point out her hypocrisy. She just deleted everyone from her page bc someone shared “private” posts, but it was perfectly acceptable for her to share your private emails.
This is a slightly different topic than the ones dr. Amy just wrote about… Maybe she’d do another on her hypocrisy in this situation?
I wrote on her Facebook page about that…. she deleted it, of course. And then banned me.
Well, Heidi, I have a life, too, but I took time this morning to write what I thought were some very kind and sympathetic things to you which I genuinely meant; I’m sorry that wasn’t enough to keep you from insulting me by implying I’m a loser with nothing to do but sit around here hitting refresh.
If your first OB told you that your only option was a repeat c-section, and it turned out that was indeed the case because of hospital policy, how was that a lie?
Once again, I am very sorry you didn’t have the experience you wanted, and I honestly do understand that feeling, but there’s no need to be rude to all of us because of it.
I was referring to reading everything that is posted on VBAC Facts. Because I knew some people would mock me for not knowing what goes on in the group. It was in no means an attack against you! I think you were very kind with your words. I meant that I don’t sit and read every post every day in VBAC facts. As in their are 100’s a day. So sorry if you took my comment as directed towards you or anyone in this group. I am far from mean . I just knew someone would say “guess you don’t know what goes on in your group”.
As for the OB he didn’t tell me I could go to another hospital until I confronted him with ACOG recommendations. He then gave me a list of VBAC friendly hospitals in my area and transferred my care. He should of said we don’t offer VBAC’s here and allowed me to have an informed choice.
Again, your comments to me last night were appreciated. 🙂
Yes, he should have said “I can’t do that here”.
Wrong again, Heidi. I, the “some people” who you “knew would mock” you “for not knowing what goes on in the group”, am not mocking you for not knowing it.
Am I mocking you, though? No. I am merely showing you the wrongness of your assumption that Jen provides information. I think going here and reading a screenshot of a question that asked Jen for information and got deleted in reply and then saying that Jen deleted it because it wasn’t “informative” should have warned you but no. You SAW Jen deleted it and went tone trolling and praising her for providing information. It was just a little test to see whether you really knew what you knew.
Guess what? Jen failed the test. VBAC Facts failed the test. You go there for information, leave convinced that you had RECEIVED information and then it turns out you have no idea what she has deleted.
Informative? Jen Kamel? Ha!
I just go their for support from other mom’s that feel like I do. I certainly don’t make my decision about my child and my safety from a Facebook group. Trust me!
Good to know. There are others who did, though. There were mothers who went to Jen’s blog to ask questions they should ask their doctors, not someone who was never one. Jen always made a point to mention that she wasn’t qualified to make assessment and then she made assessment. She provided “information” supported with links by her very own blog, the same one she posted her new stuff on.
I don’t think you came here for information, either, yet you accuse Dr Amy of not being informative. Why don’t you want to hold Jen to the same standards?
Well, I apologize for misunderstanding you, then. Your comment kind of shocked me, because I’d thought we’d had a nice little conversation and you seemed like a nice person, so that’s partly why I reacted the way I did.
Thanks too for the explanation re your OB. I don’t think I’d classify it as a lie, but he should have given you more information, absolutely.
I’m glad you’re sticking around to chat some more. 🙂
Yes, we did have a lovely conversation. Honestly, you and a few others are the only reason I’m staying around to listen. The grammar correctors and the people that just toss insults (like I’m some hippy jungle bunny for wanting a VBAC) just push me away.
Yes, perhaps not a lie. But my 2nd OB did misrepresent hospital policies to how she felt VBAC’s should be. But with anything, you have your good and your bad. Being informed helps you weed out the bad.
Jungle bunny? Really???
Ya, someone said something along those lines to me last night.
Someone here used the term “jungle bunny” in reference to you? Where?
You do know that jungle bunny is a racial slur right?
Maybe instead of “lying” he/she was simply wrong or mistaken? Or she/he wasn’t very good at communicating hospital policy. See if you joined a real support group they would put these thoughts into context for you instead of instantly validating them.
No because when I brought up ACOG he immediately referred me to other hospitals that provide VBAC’s. My thought is he didn’t want to lose business by immediately referring me. My friend found out when I posted it on FB, she was told the same thing and literally thought she had no other options, but a repeat c-section.
Seen another way, it would have been unprofessional for your OB to kick you out of his practice – he was telling you that if you stayed with him, you would need a repeat c. Once he was clear that you wanted a VBAC he referred you to a proper provider and hospital. I’m failing to see the problem here? As soon as you made clear what you wanted, he referred you.
If I did not know about VBAC’s which I learned from my OB while I was still in the Air Force then had to switch my care. I would have not known to ask. He said “once a c-section always a c-section”. As I stated my friend did not realize she had options from the same group. She relied solely on her provider. He should have not said it that way.
Alright, I’ll bite. What ACOG recommendations did you discuss with your doctor to convince him that he and his hospital should allow you to VBAC.
I have a life too. That’s why this blog is important. Until you’ve been reading it awhile and seen all the screenshots you don’t realize how heavily edited and skewed many of the pro-homebirth and vbac websites are. Unless you sat on those threads every day you would never realize how many stories of women and babies with dangerous and hurtful experiences of homebirth are deleted and banned.
I encourage you to read through all the posts here and the comments. It takes time but when you add it together it’s a very eye opening view into homebirth, the people who promote it, and it’s dangers and rewards.
I was not aware of this. So sad!
It’s very sad and that’s why people tend to get the eyeroll when they come here and say that people need to be educated or informed. After reading this blog my reaction is “How?”
When negative posts on pro-homebirth boards are deleted, when people are urged to distrust their doctors and lie to them, when people are given numbers without context (only 1% of HBAC’s will end in UR, without telling them that the chance of their baby dying in that scenario at home is multiple times that of being in the hospital), when most people don’t know that it’s tougher to get a license to cut hair than to deliver babies or that homebirth midwives carry no malpractice insurance informed consent is impossible.
When it comes to a patient’s safety any real doctor is going to err on the side of caution. Period. Hospital policies exist to avoid risks, deaths, and the ensuing lawsuits. If there’s a question of your health then the doctor is going to do whatever they think is better for you. It’s possible you didn’t need one, but if there were other indicators it’s possible that they were simply covering their bases to ensure that mother and baby were healthy.
So you deleted my commet. It was under a different name. Anyway you really need you atop your witch hunt you are how old? You are not a doctor. The reason why so many c c section happen is due to the doctor being lazy. I had my right take away from me to have my daughter. Every woman knows the risk of a vbac and so do the doctor.
They work together to do it. You and your Fed up with natural birth group is just about ridiculous. To make the short and sweet get a life. Get off Facebook, baby center, Twitter, and everything else and actually take care of your child(ren)!!!
1. I doubt very much that she deleted your comment. Screen caps? Disqus can be wonky. Look again
2. Stay home next time, even if your uterus ruptures, if you hate doctors so much and they’re so horribly “lazy”.
3. Her children are adults.
4. We need more squares on this bingo board.
“I had my right take away from me to have my daughter.”
Your right to die in childbirth and kill your baby in the process?
Did you not consent to a c-section?
Was there a court order that ordered it to be performed without your consent?
Were you kidnapped and held against your will and sliced open and did you call the police if that is what happened?
Did a bunch of ebil doctors and nurses get drunk after their weekend golf session and lazily operate on a woman who was having a perfectly normal labour without any problems?
I’m confused, please do clarify.
So I don’t go to homebirth support groups and post. So why waste your energy coming here and accuse us of not looking after our kids (actually mine is having fun at a day camp right now, the other is gestating in my belly). Look in the mirror my dear. If you want a vbac fine, but I’d recommend following guidelines like cfm and bring in a welk-equipped hospital.
The more I learn about risk and csections I know why doctors do them, it’s not a lazy, they want the best outcome. Labouring for days hoping the baby will descend is not good for mother or baby, that’s why often after 24-36 hours they’ll move to a csection.
Take care of my kids? You mean the one asleep in the crib next to me? Or the one who’s at her fathers right now? I take care of my kids very very well thank you very much and for you to question us as parents is beyond the pale. I’m sorry I don’t need to have my baby literally on me the entire time.
Secondly: You do realize that natural vaginal birth is actually less work for the doctor than a C-section right? In the second stage of labor all the doctor has to do for vaginal birth is mitigate anything that can go wrong. There’s a lot more to a C-section.
Thirdly: Just because Dr. Amy quit practicing to raise her kids, which should be something for you Mommy Wars types to praise, doesn’t mean she is an idiot and forgot everything she learned in medical school, residency and practice.
Finally: We don’t harass homebirth groups, why should you harass us especially considering we have several loss and birth injury mothers who post here on a regular basis. They hate seeing people cover up the deaths of their children, and telling them not to post about that death or injury is standard practice within these communities. But hey we’re just a bunch of know nothing Mothers, Fathers, Doctors, Nurses, Midwives, Doulas, and scientists.
The reason why so many c-sections happen is because doctors are lazy? FFS. What right did you have taken away, exactly?
Every woman does NOT know the risks of VBAC, because sites like ICAN and VBACFacts deliberately hide them in order to serve their agendas.
And my two beautiful daughters–who were both delivered by c-section, btw, thanks to my lazy old doctor who got up in the middle of the night for my first delivery and took excellent care of my for years and has pictures of my babies and the hundreds of others he delivered on the walls of his office, the jerk–are doing very well, thank you, and are well taken care of by me, their stay-home mother.
(BTW, yes, your comment is very likely still here; Disqus is weird and awful, and often hides replies even in a thread where other replies are shown.)
http://www.skepticalob.com/2012/11/natural-childbirth-advocates-would-rather-be-validated-than-be-correct.html
Soooo are you guys okay with VBACs or not? Regardless of VBACFacts, the tone seems to be that mothers who VBAC are okay with possibly havng a baby. Maybe it’s the mocking, sarcastic (believe it not, that can pollute and distort your point) Dr. Amy and those solidly in her corner take. Deady Baby seems a favorite phrase and yes it seems there is pleasure or glee with news baby dying because it allows for another opportunity to strike.
I finding the overall tone her similiar to the Alpha Parent and her minions. They mock and talk down to and about women who formula feed and potray them as lazy, ignorant, and risking their children lives and future health because they are lazy patents and there is no possible reason for FFding. They wear their bfding horrors like badges of honor.
Seems like here if you don’t want a csection or sign up for a csection and are damn happy about it because your baby could be dead, your ignorant and would rather have a dead baby. People act like signing up for a csection or repeat csection and how wonderful gives some sort of elevated status. Like bragging even. I mean when I expressed childbirth is a milestone in a woman’s life and dare it should be a good experience I got the, “we’ll children in Africa are starving” response. No one in the world should be starving but that doesn’t mean people should want to eat rotten food and should LOVE IT!
And then I thought this was about getting real information out there, then when someone challenged Amy on the rupture statistic she calculated no one barely addressed that issue. It turned into attacks on the person that had nothing to with the statical discrepancy she felt the need to address. People came out the gate calling her a troll. A troll isnt a person who is legitimately challenging information And I applaud that person for staying on task and solid on their feet. JinLou I think her screen name was. Reading through that was kind of an Epiphany.
This is an echo chamber too. I’ve been following thia blog for 2 years now, mainly because I was attempting a VBAC with my son. And I agree with a lot of it. But over that time I’ve seen more echoing. I think the attitude and tone and highschool mean girl mentality, the flippant and dismissive attitudes towards women who may want their births to be peaceful and enjoyable(and I jave yet seen a woman say her body was “broken” because she didn’t get to light candles) is part of the reason why “NCBers” will always have a large pool of women for the pickings.
I know people may not get it here but tone and language do color a discussion. I assumed the goal of this blog was stop women from engaging in behavior that risk the lives of their children by their birth choices for whatever reasons. And yes being “meeeen” does nothing to advance that.
There are lots of “nice” blogs about the dangers of home birth. A lot of them are in Dr. Amy’s blog roll. You’ve probably never heard of any of them. Why? Nice doesn’t get traffic.
There’s no ‘real information’. There’s information, full stop. If you want information more than anything else you will disregard everything else, meeeeeeen tone included.
But it’s not ‘real information’ unless it’s presented in a ‘supportive’ way, eh?
Taking your questions in turn:
VBAC – there are plenty of women on this site who have VBAC’ed, and plenty who have had RCS. Nobody is against VBAC, as long as the mother is fully informed and has proper medical care (ie in a hospital) and follows her doctor’s advice about whether she is a good candidate. That said, I do think many posters on here probably think that a 1% risk of rupture is very high.
C-section – nobody here is in favor of c-sections just because; they just don’t think they should be demonized and believe that choosing a c-section is within a mother’s reproductive rights.
The VBAC stats issue – not sure where you are going here. There was a fairly full discussion about the stats offered.
The “tone” issue – Dr. Amy is in one sense a polemicist. This is a well-known rhetorical tactic designed to bring attention to an issue. It’s particularly effective and important when you’re going against the tide and trying to counter a majority narrative, which NCB has become (on the internet, at least.) One can ask whether or not polemicism is the way to convince individuals to change their ideas (it’s probably not), but it is certainly a way to change The Dialogue and insert a counter-narrative.
But that is partially my point. I couldn’t decipher from the VBACFacts (aside from the rupture statical question) discussion if Dr. Amy and many commentors stance on VBACs in general. Were all vbac attemps crazy mothers risking their babies? Was it just the hbac or ubac moms? Is it a viable option for women, is it not? And that confusion was due to tone and language. Now if I was firmly seated on one side of the fence I would probably be able to see clearer, but I am rightly confused on what the overall stance is. This could be a deficiency on my part, but I am sure there are people that are lurking and browsing but can’t accept the information because the tone in the original blog and commentary overpowers the information or causes confusion.
Is there an app for this blog? My phone down not like the web version
Because that wasn’t the question at hand.
Why would you expect to hear that? We weren’t talking about VBACS in general, so no one talked about it.
But she wants us to take a stand so she can complain about it.
Well that’s that.
couldn’t decipher what the stance was.
Why do you need to know what our stance is on VBAC? I have absolutely no opinion on what you choose to do. Every woman faced with a decision to VBAC or not weighs up their own personal circumstances and presumably if she’s got good information available and some proper resources she’s got the ability to work out what’s best for her.
What is horrifying is if people are a) getting poor information from others or b) sourcing attention from others so they can say they pulled off a stuntbirth by having their VBAC while bungy jumping, for example.
Did you read all of the comments, though? There were a lot of them, so it’s understandable if you didn’t, but quite a few of us–myself included–stated more than once in some of those discussions that we absolutely think VBAC is great if a woman wants to do it and if her doctors have said she’s a good candidate and it’s done in a hospital with proper supervision.
But that was only said in those comments in response to people asking us, because as El Bofa de La Sofa said, that wasn’t the direct subject at hand. So we wouldn’t have all been posting, “Hey, if a woman wants to try VBAC and gets the okay, she should!” because we were discussing VBACFacts’s numbers and their tendency to hide facts or comments they don’t like.
If the topic had been, “Should anyone try VBAC?” I think the vast majority of us would have replied with “Yes, provided the above stipulations are met.”
I don’t care how women give birth, really. I do care about them being lied to about the safety of those births, and I care about those lies being spread by laypeople who think there’s only one right or good way to give birth, and I care about those lies becoming so mainstream that women who do not want to VBAC or want a c-section or epidural or pain meds or whatever no longer have the option or are denied those options by so-called caregivers who let their ideals come before their responsibility to their patients (we’ve seen many stories here of women denied sections or pain meds by doctors or nurses who think “natural is best,” so it really is a problem).
As for tone…Dr. Amy is very direct, yes. Personally I like it, as I’m not a beat-around-the-bush type of girl myself. I can see how others might not, though I urge them to look past it. But the commenters here are, in my experience, very kind and caring people, and the only times I’ve seen any of them “go after” someone is when that someone jumps in to name-call or insult or accuse first. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a new commenter here ask a genuine question in a polite way and be yelled at.
We like math here.
A low-risk woman, screened by her doctor, delivering in a hospital, is taking a reasonable chance when she attempts a TOLAC. A woman doing UBAC or HBAC is probably not being reasonable.
We still support her right to HBAC, with informed consent, but we don’t support the right if uneducated, uninsured birth hobbyists (lay midwives and CPMs) tfo get paid to attend HBACs.
I support every woman having the right to choose how and where she will have her baby. I don’t support any woman who chooses to have a homebirth in claiming and trying to persuade other women that homebirth is choosing the safest way/place to deliver her baby. Unless the nearby hospital is a legitimate bombing target in a war zone, or it has over 30% percent rate of serious infections following a C-section due to shortage of medical materials and equipment, that is not true.
Me, too.
I also support the right of others to criticize that woman if she makes a decision that puts her baby and/or herself at risk.
I have to disagree… Some of us are ok with CS “just because”. And that’s because there is never a “just because”. Women who want CS all have their own reason. And I think that’s fine. If a doctor is willing to do a CS and the mother wants one, I think that’s a choice that should be allowed. I was terrified of labor and a vaginal birth, so my reaons were mental. And I think that’s a valid reason.
Every now and then I do wonder if this is an echo chamber, except there’s a few differences:
1. Posts don’t get often deleted.
2. Primary sources are provided to read for yourself.
3. Regular posters do sometimes disagree with Dr Amy and there is rarely a ban on any poster.
4. I actually don’t use Dr Amy as a main source of medical advice. If there is something here that interests me further I take it and discuss with my actual doctors in real life.
So yes, a lot of people here are in general agreement about some of these issues, but I don’t think it is an echo chamber as such.
Why do you believe it to be an echo chamber?
There are two ways to staunch discussion. Either deletion of the offensive post or complete annihilation the offending poster. It’s like when the body recognizes something that isnt suppose to be there. It either ejects it or the white blood cells goes on the attack and sets out for complete destruction inorder to shut down the offender. On comments and forums this is done through destroying the person legitimacy in the discussion. That is what I saw happening with that JinLou responder. I was actually surprised by it. She was accused of being okay with dead babies, a shill for VBACfacts, etc. My suggestion that childbirth should be a good experience seem to make people’s head explode or something. But the women in Africaaaaa!
I get that when lives are at stake and people are passionate about something this could be the result. But I think when you have that mother that might be on the cusp of making a decision that can tip them from one side or the other, numbers and saying “dead baby” over and over isn’t the way to go. They are wanting to take these risk for a reason and are vulnerable to certain messaging and tone. I think a lot of people who negatively commenting here are doing it because they “want” the information subconsciously but need to push back a bit. And they might rant and say Dr. Amy is meeeen but there is an opportunity there that needs to be looked at, not a threat.
Do you mean J_In_the_Lou below? She was asking Dr Amy to be accurate about VBACFacts inaccurate data and then tried to tell us it was just a “pulse check” and not to be relied upon. It sounded like she was trying to minimise and deflect the issue to my ears (and I suspect to the many others that replied to her).
In all honesty I think the vulnerable ones aren’t the ones posting here but the ones that are reading and trying to make sense of things. I’m happy to give people that post to argue the benefit of the doubt most of the time but also I’m not going to tread softly on someone’s ego when they are wrong.
“I think a lot of people who negatively commenting here are doing it because they “want” the information subconsciously but need to push back a bit”
I do think that sometimes too, but I’ve also had a few circular arguments with some rather dense people on here. I hope you are right and this is the majority and they’re not all reflexive “yippee I’m all HBA4C, cunts” or whatever..
Mine, too.
As I asked, how many of these so conscientious, thoughtful posters were dismissing those data as “just a pulse check” and not worth anything before Amy pointed out the problems with it? None, of course.
That’s completely dishonest. You can’t just dismiss the bad stuff with “oh, it doesn’t mean anything” while at the same time selling the apparently good things.
I am very against VBACFacts and brought a lot of their information to light because it was dangerous.
I have successfully had one VBAC at 42 weeks and attempted another at 41 weeks and 1 day, it ended in an emergency c-section about 8 hours later due to heart decelerations that’s never came back up.
We are not against VBAC as long as mom is a good candidate.
I want to add that when I first found this blog I was appalled at the language and tone but then is found myself seeing a lot of posts in my natural type groups and why Dr. Amy says what she does. She’s up against a lot of crazy and blinded women that can see no other way.
I applaud Dr. Amy for having the courage to post what she does and take on these bloggers. They are insane and need to be seen for who they really are and how dangerous they are.
I totally get that. And I think she does a great job of showing fight for the babies that have no say. Just wondering if the way the information is presented in a quest to fight the crazy does more harm than good. I mean if I came on here after my first I would have felt like a piece of trash. I actually found it a little hurtful when people were comparing a deep mental struggle with “Hey, I need glasses. I dont go around crying about how my eyes are broken”.
Even with VBACFacts numbers. I never took it to be a concrete statistical analysis, more like a roll of members. But as a neutral body this seemed more like a interpersoanl attack than a presentation to the masses to refute incorrect information. Dani Doula seems to do this well.
I mean this is just my opinion. I dont normally need to go after people or use their poor judgment and resulting misfortune to attack them, I just wonser what the true purpose behind this blog and it’s supporters is. Is it to stop women from riaking their baby’s lives or ridiculing them when they do amd suffer the consquences
I wont be able to respond anymore. for a bit. My cursor is going bezerk and jumping around. I can’t esit anything and it is taking forever to type anything put.
Doula Dani did do it well, and very nicely. And that didn’t stop the pitchforks and torches from coming out after her. I concluded from that, that tone doesn’t matter. If you are trying to shine a light on the truth about NCB dogma, you will be called every name in the book.
I meant attempting VBAC okay with the possibility of “a dead baby”. Typing on my phone.
But they’re not “ok with a dead baby”. Not really. They might say they are while simultaneously denying the risks and the scientific literature. Their cognitive dissonance makes real informed consent impossible.
And even then, no doctor can be compelled to go along with it and they should have no expectation that the world will be all flowers and unicorns about their decisions. Supporting your RIGHT to HBAC and risk your babys life does not preclude saying that’s a STUPID thing to do.
I’m not sure what you are asking. Are you asking whether I think that VBAC mothers are fine with a dead baby? In a sense, yes: if you are willing to take an increased risk of a dead baby against your doctor’s advice, that means you are more fine with a dead baby than I am.
So in your opinion mothers who VBAC are okay with the possibility of a dead baby? Or is it if they are doing it against Drs advice? Because that is a significantly different context.
Yes, based on what I understand about VBACs, mothers who chose VBAC have an increased risk tolerance than I do for risk of uterine rupture and harm to the baby. But that is a very personal choice based on my lack of negative experiences with c-sections and lack of desire for a large family. If I had experienced a very difficult c-section recovery or wanted to have more babies, then the risk calculation might be different.
It’s all about the assessment of risks and benefits. And yes, when you VBAC, you area assuming an increased risk of complications for the baby.
Clearly they are willing to accept a dead baby. I’m sure that’s not what they aspire to, but HBAC’s are risky so to attempt one means you must be okay with having a possible UR and a possible dead baby.
I have said repeatedly, and so have many other commenters, that for most women with a history of c-section, VBAC is a perfectly fine plan.
I do have problems with:
1) Encouraging HBAC. That is too risky. If you are bound and determined to do it, I support your legal right to do so, but I really hope you don’t try it.
2) The idea that all women can VBAC. There are a substantial number who should not attempt it due to individual medical circumstances.
3) The idea that all women should VBAC, which I am hearing in your comment. Some, especially those who only want two children altogether and/or who have a low probability of success, may prefer to just schedule the RCS, and that’s a valid choice which should be supported.
Just going to leave this here for the VBACfacts parachuters. Make sure to read the commentary under the video. Home Birth – Not Buried Twice campaign: http://youtu.be/CRhkZKUNyMY
SUPPORT does NOT mean going along with, being positive about, or approving of, DEADLY IDEAS, let alone helping someone plan them!
Do you all not understand the difference between actual support and an echo chamber? Do you know what a support group is supposed to be like? What real support even IS???
Well, its obvious you do not, or you would not think it’s OK to go around approving of all manner of dangerous ideas.
Here are examples that might help you understand what support truly looks like. I’m not being snarky. You deserve better than what you are calling support.
There are SUPPORT groups for those that have been having a hard time with mental health issues. People gather together in order to SUPPORT one and other in this tough time, and also to provide practical info, and share stories.
When someone says “I went off my lifesaving meds, because I don’t like the side effects”
SUPPORT is NOT replying: “Well, I think going off your meds is beautiful! it’s just so lovely and freeing! I would love to do it but am not brave enough, but Good for you,”
SUPPORT IS replying “I really do understand, but cutting those meds off can mean a drop into psychosis requiring hospitalization! Maybe you could ask your doc about a different med, or changing your dose? I did this and it helped.”
When someone says “I am thinking of killing myself, I just cannot bear to live, my struggles have ground me down to nothing.”
SUPPORT is NOT saying “Suicide, that’s your choice. I can get you a list of good places to jump, or maybe the number to a few good gun shops that you can afford!”
SUPPORT IS replying “I have felt this way too, and even tried suicide by taking pills. let’s find a way to work through this, ending your life is forever and I don’t want to see that happen.”
When someone says “I have been cutting again, it really relieves the tension, and helps my anxiety.”
SUPPORT is NOT saying “Cutting is a personal choice, you do what YOU want with your body! I would love to cut, I think it’s really great! I can help you choose a razor or knife, and we can do it together!”
SUPORT IS replying: “I know cutting may be helping, but this is not a healthy way to solve those problems.”
Many things can be said, and shared, and that is fine. Personal experiences do not have to be safe or pretty, opinions are just opinions, I get that. But,
**when someone is talking about something dangerous, you have a responsibility to SAY SOMETHING**. If you sit there and echo back what they say, approve of it, or even help facilitate/plan it, you are HURTING NOT HELPING. Calling this accepting-of-anything “support” is doing a major disservice to everyone involved.
I can’t like this enough.
Well said.
Thank you. Well said.
Beautifully said!
Indeed. Why isn’t the group called VBAC Support? Having facts in the name sort of implies factual information.
Where is the Australian court when you need it?
Indeed! I was reminded of Meryl Dorey and her Inappropriately named ( anti vax) AVN group, now forced to change names to reflect its true nature. VBAC “facts” is also a misleading misnomer .
Ah, you got what I had in mind. Not terribly hard, indeed. The same misnomer.
‘Factual’ and VBAC ‘facts’ while being supportive of a HBA4C attempt? Lol.
Oh, there’s a group titled “VBAC Support” over on Babycenter. It’s VBACFacts 2.0 — just another echo chamber. Women encouraged to “fudge” their LMPs by five days or more to skew their due dates, GD moms encouraged to refuse induction or RCS until 42 weeks or later, etc. etc. The latter resulted in at least one known fetal death that’s been discussed here before. That group is in no way supportive, and if you post there, you’d better toe the party line.
Oh, yeah, that group is all kinds of awful. Didn’t one of the admins have a UBAC in Alaska or something? Or am I confusing her with the Cafemom VBAC group?
I think so. I know one of them PMed a VBAC mom looking for a traveling homebirth midwife in Alaska this week, so that makes sense. Not sure about the Cafemom group; the BBC group turned me off so much that I haven’t looked at any others!
Actually, VBAC Facts was much, much better than the VBAC support group I was also a part of. I don’t even recognize it in the descriptions here. While there were some people advocating what I thought were unsafe ideas, when I would point out the dangers or bring up evidence Jen would ALWAYS defend me.I don’t always agree with Jen’s stance on the evidence, but she really is honestly trying very hard to be fair and is far, far safer than the VBAC support groups I’ve seen.
As usual, the supporters of this nonsense cannot even be bothered to refute the facts shown. They come here and make nasty comments about Dr Amy, about the blog, or wax on about how great VBAC facts is, even though this shows what deceptive idiots they are.
Congrats NCBers! You show your ignorance yet again.
Well let’s just all opt for c-sections then shall we! They are so much fun and safer!
She deleted the post because Amy’s language is offensive in her blog. It is far from informative! Funny you say she deletes evidence, a link to her blog is on the group as we speak. That’s how I found out about it!
Heidi, please quote the offensive language in the post in question: http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/06/vbacfacts-boasts-about-its-hideous-rupture-rates.html
Mocking tone, yes. But frankly the most offensive language related to this post was contributed in the the comments section by someone who I assume is one of your members while boasting of planning a HBA4C.
It was the other post about the group.
Heidi “It was the other post”
I note that you neither quoted the passages nor linked to the post. Would you please specify your exact complaint?
On my iphone, kind of difficult. It was how it was written, mocking time. Then the way she discussed dead babies and how mother’s don’t care. Of course mothers don’t want their babies dead.
Of course they don’t want their babies to die, and yet some seem bent on making incredibly risky choices and wanting other people to cheer them on about it. Take a read of yesterday’s post’s comments and see the HBA4C commenter that had come over from VBACFacts.
When Dr Amy talks of dead babies and mothers not taking that into account – why is it mocking? Do you think that perhaps she has seen things in her practise and heard stories from her colleagues that make her want to drag this point to the forefront of people’s minds. Obviously everyone wants a healthy baby over a VBAC? Right? That’s why the commenter yesterday was bragging about her future HBA4C and calling us names.
She wants to be able to put “HBA4C” in her middle name on Facebook so she can be as important as the other HBA4C moms in that group. Great reason to bring a child into the world.
” It was how it was written,”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnFxAnbJD8A
I’m outta here folks, I cannot argue with people who cannot surpass feelings when discussing content and style.
She deleted a question in which someone asked for explanation. It’s a sick group when the leader’s sensitivities are more important than defending her position with honest and adequate means.
While we’re at it, what is your explanation for what your tender Jen tried to do to Doula Dani? She didn’t succeed only because she was so dumb and uninformed that she became a laughingstock by her own making and then rushed to delete the whole post on her blog.
You know the post I am talking about, Heidi, right? Because Jen is so honest that it’s all clear with her.
Explain further.
On Dr Amy’s blogroll are some fascinating blogs that go into birth isues. If you find Dr Amy mocking I’d recommend having a read of Doula Dani’s blog “What Ifs and Fears are Welcome”. She’s had some very informative blog posts recently, including a very interesting one about VBAC that looks at all the risks and benefits.
This should explain it all for you.
http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/04/jen-kamel-if-you-cant-acknowledge-when-you-are-mistaken-you-arent-doing-science.html
Thanks!
You didn’t know? I am baffled. I thought Jen was all about information. As a member of this group, you have no idea? Who would have known! Thankfully, CandiB explained it for me.
You might want to miss my comments there, though. You’ll find them truly offensive. I think they’re less than Jen and the Philosophy Chick deserve.
“She deleted a question in which someone asked for explanation.”
“offensive language” that is rightfully deleted according to VBAC Facts = people in the comments asking for explanation when dr. Amy bursts their happy thoughts bubble
”
Well let’s just all opt for c-sections then shall we! They are so much fun and safer!”
No – you miss the point – I’ve fixed it for you:.
“Let’s ensure women get accurate information on the risks and benefits to different birth options”
Then you can discuss with your doctor in conjunction with your medical history and go from there 🙂 The actual choice you make doesn’t matter, but women deserve accurate information to make that decision.
Agreed
Jen Kamel doesn’t want you to have accurate information. She wants to use weasel words to tell horrible VBAC candidates like Danielle or Griffin’s mom that they should do it anyway, even do it at home or unassisted. Why? Because then she can sell more workshop tickets. When babies die as a result, or anyone questions her, she bans and deletes them. She’d rather bury those babies twice.
And that’s where she is able to moderate the conversation…. Come on now, don’t be so naive.
And that’s exactly where one of Jen’s members in the group actually was trying to say that Beth, Griffin’s mother, was the one behind giving The Skeptical OB information. She blamed a loss mom!
Obviously this woman was conflating the name Gavin and Griffin but she is referring to Griffin whose mother was still in the group at the time she posted that. Who knows if she made the cut or not after Jen and her admins went on their deleting spree.
But this is very very typical to have things in your our own group so she can moderate the conversation.
Blaming a loss mom. Candy, why are you surprised? That’s what they DO! All of this bunch.
Have no care, Danielle, Gavin’s mom, is certainly blamed behind private walls as well. How dare she make things hard for the poor midwife! And Jan! She’s devoted her life to serving women (a very specific group of women. Aka – serving midwives) and those evil minions of Dr Amy’s dare blame this angel!
I seriously doubt any practicing physician would use subculture language of NCB crowd in a formal doctor-patient situation and describe another doctor as “evil”, or give advice on what content from which websites to “not even bother with”. So probably a blatant lie/skewing of the facts there – I’ve seen a lot of it on this blog where they invent real authority to back their claims and beliefs ( I am a nurse, I am a lawyer, ACOG guidelines, my OBs say the same thing…).
These people are…ugh. I won’t even comment on the purge and blaming of the loss mother from the group, that is too repulsive.
Which language was offensive? Could you point to a specific passage in her posts about VBACfacts that’s offensive?
Where does my post say ANYTHING about C Sections?
You are reading things into posts that are not there.
The issue is not VBAC vs CS. Don’t try to change the topic.
OT: http://the-coveted.com/blog/2014/07/01/how-i-almost-became-an-anti-vaxxer/
Wow, this is worthy of a separate post! I can’t believe that in 2012, CNMs in a mainstream hospital in NYC were ENCOURAGING anti-vax! That should be illegal or something.
SERIOUSLY! Maybe more people would listen to you if you spoke professionally. Do you get your jolly’s off trolling support groups? Yes, that is right. It’s a support group!!! Nothing more! Jen, does not encourage people to home birth. Where did you get that from? Personally I was encouraged to find a supportive provider. Happy to say that I am alive because of this group. I choose to find a more experienced provider and hospital and in doing so found myself in the one of the best hospitals in the country. After my son was born I had a severe PPH, the quick action by the expert staff quickly rushed me to the OR. This group has offered me nothing but support. I had a repeat c-section after a failed TOLAC. It has been difficult because a woman wants to birth a baby like it was intended. Women want support from other women who understand how they feel. I would think you would understand that, Amy since you yourself have had 4 vaginal births. However, in the end the main goal is a healthy baby. This group does not dismiss that. This group does not encourage home births. This group does not misrepresent information. This group is also not a research group, so the numbers really don’t count for all that much. But even if they did, 1.2% uterine rupture is great stats in my opinion. I would have attempted my VBAC if it was 10%. Because the risk for a VBAC is safer than a RCS. Plus uterine rupture DOES NOT mean a dead baby. I believe it is only 1% of all uterine ruptures result in a babies death. My OB (one that is still practicing, unlike some people) said I was an excellent candidate for a VBAC, when we discussed uterine rupture she said “in case of a uterine rupture, we will have you in the OR and the baby in your arms in less than 5 minutes”. I guess you are just all about SCARE TACTICS! Who or what hurt you that you need to troll around on support groups! I know your an OB so maybe you didn’t learn this is med school, but that general means you have something wrong in the head. Perhaps your vaginal births were traumatic in some way. Perhaps you, like I said early, just get your jolly’s off F***ing around with peoples lives. I heard you like to comment to women that have lost their child. What is in that mind of yours that you would harass a woman in her weakest moments? Disturbing!! Go look in the mirror and say what has happened in my own life that makes me want to hurt others? Because what you write could be written in a much more informative way, so your goal is clearly not to inform anyone! Who or what hurt you??? I think you may be in need of a support group! Good luck!
Being told that someone is wrong is “getting jollies f-ing around with people’s lives”?
Jen was wrong to use the statistics she used to say that VBAC was going just great in that group. Those statistics didn’t show that. Being wrong doesn’t “ruin your life”. Now losing a baby because you made a decision you thought was safe because someone gave you poor information – I can well imagine that ruining my life. Isn’t Jen lucky someone was able to correct her poor information before it came to someone losing their life, or their baby’s life.
Are you still referring to a data collection of a support group? Which isn’t a research group. If her 1.2% is actually higher than what the facts nationally show, wouldn’t she actually be deterring people? But seriously, 1.2% is a good number. Because like I stated the babies that die from a uterine rupture is around 1%. So, not sure I am following how these numbers are bad. Also a 72% success rate is a good thing. Also “getting jollies off f***ing with people’s lives” is in reference too the harassing of mothers who have lost their babies by Amy. That is really sad!
WOW THE IGNORANCE, and your reading comprehension sucks too.
No one said this was research. But I guess to fools that think you can be “educated” by reading the tripe of another incompetent, then I guess its not a shock you think this.
1.2% IS HORRIBLE. That you think it isnt shows how far your head is up in the clouds.
And 72% is nothing to brag about. Hospitals routinely manage this and better without endangering everyones life like HBAC does.
You’re not sure how a 1% death rate is bad? One out of every hundred babies dies, and that’s not bad?
What percentage of babies would have to die for you to admit it’s bad? Five? Ten?
1% of all uterine ruptures don’t end in a baby dying. Don’t know the exact figure, but I know it’s around 1%. So 1% of babies dying from 1% of uterine ruptures. Do the math. If 1:100 babies died that would be bad, but that isn’t the case. But this blog makes it appear that if you have a uterine rupture your baby is sure to die.
Again, the death rate and the rupture rate in a home VBAC are going to be almost equal.
MANA’s data, which Jen Kamel endorses, shows a 1/200 HBAC death rate.
From RCOG guideline- the figure is closer to 12% of babies dying or having severe metabolic acidosis after a uterine rupture.
So for all women who commence a TOLAC, their chance of bad neonatal outcome is around 1 in 1200-1500.
But I believe these data are based on in-hospital births, and refer to the risk of rupture with primary VBAC after one prior LUSCS- the UR risk increases with > 1 previous CS, and reduces once you have had a VBAC.
http://www.rcog.org.uk/files/rcog-corp/GTG4511022011.pdf
I love how you say “Do the math” right after saying “Don’t know the exact figure.”
But of course you’re not interested in the facts.
You continue to reiterate that VBACFacts is a support group, and not a data collection group. Please explain a couple of things to us…first of all, how you people surmise that 1.2% is a GOOD number, and secondly, if the group is solely there for SUPPORT, than why conduct ANY data collection, and attempt to use it as a means to pat yourselves on the backs? It really does NOT make any sense, and those of you who have parachuted on in here have failed to answer this question. Clearly, none of you people comprehend the math. And Dr. Amy has spelled this out for you in every way possible, and then all of the sudden it’s all “The statistics don’t matter because it wasn’t a real study” and “it’s a support group.” Then WHY BOTHER??? Why bother with misinformation, if not for any reason than to persuade people and influence decision-making?
And as for Dr. Amy “harrassing” loss moms, you need to check your definition of “harrassment”, and I’d also like to see some specific examples of how and when she has done this. I have yet to see any, but here I sit, tapping my foot, and waiting.
You’re a nurse?
You’re confusing RUPTURE rate with DEATH rate.
In a home birth, those two things are virtually one and the same (a few babies might survive, with brain damage). In a HOSPITAL, the death rate from rupture is pretty low.
The MANA study showed a HBAC death rate of 1/200, almost exactly what you’d expect the number of ruptures to be.
So how can Jen Kamel ethically encourage HBAC, when she knows exactly how high the death rate is?
I get my jollies subtly correcting the spelling and grammar errors of trolls.
Your meetings must be a treat with the lovely bad language you all seem to use. Do all your crotch flowers learn those words from their mums too? If so they must be a delight to have around the place, ebf or not.
Agh, grammar correctors!! Damn, autocorrect! No wait, that was me just misspelling it!
Twice? At least?
‘Just’ mis-spelling-yeah, dreary old spelling, details, details hey?
And yes it was grammar as well because where in the name of all that is holy did that stray apostrophe come from? Twice.
Ha ha, really? Look up what misspelling means? I didn’t know how it was spelt. Not that I knew how it was spelt, but typed it wrong. That would be called a typo.
I’ve never had any respect for grammar correctors. Surely you can come up with a better blow to the gut than that. I mean freaking the right click offered “jolly’s” as the correction to my spelling so I took it. I was trying to be careful too. You grammar correctors are EVERYWHERE!
Seriously, this is like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s so easy it almost isn’t fun.
You don’t want to learn, you can’t admit you made a mistake, and you have no respect for people who know more than you do, whether it is in the areas of pregnancy and birth or spelling and grammar.
Sounds like the exact profile of a militant anti-science, anti-medicine, anti-learning person, which is what you are.
In case you ever get curious, here’s a little song to help you with those pesky apostrophes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc2aSz9Ficw
The spelling you could improve by memorising the basic rule that ‘y’ is replaced by ‘ie’ when a singular word ending in ‘y’ is made plural.
You’re welcome.
“After my son was born I had a severe PPH, the quick action by the expert staff quickly rushed me to the OR. ”
Now imagine if you’d been at home. Read a few of the comments that have been posted in the last few days. Absolutely VBACfacts has been promoting HBAC and unassisted HBAC as an alternative.
“It has been difficult because a woman wants to birth a baby like it was intended.”
Alive and kicking? That was my intention when I made my choices for my maternity care. I mean heaven forbid we encourage a culture of VBAC or death?
Birth like it was intended? Like a woman in the church of missionaries I support in Sieera Leone. Hemorrhaging from a cervical laceration, clinging to life for days while they desperately searched for blood products. I bet if someone offered her a pre labor section next time around in a beautiful American hospital she’d give it serious thought.
Yes, birth like it was intended. Have you not had a c-section? Well let me tell you nothing like have your baby ripped out from you. It’s not appealing and neither is the recovery. However, I read the story you are referring too, very sad. I as a nurse I have also taken care of a child on a pediatric ward that was brain dead because the OB messed up in the good ol’ American hospital and didn’t do a c-section and told the mother everything was fine when the cord was wrapped around the babies neck. That is why a mother needs to weigh all her options and know the facts and decide what is best for her. For me a home birth was too scary. Although I think it would have been amazing.
They’re not “ripped out” – they kind of get flipped out with a lever type of action using what looked like half a set of forceps to me. I watched my second c-section in the theatre lights. I was curious and oddly enough I wasn’t all that squeamish after all. I loved my babies births. They were such a special moment for me and for my husband.
And this is why you have support groups to be with other women who understand how you feel. Natural as in not in the wild, as in vaginally. My 2 c-sections were as beautiful as it could be. I had a more beautiful vision, but that didn’t go as planned. But in the end my beautiful son was born and I cried tears of joy. Maybe a vaginal birth wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be, I’ll never know. But I do know that when I get sad about it I do have the support of other women who understand. That’s what support groups are meant to do.
I as well was curious about mine. I knew the surgeon because I am a nurse and he talked me through each step.
Memorial Hermann in Houston live tweeted a c-section a few years ago. I thought it was fascinating!
http://womens.memorialhermann.org/classes-and-events/c-section-surgery/
This is a grossly ignorant reply to someone posting about what birth is like in nature. You NCBers seem to think that birth is supposed to be something other than a brutally painful, terrifying, scary experience where many babies and moms die. THATS birth in nature. Its possible for it to be so nice now ONLY because of modern medicine. Even HBers depend on modern medicine in case shit hits the fan.
“Ripped from you”- this is pitiful. I am so sorry you think the miracle of birth is so horrible just because it was surgical. I had a CS and a VBAC and BOTH were births as intended. The only thing ripping was my perineum, btw.
Who is giving birth in the wild? Not me! I liked my modern medicine. Would have opted to do it without the surgical table though.
Both my births were beautiful because I heard my beautiful babies cry and at the moment that’s all I cared about, their safety. I cried utter tears of joy, I had to tell the surgeon “don’t worry, they are happy tears”. But the VBAC would of been nice and I feel I missed out on the natural way, as in vaginally. I had an emergency Hysterectomy so I will never know.
I labored naturally for 2 days, it wasn’t terrifying, but it did hurt like hell.
What’s a “NCBers”?
NCB = Natural child birth…which usually means an unmedicated vaginal birth.
“Who is giving birth in the wild?”
Ummm…please Google “Dolphin-assisted birth”, YouTube “outdoor birth”, and search for Lifetime’s upcoming series, “Birth in the Wild” (or whatever it’s called). And once you’re done with this little homework assignment, please tell me if you feel that this is how birth was intended.
Do people really do that. Give birth with dolphins! OMG! I was simply referring to a vaginal birth. Yikes! Ha ha! That’s way too out there!
Yeah, they do, Heidi. On here we lovingly refer to these scenarios as “stuntbirths.”
Heidi “Well let me tell you nothing like have your baby ripped out from you. It’s not appealing and neither is the recovery.”
I’ve had two c-sections, and you are right – it was not at all like have my baby “ripped” out. But I guess I could imagine that someone obsessed with vaginal births might interpret it that way.
Recovery? Yeah, the recovery after the first one, following 24 hours of unproductive labor, was difficult. Recovery from the pre-labor, repeat elective section? Easy! Honestly, recovering from getting my wisdom teeth out during college was harder.
You guys are spending so much time in your echo chamber that you don’t even realize that each of comes parachuting in here chanting the same mantra: “VBAC is safer than a RCS. . . uterine rupture DOES NOT mean a dead baby.”
It does not do much for your collective credibility – it just sounds like you’re each repeating what you’ve been sold.
I had a CS, it was lovely.
Went in at 8am, read some Gaiman, chatted to my friend the anaesthetist, chatted to my OB, walked to the OR, got a spinal, chatted to everyone some more, had my daughter put in my arms about 4 minutes after they started cutting. Totally painless, very relaxed and joyful.
Held her while they fixed me up except for about 10 minutes when she was checked over and my husband held her, then breast fed her in recovery.
Chilled out in hospital for 3 days with her, went home, chilled out some more.
No painkillers after a week, cleared to drive after two.
One of my easiest surgical recoveries for sure ( I’ve had a lot). I actually found the breast feeding more painful than the CS wound, and I EBF for over a year, so not bad enough to stop.
While my experience isn’t universal, yours isn’t either.
I found my CS much more appealing than the idea of hours of painful contractions and pushing a baby through my vagina ( which I very much like the way it is).
I’m a mere amateur with only two CS and one surgery under my belt, but the two CS were easier than the major hernia repair surgery was.
You’re a nurse? That makes me sick. You should know better than to say such things like “RCS is riskier than a VBAC” and “birth like we were meant to. ”
Ugh. Just ugh. I’m glad you weren’t my nurse!
Geriatric nurse! 🙂
My old patients love me.
Heidi, speak for yourself. PLENTY of women on this blog have had c-sections, and a common sentiment on here is that we advocate birthing in the way that is most likely to yield a healthy mother and baby. I had a c-section, and will be having another in approximately 6 weeks. That is how birth was intended for ME, as my vagina generally fails during the labor process, or I have placenta previa. So, while you continue to bow to the alter of the Almighty Vagina, and worship the only “true” way of giving birth, I hope you realize that some of us have had very positive experiences with c-sections, such as myself. I am (*gasp*) LOOKING FORWARD to having my baby boy via planned c-section on August 15th. What do you think of that? Apparently birth doesn’t always intend for women to live, or their babies. I for one thank the OB’s that look at our pregnancies on an individual basis, and tailor our births to safety, rather than treat us like a walking birth canal each time we conceive.
I honestly don’t care if you give birth in an Operating Room, a Hospital, your living room, or in the middle of the forest with bugs crawling all around you. As long as you have the correct information in order make a truly informed choice.
Encouraging women to attempt an unassisted HBAC is dangerous, and any legitimate health care provider would be charged with at the very least an ethical violation. Or don’t the rules of medical ethics apply when you’ve found your hill to die on?
VBAC facts has lied, censored, misrepresented numbers and when all else failed and they were called on their bullshit pulled the childish Eric Cartmen move of saying “Screw this I’m going home!” At least Cartman has the excuse of being eight, this group is supposed to consist of grown women.
See I’m not after an “appealing” birth. I want a LIVE baby, I don’t care if I’m bedridden for 6 months after to get it.
Trust me, recovery from vaginal birth can be far worse than a cesarean recovery. Lucky women who have nice normal uncomplicated vaginal births tend to recover pretty quickly. But who’s to say you’re going to get one? My HBAC recovery was slow and painful. And I didn’t feel an amazing sense of achievement, I was mostly just grateful it was over. And then, years later, when i finally opened my eyes, I realized the danger I had put my daughter and myself in. So stupid.
While I have not had a c-section myself, my wife has had two, and she did not (nor does not after the fact) consider either of them, nor their recovery “not appealing.” She also didn’t consider it having our babies “ripped” out of her (pulled or tugged, maybe, but ripped? No way)
So you can get off your presumptuous high horse and stop speaking like you know. You don’t speak for my wife, or other contributors here who have had c-sections.
There are plenty of people in the world for whom not only are c-sections not “not appealing” they are PREFERRED. That includes my wife. She had no interest in going through a vaginal birth, and was relieved that our first son was breech so that she didn’t have to argue to have a c-section.
Are you saying the admin of the group are pushing for this or some random member? Because it is a support group, members can say whatever they want. That is when admins come in and either erase a comment or say all births are to be supported.
It’s further in the comments below – an admin of the group encourages a mother to look at unassisted homebirth after they had trouble finding a provider for their VBAC.
But just one the erasing of comments – if someone said to you “homebirth after a c-section is much more dangerous” would that have been deleted? Because I just don’t understand the type of “support” where people can only say the positive side of something.
If I was about to drive my car home drunk, I sure hope my friends stand between me and the car and take my keys off me (as I would do to them). I want them to be honest about the risks and not just “support” me when I make a high risk decision.
Members can only say what they want if Jen agrees with it. Lots of people have been banned from that group for saying HBAC was unsafe.
I spoke out about the safety of home births several times and my comments were deleted!
Right. No other doctor anywhere ever would have recognized the most common maternal post partum complication. Good thing you weren’t at home.
Funny you say that. Actually the hospital I would have gone to was just in the news in January (the month my son was born) for allowing two women to die from PPH. So actually, no they might not have caught it. Or they might not have had the fast access to the OR or the large amount of blood I needed. I felt much better being at a big city hospital. As for being at home, I discussed that on the group and I was fully supported in my decision for not wanting to home birth. While many women are successful. It was a risk I was not willing to take!
You probably would have been fully supported if you’d chosen homebirth too. And then had a PPH at home and then what?
It’s a support group! Not a group to advise you what choices you should make. If a mother chooses to home birth who am I to tell her what to do. It’s the mothers choice. The group is supposed to be a safe place for mothers to freely discuss how they feel. This blog has intruded on that.
Why do you need support for that? You had a great doctor that was supportive. Why do you need the kudos from strangers to make your decision? I don’t feel I’m telling people “what to do” when I disagree with their decisions. They’re still free to make whatever decision they want, I just happen to disagree that it’s a good one.
Another thought – how would Jen be less supportive to the group if she had refuted Dr Amy’s post as opposed to deleting the comment that asked for her input?
How is that empowering women to take charge of their decisions surrounding their birth choices if all the information is filtered through one person’s eyes and that person makes money off selling her “expertise”?
Well then they should stop giving advice.
The “about” part of the Facebook group says that it provides “hard to find” information about VBACs. What is this information, and why is it so secretive? Is your doctor not providing you with the information? If your doctor doesn’t have it, how did Jen get it?
My doctor lied to me. Actually 2 of them. Because of the group I switched providers and found myself at a top hospital an hour away from my home. All the information I was provided on the group my OB confirmed was accurate. My first providers said things like “once a c-section always a c-section, the next one: must have epidural to vbac, can’t be induced with a vbac, must schedule repeat section at 39 weeks, have to be NPO, the list go on and on. My last provider explained this risk, but gave me options.
Also I did my own research. I would never solely rely on one site.
They weren’t lying; they were stating the criteria under which they would perform VBACs.
Sounds to me like you transferred from a less well equipped community hospital that could not guarantee quick conversion to section and likely no higher level NICU to a big city hospital with those safeguards. Of course docs at the first place would be reluctant to allow VBACs because they would be less likely to provide for the safety of your baby’s life in the event of an emergency and of course the big hospital would be more open to the possibility because they could.
Does VBAC”facts” not educate its members on the different capabilities of differently sized and equipped hospitals and the effects on VBAC policies?
This is the part I don’t understand.
When we went to the doctor with our second, she said, I don’t do VBACS. If you want to do one, you will need to go to another hospital (gave example). In order to do a VBACS, I need to have on-call anesthesia available in 10 minutes, and they can’t guarantee that here.
My response was, oh, that makes sense. OK. Not to cry that she wouldn’t do it anyway.
The ACOG is all on board with VBACS, assuming they can be done in circumstances with resources available due to the risk of catastrophic emergency. Which they have clearly defined (the resources, that is).
I don’t know why anyone would want anything different? I just don’t get it. Why would anyone want to do a VBACS without a proper safety net?
Do you see how you frame things? Your first provider “lied” because s/he doesn’t do VBACs. There are good reasons to have that policy in place (and also good reason to allow TOLACs) and that provider stated that. Did you ever allow yourself to think that it was merely a different comfort level of practice?
As for c-sections, you describe them as “ripping” the baby out of you. I have never, ever thought of my csection that way (and it would be grossly inaccurate to describe it that way. It was what it was. I was disappointed, but it was clearly the only way he was going to come out and I knew that.
Yeah, I wouldn’t describe a C section as ripping either. Although there was suddenly a sensation of being “lighter” as the baby was born, which was pretty cool. My doc did a really careful job, like she was sewing a dress from fragile material. I almost wished she could go faster because I wanted to be done so I could meet this baby already, call the family, and eat chocolate lava cake. (GD= months of dessert deprivation).
If someone wants to drive drunk with their 2 year old unrestrained in the front seat, that’s their choice. Who am I to say anything?
Really?
Drunk driving with a 2 year old on your lap is still probably a good bit safer than HBAC.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that you never been a part of a real support group. I constantly left my support group in tears but I kept showing up every week because they said shit that I needed to hear. The purpose of a support group is not to validate your unhealthy feeling but to challenge them and put them in proper context.
It is not a place where people say “Oh you want to go back to your abusive ex-boyfriend? Well that’s your choice and the heart wants what the heart wants.” No we say “I know you ‘love’ him but it is time that you love yourself more. Don’t keep going back to someone who hurts you. He is never going to change because he doesn’t want to. Block his number from your phone. No seriously. Give me your phone and I’ll do it for you.”
It is a “safe place” in that you can say what you want and no one will spill your business but you won’t get all your feelings validating. Your classification of this as a “support group” is insulting to all the people who went to a real support group. It is not easy to go each week and get your inner most thoughts critiqued by virtual strangers but mental therapy is like physical therapy; if it doesn’t hurt it doesn’t work.
It’s not a support group, it’s a rah-rah squad.
If a mother chooses not to put her child in a carseat, who are you to tell her what to do?
If a mother chooses to drink while pregnant, who are you to tell her what to do?
OTOH, a real friend would absolutely be honest with her, and tell her that she is making a bad decision.
But that’s it, isn’t it? This isn’t real, it’s a game. These people aren’t your friends, they are just pawns to be used to make everyone feel better about themselves.
If you really cared about someone, you damn straight you would give your honest input.
Here is the thing: if I have a group of ten students, and every time we get together I allow nine of them to share details of their free range self-study vocabulary learning achievements without reminding everyone of the documented downsides of this method, how am I as the group mentor not preventing bullying and coercing of the tenth student who because of this or that is only learning vocab through course exercises?
That tenth student is actively being bullied, coerced and swayed into thinking bad of himself without ever being directly told by anyone that free range self study is the best. I as the group mentor have an excuse for my unethical behaviour – “I most certainly never told anyone that free range vocab is better or best”, and to make that excuse more plausible I will even every once in a while mention the problems. I will claim that “I am just keeping a safe and secure space in which all students who choose any method are welcome to find their information and share learning experiences”. If you do not look into what I am doing with more scrutiny, you will probably believe that.
“allowed”?
So they just stood there and watched them bleed out and did nothing? Again PPH is a VERY common maternal post partum complication and I believe still the leading cause of maternal death EVERYWHERE. They didn’t “allow” someone to die. They got two bad cases by vhance in close succession.
A hospital in the Boston area lost 2 mothers in close succession during c-sections. Do they “allow” women to die in surgery? No they had necessary sections (complete placenta previa) and unpredictable but known complications (AFE).
Saying they “allow” women to die is false scaremongering.
1.2% is great? LOL.
Not just great, worthy of six or seven exclamation marks!!!!!!!
“5 exclamation marks the sure sign of an unstable mind”
Cit. (bit of trivia: of whom? :D)
Terry Pratchett! (!!!!!!)
My favourite author who has a profound understanding of our civilisation. 🙂
Heidi “Because the risk for a VBAC is safer than a RCS.”
I’m sure you have the relevant literature references that show that this “fact” is true. Would you please post them?
“Because what you write could be written in a much more informative way,”
How exactly? She juggles professional register and birth slang well, arguments clearly her opinion on subjects that require careful elaboration and speaks to severely mixed audience of professionals and laymen with great success. She is a comfortable user of all social media platforms and her blogs are tech literate.
What other aspects of how dr. Amy Tuteur communicates can you find fault with that are relevant for how informative her writings are? And do forget about feelings while contemplating that.
You see, the problem with the informative way is that it’s informative to those who know the language – the people who are ALREADY informed!
It’s next to impossible to reach your average mother with boring medical information that she REALIZES she can’t understand. It’s just tedious, an exercise in futility. That’s why pseudomedical blogs like VBAC Unfacts are so popular – because they give their misinformation in a way that makes readers think they understand.
I get that, but the objection was specific to how “informative” dr. Amy’s writing is. I guess I need to add the word ‘informative’ to my NCB dictionary because clearly over there it means that you need to speak all warm and fuzzy if you want to be truly “informative”. 😀
Oh yes, I understand. And my point was that they demand “informative” information because they hope this way Dr Amy’s words will drown in the same bottomless pool every other scientific speaker’s have with that lot.
Let’s take Dr Grunebaum. If we take their point about Dr Amy not being licensed, Dr G. is as licensed as they get. He’s been polite, informative, everything. Classes above Jan Tritten and the rest of them “No Fluid Is No Problem” nuts. Didn’t stop them from deleting him.
You seriously underestimate the average mother; perhaps you are confusing her with the control freak mother who is terrified of not being in control of everything and thinks she can be educated in a month or two on things it takes others years to learn. She is likely someone who thinks if she ever gets cancer she’ll beat it with diet and and positive thinking.
Your point about VBACfacts is spot on though, and it panders to these control freaks.
Amazed’s point, I think, is that the average reading level in this country is somewhere around 5th grade. Dr. Amy doesn’t dumb. It down, but she does use language people can understand.
Is that true? Scary.
Dr T is extremely forthright, perhaps that with the correct medical and anatomical words and lack of dumbing it down makes people feel patronised even as they start reading? Which is about the reader’s perception, but it is true that communication is what the listener receives, not what the broadcaster intends.
Still so worth it though for Dr T to be doing this, for the sake of those who are on the fence and ready to learn.
Not my country, so I wouldn’t dare presume anything about reading level and so on. My point was something close, though. They want information that would be scientific – that’s what they say, at least. But scientific information, informative information tends to come in scientific format which is almost incomprehensible for anyone who is not in this field. I consider myself your average Jane and I am certainly not qualified to analyze medical information the way they say they want it. And since I cannot analyze it, it simply bores me, it’s mindless reading. I think, “Couldn’t they make it in a way I could understand?” and give up. Exactly like handing a 5th grader a university textbook. But that’s what they say they want as information. They want to be impressed if they are to take information seriously. Too bad that not having this specifical educational background, they can be impressed by anything sounding sciencey.
Just another attempt to avoid what Dr Amy has to say.
Gotcha I think, that is a great point.
Maybe, but then again, Amy does the occasional lay out the stats posts. You know what happens? Nothing. Very little response. Why? Because they are uninteresting to most people (and irrefutable to those who disagree).
But this isn’t just about “average mothers”, it’s about average internet readers. All bloggers face that issue. Simple factual pieces are uninteresting to read. You need something exciting, like the “anti-establishment” facts, or the “support group” facts.
It’s not about mothers, it’s the nature of the game.
If it’s a support group, they have no business posting statistics, let alone misleading statistics.
You can’t have it both ways. If it’s a support group, when people post bad stats, those stats should be deleted. If it’s okay to post stats, then it’s okay to post corrections or context for those stats.
Otherwise it’s just a propaganda machine.
“It has been difficult because a woman wants to birth a baby like it was intended.”
No, sorry. It has been difficult FOR YOU because YOU want[ed] to give birth vaginally.
I don’t at all mean to downplay your personal feelings in that matter or imply you’re wrong for having them; I’m very sorry that you didn’t have the vaginal birth that matters to you, and I mean that sincerely. But not all women care about that. Lots of us just want a healthy baby no matter how it comes out. Many of us find the idea of vaginal birth unappealing. Some of us have had trauma in our pasts that make the idea of vaginal birth very off-putting or uncomfortable. Please don’t generalize that ALL WOMEN care about pushing babies out of our vaginas, because many of us don’t.
If I can ask, though, why does it matter to you? What made vaginal birth such a big deal to you? And honestly, would you have cared so much if you hadn’t read or seen or been around women who behaved as if vaginal birth was the seminal experience of a woman’s life, or the only “good” or “true” birth? In other words, did the idea that vaginal birth is so desirable come from you, or from the influence of others? I’m not implying you’re easily influenced, I’m just saying that one of the things that bothers me and so many other people about the whole NCB movement is that it encourages women to feel like failures if they don’t have a perfect, unmedicated vaginal birth. Would you have been so disappointed in your c-sections if you’d been raised to believe or told repeatedly during your pregnancy that c-section is just as good and “right” as vaginal birth, and that what matters most is a healthy baby however it comes into the world? Do you think there’s any possibility that your disappointment stems from pressure from others to see vaginal birth as the end-all-be-all, and not from a real, lifelong desire to push a baby out of your vagina? What makes vaginal birth so special?
Again, I absolutely don’t mean any of this as an insult, and I am not baiting you. I’m really, genuinely curious, and again, I am sorry that you’re disappointed in how your babies were born. I don’t think you should feel like you failed or your body failed or like you missed out on something, and it makes me sad that you feel that way.
No influence. If anything I got the exact opposite. Not really sure what it was. My first c-section became needed during labor and without hesitation I consented. Because my goal was a healthy baby. My only thought! It was when I became pregnant with my son. It just hit me. I felt I was missing something. I joined VBAC facts because after I got out of the AF my new OB said “once a c-section always a c-section”. My family and friends weren’t familiar with a VBAC. The group was great. They encouraged me to find a supportive provider and I found an amazing doula from the group.
Thanks for your kind comment. As well, I did not mean all women want a natural birth. But I did! I did labor naturally for 2 days and my babies just don’t fit and had to have another c-section. While I feel like my baby was ripped from me. It was still a BEAUTIFUL experience. If that makes sense. Because it was the day I first heard my son cry, the day that I got to hold him. My VBAC was a VERY distant second to me having a healthy baby boy.
I do feel like I failed, again being little always gets me. But at the same time I am extremely thankful for c-sections or me and my babies wouldn’t be here. It’s very mixed emotions. It’s funny after my 1st birth I wasn’t bothered by the c-section at all. For some reason with my son, it just really hit me that I needed to try.
Thanks for the reply, and for understanding that I wasn’t trying to be snide or rude. I appreciate it.
And I understand the feeling of wanting or needing to try. (BTW, I’m quite small, too!) It’s great that VBACFacts was able to help you find a provider who supported your attempt in a safe manner. Our problem is with the number of people in groups like that who encourage women to try dangerous HBACs, or to “show up pushing” to defy doctors who tell them VBAC isn’t a good idea for them. It’s one thing to encourage you to get a second opinion and another thing entirely to encourage women who’ve had multiple doctors tell them that after two, three, or four sections and a history of premature labor or miscarriages or whatever else that VBAC is not an option to ignore those doctors and just do what they want because, hey, it’ll probably be fine, right? And a lot of people on sites like that do encourage such things, sadly. That’s what we’re against here, not VBAC per se.
I really hope that as time passes you’ll feel better about your sections and that the lack of vaginal birth will cease being an issue. I know things like that–any kind of disappointment, really, if it was important enough to you–can “come back” at the oddest times and be very difficult to get over (I have a few disappointments in my own life that don’t seem to go away entirely), and again, I’m truly sorry that you were/are disappointed. But I do encourage you, FWIW, to remember that you didn’t fail. Your body created two beautiful babies, and they are there with you, and that is something to be proud of even if they needed a little assistance to actually enter the world. (I know you know that, I’m just saying it anyway.)
Thank you! While I do know it, it is still nice to hear. 🙂
I’ve only received support from the group, but I can only speak for myself. I was asked once if I considered a home birth when I was facing the doctor that only wanted to do a c-section. But it was just a question from a member. No one ever advised me to do one and everyone was supported of my hospital birth choice.
I
Honestly I think you need to look for a different kind of support that will help you give the whole thing a new perspective. Think about the reasons why you value vaginal birth so much, why are there still feelings of remorse, what other situations or feelings unrelated to pregnancy and birth may have prompted you to feel this way about it.
Think about the support you received in that group and go through what people were saying to you with your emotions turned off, just analyze the statements and messages. Look for the implied meaning, like when someone says “I am not against all RCS, some of them are necessary” what is being also communicated is the attitude that most RCS are totally unnecessary for instance. We may not notice this implied meaning in communication directly when it is happening but it sets up a context in which we subconsciously will acquire the implied message and end up with feelings of guilt or failure. I have read a lot of content from similar support groups, and too often what goes on in them could easily be described as sugar coated narcissistic bullying in terms of communication.
Narcissistic bully — those are two words that describe so many of these people — Jen Kamel, The Feminist Breeder, the Birth Without Fear lady….
Con artists/faith healers communicate in a similar way and to similarly vulnerable audiences.
My mum felt similarly about her c-sections. She didn’t get a lot of support from her sisters (especially one of whom had a rough vaginal birth in a regional hospital in the early 70s) or form my Dad who just wanted us healthy. I know she feels this way about “missing out” on labour and her feelings about giving birth played a large part in my anxiety about giving birth. I just don’t know that it is a productive or a healthy way to feel. It’s certainly one I now find hard to “support”.
I was desperately worried that I was going to be disappointed when I’d been labouring naturally at home, only to get to hospital and be told I would need a c-section. The last thing I wanted to feel on the day I gave birth to a child was disappointment.
I didn’t feel the least bit disappointed though. It was just starting to hurt, my baby needed out and I just wanted her safely in my arms more then anything else in the world. I got that via a c-section that was a happy and celebratory occasion even though they must have already done half a dozen that day (I managed to go into labour on my obgyn’s booked surgery day).
I really think women get so much pressure to “feel” a certain way and to control birth and to romanticise it. I wish there was a way past it that didn’t involve women taking enormous risks with their and their baby’s well-being.
I wonder if Heidi means with 33% dying before the age of 2? Or a 1% maternal mortality rate?
Because that was the natural result that occurred before humans started doing their interference.
Nature’s intention is to KILL you! I’ve pointed this out recently, even something so simple like eating is our way of overcoming the natural process. Unless we choose to eat, we will die.
I know you’re a nurse and maybe didn’t learn this in nursing school, but some support groups are simply groups of people having their unhealthy, factually incorrect beliefs reinforced by the group in a co-dependent way, without oversight or correction and with dissenting voices silenced.
Calling something a “support group” doesn’t mean that the words and actions of its members are above scrutiny, or always good, or true, or helpful.
I’ve stopped recommending certain patient support groups in my area because they were actually making patients WORSE by reinforcing negative behaviours, suggesting dangerous and bizarre treatments and removing any sense of agency that a person might have over their life, by blaming almost everything on “the disease”.
VBACFacts members may enjoy having their beliefs and ideas and feelings supported by the group. Doesn’t mean that this is a good thing.
Like the online “support” groups where anorexics give each other tips and tricks. Great post.
Yup, or the CFS groups who (despite all evidence to the contrary) resist graded exercise programmes as treatment or the chronic pain groups who share tips on how to get more narcotics from your doctor rather than how to live with some pain and do more despite it.
Yeah, at this point I’m firmly of the opinion that support groups are not universally benign in the type of support they offer.
I’m glad they helped you, however, that can not be said for other members of that group. If a mother is feeling defeated or feels like she has no where to turn when several OB’s turned her away from a VBAC2C that’s when members and admins step in and try to influence the mom to home birth even go with an unassisted birth. Thank goodness she did not as she did have a uterine rupture while in labor at the hospital.
Jen is VERY careful on what and how she posts and has her admins to say what she can’t. This is her group and her admins, she’s responsible for what they say.
Point in case, the member posted a question on how to naturally induce her labor as she would face a RCS if she hit 42 weeks. She even said home birth was not an option and listed her options. Then comes an admin (see for yourself) that mentioned she check for information on an in assisted birth, mind you the original poster was already close to 40 weeks.
And she had no prenatal care since 30 weeks, which was also totes cool with those admins.
This is the mother who showed up at the hospital deep in labor with a distressed baby, and was still posting online and advised not to have a c-section?
Yup. And a lawyer named Farah Diaz-Tello was repeating that she did not have to consent.
At least 1/5 of the ruptures in your group’s stats resulted in a dead baby. That’s 20%, not so great, huh?
How about when Danielle, another VBA2C mom was told by one of the group admins to go unassisted? Luckily she had a shred of brains left and went to the hospital anyway, where your members told her to refuse a c/s when her baby was showing signs of distress.
Yeah, great support group you got there.
“I would have attempted my VBAC if it was 10%. Because the risk for a VBAC is safer than a RCS”
just omg. IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING??
Nope.
You would have chosen a VBAC even if the risk of rupture was 10%? That is frightening.
“I would have attempted my VBAC if it was 10%. Because the risk for a VBAC is safer than a RCS.”
Is there a set of circumstances that jerks up the risk of baby dying during RCS to 10% ever? Because I believe ( and correct me if I am wrong) that RCS is ALWAYS a safer option than a VBAC after which 10 out of 100 babies are dead.
Get a life people there are successful vbacs daily. This doctor isnt a doctor anymore. All you can do it sit there and bash someone. Its a 10% change the mother knows the risks.
All this want to be doctor is out for a stupid witch hunt. My friend was in that group. She needed other woman like herself. get a life.
And now she’s not in the group because VBAC”facts” is mass deleting members in an attempt to find the mole because they are do proud of their wonderful outcomes they don’t want anyone to know.
Amy IS a doctor still and recently lectured to ACOG
You realize NO ONE at VBAC”facts” was EVER a doctor, right?
We aren’t against all VBACs. We are against unsafe VBACs (home, breech, multiple sections, no monitoring) and the promotion of such as safe. The promotion of home VBAC after 2 sections on VBAC”facts” killed baby Griffin in January. Did you encourage that? Did your friend?
No one promotes anything!!! It’s a support group!!! at no point does anyone push a women one way or another. All births are supported. If a mother chooses a RCS she is support, if a mother chooses a HBAC she is supported, if she chooses a hospital VBAC she is supportive. I have been in the group for over 8 months and have never once, not once seen anyone especially an admin advise on which way to birth! It’s a support group!!!
But you don’t really care about that baby do you, no it’s just ammunition you use to try to prove the cause for the day! Let women have their support group and put your focus towards people who are doing real harm to women.
“all births are supported”
Again – even Beth’s HBA2C? Her choice to plan that was “supported”? That’s horrific.
I care a lot about the baby. For one thing my office manager is also named Beth. She had PROM and gave birth the same day little Griffin was born and died. I have seen her baby almost weekly since then. I NEVER see that baby without thinking “that’s how old Griffin would be now. If he’d been born in a hospital”. I think of griffin’s death every.single.time.
For another thing I lost my baby yesterday. I’d give my right arm AND sign up for a section just to have him or her back safe inside me. “supporting” dangerous choices that lead to dead babies is messed up.
Oh Stacey, I’m so sorry…
Thanks a lot.
I’m so sorry, Stacey.
Thank you.
Oh my…I am so very, very sorry Stacey *massive hugs*
Thanks Mishi
You’re welcome. I’ve been there and it is awful. (My kids actually asked about our baby in heaven a few minutes ago) If you want someone to talk to, ask Dr Amy to put us in touch, okay?
OMG I am so, so very sorry to hear this. If I could wish it away I would. Please talk about it as much as you need too.
Thank you Renee.
Oh Stacey, I’m sorry to hear that.
You know we’re all thinking of you.
Do take some time away from here if you need to, because sometimes the wanton disregard shown by some people for their baby’s safety can be pretty distressing.
Thanks Dr Kitty. It’s actually been a welcome distraction the first two nights when I haven’t been able to fall asleep. Last night was much better.
Oh, Stacey, I am so, so sorry.
Thanks.
Stacey I am so sorry to hear that, I’m thinking of you and sending prayers your way. If prayers aren’t your thing you’re in my thoughts as well.
Thanks Beth, I appreciate your prayers.
So sorry, Stacy!
Thank you Heidi. I’m glad to have met you here. Stick around. 🙂
I’m so sorry, Stacy.
Thanks Trixie.
Oh no, I’m so sorry. Take care.
Thanks.
Hugs. I’m so sorry. Please take a break if this is making it worse.
Thank you.
Oh I’m so sorry to hear this. Take care of yourself.
Thank you all for your comments. I’m doing ok…just thought I was out of the woods at 12 weeks. Apparently I’m now officially a “habitual aborter”. Yippee. Don’t know if we’ll try again…but now I’m glad my baby is a baby (10months)…I was worried about having 2 so close together…but it’s been good to still have a little one to snuggle.
Anyway, I appreciate this group very much.
And there are screen caps (i believe in this comments feed) of an admin encouraging/suggesting unassisted birth for a post dates VBAC (more than 1 C I think)
Yep, it was a VBA2C, and her baby was like 10 lbs. She ruptured.
She was crowd sourcing at 6 cm, and the morons were telling her to refuse a c/s even as her baby was showing distress from the rupture that was starting.
Bullshit.
I was ready to give the VBAC members flying here the benefit of the doubt but now I have made up my mind. You and your ilk are so dumb that you don’t even realize how you’ve been lied to even when the evidence is hitting you right on your smug faces.
She deletes posts, you idiot. I can remember at least 2 cases of deleted posts, one with asking for comment on Dr Amy’s comment of your stats and the other, when the leader of your dumbass community tried to make another blogger look uninformed and only managed to embarrass herself. Of course you’ll be supported. She makes her money by supporting the idiocy of people like you. And you’re too stupid to ask yourself, “Well, if she deleted that, what else has she deleted in time?”
Jen Kamel is probably thanking the Almighty every day for sending her such clueless clowns. She’s go bankrupt if he didn’t.
I still hope you’ll get lucky, with the “information” you receive there. I only hope you don’t homeschool your crotch fruits. I shudder at the thought of someone “educated” by you released in the public. The planet is overpopulated and don’t need more fools.
Support groups like yours DO cause harm! “Support” does NOT mean that you say everything anyone suggests is a great idea, or do you not get the difference between actual support and an echo chamber?
It’s people like YOU that are KILLING BABIES and harming moms.
I will spell it out for you:
**EVERY TIME YOU SAY SHIT LIKE:
“OH HBAC IS WONDERFUL, BEAUTIFUL” or
“YOU HAVE A BETTER CHANCE AT VBAC AT HOME” or
“IF YOU CAN’T FIND A DOC/ HOSPITAL, JUST STAY HOME” or
“HERE IS SOME INFO FOR UNASSISTED HBAC”
YOU are PROMOTING DEADLY THINGS. IT’s all the more deadly because it’s under the rubric of self help!
Take responsibility for what you say and what you type. Words matter.
“Get a life people there are successful vbacs daily.”
No one is disputing that there are successful vbacs daily. Keep reading and see why we disagree with the information Jen Kamel vies out to other mothers.
And disagreeing with someone isn’t “bashing” or “witch hunts”. There are successful disagreements every day.
Many of us here in this community have had successful VBACs. Dr. Amy supports the ACOG position on VBACs.
I am sickened by your post!!! If you are a true professional this article would have been professionally written. A professional does NOT bash another person! A professional does not threaten each mom who chooses a VBAC with the saying “if you want a dead baby than try it” You realize how hurtful your words can be towards a mother who has an angel baby?! Also another tip when you are trying to be a professional and write a professional looking piece don’t quote Wikipedia. That is what they teach you in 2nd grade when writing a paper. Compare your risks for a VBAC and risks for a RCS…. I think I will take my chances with a well educated doctor and a VBAC. You should be embarrassed by this post and your need to throw somebody under the bus to make you look good. I want to know all your facts and all the studies that support and back your belief that VBACs are “deadly”. You realize that a lot has changed since you were in school in the 1980’s right?! Glad your not my OB/GYN!!!!!!
Read the rest of the site, follow the links, and then come back to try and discuss this.
(Note to other Pratchett fans: More than 5 exclamation marks.)
If Jen’s next post uses a green Comic Sans font, the evidence will be conclusive.
” I think I will take my chances with a well educated doctor and a VBAC.”
Sounds like a great plan. Wish you all the best.
Dr Amy is saying that your baby’s life depends upon your decisions and the quality of information you have to make that decision. Nobody here is against VBACs in discussion with a skilled doctor that knows their medical history in a well resourced hospital.
VBACs can become deadly when you listen to a bunch of cheerleaders that are cheering you on to take high risks (out of hospital etc) that make VBAC deadly. Read yesterday’s post about aa commenter bragging about her future H Lots of people here have had a VBAC.
And one last thing – disagreeing with someone is not the same as throwing someone under a bus. We’re all grownups here and happy to debate the big issues. Even amongst ourselves.
*bragging about her future HBA4C
I really should log back in one day so I can edit.
“A professional does NOT bash another person!”
“You should be embarrassed by this post and your need to throw somebody under the bus to make you look good.”
If you stand by these words, you wouldn’t support Jen Kamel.
1. Nobody said that a VBAC mom would automatically lose her child. VBACs can be a good choice for some women. But informed consent requires that contrary evidence not be suppressed. This site undermines lies and the lying liars who lie to women to make poor choices at birth and possibly end up losing their babies as a result of the misinformation fed to them by ignorant laypeople. VBAC facts, as this post has proven, deletes comments that disagree with their agenda. Choose wisely.
2. While generally I would agree with the Wikipedia objection, the definition she linked to is referenced to an online law dictionary. I think we’ll all be ok.
3. I think these posts have attracted enough angry VBACFacts members that quite a lot has already been hashed out in the comments. We have learned that the Facebook group supports and encourages women to forgo prenatal care, attempt risky stunt births that severely endanger the wellbeing of their children, and at least one child who died during an attempted HBAC. I believe that your anger is misplaced.
Wow! Incredibly well said. Love, love, love the line “lies and the lying liars who lie.”
OK so professional’s don’t exactly “bash” each other in the literal sense (neither is anyone being “bashed” here though). But a bit of disagreement and debate tends to go down pretty well amongst the professionals I work with.
No. A well educated professional does not stand idly by whily lay people mislead mothers into decisions that risk theirs child’s life or brain function
If you and your doctor feel you are a good VBAC candidate great. I doubt Amy would disagree as long as there is proper monitoring and a surgical suite down the hall. But egging women on to have HBACs and vaginal births after multiple Cs is not in line with any recommendations and risks the lives of mothers and babies. Deadly behavior like that should be called out as such
And it’s rather unprofessional of you to bash another person like you just did.
Actually, yes, a professional does bash another person if they are consciously keeping life-and-death information from people who need it.
If a drug company were putting out a drug that had twice the death rate of an existing treatment, and deleting every single reference to that higher death rate, professionals would, and should, bash them. They are behaving utterly despicably.
Are you for deleting information that could lead to someone’s death? No? Then you need to inform that “support group” that they shouldn’t be deleting information about the stats that they’re posting.
Apparently VBACFacts Community has just gone from “closed” to “secret.” Awesome! The harder it is for women to find these buffoons, the safer babies will be.
I’m sure it’s a freaking witch hunt in there right now.
Jen is now deleting any and all comments on her public page asking why they were removed and wanting info on how to join.
Censoring once again and wants no mention of her group deleting all it’s members.
The post is no longer there.
I’m sure Jen’s deleting of a simple question didn’t have anything to do with ticket sales: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/central-pennsylvania-truth-about-vbac-workshop-with-jen-kamel-tickets-10709579641
And don’t bother bringing your infant if it drinks the Devil’s milk:
How about adjusting the class so that she accommodates the attending nursing mothers in a better way, so that there is no need for “writing notes throughout” or such lame and borderline insulting FAQ and marketing attempts. There are tons of ways of achieving that ( a note-taking free class) if you know how to plan, prepare and execute a lecture that is tailored to suit the needs of your audience best. Or is she as lay a lecturer as she is a birth expert? 😛
And why does it say that the mother needs to take the baby out to settle it, not the father?
Money! Another ticket needs to be purchased to have dad or another caregiver there.
It’s all about money!
Everyone knows only babies bond with the mother, and fathers cannot do anything right.Fathers cannot produce breastmilk so his role at these things is diaper bag handler and ATM in case mom wants to buy more classes, books, etc. His job is just to provide sperm and bring in pay checks that pay for these crazy classes.
My dear husband is wondering why, if breastmilk is so very important, men in the NCB movement don’t make the effort to lactate? They do have breast tissue after all, and if they take hormones, galactogogues, and pump on schedule, they should be able to produce something. Market it as: “Create a special bond with your child and wife in the journey of becoming a family” and sell tickets to seminars about it.
Don’t forget the imperative role of him taking selfies of himself using various baby carriers and slings with the child, so that the mother can use it to score crunchy points.
Exactly. Omg! I thought I was the only one who felt that way lol
I guess crying babies don’t look good in marketing pictures.
What notes does one need to take? will there be a test? Why not just email out a pdf?
The part where you are convinced that live gut flora are more important than a live baby?
Potentially ~5 days earlier gut flora, you mean.
Because people normally aren’t willing to pay $100 for a pdf.
If I pay 100$ for a lecture, they better email me a pdf, at the very least. I could even use a hard copy for that price. Are they afraid I’ll forward it to my friends and then they won’t attend the lecture? Maybe that is it.
If you just go and take notes, when something goes wrong, they can claim that you misunderstood and wrote down the wrong things. Besides, putting it on paper makes it harder to censor when you’re questioned.
English course I teach costs about that much over a three months period. I make or use ready made interactive worksheets for every class (twice a week).
I am definitely in the wrong line of business.:)))
I need a racket like she has. $100+ per person to spew made up statistics!
Jen Kamel and GCC have so much in common…. namely their love of the delete key.
I am currently being monitored as a possible VBAC candidate by my OB/GYN’s practice. Honestly, I am told my chances for a vaginal birth are less than 50% due to the circumstances of my daughter’s birth. I started out with a scheduled induction, went into labor several hours before induction was scheduled, labor did not progress so I was induced anyway. At the end, her heart rate drop and she turned sideways in the womb and off we went for a C-section. This is more detail on the birth than my previous post. I was reminded of all these details at my last appointment. All my brain chose to remember was a healthy, jaundice-free baby that was adored by the hospital staff. Anyhow, they are willing to let me try the VBAC with monitoring of course. However, I can not be induced as that increases the risk of uterine rupture. I am confident they will do everything to keep me and my baby safe but I can imagine the horror this could be as a home birth. I dare anyone to tell me that home birth is safe. This would not be safe. I refuse to have anything less than my OB/GYN and her staff. BTW, the practice has 5 or 6 more OB/GYNs in it. If mine is not there for the birth another will be. THIS is the safest route, lay midwives need not apply.
Best wishes for a healthy birth, however it turns out!
Thank you. I am still able to opt for a repeat C-section and I might. I’m pretty scared. While it would be nice to have another baby later the reality is I’m 36…37 when the baby comes. I’m in the high risk category anyway. I wouldn’t mind gathering some opinions on this.
I had a scheduled c/s for my 2nd after a first labor a bit similar to yours. I *loved* it. The recovery was SO much easier than from the first c/s after hours of labor. The scheduling was awesome. No fear my husband couldn’t make it home, no worries about would I have somewhere safe for 1st child at a moment’s notice. We were even able to tell the grandparents approximately when to bring her in to meet her sister. The surgery was more pleasant too – I wasn’t exhausted from labor, I wasn’t in pain, there was plenty of time for the anesthesiologist to fiddle around getting everything perfect … I remember my second child’s birth and it was *nice*.
And had no problems with a 3rd c/s. And it’s not uterine problems that keep me from a 4th child – it’s time, money, sanity, high blood pressure and age.
The whole point is that “one size does NOT fit all”. All the ideologues want you to believe it does. Pregnancy and birth are like a smorgasbord or cafeteria: there are a variety of foods on offer to people with varying appetites and tastes. What matters is the correct match.
I’m not qualified to give an opinion, but my anecdote, FWIW, is that I had a c-section for failure to progress due to a malpositioned baby, and went on to have a fast, easy VBAC with a baby who was in a good position. That seemed to have been the only variable in my case. I was otherwise and excellent candidate. I was otherwise a good candidate. However, if I were over 35 and on my first VBAC attempt, I for sure wouldn’t be wanting to go post-dates.
Not a medical opinion here, either, but happy to share my experience. My first daughter was born by c-section (induced on my due date, she was estimated at 9 lb and I’m very small, and I was very tired of being hugely pregnant in August in Miami! So no real complications, other than that she never dropped all the way) and I was actually pretty happy with that; vaginal birth never really appealed to me. (Actually, because of some past abuse, I was really uncomfortable with/freaked out about the idea.) So I went through all of labor except the actual vaginal delivery: I dilated to 10, I pushed for an hour or so, just with no progress. My recovery was fine, all was well.
I got pregnant with my second–another girl–a couple of years later, and my OB told me I was a great VBAC candidate and he thought I should consider it. I told him no thanks, I was not remotely interested. (He mentioned it a couple more times throughout the pregnancy–not pushing it on me, but urging me to think about it. Each time I said no way.)
Aaanyway. I’d thought my first section was pretty good, but the second, honestly, was amazing. It was scheduled–we got to pick our baby’s birthday, and picked a significant date in our family already (our anniversary and our first’s b-day are also on the 4th of their respective months). My husband could schedule his work leave starting the day of the birth and get everything there prepared. We were able to set everything up for our first so her routine didn’t change and there was no worrying about who’d pick her up from where or take her where or watch her–I dropped her off at preschool that morning, my BFF picked her up at the end of the school day and brought her to the hospital, etc. I got to hang out at the hospital relaxing before they took me into the OR, I wasn’t tired or uncomfortable from being in labor all night, I was totally alert for the birth–which was awesome, really a beautiful experience. Because it was scheduled we were booked for one of the really nice rooms in maternity already.
And the best part was that recovery from my second section was even easier than from the first. I didn’t even need my painkillers round-the-clock after the first four or five days.
I was scared, too, and worried recovery would be harder or whatever, but it wasn’t at all.
Personally I was and am very glad that I refused TOL. Aside from anything else, I figured I already had a c-section scar, so why risk scarring/tearing somewhere else, too? 🙂
But again, vaginal birth was never something I especially wanted to do, so the decision was very easy for me. And while we’ve been talking on and off for a while about having a third, the reality is that at my age it’s probably too risky (I’m 40); my OB didn’t seem to feel at the time that a third would be especially risky for me in terms of carrying the pregnancy to term etc., though, so that’s definitely something to discuss with your doc.
I hope that helps. I really don’t want to sound like I’m trying to push you into just scheduling another section, because that’s not my intent. This is your choice to make. And if your doctor(s) feel that a hospital TOL is a safe option for you and you want to do it, then by all means give it a go. Just remember that there’s nothing wrong with choosing a scheduled section, either; it doesn’t mean you’re lazy or selfish (even if the sole reason for the decision is to make caring for your first easier) or that there’s anything “wrong” with you.
Best of luck to you, whatever you decide! I hope you’ll come back and let us know, and of course congratulations. 🙂
One of my best friends had scheduled cesarean for both of her children. The thought of vaginal delivery just terrified her and her OB was good enough to accept that even for her first baby. She was totally thrilled with both deliveries and found the second easier than the first. She was also 35 and didn’t want a lot of kids, so no worries about future scar complications.
If you don’t anticipate more pregnancies there is no blanket medical reason to sit through labor in fear of a rupture. VBAC can be really safe in the right circumstances, but your stress matters too.
The most valid opinion will come from your own clinician, who knows you better than anyone, not from anyone on the internet. Having said that:
I had a cesarean section with my first at 33 years of age at 38 1/2 weeks when I went into labour with a breech baby. Great recovery. Two years later, at 35, I was 3 cm dilated at 38 1/2 weeks, had a membrane sweep, laboured in my local L&D with two close friends (colleagues) the OBs watching over me, and the anesthetist on call sleeping 30 yards away in the call room, “just in case”. Had an easy VBAC, amazing recovery. Only regret was that labor hurt like a son of a gun and I wish I’d gotten an epidural. Oh well.
So, do whatever you feel comfortable with.
(My only advice is If you think you want 4+ children then seriously consider a VBAC.)
Best of luck!
I also had a CS for my first after going into labour at 38 weeks with my baby very stubbornly breech. Recovery fairly standard, I think, feeling good after about 4 weeks.
Second was VBAC, which was horrible – big, melon-headed OP baby, semi-anaesthetised episiotomy and vacuum extraction with rotation after 2.5hrs pushing that wasn’t doing much. Also took 4 weeks to stop limping and be able to move fairly freely, but oh, the incision pain and the pelvic pain and the perineal pain!Some of it was likely due to second pregnancy and increased joint instability, but recovery was definitely not easy.
I know women who fought like lionesses for their VBACs. Mostly those were young Orthodox Jewish women who had an emergency or otherwise necessary C-section for their first child, and really wanted to have a VBAC in order to still be able to have a large family.
However, not one of them would EVER be crazy enough to attempt a VBAC at home.
And if they were told that, in their particular case, VBAC is not a feasible option (such as breech presentation, for instance), I’m sure they would do the necessary thing. That is because the life of the mother, and the life of the baby who is already here waiting to be born, are more important than potential future babies and future fertility.
(The VBAC at home, and the breech VBAC, are just mind-boggling. It’s so so so risky.)
PS: I’ve had two uncomplicated vaginal births so far, I have zero risk factors, and still I consider home birth to be too big of a risk. Or, to rephrase it, the risk might be low but the stakes are terribly high. VBAC at home? Can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s a no-brainer really: since VBAC is riskier than a “normal” birth, it should be closely monitored at a hospital with emergency help at hand.
The demand for home birth in Israel is very low, thank Heaven. I have had a bigger problem convincing women that they DON’T necessarily need EVERY test and every sort of technology rather than trying to convince them to get adequate antenatal care and give birth safely.
What is your opinion about the number of ultrasound scans and other tests routinely performed on pregnant women in Israel? I’ve had 3 scans so far and I’m only at the end of my first trimester (normal pregnancy with no risk factors). My doctor recommended another scan to be done soon, recommended genetic testing for us (my husband and I are not related nor have the same ethnic background). Is it a “Jewish mother” thing or is this also the norm in other countries?
There were times when I couldn’t make it to a test or scan in the right time frame simply because life was so busy, and I wondered whether all this testing is really necessary or even performed as a standard in other countries in the developed world.
As I understand it in the USA, the minimum number of ultrasounds for optimal care is: Dating scan as early as possible, down syndrome screening around week 12 (precise timing important), and anatomy scan around week 20 (timing more flexible). Many practitioners recommend a 4th one in the middle of the third trimester.
Of course, if there are any signs of a problem, there will be more ultrasounds, maybe a lot more, but that’s the standard recommendation.
Plus there were various blood tests, I don’t remember what all anymore, but we did do the genetic screens.
OK, well, my OB did two dating scans so far – one at 8 weeks, another at 10 (“just to be sure”), even though there was only ONE possible day on which I could fall pregnant; I did the first-trimester DS screening this week, and my OB recommends both the early anatomy scan – at around week 16 – and the late one, around week 20. Then I’ll do the late scan for a weight estimate, of course.
Naturally, there’s also the routine blood tests, the fetal protein, and the GDM. Also the OB is strongly pressuring my husband and me to undergo genetic screening *of us*, not the baby, just so we know whether we are carriers of anything (for reference in future pregnancies).
And all this is a textbook pregnancy, so far. Last time I was also sent to do amnio, which I declined, and during my third trimester I had tons of scans because of suspected IUGR.
So… just gets me wondering… is it a Jewish thing?.. Because it sure seems everyone around me is asking their doctor to send them to MORE tests, not less, and the doctors are happy to oblige. Part of it is liability issues, I know.
I want to do what is necessary for good prenatal care, but I also need some balance in my life. I have two small children at home, whom I often have to bring with me because I have nobody to leave them with, we are moving house soon, and I need a lengthy bus trip for every scan in town. So I just wonder which tests I can skip without feeling guilty for being irresponsible.
The rate is not 1.2%. If you are going to count total ruptures incurred by members, you also need to count total births by members. You are measuring all ruptures by all members of the group for all periods of time, but births over a succinct period of time. Your numerator and denominator don’t match the same period of time.
I’m disappointed someone who prides herself on being a stats queen played this tactic. But I guess using the proper numbers isn’t very sensational, and won’t drive over readers to post here, thus bumping your own stats.
Well, we know for sure that 2/5 are horribly ill advised VBA2Cs, one of which resulted in a death…
Which doesn’t change the faulty math.
Do you think those are “wonderful figures”?
Do you think the mathematical equations Dr. Amy presented were accurately portrayed?
If you want to keep avoiding the question – I can, too.
Why bother mentioned the extra 2 ruptures? She could have just not mentioned them, and bragged about having a rate closer to the accepted average. Instead, the site bragged about having “only” 5 ruptures among the group, opening the figures up to scrutiny.
Let’s also not forget that of these ruptures, at least one child died–from an HBAC (which is ALWAYS a horrible idea). Of 396 births, that is still horrifying. Its easy to callously throw numbers around. Its another to admit to yourself that you are trying to argue away a child’s life.
How many babies need to die before you begin to realize that VBAC “Facts” suppresses the true risks?
You guys are the ones bragging about the rate. You would’ve expected about two ruptures in a group that size. Griffin should be alive today.
Precisely. Whether the statistics are accurate or not, the fact that Jen Kamel considers the numbers good is shocking. The numbers are not good, they are alarming.
There is no “you guys” here. I am not Jen Kamel, I am not an administrator of the VBAC group. I am not part of the stats posted.
I am a person who looked at the numbers Dr. A posted, and thought “those are not accurate.”
You’re a member, though, right?
Should people only read from your “approved sites” list? Are you suggesting censorship? What about that bodice ripper I have stashed in the beach bag – should I swap that out for a medical journal instead? Are you too worried that “You guys” are not capable of discerning fact from fiction on that site? Tell me – what CAN I read???
What does the status of anyone’s membership have to do with the accuracy of the information Dr. Amy presented?
:::wafting away the blowing smoke:::
I’m positive Dr. Amy doesn’t believe in censorship; she’s written about it many times. Furthermore, she virtually never censors comments from complete foul-mouthed idiots here on her own blog (other than obvious spammers). But ask a polite question of Jen Kamel, and she deletes instantly. Who’s hiding something here?
Furthermore, Dr. Amy has no financial incentive for you to learn the truth about HBAC dangers. Jen Kamel, on the other hand, has spots in her VBAC seminars to fill.
Sorry, but aren’t you the one complaining about the status of people’s membership, in claiming that 3 of the URs can’t be counted because they occurred before the reporting women were members of VBACFacts?
You keep claiming that those URs happened before October, but I don’t see where it says that in the Kamel post screenshotted; what I see is that they happened to the respective women before they joined VBACF. They could have joined VBACF last month and had their URs two weeks before that, and it still would have been written as “happened before they were members.” Before they were members =/= before October 2013.
It’s possible I missed an update, but I wonder if this isn’t where your issue stems from; you’ve interpreted “before they were members” as “before October 2013,” and so think they’ve been added in error.
Of course, the problem is that it really doesn’t matter. Aside from anything else, there’s no solid proof that the successful VBACs reported only happened since October and to women who’ve been members since October; it’s entirely possible that some of those births were reported before, or happened two years ago to women who’ve only just joined the group and reported their success story when they joined.
Um, ok. That’s a little half-cocked for a totally reasonable assessment. Of course people are going to categorize you with them if you’re a member – what the hell does that have to do with censorship? You’re here clearly defending their positions but then you get all up in arms when someone equates you with that group? Very strange.
The 1.2% is based on the 396 births from Oct 2013 to present, with the 5 reported rupture. 5 is 1.2% of 396.
There are members who joined after giving birth. You can’t exclude the births that happened prior to joining while counting the ruptures that happened prior to joining. Well, you can, but it isn’t an accurate rate.
So why do you think VBACfacts put a positive spin on it?
If you count the 2 ruptures that occurred when the women were members, the rupture rate is .5%. That is below the rate Dr. Amy cited of .7%.
You could do it the other way, and figure out approximately how many births each woman has had, and increase your denominator, but it would be considerable work to gather that info.
Yes, we wouldn’t want anyone to actually do any hard work. The site is only called VBACFacts, after all.
Have you discarded all the members who were successful before they became members, too?
What about the members who slunk away after horrific experiences because they couldn’t bear being judged for not living up to the fairy tale? Surely there’s a few of those, too.
I also know of at least one former member who lost a baby due to UR during a HBAC who has been banned from commenting due to her “negativity.”
What a loving community. Goes to show that it’s the money and positive stories that Kamel values.
No, that would not be a valid way to correct the data. I’ve already explained why.
And one of those 2 ruptures resulted in a death because she wasn’t in a hospital. The other mother had a tiny shred of common sense left, and went to a hospital, although they sure tried to get her not to consent to an RCS as she was in the middle of rupturing.
You are assuming VBACFacts just threw in +3 ruptures into the nominator
for fun (or something). Adding +3 vb attempts in the denominator is some kind of fix.
Either way you run the numbers, it’s 12%
(2+3) / (393 + 3) = 12.6% (inc. prior UR & vb attempt) or
(2+3) / (396 + 3) = 12.5% (UR counted? and prior VB attempt left out? but we add it back in?)
There I fixed it for you.
1.2% Sorry, just shows you what I get for being rude.
I knew something was wrong here – I recalculated it twice to be sure; but the decimal got me.
But then you’d need to know all the ruptures too—it is likely there are women who did not report negative outcomes back to the community, so it would be impossible to get completely accurate stats from that self-selected group.
Which is why the results state they are “an informal, unscientific gathering of information”. No one there is trying to play this data off as a groundbreaking study.
Right, but it is yet another bit of self-congratulatory propaganda perpetuated by VBACFacts. If it’s unscientific and worthless, why bother posting it at all? Or are you just embarrassed that the numbers are appalling and someone called you out on it?
Sharing information is always good. And, they are not my stats, and I didn’t post them, so I am not in the least embarrassed or appalled, but perhaps you should be for making that assumption.
I think it should be obvious as to why I may have thought that you were involved in the study.
I disagree that sharing information is always good. It is meaningless without proper context. And while you can complain that the numbers aren’t correct, I can also take issue with the fact that they did not report whether or not these were HBAC or hospital VBACs, and what the outcomes were for the mothers and babies. UTERINE RUPTURE IS A HORROR STORY BECAUSE IT IS CATASTROPHIC. Downplaying that reality is the real disservice here, as are all of the commenters that encourage women to disregard medical advice.
It IS obvious why you thought I was involved in the study – you “assumed”. It is beyond your comprehension that someone can be against HBAC (I am) value RCS when required (I do) and STILL take issue with presenting inaccurate information.
Taking issue with how something is calculated is not downplaying any risks. Artificially inflating rupture rates won’t do anything to persuade women to have a RCS or hospital birth. It will make them distrust any other information you present.
Then I apologize for that assumption. There have been a number of people who have recently started commenting here who came directly from VBACFacts, but it was an erroneous assumption.
I still disagree with your complaints about the numbers. If anything, I suspect the rate of rupture is higher than reported because of the generally unsupportive environment that exists when women lose a baby during a VBAC attempt.
Apology accepted.
You’re not appalled by preventable deaths? Well, okay then. We are.
Why are you here at all? You just surf the net searching for incorret numbers?
Well to each their own I guess. I myself think that 1 child dead in such a way is horrorifying. But then again what I know about math?
Randomly stumbling upon this page while in search of mathematical errors is the best scenario you could come up with?
How does requesting accurate information decrease the horror of a child’s death? Lying and sensationalism are okay, as long as you mourn a preventable death?
You aren’t requesting accurate information. The information I presented is accurate. That’s why Jen Kamel deleted it. You are desperately searching for inaccurate information or making it up if you can’t find it.
It’s skewed. It does not represent the whole picture.
I am amused by your comment about searching for accurate information. I came here MONTHS ago and requested from you studies on VBA3C. You never responded. http://www.skepticalob.com/2011/01/vba3c-homebirth-ruptured-uterus-brain.html#disqus_thread
I made the same request of Jen Kamel. She provided a summary of what she had gathered. If you want people to stop reading her information, and to use your “accurate” information instead, start providing it..
OK, so the data is worthless.
So why is it being presented at all? You called it a “pulse check” but that’s not true, since a pulse is actually a real measure. It’s more like checking the pulse by counting … I don’t know, something that is not a good measure of a pulse.
How about, it’s like measuring a pulse but using your thumb, which is something we all know is not reliable.
You can’t have it both ways. She put the data up with the implication it means something. You can’t just dismiss something you don’t like with “oh, it doesn’t mean anything.” If it doesn’t mean anything, then don’t present it as if it did.
if the data is worthless, then it doesn’t tell us anything.
No, see, you don’t understand. The data that shows they have a low rupture rate is pure gold and should convince women that they should try to have a baby at home despite the “risks”.
The data that shows they have a high rupture rate shouldn’t be counted against them so leave it alone! You don’t get to count it up! That’s dishonest!
Maybe it’s like drawing a picture of the foetus instead of doing a scan?
“what are your thoughts” is not “requesting studies”.
And she’s not your personal doctor, statistician or trained monkey. You’re seriously personally offended that she didn’t reply? To a comment you left on a post that was 3 YEARS old at the time? Wow you’re self centered and demanding.
Yep, you came here 3 months ago, on a topic of more than three years old.
Most bloggers don’t answer post on topic more than six months old.
About VBAMC, did you try pubmed? There are several studies here. You evidently know maths. Go there and do some research. If you don’t understand or aren’t sure, there are several medical bloggers out here (DR Amy included) that will help you.
I am not surprised Jen had information on hand. I can make up stuff or select shiny anecdotes in three second flat.
Let us know then when VBAC”Facts” gets back to you with the accurate numbers then. You have requested them, right?
So, if they have added 3 ruptures for fun and jiggles, how many more successful VBCAs before people were members have been added?
You can’t modify just that data (funny enough, the only negative one) and not touch the other. You either take them as they are or not at all.
I do not mourn the death. I know nothing about the child or family. I am saddened of it, and mildly amused by your climbing over glass to try to justufy it.
Actually, no it isn’t. Sharing badly-organized, badly-gathered data is a very bad thing, because it can provide a completely inaccurate picture. This is why scientific journals do peer-review before publishing. So rubbish information doesn’t cause people to make terrible decisions. This is especially problematic if it’s put out there by an organization that has an interest in painting an inaccurate picture.
Let’s put it another way, do you think they would have put out this “pulse check” if the pulse was bad? The fact that they deleted the post shows that they wouldn’t have. So you’ve got a biased organization putting out specially selected data that makes them look good, and either retroactively explaining away, or just plain deleting, information that makes them look bad.
By the way, drug companies do this very same thing. There have been laws passed trying to stop them from conducting a number of different studies, then only publishing the one that got favorable results and hiding the rest of the information.
So you decide – is “sharing information” always good? Or is it basically a propaganda campaign designed to cover up the real risks?
This is a good point. However, we know from actual studies that HBAC, and vaginal breech (especially VBAC) are riskier than VBAC in a hospital with monitoring and the OR right there. Mentioning that some of these types of birth occurred wo/incident is one thing, but making it seem like they are of equal risk with VBAC in the hospital, and encouraging women to undertake these types of births is another. I’m not saying that YOU personally are doing that, but that seems to be one of the messages the informal poll is sending.
It doesn’t matter how “informal” it is. They are trying to play this data as a support for their position, and because of the way it’s organized, it doesn’t and can’t support their position. It’s incomplete, badly gathered, over a vague time frame, and has a bias that excludes women who had bad outcomes.
This isn’t the Pepsi Challenge. This is something that affects the lives and fertility of women, and the lives of their wanted babies. Putting out junk data, and claiming it as evidence to support your position, however informally, is a horrible thing to do.
She’s trying to use it to promote a practice that really should be a discussion between the woman and her doctor, not a bunch of lay-ninnies on FB, especially when led by a lay-ninny that is making money off of VBAC being a “safe thing”. It’s safe for the right women and that can only be determined by the woman l and her doctor. So the numbers matter because of the way she’s using them. You don’t get to put numbers forth to try and bolster your position but then tel everyone else “you can use these against me for a, b & c reasons!” If the data aren’t good enough to use to argue against her point, they aren’t valid to argue for.
So the post by VBAC Facts was just completely meaningless then? How do you know that the births that happened prior to joining were excluded? Maybe those births are counted. It makes absolutely NO sense to me why they would include URs in their numbers where that birth was not also counted in their numbers. The whole post is sloppy and it’s difficult to figure out what numbers are being included where.
You know the births that happened prior to joining were excluded because it states that in the post. It is from group members who reported their births from Oct 2013 forward.
This list was compiled by a giant idiot if they included ruptures where they did not also include the births that resulted in those ruptures in their “statistics.”
But that’s when they REPORTED their births.
Obviously, it was possible to report births that occurred before then. Why do you assume that it was only those with ruptures who had births before they joined?
How do you know that the total births excludes births prior to joining? It might include those too, if the rupture rates include it. You don’t know what bias the data has in general.
These are the numbers taken from the very post put up by VBAC Facts themselves!
OK. Over how many months was the study conducted? How many dropouts were there, that is, women who participated in the group at one point but did not return to report their birth outcomes? Is there any way to know whether people just made up birth stories and submitted them?
Go read the disclaimer that was posted with the results. It is a pulse check – nothing more, and was presented as such.
I think calling it a “pulse check” is an excellent metaphor. The heart rate alone is not the final word on whether a patient is doing ok, but it’s a simple and quick way to get started with assessment (too bad that the homebirth midwives who let that Australian woman bleed to death while reassuring her that her lightheadedness and difficulty breathing were just anxiety didn’t try checking a pulse, but that’s another story). Anyway, this study is, as you say, a pulse check. And the heart rate isn’t looking healthy at all. Don’t you think Jen Kamel should have let her readers know?
I agree.
It’s a “pulse check.”
But if you take a pulse and it is high, you don’t dismiss it with, “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
What’s the point of “taking a pulse” if you don’t care what it is?
You take a pulse. You feel 3 beats. But, you forgot to look at your watch, so you have no idea how long you checked it.
You check it again, this time keeping track of the time, and feel 100 beats in one minute.
Is your pulse 100 beats per minute, or 103? With Dr. Amy math, it is 103.
Now that you’ve convinced us that you don’t know how to do 4th grade math, can you please explain why you are still trying to defend the hideous death rate that Jen Kamel deleted?
I have never defended anything about the death rate. I have only taken issue with how you have calculated the rupture rate, so, no I cannot explain what I did not do.
This has been an enlightening discussion. I have long suspected you are incapable of ever admitting you have made a mistake. It puts everything you have ever written in a new context.
I used to think you had a nasty personality, but presented good information. Now I know there is nothing of value here. Congrats, Amy, you’ve driven away another person with your viciousness.
You came here to confirm your own assumptions that Dr. Any is MEEN and wrong, just like everyone says. Congratulations.
The fact that you still support a Facebook group dolling out hideous medical advice from a layperson to women and babies that need high quality medical care says much more about you than it does about Amy Tuteur.
Right, kiddo. Run to Jen who simply deletes the posts showing her mistakes. Dr Amy disagrees she made a mistake and since she doesn’t bow to your logic, there’s nothing of value here.
I happen to think that one of the things that aren’t of any value is your trust in the mental abilities of the idiots who would include ruptures but not the births that went with them. Knowing Dr Amy, your nonsense will stay here forever.
Make sure to keep to the flounce. And say Jen hi from me. I was the one who saw the screenshot of Dr Amy’s post there and saw it deleted shortly afterwards. I was the one who made the posters here aware of the cowardice of the dangerous bunch you’re defending. So, send my greetings to the most dangerous one of the bunch while you worship at the feet of her warm amazing personality.
Speaking of counting 3 heartbeats …
Counted enough in the delivery room to recognize from simply three beats the likely need for progressive resuscitation interventions … that rhythm * always* flipped on my radar … my flipped radar *never* failed to keep my undivided attention until such time as that concern proved unwarranted …
In reference to the discussed UR rates after VBAC…
Radars of all involved parties warrant “flipping” … in particular those who may be actually facing the increased risk of UR … no attention can be focused by conversation deletions …
In reference to any newborn experiencing his mother’s UR …
Participated in enough of those resuscitations to recognize that a baby’s ONLY chance of survival is to be literally within feet of advanced resuscitative care and with the undivided attention of all present … if that survival warrants consideration it deserves discussion
In reference to Doctor Amy’s “nasty personality” in this conversation …
Guess I missed it … it is certainly possible in a long thread
In reference to *unnecessary* newborn deaths …
They are an absolutely nasty thing to witness!!
No, it’s more like your nurse rooms the patient, checks the pulse and finds it to be 130 rather than a normal 80 or so, and brings it to your attention. Now maybe your nurse made a mistake when counting the beats, or maybe there is some other benign explanation. But what should I do in response to this concerning elevated rate? Shall I walk into the room and anounce to the patient “Congratulations on your excellent heart rate!”. No, to do so would be unethical. Instead I should go into the room and tell the patient “Say, your pulse value is higher than I like to see. Before we do anything else we need to check this out further.” Patients deserve to know the health info that potentially affects them.
Why lie? Really, why lie and congratulate someone on a bad rate and call it good? Why?
They probably would have tried to take her pulse with their thumbs, anyway, because that’s how they saw it done on TV.
What in the world is a “pulse check”?? Clearly she is using this data as a way to support her view that VBACs are safe. She can’t on the one hand use the data to support her cause, and on the other hand disclaim it as a “pulse check.” Nevermind that that “pulse check” is very concerning in and of itself …
So the data is good enough to provide evidence for her position, but not nearly good enough to provide evidence against her position. How does that work, exactly?
That’s exactly what it is.
How many members over their were all “oh you can’t take anything from this, it’s just a pulse check, it doesn’t show anything” before it was pointed out the rates were bad?
None, of course.
If you want to do that, you also have to include ALL the ruptures experienced by everyone other member who gave birth during the same time period.
Keep trying, though; you beautifully illustrate the desperation of VBAC proponents when trying to explain away preventable deaths.
Dead babies are ever so inconvenient, aren’t they?
I think it is just a troll.
Lets not feed it.
I believe they have included all ruptures. They didn’t have to include the information about the 3 ruptures prior to membership. Why would they include those 3 and exclude others if they were trying to juke the stats?
I’m not trying to explain any preventable deaths. I’m asking you to be accurate.
They did not make that information clear when it was first posted. It wasn’t until other members started to question the UR. Only then was it “corrected” to add that 3 out of the 5 ruptures may not have happened in that time frame.
It still should not be dismissed.
No, you’re not. You’re desperately trying to ease your cognitive dissonance.
You really, really, really want to believe that VBACFacts offers complete and accurate information. When Jen deleted reference to my post, you know that indicated that she understood that the stats were hideous, but wanted to hide that inconvenient fact from her readers. Now you are trying to pretend that Jen had a legitimate reason so you won’t have to confront reality.
I want VBAC facts to provide accurate information.
The same thing I want from you.
But clearly VBACFacts doesn’t want to provide accurate information. That’s why they delete unfavorable information that they cannot rebut.
I understand completely why Jen deleted reference to my post. What I don’t understand is how you can still be pretending that there was a legitimate reason to delete the evidence without addressing it.
Jen may believe that you are a gullible fool, but I still have hope that you will recognize when you’ve been scammed.
I don’t agree with her removing the post.
I also do not see what removing the post has to do with your math.
It isn’t a matter of whether or not you agree with what she did. It’s that what she did was try to cover up unfavorable information that she could not rebut.
That’s the whole point of my post. When Jen deleted the reference to the hideous rupture rate, she demonstrated consciousness of guilt. She recognized (or perhaps she knew all along) that the rupture rate was hideous. She just didn’t want you to find out.
Could you do us a favor, then? Could you go back to the VBACfacts private group and ask Jen why she deleted it?
Or do you think that you’d be kicked out of the group if you did that?
if some of the ruptures happened before the people in question were full members, how do you know some of the other figures aren’t from women before they were full members, too? If that is the case, you can only perform math on all the numbers *as is* to avoid selection bias as much as possible, or say the facts are worthless. You can’t modify one number without seeing if you need to modify the rest.
Precisely.
I hate corrected data, especially when it’s “corrected” in a black box. Correcting is complicated and subjective. Better to have raw data accompanied by a description of possible sources of bias, for example.
When you have really really solid data, then you can start playing games like trying to collect for confounders. But you need a pretty big data set to even start to do that. And trying to apply most correction techniques when you’ve got a severely non-representative sample is like wiping dust off your glasses when the windshield is covered in mud. It just doesn’t begin to address the real problem.
OK. So what are your numbers, and how did you get them?
I didn’t see the original poll stats. Do you think these numbers are higher because of the higher proportion of poor candidates attempting VBAC (or HBAC)? I had a vbac with my second child and my OB did not hesitate to tell me that she had seen 3 ruptures. (But also encouraged me that I was a good candidate) I am almost hesitant to try one with another child given these hideous rates.
Yes. See my reply to motolibrarian below.
I think you are on to something with the idea that VBACfacts appeals to poor candidates that are there to hear what they want to hear.
If you have already had one successful VBAC then I don’t see why you can’t have another. Of course, it’s best to discuss with your doctor all the factors that apply to you.
“I think you are on to something with the idea that VBACfacts appeals to poor candidates that are there to hear what they want to hear.”
You mean like someone looking for information on VBA3C such as J in the Lou ?
Yes. If you look at the poll stats on the last post, they included quite a few VBA2C, VBA3C, and HBACs. And of course, these groups do reinforce the message that if your doctor tells you you’re a bad candidate, he’s just scaremongering, trying to get to his golf game and/or not being supportive.
A third child where the second was an uncomplicated VBAC, however, is probably BELOW-average risk.
When I planned my VBAC, I spent quite a bit of time on VBAC facts. There seemed to be a high amount of non-committal vague language around VBA3C and VBAMC. That concerns me. My OB told me that she saw a rupture on a second VBAC, which constantly reminds me of risk and possibility of negative outcomes. Not that I live by that all the time, but I definitely want a provider that will shoot me straight when it comes to risk.
I did not have a Csection, but I did have an OB who is known as “C section happy” by the local NCB crew. (I stumbled across them accidentally, long story) Several of my friends use the same OB. One of them ended up with a Csection for the birth of her first child, and despite the OB’s reputation, she was told she was a good candidate for a VBAC for the 2nd child. My friend chose RCS for her own reasons, but the OB (who just LOVES Csections!) would have been down with a VBAC. This OB is very straight-forward and will tell you benefits/risks and answer any questions….she is an excellent provider. I hope you have/find one like that.
I was very happy with the OB who did my VBAC. I was super crunchy until about 28 weeks and I realized that I did not want to hire a doula/midwife apprentice to serve as a doula. The OB was pretty patient with me and my insistent questions, explained all the risks and her plan for managing concerns in fetal heart rate. She was there the entire time I pushed. All in all, I was pretty happy with my care. I told the NCB message boards that and they responded that doctors are only familiar with surgical/med birth, and midwives are the expert on vaginal birth. Umm, I’m cool with that because I wanted MEDICAL help for me and my child should anything go wrong, not someone with only healthy vaginal births under the belt.
Exactly.
You were doing a VBACS. Why would you want an “expert in low risk birth” around, even granting that there is such a thing?
That is such bullshit. I work with an OB who has been practicing for nearly 40 years and he is a wonderful surgeon, but also SO skillful at vaginal deliveries. He has a great sense for pelvic adequacy, turns OP babies, can do episiotomies that never extend due to the care he takes delivering the baby. If that’s not expert I don’t know what is.
Actually, now that you say that I had a rock star nurse too. She told me she was cool with me getting the epidural or not. When I decided to get the epi, she moved me perfectly until my asynclitic daughter moved down. Most people in the NCB discount immediately excellent providers and nurses if they work in a hospital.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure repeat VBACs are a bit lower risk. Although anything can still happen.
You really kicked an ant hill diving into this VBAC”Facts” group, Dr. Amy!
Doula Dani unleashed a similar torrent after her blog post about MANA’s horrible VBAC results.
The concept that you put your child at an unnecessary risk of death is hard to reconcile….so it’s far easier to simply deny there was ever any risk associated with the choice made.
I do think, however, that mothers who choose to rely on lay individuals (like Jen Kamel) and online organizations (like VBAC Facts) for their obstetrical information share in the responsibility for their own outcomes. Jen is not a medical professional of any kind, nor does she have credentials as a statistician or scientific researcher, correct? Why, then, would any mother turn to her instead of trusting her physician or qualified midwife? My hunch is that, as humans, we often seek out what we want to hear or learn, perhaps rather than the truth, which can be cold and cruel at times. Sadly, most of these women will now consider themselves “informed” or “educated,” which will only be compounded by the advice of the unscrupulous and unqualified midwife, who will assure her that she is an excellent candidate for not only VBAC, but a HBAC as well…
I think that we do have a natural bias towards hearing what we want to hear. We also know that women’s autonomy has been (and continues to be) a very real issue. VBACFacts sings a siren song about female empowerment that is very seductive. It plants seeds of doubt that lead women to mistrust their care providers, all while being cheered on by other women who rolled the dice and got lucky. Rather than acknowledging that they were fortunate, they congratulate themselves on being strong, educated women, thinking that this, rather than biology or luck, led to the success of their VBACs.
Add in Jen’s pathetic crap about ruptures as “horror stories,” and you have a perfect recipe for convincing someone that they’re not really taking much of a risk. The participants in these groups are morally culpable for the outcomes as well.
This is very true. All bought all the NCB tripe hook, line and sinker when I was pregnant with my first. My CNM homebirth midwife never told me, really, about the risks. It never crossed my mind that my baby could die at homebirth.
I did as well. My CNM was excellent, but never really talked about the risks either, and I’m embarrass that I never asked her about poor outcomes they’ve (surely) experienced in the past. I was satisfied knowing that most transfers are done prior to labor (they risked out well) or for maternal fatigue/FTP. I just keep wondering about what those other ‘few’ cases were.
Totally agree! It doesn’t help when a physician, who may be pressed for time, (running late after attending a birth, 30 charts to catch up in his or her awful EMR system, 15 messages to pharmacies for prior authorizations, etc.), succinctly and matter-of-factly states to a mother (knowing her history) that she simply is not a good VBAC candidate, then moves on to the next matter in the prenatal visit. If this is not what the mother wants to hear, finding a “community” where she can be told otherwise is, to use your excellent word, quite seductive.
In my opinion, though, the real harm comes when a midwife enters the picture and confirms that the doctor is full of ***t and that a VBAC and, in fact, home birth would be a perfectly safe and wonderful option for the mother. A chance to “heal” from prior birth trauma. Their 60 minute visit, complete with soothing words and lots of empathetic nods, leaves a mother feeling so supported and understood. How can this be a wrong choice when it *feels* so right?
Just cut the crap, Jen Kamel. I am tired of hearing you write off the tragic losses of babies due to uterine ruptures as “horror stories.” The overall rate of rupture may indeed be low, but when it occurs, it is catastrophic. Given your cheerleading for HBAC, you have an even greater responsibility to quit downplaying the risks of a uterine rupture. You know damned well that if one happens during a HBAC, chances are very low that both mother and child will come through it unscathed.
If you really believe in “VBACFacts,” disclose how these five babies fared, where their births occurred, and whether or not the mothers came out of it with intact uteruses. Oh, and quit pretending to be some kind of an expert on childbirth. You are not a healthcare practitioner; quit pretending to be an expert.
We know one of them was Griffin. We know that “Danielle”, who commented on the other post, was a VBA2C who was advised to go unassisted by admins of VBACfacts, decided instead after having no prenatal care since 30 weeks to go in to the hospital late in labor, where doctors detected her rupture in time to save her baby’s life. Doctors had advised her not to VBA2C because she was not a good candidate.
That’s two preventable ruptures right there, out of the 5.
Was she counted in the 5? Because, she did ultimately end up with a Csection, and considering the slapdash way the stats were collected in the first place (some of them weren’t members at the time!), it wouldn’t be totally out of the realm of possibility.
I imagine all the ruptures ended up with Csections, or at least surgery for repair, but depending on where and when the rupture occurred (and how bad it was), maybe some of the ones listed as RCS were actually minor ruptures? This is total speculation on my part.
She says she was. It happened this year. I’ve read the thread where she announced her rupture. She was at 6 cm when the baby’s heart rate started to become concerning. She posted on VBACfacts looking for advice, and everyone told her to keep refusing. A woman who claims to be a birth rights lawyer, especially.
Then at 8 cm, she was hemorrhaging, and finally consented. Baby was almost 10 lbs.
The comments are along the lines of, “so sorry you didn’t get your VBAC!”
Oh I see. I haven’t looked at the website, just what is posted here. Do you think there are any women who experienced a rupture and didn’t come back and tell the community about it? I hope not, but it wouldn’t be shocking.
Oh, I think it’s highly likely.
Oh that line irritates the shit out of me. First, it suggests that a VBAC is the sole or primary purpose of having a baby AND it implies that a woman who has a repeat CS has somehow lost the childbirth game despite the fact that the outcome was a healthy mom and a healthy baby. Nevermind the specifics of this situation where it sounds like people were armchair quarterbacking a very dangerous birth situation from behind the safety of a fucking keyboard. It’s dangerous and it’s pathetic.
Birth Rights Lawyer? Ugh. Not a thing. Doesn’t exist. And if I wasn’t 100% sure that her law degree came from Google U, I’d try to figure out who she was to be reported to the bar as a violation of ethics (specifically the duty to a client which involves their well being and safety. For example, if you think your client is suicidal you may have an obligation to get them help even if mental health treatment might harm their legal position).
It was Farah Diaz-Tello. Dr. Amy has written about her before. http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/main/about_us/staff.php
I just want to hear Jen Kamel admit it, Trixie. She owes everyone that she claims to “empower” the full facts behind these statistics.