Every time I think I’ve plumbed the depths of the deadly depravity of homebirth advocates who think their birth experience is more important than whether their baby lives or dies, another homebirth loss mother comes along to disabuse me.
Lisa Flatto has no remorse for her daughter’s entirely preventable death at a home VBAC. Indeed she is so proud of herself that she wrote a boastful piece about about it.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]”My baby didn’t die because I had a VBAC at home. My baby died because that was her journey.”[/pullquote]
Flatto recounts the typical homebirth tragedy of clueless homebirth midwives shocked to discover a dead baby drop into their hands.
The central conceit of the piece is the droning repetition of these words:
Yes She Was
Yes, she was beautiful. Yes, she was 8lbs 15 ounces. Yes, she went past her due date. Yes, she made me sicker than a dog. She kicked me, early on and often.
But because of the decision to have a homebirth, she is no more.
Quotes from the piece tell the ugly story.
Flatto piled risk upon risk on her tiny daughter.
1. There was the risk of attempting a VBAC at home where a ruptured uterus would mean certain death.
2. Then there was the fact that Flatto was post dates:
My waters never released. My contractions were nothing much. At 41 weeks and 5 days we got serious, very serious, about getting the party started.
Membranes were stripped, acupuncture was had, herbs were drunk and candles were lit.
Her daughter was at risk of dying because a postterm baby’s oxygen needs during a labor of normal length may outstrip the oxygen carrying capacity of a deteriorating placenta.
3. Flatto forced her daughter to endure a 3 day labor, though protracted labor increased the risk of perinatal death.
Instead of recognizing the risk to the baby and recommending transfer, the fools who served as midwife and doula blamed Flatto:
My midwife whispered to my doula: “At some point she has to come to terms that she is the one doing this. She needs to be alone.”
4. Flatto’s midwife couldn’t be bothered to monitor the baby throughout the 3 day labor. Indeed the midwife couldn’t even be bothered to stick around.
It was Monday morning and things were shifting. Things were getting harder, my doula talking my jaw soft through every contraction. My midwife? Well, now she came and now she stayed.
5. The baby slowly and painfully suffocated to her death and the midwife had no idea of the baby’s prolonged distress (it probably took hours) until the baby was actually dead.
After checking my daughter’s heart rate, my midwife said, “You need to push her out. NOW!”
6. At the moment of supreme urgency, the midwife did this:
Screams.
Panic.
Faces of joy quickly turned to fear – a fear I hope never to see again.
“Talk to her,” they said.
“Call her by her name,” they said. “Should we call 911?”
Call her by name?
Should we call 911?
The ignorance and stupidity defies description. It’s only exceeded by Flatto’s supreme narcissism:
Later, I am [at] the hospital before being put under for a D&C because my placenta wouldn’t detach on it’s own. As he was placing the mask on my face, the anesthesiologist said…”Ah, once a cesarean always a cesarean.”
“No, not true” I said before going under…
For Flatto it was all about pushing a baby out of her vagina. The fact that the baby was dead didn’t negate her “achievement.”
Flatto feels no remorse and takes no responsibility.
My baby didn’t die because I had a VBAC at home.
My baby died because that was her journey.
Her journey?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more cold blooded justification for a preventable death.
For those wondering if this is the immediate reaction to grief:
I went on to have another daughter. I do not live in fear. I do not doula in fear.
I’m waiting to see what other homebirth advocates will make of this abomination. Will they readjust their thinking?
“My doctor didn’t perform an unnecessary C-section on me. I was just my journey to have a C-section.”
“Remember when I said my doctor birth-raped me? My bad; it was just my journey to have him thrust his arm in my vagina up to his elbow to pull out my retained placenta.”
“Disappointed that I didn’t have the homebirth of my dreams? No way; it was just my journey to have an emergency hospital transfer.”
Or is it only a baby whose excruciating preventable death from suffocation at homebirth can be fobbed off as “her journey”?
But it was not the baby’s “journey” to die. Her destiny was to live and grow to adulthood and she almost certainly would have done so if her mother had gone to the hospital for her birth.
The baby did not have to die; her mother let her die … and she’s bragging about it.
It’s hard to imagine anything more depraved.
This reminds me of a friend of mine from high school, she gave birth to both of her children at home, she nearly lost her second child and her own life because of prolonged labor. The midwives with her told her she needed to get to a hospital, she refused and kept laboring. Her son was born after two days of labor, he survived, but it was all about Her Journey, Her Desire to have a home birth, Her Refusal to go to a hospital. She gave me a thirty a minute lecture for having a c-section for medical reasons, legitimate medical concerns, because I wanted my son to be born healthy and safe, and also wanted to be able to enjoy watching him grow up.
I don’t understand women who put their desire for their dream birthing experience over the health and safety of their precious child. I wish something could be done to stop the selfishness of these women, because that is all it is pure utter selfishness and stupidity. It’s not about them, it’s about the baby they are bringing into this world, the life they have nurtured for nine months.
You are absolutely right!
This should be considered a crime. Babies shouldn’t have to die for this – is there some sort of advocacy working to outlaw the idiocy of these lunatics?
What do you suggest instead? Holding women down and taking away their right to make medical decisions about their bodies because they are pregnant? At what point in the pregnancy is that acceptable to you exactly? because for me it is never.
It’s not just your body anymore! At some point freedom becomes negligence and that line was clearly crossed in this instance. If a person dies because of the inaction of another person who could have prevented that death through some basic interventions, that just seems like gross negligence, which is a crime. These women don’t seem to view their babies as people who have their own lives – they’re simply extensions of themselves. It’s disgusting. Your baby is a human being – It is not just about you. This is not a feminist issue, it’s a human rights issue!
I suggest certain precautions, like baby monitoring, being a requirement. It’s no longer acceptable of your decisions result in the death of another person. It should be considered negligent.
But if you decide that baby monitoring is mandatory. Then why not ultrasound to make sure the baby is healthy? GD testing. Blood pressure for pre-eclampsia. Having an IV catheter in place just in case.
Once you’ve taken those choice away, where do you draw the line? Why shouldn’t induction at 40 weeks become mandatory? Waiting past 40 weeks only raises the risk of a stillborn. An then mandatory c-section for all breech, twins and those who already have a c-section?
Making all of those things mandatory would lower the death rates of newborn.
You can’t take away a part of someone’s autonomy, because once you start, you never know where it’s going to end, people will always want to push further because it’s ‘for the greater good’.
People, including pregnant women, have the right to 100% bodily autonomy, as long as they are properly informed of the risks and potential outcome of their choices.
Ok so why not just legalize abortion at 40 weeks?
It’s actually technically legal in my country.
But let’s face it, that’s just a stupid excuse pro-lifers throw around to try and justify their stances and restrict abortion right. No one in the history of abortion ever got a 40 weeks abortion.
I would invite you to actually check out real statistics about late birth abortion. People who make it to 20 weeks usually WANT to have the baby. Late term abortion are actually done for medical reasons, either because the mother is at risk of dying or because the foetus has an anomaly that is not compatible with life or that will cause severe physical and mental disability. There are no convenience 35 weeks abortion happening.
My point is is that you should be held responsible for the person you’re carrying because they are actual people. Once a baby is brought to term, the only thing separating it from physical autonomy is merely situational. If another person makes choices that result in that person’s death, it should be treated like any other persons death and someone should answer for it. If I make a choice that results in my toddler dying, I would be held responsible. Why should birth be any different? Because people have it in their heads that certain procedures are “unnatural?” That’s untenable. A baby shouldn’t be allowed to be sacrificed to principle.
And yet you cannot. You can never force someone to have surgery or any kind of medical procedure they do not want. The woman’s autonomy is still a thing.
I hate it that babies die because people make stupid choices. But what do you want? That we drug pregnant women and tie them to bed to force foetal monitoring and knock then out against their will to make them have a c-section? Should we also lock up smokers and drinkers in prison while they are pregnant to make sure they don’t touch those things? Drug test every pregnant women? Arrest any woman who does a sport that is potentially harmful to the unborn baby? Whenever a baby is stillborn, are we going to open an inquiry into everything the mother did that might have resulted in the loss of the baby?
That is a seriously dangerous proposition you have there.
However, the CPM should be held accountable for the stupid things they tell their clients. Most mothers who refuse medical treatment and try out homebirth truly believe that what they are doing is the safest and best thing for themselves and the baby. They have been lied to by people they actually believe to be real health professionals. CPMs should be banned and held responsible whenever a baby dies because of them.
Azuran, you’re going a little nuts. Why not discuss what I say instead of spinning it so out of proportion? There are degrees and people can suggest reforms without introducing a nightmare hellscape of impotence.
I agree with you on the CPMs.
Because what you are saying is that foetal monitoring should be made mandatory.
That means: forcing a medical procedure on someone who doesn’t want it. Once you open that door, other things will start to add up on that first step.
And how are you going to enforce it if a women doesn’t want your monitoring?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m like 100% against homebirth. Even where I live, in Canada, where homebirth is supposedly almost as safe a hospital birth, I’d never do it and I do consider anyone who does it an absolute nut who is mindlessly risking the life of her baby.
But I also agree that once she has been properly informed of all the risk, it is up to her to make her choice and live with the consequences. I still think she’s the biggest idiot alive. But I don’t think she should be criminalized for it or forced to do anything against her will.
So who answers for the person she may inadvertently kill? That’s all I’m asking. Who is responsible for the life that was stolen?
If a mother is properly informed about the options and risks and declines medical treatment. Then no one is responsible. She has made her choice. It’s her body as well, and yes, the autonomy of the living adult human being is more important than that of the unborn one.
Like I said. What are you going to do to her? drug her and strap her down? Or sent her to prison and deprive her potential other children from having a mother? Where are you going to put the line of what is or isn’t acceptable to force on an unwilling pregnant women because it’s best for the baby?
If a medical professional (or a fake one like a CPM) gives out false information that prevent the women from making an informed decision, than that person should be held responsible.
If the mother is properly informed of the baby’s potential death and then the baby dies because of that choice, then yes I suggest she goes to jail. Women go to jail when their babies die because of their risky or neglectful behavior, this isn’t different. Especially when it’s something as non-invasive as wearing a monitor. I would think the only reason they would even refuse something as simple as intermittent monitoring is because they dont want to know if their baby is in distress because it doesn’t matter to them as much as having their perfect “birth experience”. That just seems like callous indifference to human life and seems like a crime to me.
Where do you draw the line? At what point does a choice equal a potential death? Refusing a c-section for a baby clearly in distress is pretty easy to see, but there’s a slippery slope, which I think is what Azuran is saying. So if she refuses constant monitoring, and something happens to the baby? If she chooses an epidural/doesn’t choose an epidural? (I’m not saying this is life-threatening, just trying to figure which choices count.) I’m all about making sure mother and baby are safe, but ultimately the mother has to choose, and I think it’s a gross oversimplification to say that if the baby dies, it’s her fault. What if she had bad advice, as we see here so often? What if there’s no way for them both to be ok no matter what she chooses? Does that mean she’s obligated to sacrifice her life in order for the baby to survive? What if she has other children? Should they lose their mother if it has to be one or the other? So many questions, and no easy, one-size-fits-all answers.
I wouldn’t know if constant monitoring is necessary or if intermittent is enough. depends on the circumstance.
Epidurals don’t seem like a variable here, but I’m not an expert.
No I don’t think she should sacrifice her life to save the child. No one would assert that except maybe fundamentalist misogynists.
This is where laws like this take us:
https://www.propublica.org/article/when-the-womb-is-a-crime-scene
And how exactly can you force a woman to birth in a hospital? It’s just not enforceable.
Wow…..just wow. Everything in this article is just horrible.
So you would send a women who refuse a c-section and as a stillborn as a result to jail, even though a c-section does have a risk of death for the mother?
As far as I know, the risk of death is *extremely* low. if she was a high risk individual, those extenuating circumstances would absolve her. If she’s just a selfish entitled jerk, then yes I would send her to jail.
And how would we decide what % of risk is acceptable? How do you make the difference between ‘selfish entitles jerk’ and ‘clueless first time mother who was lied to’ or ‘scared of hospital and surgery’
And when a women inevitably die because of those forced c-section. (because it would eventually happen, regardless of your attenuating circumstances) who are you going to send to jail then? Or are you just going to say that she was a necessary sacrifice for the good of those unborn babies?
What are you going to do with those who refuse medical treatment but don’t have any complications? You cannot make something illegal based only on the outcome. Drunk driving is illegal no matter if you cause an accident or not. So you would need some sort of punishment for all women who refuse treatment regardless of how it turns out.
I’m assuming medical research could determine the acceptable percentage of risk and the voters and Congress would have to fight it out.
If the woman is a child, then sure I’d feel the need to protect her from scary hospitals. Otherwise I’d assume If she’s a grown woman capable of rational thought and capable of doing research and that is how I would differentiate who is an entitled jerk. If she uses phrases like “that was her journey” then it’s pretty darn clear which camp she falls into.
If a low risk woman dies because of a c-section,’I’m assuming the doctor would be investigated and it would be determined whether malpractice is the cause. Then the doctor may be held responsible.
Yes that is the point – if the baby is at risk of dying unless intervention is taken and the mother willfully chooses to allow for the baby’s death to avoid a low-risk surgery (who the hell would do this except for negligent sociopaths?), then she would go to jail for negligent homicide.
You are expecting too much of medical research considering we don’t even have a real number of how many women cannot produce enough breastmilk and have no idea what what actual ‘optimal’ number of c-section is.
You really expect Congress to be able to take intelligent medical decision? Most are homophobic who don’t believe in climate change. Some of them apparently believe that a women cannot become pregnant after a ‘legitimate rape’
Why would you allow a child to chose her own medical treatment and not an adult woman?
You think a women facing manslaughter charge after her baby has died will claim it was for a ‘journey’ She’s just going to say the risks weren’t properly explained.
Most likely there was no malpractice in the woman’s death. The woman is still dead and it is your fault, because you forced her in a medical procedure.
And again: You cannot make something illegal based only on the outcome. So if you want to punish women who lose a baby because of their medical choice, you also need to punish those who went against medical advice regardless of how it went.
(Agreed, the punishment would be lighter than those who did lose a baby. But there should be punishment regardless.)
Which means prosecuting any woman who has a homebirth, tries to vaginally birth a breech baby or twins or tries to have a VBAC. Even if the baby ends up totally fine.
Azuran, I’m starting to think you didn’t read the article that we’re supposed to be discussing. I’m sorry but until you do, we’re at an impasse.
She did. But this discussion took a dive into the deep end of the ethics pool. Almost everyone here thinks the author who sent her baby on that *journey* is a deluded piece of narcissistic trash. Azuran has even said she agrees with you about some stuff. But she is asking some very valid questions of you. You are advocating for a very slippery slope of legislating a time when a woman’s body no longer belongs to her. In my heart I agree with you that a term baby is a person deserving of consideration. But legislating on that feeling is incredibly dangerous for the myriad of reasons Azuran and others have already pointed out to you. What you think is a decent base line for mandating monitoring, someone else will take it further and further until you end up in Ireland where women die because a D&C is taboo.
I have read it. And I agree that this woman is trash. But you cannot allow imposition of medical procedure on pregnant women. It’s a very dangerous proposition and will lead to very horrible things.
You are making some very valid comments Nola. Many legislators are realising the total stupidity of viewing the fetus as worthless one second before birth but amazing one second after birth.
Many of those same legislators regard the foetus as inviolable before birth, banning abortion.
A fair subset of them also don’t agree with contraception.
I agree as well. I don’t think a fetus is worthless and I do think there should be some kind of legal protection or status on them (especially when people knowingly hurt pregnant women). But it’s not yet a human being and the right and liberties of it’s mother (including right to abortion and bodily autonomy) are still more important than the rights of the foetus.
If a pregnant woman is slain the killer is charged for death of baby and woman. If a pregnant woman does drugs she can be charged with harming the fetus. It seems society likes to flip the switch on and off when convenient. Ok to abort, but not to harm. Ok to kill only if it’s moms choice, not another’s. There are just no answers to this topic. To many grey areas.
They main problem is that the baby is inside of a mother. Since pregnancy has so many possible sequels and complication on the mother, it makes sense that you cannot force her to go through with it.
I agree that there is never going to be a perfect answer to any of this. Both the mother and fetus cannot have absolutely equal values because their lives are intertwined and enforcing one’s right will often remove the rights from the other.
Whether a killer is charged for the death of a fetus depends upon where s/he is. It isn’t a universal law.
I doubt many of us think a fetus is worthless. I can view a fetus as precious but still realize what is ethical and practical to legislate. How do you enforce what you are proposing? What exactly would you consider enough of an effort on a mother’s part to absolve her of being considered neglectful or abusive under your proposed law? Getting prenatal care? Getting an ultrasound? Getting GDM testing? Getting an amniocentesis? What if she goes into preterm labor? Whose life should matter more when decision are made regarding medical management? What about preeclampsia or eclampsia that occurs early on? As they say, the devil is in the details.
So only entitled jerks disagree with you? Or with legislators?
Rights are exercised both responsibly and otherwise. Planned homebirth is, in my book, irresponsible. Refusing medical attention leading to the death or injury of an unborn baby is outrageous. But it is a woman’s right to to do that.
The alternative is what you suggest. That is also outrageous.
Why is it outrageous? It seems more outrageous to refuse to monitor your baby’s heartbeat during labor. It’s simple, it’s noninvasive, and the only reason for refusal would seemingly be to keep yourself willfully ignorant of problems so that you wouldn’t have to rectify them and could absolve yourself of responsibility in case of death. THAT is outrageous.
But the monitoring is the beginning, not the end. What if a woman is forced to monitor then refuses to act on the advice based on the monitoring? Are you happy then?
We’re not going to agree about whether this can be fixed. I’m not comfortable with forcing women to have anything done to their body.
Would you make her give blood for a born child? Bone marrow? A kidney?
You know I think we will just have to end this discussion and just agree to disagree.
Fair enough.
Because once you start, you never know where it’s going to end.
Once you make monitoring mandatory, what do you do when women refuse? What if she removes the straps, are you gong to tie her in the bed? Send her in prison after the baby is born?
Where are you going to draw the line of what medical procedure are and aren’t acceptable to put a women through?
We could also extend this to parenting decisions that occur after a child is born, but before it has full bodily autonomy. Why not jail parents who feed their children junk food? That’s harming the child, after all. Why not force women to [stay at home to care for the kids, breast feed, stay married to the father, be of a certain income level or above, etc.]?
A child, once born, has rights, but that still doesn’t allow us to jail the parents when we disagree with their decisions.
If a low risk woman dies because of a c-section, she’ll still be DEAD, no matter if anyone is to blame! It isn;t this different from some deluded homebirth mothers whose babies are dead after refused C-sections because mothers thought they were unnecessary. No one wanted the babies to die but die they did. In the low risk woman case, you’re substituting baby with mother.
I’m assuming medical research could determine the acceptable percentage
of risk and the voters and Congress would have to fight it out.
Are we planning to evaluate the risk for and individually legislate every potentially fertile person in the world, then? Because I don’t see any way that medical research can determine the risk for every individual except by a complete evaluation of each individual. Of course, circumstances can also change, often rapidly. If the woman develops ITP and out of control diabetes, making her a high risk for surgical procedures, does Congress have an emergency session to see if she can be forgiven for choosing her own life over that of the fetus and refusing c-section?
I’d have agreed with you if pregnancy was a thing that just happened to a woman out of the blue against her will and there was nothing to prevent it. This “scared of hospital and surgery” crap sounds so selfish and immature. Why not make up one’s mind in advance whether one is a purely selfish person who wants to sacrifice nothing whatsoever or wants to be a parent? Cause like you’re saying what next? My kid doesn’t go to school cause I don’t like to get up early?
“I’d have agreed with you if pregnancy was a thing that just happened to a woman out of the blue against her will and there was nothing to prevent it.”
So say a woman is on the pill and gets pregnant anyway. What then? How about the woman who uses NFP but gets pregnant anyway? What about a woman who is raped? None of those women chose to get pregnant.
There’s the early term abortion for them when the fetus is a mere egg.
Wow. So it’s either an abortion or become an incubator and totally lose your right of bodily autonomy?
Yes, you either take the responsibility or you don’t. You can’t be 50% or 30% or 20% responsible. You either are or you aren’t. And once you have crossed a certain timeline abortion is a crime. Why isn’t homebirth? I really don’t believe that there are women so stupid who don’t know that it’s dangerous. Rather they don’t want to make any effort or take any responsibility for their actions whatsoever.
I wouldn’t give my heart to my child if he/she needed a heart transplant. Does that mean I should never become a mother? Am I not responsible to take any risk possible to make sure my child is as safe as possible?
Here’s the thing: Who is going to decide what additional risk is acceptable to impose on a women to reduce potential risk to an unborn baby?
Except, of course, all the times when there isn’t. What a lovely world you live in where all women wanting an early term abortion can get one. It’s not the world the rest of us are in though, alas.
A fetus is never an egg. An ovum is an unfertilized human egg. A woman is not pregnant when there is an ovum in her body (anywhere in her body). A fetus does not exist until 8 weeks after conception. You therefore cannot have an abortion “when the fetus is a mere egg.”
Maybe where you live. Not everywhere.
A born child is outside his mother’s body. So that’s completely different.
But before the baby is born, it is inside of another human beings body and that human has rights.
I would have a c-section without any second thoughts. But FORCING another pregnant women to have one either by tying her down or threatening her with Jail time is wrong.
It could be at least a fine. Is the lost life of a newborn worth totally nothing?
I think it is horrible, and yes I wish there could be some sort of repercussion.
But the application is totally impossible and would go against practically every single basic human right.
Once you open the door of criminalizing the choices of birthing mother, where do you think it will stop? It would become a witch hunt.
Well, in my country homebirth is illegal. Nobody imprisones the women but they have enough hassle with the police and their older children may be taken away. It is also very difficult to register such babies and prove they’re really yours. That makes people think twice so homebirth is very rare although it does take place.
You would destroy a family and take children away from their parents and put them in fosters over this? What do you think the long term effects on those kids will be?
So, you’ve forced them to get inside the hospital. Are you also forcing them to have foetal monitoring, IV fluids, induction, episiotomy, forceps delivery, c-section? Because really, what good is it to force them to get inside a hospital if they can still refuse the care and just give birth on the floor in the waiting room.
If they refuse, do you send them to prison and take their kids away?
Are you going to also force them to stay at home and breastfeed?
I want them to be forced to bear responsibility for their actions. Refuse c-section and baby dies? Pay a large fine. Will make her think twice next time.
Or will make her that much less willing to try to get help when she needs it.
How much in dollars is a dead infant worth?
And what would you do when a women suffers permanent damage or death following your forced c-section? Bury her and say she was a needed sacrifice for the life of her baby?
Where does it stop? If a newborn dies of SIDS, who gets the fine?
But now your argument is the same as the homebirthing mother’s: the risk of death is extremely low, therefore it’s okay to [force women to have medical procedures/birth at home].
A woman who doesn’t want to risk anything shouldn’t get pregnant. Vaginal birth can kill too.
Again, what about women who got pregnant unintentionally, by rape of contraceptive failure, etc?
I just replied in another thread. Early-term abortion which is not an easy decision too but better than going full-term than killing the baby because you don’t want to risk ANYTHING. Don’t think that I am taking this lightly, I’ve spent hours and months dwelling on it. I will say honestly, I don’t want another c-section. So I am using two methods of contraception simultaneously and morally prepared for early term abortion.
It’s fortunate that those are options for you, and that you get to choose them. That’s not the case for everyone, just as c-section is not an undesired outcome for everyone.
Sure. I am writing from my perspective. I guess Flatto could pursue both as well though. But she wouldn’t have got her VBAC out of it, that’s the point. And she wanted the VBAC, wanted it very badly. Psycopaths like that should be somehow chastened. I think that was what Nola originally meant. I agree.
Don’t get me wrong; I think Flatto is a narcissistic jerk. I am not a supporter of homebirth or of woo in any way. I just don’t see removing bodily autonomy as the most effective way of addressing the craziness.
Edited to add that “do it this way or else” comes across to me as too much like “if a mother has no intention of breastfeeding, she shouldn’t have a baby,” which carries its own bodily autonomy issues too.
Like I replied to Azuran personally I don’t think such women should be jailed. But punished – yes. A fine, removal of the driver’s license, removal of license to practice as a professional, removal of rights over older children, reference to psychiatrist, whatever. People should know that it’s not a game. If they choose to behave like psychopaths they should be treated like psychopaths.
Having worked in the field of clinical mental health for decades, I have a strong reaction to that being used as punishment. I also wonder how you think removing children from parents would affect those children. To say it would punish parents is an understatement, and that is nothing compared to the effects on the children. By the same token, what if the benchmark was c-section? If you choose vaginal birth over c-section, especially having had c-section previously, which increases risk of rupture, etc., should your older children be removed from your custody because someone sees you as making a selfish decision?
I didn’t say that the children must be taken away. I said that the woman’s rights upon these children should, which in my country typically means that the family is being supervised by older relatives and social workers for quite a while as the mother’s adequacy is in question. Typically this is reforming enough to not try homebirth again.
From the children’s perspective, what do you think is the difference? I think it’s untenable. A situation involving actual inability to care for children is entirely different.
So you are basically saying: Get a c-section, or risk loosing all of your kids. It’s blackmail and coercion.
That is very dangerous thinking that is a gross infraction of basic human rights of women.
This, of course, requires older relatives to be available, suitable and willing. None of which are a given, and if such older relatives are not available, the state will have parental responsibility instead. In most countries, that has corresponding poor outcomes for the children. However you want to slice it, this (fucking hideous) idea of yours would end up punishing children for things their parents have done that you disagree with. No thanks.
So, you would basically take away her kids, any means she has to get anywhere, her job? You might as well jail her you know, because at that point you basically made her homeless.
That will certainly teach her to trust in the medical field and the government.
You do realise that if someone does try an homebirth (and people always will) if she has complication she is therefore more likely to refuse transfer and keep trying for longer period of time, riksing the life of the baby even more. Because if she transfer, she will lose everything, but if she can just get the baby out (dead or alive) she can show up at the hospital and pretend it was a very precipitous labor.
I didn’t say I wanted ALL these things done to a single woman simultaneously. Either … or … or… Anyway, all of you arguing with me (cause I can’t keep up that many threads), what would YOU impose on a woman like Flatto? Utterly nothing? Then we’re back to square one. Why not legalize late-term abortion?
I would ban the CPM credential and only have insurance companies cover homebirth if it’s with a CNM and under very strict risk out criteria. That would do a lot to decrease the danger of home birth without stripping women of bodily autonomy.
Mind you, I personally think homebirth under any circumstance is insane but legislating it by punishing the mother is not practical or in many cases, even possible.
Absolutely nothing, correct. If you think this is being back to square one, that’s a failure of yours and nobody else’s. The way to deal with CPMs et al is via education, and for the women who still choose to attempt unsafe births, better that they should do this than the bodily autonomy of all women giving birth be compromised.
As I’ve already said to someone else: Late term abortion is legal where I live. Because we do not believe in the government making decision about our bodies.
But late term abortion is not the same as having a stillborn. Those mother actually want a living child. But they still have the right to make their decision about what happens to their body.
“but if she can just get the baby out (dead or alive) she can show up at the hospital and pretend it was a very precipitous labor.”
This is my point. How on Earth do you enforce any of this? It’s not practical or in many instances, even possible.
I don’t think you know what a psychopath actually is. A person doing what they believe is best (yes, even if it is homebirth) is anything but a psychopath.
Your insistence on dehumanzing the mother in this story is telling. You dehumanize to make it okay to advocate stripping her of her rights. But she is, in fact, a human being, and while her logic is not your logic, what she did was not psychopathic, trashy, depraved, etc.
You can write from your own perspective whilst understanding that other people’s situations are not the same as yours. Try it sometime.
Lucky you, to have access to two methods of presumably suitable contraception, to be allowed to use it, and to be in a situation where you’re able to get an early term abortion. Many women could not say all or any of these things. Best hope you don’t get pregnant anyway and not realise for a few months, though!
Hopefully not. If I do however, I will pursue this baby’s interests. But I don’t think I will really. Pill + condom rarely fails. And I do pregnancy tests every months just in case so that I don’t have to have surgical abortion, just take a pill, which is very unlikely anyway. You see, I take responsibility for my life and that of my born/unborn children. Why can’t any woman do what I do? WHY? Are we talking about third world countries? I thought we were talking about the US. Are we talking about religious women? What kind of religion would treat killing a newborn positively (an attempt of HBA2C is it).
“Why can’t any woman do what I do?”
Possibly because they don’t have the benefit of the options that you do? You seem to be working from the assumption that women everywhere have the same options you have, and that is incorrect.
Even in the US, there are women who don’t have access to contraception, who have no access to a clinic and provider who can do any kind of abortion (medical or surgical) or who can’t afford it. Someone who has to pay $500 out of pocket might not be able to come up with the money in time for a medical abortion.
Perhaps any woman who works for Hobby Lobby. Or lives in a red state. Or is poor and without insurance and lives in a state where access to Planned Parenthood is being decreased. Just because you can’t imagine the situation doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Well, I did think we were talking about Flatto in this particular case and women like her. Flatto must not be encouraged in what she does because some woman somewhere can’t take control over her fertility.
So how would you write this hoot ethical law which criminalizes homebirth but doesn’t criminalize abortion? Again, the devil is in the details. And how would you enforce it? How do you prevent a woman from birthing at home? Sometimes this happens by accident. What if the woman says that it was a precipitous labor and the CPM there is her doula or just a friend? (These situations have actually happened.)
That should say hypothetical. Sorry for the autocorrect typo.
Well, the original dispute was about women like Flatto, women who attempt a HBA2C post-dates. Who don’t even repent and brag about having killed a baby. A situation where all IS clear. Nola wrote that they should be punished somehow, even jailed. I think jailed is too radical, but brought to answer they must be. People are brought to answer for being cruel to animals, not jailed, but punished. Are babies, fully-formed, ready to be born worse than animals?
You appear to think their mothers are.
Paying a fine or doing remedial works (actual punishment for those being cruel to animals) is being treated worse than an animal? Logic? You appear to imagine that I’m advocating something like tie the woman down and cut her open against her will and don’t even bother with anesthesia for the slut. No. Noone can take the choice from the woman. Make her pay for her choice, yes. So that she doesn’t do it again and doesn’t go on spreading this crap among other women.
Isn’t losing a child enough of a punishment? Sure there are the extremists, that woman who claimed “birth rape” was worse being one but having lost my “bodily autonomy” once I’m uncomfortable to say the least with the idea of putting the unborn baby on an equal footing with the mother.
Surely a better strategy is to do what Dr Amy and this blog/her book and interviews are doing. To attack the NCB industry and point out the dangers to anyone who will listen. To remind women that the process and the end result are extremely different things and gambling the latter on the former doesn’t make sense. Sure, there will always be those who don’t agree but locking them up is a step too far in my opinion.
There is no ‘choice’ when there is a threat. You cannot pretend that there is liberty of choice when once of the choices come with a punishment
Nah, you’re just in denial about the impact of what you want to do. Don’t lecture me about logic when you appear to be living in a parallel reality. You want to fine women, take away their professional licences (tough shit to any kids they already have who’d be affected I suppose, but like most people who want to limit women’s reproductive freedom supposedly for the sake of babies you don’t care much once they’re a bit older). If you put sanctions in place for women exercising their right to choose, you’re taking the choice away from those who know they cannot weather the consequences. You’re effectively taking bodily autonomy away, through coercion. Own it.
But you aren’t just talking about situations where all is clear. Below you said a woman who refuses a CS and her baby dies should be fined. Also, most women who choose homebirth do so because they think they are making a safe choice because that is what they are told by their CPM and people online (and in some cases even the mainstream media). There are commenters here who have had homebirths before realizing what the real risks were. I’d like to see you tell them that their older children should be taken away from them or that they should be given a large fine.
Here’s the thing: You cannot make something a crime based on the outcome. Either something is legal or illegal. Therefore you cannot criminalize decision taken during birth based on the survival of the baby. Either ALL HBA2C post date are legal or they are all illegal. If it’s illegal, then the outcome might play on the severity of the punishment. But you will still have to punish every women who had a healthy outcome.
Being a dick about it also isn’t a crime. The behaviour of the mother after the loss of the baby is not what decide if the actions she took were legal or not. So you cannot make it a crime for a mother to lose her baby because she is stupidly boasting about her journey on the internet. Grieving mother would have to be prosecuted as well.
OK, sorry, couldn’t get to the computer all day cause was celebrating my daughter’s first birthday and got lots of replies so I guess I will try to sum it all up in this single post. I don’t think that refusing a c-section and having a baby die is a crime and must be punished with jail time. That was suggested by another commenter here but I never agreed with the jail part. Also neither me nor Nola mentioned “forcing” a c-section or whatever on anyone. But in my opinion deliberately behaving during labor in such a manner which can harm or kill the baby is a sort of borderline deviant behaviour, not actually a crime, but extremely immoral behaviour like mutilating a dog or drunk driving or spreading porn with children and must be marked as such. I don’t even think the symbolic “punishment” would save the baby in question because, yes, bodily autonomy. But deviant behaviour must be acknowledged, not overlooked and found excuses for like the condomn didn’t work, the husband was abusive. We don’t justify a drunk driver not even if he was driving his dying mother to the hospital. That is my opinion, also based on the fact that in my country where homebirth is illegal and causes a lot of minor and major negative outcomes for women who practice it very few women do. So it does work. That’s it. I guess we just have to agree to disagree. I just can’t help being outraged with women bragging about VBACs with dead babies and getting away with it again and again and again.
But mutilating a dog, drunk driving and child porn ARE CRIMES. And they are punished because they are criminal activities.
To give a punishment to someone, their behaviour must be illegal. You cannot punish someone for doing something that is legal.
And where I live, homebirth is legal, but it’s extremely rare to have unassisted homebirth or homebirth death, because we have legal and regulated midwifery practices.
So which one do you think is better? Criminalizing mother, or giving them a safe and controlled environment to give birth?
A Russian midwife who did homebirth and the baby died was actually jailed but then let out because she was pregnant herself. Mutilating a dog is not a crime in many countries. Drunk driving is a crime in most countries but the severity of punishment it depends really. So, you see, in many ways it is a question of background and mentality what you consider a crime and what you don’t.
That the midwive, if she is responsible for the death, goes to prison is alright. If she acted negligently or lied to the mother she should face consequences because she robbed the mother of making informed decision.
The problem with criminalizing the birthing process is that you remove bodily autonomy from the woman. So it really has nothing to do with dogs or drunk driving. If you allow forcing a pregnant women to have even the smallest of medical intervention, it will open the door to the next medical intervention, then the next and before you know it, pregnant women will be stripped of all rights for the good of their babies.
I live in the US, in a region known for its poverty and lack of resources for the population in general, and for women’s reproductive health in particular. In some ways it might as well be a third-world country. The options here when it comes to unwanted pregnancy are limited to traveling to have an abortion someplace else, which is cost-prohibitive for many people, and “crisis pregnancy centers,” which employ high pressure to push women to deliver (and preferably parent), though adoption is mentioned as a last-resort option. You can imagine how that support for maintaining a pregnancy turns around once a baby is born. “She made the ‘right’ choice, and is staying pregnant” turns to “Well, I’M not paying for some kid to eat! She should’ve thought about that before she had it!” almost at the moment of birth. There are very few black-and-white options. You are fortunate not to be in such a position.
I actually live in a former Soviet block not so prosperous country. I would not call myself very privileged. For instance, when I gave birth I had no access to a private clinic because there are no such clinics in my country and I was scared to travel anywhere when pregnant. We all make our choices in the given circumstances. In the situation you describe I would probably refuse to have sexual intercourse.
And if you were forced? It’s not always consensual. I have worked with many girls and women who became pregnant as a result of abuse. What would you suggest they do?
By your logic, women who are not willing to procreate must not have sexual intercourse, period. Because there is no such thing as 100% effective birth control, even tubal ligation fail sometimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_control
Hmm, where else have we heard the phrase “abstinence only”?
A woman can even get pregnant without sexual intercourse. Are we going to discuss every single casus here or the general tendency?
You seem to assume that whatever the “general tendency” is for you, it’s the same for other people.
In the same way that many people approach birth with birth plans down to the smallest detail, and that probably this mother believed about her daughter’s birth, you seem to believe that all the variables are within your control.
I do have control over a lot of things. I have the ability to protect myself from unwanted pregnancy; if it does occur to find out early; to have an abortion as early as 3-4 weeks of gestation. These things are totally within my control as an adult. Yes, it may all fail to work. But the likelyhood of it not working is something like the likelyhood of a meteorite falling on my house. That is very unlikely. I don’t see the point of being paranoid about it. I am far more likely to get into a car accident.
Good for you then.
Good for you that you have a partner that isn’t sabotaging your condoms or flushing your birth control pills. Good for you that if he did your pharmacy wouldn’t argue with you about fill dates and if your insurance will cover them. Good for you that you could escape an abusive situation like that and feel like you have somewhere to go.
Because for a lot of women in the world, birth control like pills and condoms together are very easily sabotaged. I don’t think it would happen to me or even a majority of women. But are you saying you’d punish the women who that happens to?
What about the woman who has a husband who turned out to be a religious zealot and joined something like the Quiverful movement that decides that she has to bear him as many children as possible, damn the consequences, to increase his standing in the religion?
What if you can’t take hormonal contraceptives at all like my best friend who ends up incredibly ill on pills, nuvaring, the implant, the patch, and so on? And because she’s never had children the backasswards area she’s in won’t let her have the copper IUD? But has a husband who loves her and she loves him and wish to express that physically? Sex isnt just for procreation. They want kids but school has left them in a massive amount of debt and, like the responsible adults they are, don’t want to bring a kid into that mess. She’s lives in a state where she could not reasonably have an abortion because of the conservative vice grip there. But that’s where their jobs are and they can’t afford to start over somewhere else right now. See the debt issue.
At this point only the rich elite that can tolerate hormonal birth control can have non-procreative sex. Doesn’t that strike you as more than a little messed up?
Abusive relationships, religious fanatics and poverty are real and they are serious problems. But I believe it’s not really relevant to what the article is about and hence what we are discussing here. If a partner sabotages birth control it’s a totally different topic. If a woman agrees to have intercourse with this man she knows what she is doing.
It’s absolutely relevant. Maybe not in your tiny portion of the world but in the rest of it things aren’t the rainbows and puppies of a perfect system you seem to be privy to. That’s just real life. Religious zealots that don’t believe in birth control force themselves on their wives. Women are kept.pregnant whether they like it or not to restrict their freedoms. Do they just not matter?
And what of the case of my best friend who can only rely on condoms and condoms only?
She’ll be 35 in a couple years when she and her husband will likely be ready to have children. Should we fine her for reckless endangerment of the.embryo because of advanced maternal age? She also likely has an android pelvis based on exterior shape and having a strong family.history of it. Should we fine her for not having the perfect anatomy to birth a child?Should she just not have children? Are she and her husband, a committed monogamous couple who are both straight and have no interest in same sex extramarital adventures, just supposed to stop having sex? Is non-procreative sex just.for the elite few then?
What if it is presented as “have intercourse with me or I will beat you senseless”? Or “if you don’t have intercourse with me, I will wait until you are asleep and then rape you”? Or “if you don’t have intercourse with me I will make your life miserable using a variety of methods”?
Because this does happen, every day, with married couples in which the husband is an abuser. Ever tried to escape an abuser? It is harder than hell, even with support.
Unfortunately you have let the fact that you have control of some of those things convince you that everyone else does too.
If you live in former Soviet country you should know what happens if it’s allowed to violate person’s bodily autonomy for the sake of greater good. Once you allow even one medical procedure, no matter how benign, to be forced upon pregnant woman, THERE IS NO STOPPING. And there are lot of political forces waiting for this opportunity to further their agenda by imposing various restrictions on women (in my country recently one political party proposed to prohibit pregnant women from smoking; they’re famous with their efforts in restricting abortions as well).
You can talk about any country you want, what I am saying will still be correct. NOT everyone in the US has access to contraception, because people aren’t always adequately insured, or live a long way from a clinic without transport, or work long and unpredictable hours making it difficult to access healthcare, or some combination thereof. And because some women are prevented from using it, because keeping a woman pregnant is a way of making her vulnerable and thus a tactic amongst some abusers. These things are pretty common knowledge. You might want to think about whether you should be moralising online if you aren’t aware of them.
You need to understand that this responsibility you are so fond of isn’t something that is accessible to everyone, and that you could take as many pregnancy tests as you want but they’d be no good whatsoever to you if you lived in a state where abortion wasn’t a realistic possibility and were prevented from travelling because of money, or coercion, or both. Which, given that neither the pill nor condoms are 100% reliable or even particularly close to it, is something that would happen to some women even were they all to use both methods. Because MATHS.
OK, you would rather believe that contraception doesn’t work. Why has it never failed me in the course of 15 years, huh? Not once. And how do you imagine a condom and pill fail simultaneously? Yes, it’s possible in theory. It’s also possible in theory that you win the next Nobel Prize.
birth control failed my sister once. Fortunately she and her ex immediately fell in love with their son and both are in his life every day. And now my sister has no reproductive organs at all, so she only has to worry about STDs. Well, that and her stage III ovarian cancer.
Do you really believe that contraception is 100% effective 100% of the time?
Good for you that you can manage all of that. My colleague wasn’t so lucky. All hormonal contraceptive gave her crippling migraines that made her basically invalid. So she had to turn to non hormonal contraceptive. And well she accidentally fell pregnant.
Don’t you know? She just shouldn’t have had sex. Otherwise, she’s just irresponsible. /snark
…are you seriously arguing that your personal experience completely invalidates all statistical evidence showing that birth control fails sometimes? Is that really how you evaluate reality? I mean, I’ve been fortunate enough to never have my birth control fail either, but it never occurred to me that this was because it never happens to anybody. Talk about myopia.
I guess that means the the pulling out method is 100% effective, since one of my coworker has been using it as her only method of contraception for 8 years and never got pregnant.
And calendar method has a failure rate of 100%, since the 2 people using it at my job got pregnant.
Using no method of contraception also appears to be 100% effective in preventing pregnancy, based on me not becoming pregnant this month.
Yes, of course she is. But this is someone who thinks because she can access an abortion, everyone can.
It’s not really about me believing contraception doesn’t work. It’s about major health organisations pointing out that no contraceptive method is foolproof. Do you dispute that? Assuming you don’t, it’s a simple matter of doing the sums.
As for you ‘why has it never failed me once’, are you silly enough to believe if it’s not happened to you it can’t happen at all? Judging by some of your other posts on the matter, the answer to that would appear to be yes…
Can’t you dispute without being rude? I haven’t been rude to you, not once although I do find your statements that condomn + pill fail like every other time pretty absurd to say the least. At that let’s close the discussion.
I’m not being rude. Your argument is extremely silly, and pointing this out to you is not rudeness. Less of the tone trolling. And stop making things up while you’re at it. There is nothing you could possibly have read in any of my posts that is anything close to suggesting that condoms plus pill fails every other time. As previously explained, MATHEMATICS. If you combine something with a less than 100% success rate with something else that has a less than 100% success rate, do you think the outcome is a guaranteed 100% success rate?
Yes you are. And you are playing with the fact that if something is technically possible it should be considered as one of the inevitable outcomes even if there’s 99,99999999% chance that it won’t happen. Reasoning your way anything can happen. What I know for sure and have been told by medical professionals is that using contraceptive pills which suit YOU personally (not the ones purchased randomly) + plus high quality condoms + checking yourself with pregnancy tests in case of period delay you are 100% sure not to end up with unwanted pregnancy and too late for abortion. Because even if you DO get pregnant through some 0,0000000001% chance then having found it out early you WILL get an abortion. Only don’t start another 10+ posts thread about how unreliable pregnancy tests are. In your world where women don’t know that they’re pregnant for months perhaps. Only they are not responsible women, they have a period delay of several months and don’t visist a doctor, too bad for them. Don’t bother replying, I know what you’re gonna say. But a woman can fail with double contraception, be deceived by the pregnancy test or keep having periods despite pregnancy and all of this must happen to a single woman simultaneously.
No, telling you that your silly argument is silly is not being rude. Telling someone not to bother replying is, though.
The fact is, you are wrong to think that using two methods of contraception will necessarily prevent pregnancy (because once again, MATHS). You are wrong to think that abortion will necessarily be accessible, and you are therefore wrong to claim that women even only in the industrialised world carrying a baby to term will have had a choice in the matter. You also don’t seem to understand the numbers of women we’re talking about here. If (for example, picked out of the air) 0.1% of women having regular sex and using two forms of contraception would get pregnant, that is still a LOT of women. We’ve discussed on here many times the lactivist fallacy that being unable to produce sufficient milk is sooo rare so it couldn’t possibly happen to any given woman. You’re indulging in it here.
If you have actually been told by a medical professional that two less than 100% reliable forms of contraception means you 100% will not end up with an unwanted pregnancy too late for abortion (which is so ridiculous one wonders, but then doctors can be silly too) you need new medical professionals. Ones with a better command of mathematics. And also with a better command of world affairs, if they’ve told you that in the unlikely event of this unwanted pregnancy, which is apparently 100% certain not to happen, you’ll be able to get an abortion. Seriously, do you actually not understand that abortion isn’t available to all women even in the US? This is a yes or no question: failure to answer it will speak volumes.
USA doesn’t even have universal health care coverage. Many women cannot even get prescription for pills.
Have you also not been following all the crazy regulations many states have been putting up to prevent women from having abortion? There are state which only 5 clinics that offer abortion, and you need a 24h waiting period between first meeting a doctor and then having your abortion. That’s 2 days off you have to take to go to the abortion clinic. Assuming you even have a way to get there because it might well be over 50 miles away from your house.
There are states where there is only one clinic and the doctor is only there a day or two days a week. Add to that the drive can be hours and you have to pay out of pocket. So you have to find money for gas, a motel room and be able to get back for an appointment a few weeks later. That isn’t even counting time off work (or school) and arranging care for any children during that time.
Exactly. There is only one clinic in my state that performs abortions, and it is under constant threat of closure.
Just because I want a child, doesn’t mean I want to risk my life and should just give up my right to make decision about my own health and what risks I want to take and which ones I don’t.
I don’t want to die in a car crash, but I still take my car. But I get to chose when I think the road conditions are too dangerous.
And what about a mother who has other children? Should they be left motherless?
It IS different, because the site of what’s going on is literally her body.
Why don’t value the baby MORE than them, we value the baby as MUCH as them. How can it ever be a persons’ choice to kill another human being? I’m not anti-abortion, we’re talking about fully formed human beings who are coming into the world. The blase attitude toward making choices in which that means they could die is frankly shocking.
In reality, none of those mothers are actually trying or choosing to kill the baby. When you have an OB in your face telling you that you need a c-section NOW or the baby WILL die, something like 99,999999% of women are probably going to say yes.
But the whole birthing process is far from that simple. It is composed of an addition of multiple choices, all with various risks both to the mother and the baby.
There is no way to know in advance how it will go.
In the end, it’s up to the mother to decide which risks she wants to take and which ones she doesn’t.
Why don’t we force people to donate organs?
Because they didn’t bring the people they are supposed to donate to into this world and bear no responsibility for them whatsoever. This IS bodily autonomy. Now, a woman CHOOSES to get pregnant. She certainly bears responsibility.
So a woman who is raped chose to get pregnant? A woman whose birth control method fails chose to get pregnant?
And even then. Now are we rating our worth as mothers on willingness to die? If you don’t throw yourself in front of a car for your kids at least 3 times you are a shitmom?
There are 4 principles of medical ethics: autonomy, justice, beneficence, and non-maleficence.
Forcing a mother to have a C-section against her will might fulfill the criteria of non-maleficence (preventing the death of the baby) but it violates the other 3. That’s a serious ethical problem.
“That’s a serious ethical problem.”
No, I am absolutely not for forcing anyone to undergo surgery. I wouldn’t want to be forced to myself, so I clearly understand that other people shouldn’t be as well.
Below you said that a woman should be fined if she refuses a CS and her baby dies.
Then you cannot give her any kind of punishment if she refuses the c-section, even if the baby dies.
How on earth do you actually believe that getting and staying pregnant is automatically a choice for a woman? Like, how ignorant are you, on a scale of 1 to 10? Maybe 97ish?
But even this is irrelevant – Anna will simply say that we need the law anyway because most of these homebirthing women did choose to get pregnant.
Maybe she should read about the forced symphisiotomies in Ireland to see how well forcing women to undergo medical procedures for their own good works out.
She probably will, because fuck all the rest of them. They should be responsible.
But we don’t even force women to donate organs, or even blood, to their own children.
So your rule doesn’t apply to rape victims? Or women whose contraceptives fail?
And if they did? If it was a parent to child organ/bone marrow/blood? Would you mandate it? Would you punish the parent if they didn’t want to go ahead?
Sort of like the callous indifference of not donating organs? Not being typed and listed on the registry for living organ donors? People die and it’s within your power to prevent it, so shouldn’t it be mandatory?
NO, because we all have bodily autonomy. End of story.
Guest, no offense but what the hell are you talking about? If someone suggests a small payraise for teachers, are you the person who says, “what next? Will we be forced to buy them BMWs?!” Your straw man argument is irrelevant to the point of ridiculous and it’s impossible to engage with that. So again, we will just have to agree to disagree.
Nola, I am glad you are commenting here. This discussion been respectful which is always nice. I would like to draw some paralells here that I think you are missing though. This argument is not irrelevant actually. We are discussing the value of considering legal protection for a fetus by mandating medical procedures on the mother to protect the life of the fetus. If you value an unborn child so much that you will criminalize a mother refusing medical treatment to her own body, it is not much of a stretch to organ donation. You have a person who will undoubtedly die without a kidney transplant. The matching donor will most definitely survive with only one kidney. Would you criminalize the donor deciding not to donate? Their selfish decision will absolutely cost another human (with a family, hopes, dreams, a life they have built) their life. But we dont force people to take on the risks of organ donation. It is their body and they get to use it however they wish, even if selfish decisions cost lives. It is the same concept that extends to mothers during childbirth. The risks of c-section to a mother are small. But that decision ultimately must belong to the mother to accept or refuse. To mandate medical treatment opens up the way for those requirements to inch further and further away from autonomy to complete lack of control over your own body. I apologize for any spelling or grammar errors. My phone is being difficult and making it impossible to edit my comment.
I’m sorry but the organ donation argument is a straw man argument and I refuse to engage with it. If you’d like to discuss fetal monitoring and the circumstances that would need to occur to warrant a c-section of the child that only you are legally responsible for (and yes, you ARE legally responsible for that child’s life) that is what is under discussion. It is a waste of precious time to discuss any irrelevant idea someone puts forth because it has some vague connection to the topic at hand and organ donation is not even in the same ballpark. Not even close.
So only what you say is relevant is relevant, and no one else could possibly have a valid point.
You fail to see the parallel. I would have used something less drastic than living organ donation, like donating blood every 6 months or something.
The parallel is taking away your bodily autonomy by making a medical procedure mandatory in order to save another person’s life.
The main point we disagree with you is opening the door to making things mandatory in mother.
I totally agree that foetal monitoring saves life and that by itself of absolutely no risk to the mother and mainly is just annoying.
There is also a part of me that does wish the trash women who killed her baby for her journey could go to prison for her stupid choices.
But after you’ve forced monitoring and it shows a baby in distress. What are you going to do? Once you take away the mother’s choices to refuse the monitoring, you open the door to take away her right to decide on the next medical procedure when the monitoring shows distress, and the you remove her right to decide on the next complication and then the next one. And then eventually you will make pregnant women nothing more than baby makers without any bodily autonomy and criminalize pregnancy.
Why is organ donation a straw man argument? Would you still say it is a straw man argument if the recipient was the child and the potential donor its mother or father?
And no, the mother is not, thankfully, legally responsible for the life of her unborn. If she was, the first thing she wouldn’t be allowed to do is drive or travel in a car, which is by far the most dangerous activity most of us routinely undertake.
Sorry, no. It is completely intellectually and morally dishonest to claim that organ donation is a “straw man” argument. If anything, there is a stronger case for forcing organ and tissue donation than for forcing continued pregnancy and/or a certain mode of delivery or care during labor.
No one accidentally becomes a volunteer for organ donation. No one drinks a little too much or has their passions inflamed by the beauty of their partner or is absent minded and accidentally finds themselves a registered donor the next day. It just doesn’t happen. There is no question that a volunteer in the donor registry meant to volunteer and wants to be on the list of potential donors.
Furthermore, tissue and even organ donation is considerably safer than completing a pregnancy*. It’s hard to even calculate the risk of bone marrow donation because it’s so low. Add to that the fact that it’s extremely rare to find more than one match in the donor registry and that organ and tissue transplants are pretty much only performed when the recipient will die otherwise and you get a situation where, if the donor backs out, the life of one person depends on violating the bodily autonomy of another.
So, should we do it? Make it illegal to back out of a donation if you’re in the registry and typed? Make tissue typing mandatory? Lives could be saved that way. And it would only be a minor violation of bodily integrity: safer than pregnancy and fairer, because both men and women would be at risk. If you’re consistent in your position, you should say yes.
*Obviously only true for tissue donation and organs where there is a redundant organ. Heart donation is not safer than pregnancy. Bone marrow and kidney donation are.
Nola, it’s not a straw man. We cannot even perform a procedure on a dead body (autopsy or organ recovery) without that person’s permission, even if it means that someone else loses their life as a result. What we are talking about is a living, thinking human being who happens to be carrying a baby. She and she alone has the power to consent-or not-to any medical procedure, including a c section. It has to be that way. If we decide that bodily autonomy goes out the window when you’re pregnant, that is a very slippery slope.
I hate that babies die because their mother made a selfish choice, especially when she knew all of the risks to the baby going in. It makes me incredibly angry. I think if women really knew all of the risks of what they were doing, far fewer would choose home birth. But it is STILL their right and their decision.
It’s not a strawman argument. You’re suggesting that women be forced to undergo medical procedures for the benefit of another person. This is very much like being forced to undergo a kidney donation against your will. The only difference is that the woman may OR MAY NOT have chosen to become pregnant. That difference is not enough to require women to give up bodily autonomy and the right to refuse medical care that every other person has.
If the mother is properly informed of the baby’s potential death and
then the baby dies because of that choice, then yes I suggest she goes
to jail.
So basically you’re saying that the mother should be jailed if the baby dies, no matter what. Because there is ALWAYS a chance that the baby will die. No matter what choice is made. Suppose, for example, the baby is breech. The mother chooses, on the advice of her doctor, to get a c-section. This is recommended in nearly all situations and reduces the neonatal mortality significantly on a population level. However, in this case, something goes tragically wrong and the baby dies as a result of the surgery. According to your statement, above, the grieving mother should be jailed because she made the choice to have a c-section and the baby died. Is that what you want?
Actually, she isn’t. What Azuran described is very much the situation facing women who have miscarriages, stillborns and who go into preterm labor in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. If a woman has a miscarriage or stillborn, they face jail time if it’s believed that the fetus could have survived.
Those of us in parts of the USA are already in the hellscape : https://www.propublica.org/article/when-the-womb-is-a-crime-scene
Up to 10 years in prison for taking even prescription drugs while pregnant. The slippery slope isn’t made up. If you want to step on to the top, it’s up to you to postulate some logical principles that keep us from sliding to the bottom.
By law, they’re NOT actual people.
That’s horrible.
It’s the law.
The law in this case is widely recognised as outdated.
So much so that it has been abandoned in some U.S. States.
Infinitely less so than the alternative.
If I had lived in a different part of the world, I might well have ended up with an abortion at 40 weeks…actually, nearly 41 weeks. Here’s what happened: I had obstructed labor and in a time and place where c-sections weren’t available, the choices would have been 1. watch us both die or 2. take the baby out in pieces. Needless to say, I am immensely glad that I could get a safe c-section instead. I can’t imagine any scenario in which a woman would happily get an abortion at 40 weeks. But I can imagine scenarios where an abortion at 40 weeks is the best choice, the only choice that allows survival of the mother, where the fetus is doomed no matter what choice is made. So why isn’t this choice left to the patient and to medical professionals rather than being put in the hands of legislators and the general public, who neither know nor care about the individual’s situation or her chances of dying without an abortion?
Let’s say baby monitoring were made a legal requirement. Let’s say a particular mother wants a very large family, so she is willing to take a higher risk with her current labor to avoid a CS (because future pregnancies after CS are more risky). The required monitor shows that the fetus may be in distress. How does that help anything, unless the law then requires that a preventative CS be performed in the best interests of this fetus, against the mother’s wishes? What about the risks to her future pregnancies- shouldn’t she have the right to prioritize her future fertility?
What about if a mother has a very quick labor and does not make it to the hospital? Is every case of unplanned out-of-hospital birth investigated, and are those mothers charged with negligence?
I actually agree with you though many here will say you’re on the radical side. But if a woman detests hospitals THAT badly she actually has a choice: not to get pregnant. Bingo! We don’t live in the 12th century, contraception is available. But killing babies through homebirth is unacceptable.
Urgh. Try and think about the existence of women who don’t have the privileges that you do: who don’t have a choice about getting pregnant, who don’t have access to contraception, who do have access to it but get pregnant anyway and don’t have the opportunity to obtain an abortion. You cannot pretend they do not exist, which is what you’re doing when you draw this ‘you had a choice’ argument. You need to deal with those who don’t.
Marie Claire magazine did a two part piece about reproductive rights. It was heartbreaking to see that there are MANY women who fit the description you provide. Not just in places like Nicaragua and El Salavador, but in the US.
Indeed. It behoves those of us who are lucky enough to be able to be ‘responsible’ not to presume that every other woman has this option.
Remember the Washington University study, where they took a big cohort of low-income women and gave them whatever they wanted for BC? Most chose LARC, and the rates of unintended pregnancies and abortions plummeted. Rarely do we see such an easy, wanted, cost-effective intervention – the fact that we aren’t making BC available free of charge in every state and for every woman is a fuckin’ crime.
I do indeed, and the results were very convincing. Although we’d still have problems with women who aren’t allowed to use contraception of course.
To miss out on decades your child’s LIFE because of a birth experience. I was induced because I was so afraid of having my overdue baby being stillborn. I am so happy to be cuddling her in my arms right now.
I get the feeling homebirthers care more about having a “beautiful experience” than an actual kid.
Home birth vs hospital? What has more risk?
We are talking 2% difference at the MOST.Equal in some countries that embrace homebirth choices.To me that means embrace homebirth choices if the goal is safety.But if the goal IS safety it is much more important to focus on being low risk. 2% is not nothing (neither is an average c-section rate of 30% in US hospitals) but it is something.More important is hypertension, obesity, etc.. this is way more risky.If you have the choice (and not everyone does)focus not on where to have your birth but becoming healthy.Eating well and exercising will greatly reduce your risk. Then you can look at specific hospitals that have the lowest risk to you and your baby or homebirth midwives that have a similar track record.Not all hospitals are created equal nor midwives.Some midwives have 50 years experience delivering 1000s of babies.Some are OBs,nurses,laywomen,etc…Some are brand new just did four years 50 births training at an “accredited” online school ready to take on the world.
Some hospitals can do open heart surgery and state of the art NICU wards and lower than average c-section/unneeded intervention rates.Some hospitals are only good if you have a death wish.
Be as healthy as you can and DO YOUR HOMEWORK when looking for where or with who to birth. This whole homebirth vs hospital thing is not a debate but an ugly argument between two sides with their own agendas.
The risk is not 2%. The risk of homebirth is up to 800% higher than hospital birth.
Poor amy it looks likes Jessica destroyed your whole argument.
Looks like you don’t understand basic statistics, either.
It only looks like that if you’re a tit.
Two percent absolute risk change. Given the numbers involved, that’s an incredible change in relative risk, which is the important number.
Only if we take c-sections as bad, a priori.
Given that this blog has exposed a number of them obfuscating or even outright lying about their track record, that’s not going to be easy or reliable.
How many would a hospital OB have delivered in the same timeframe?
That’s only going to get you so far. Perfectly healthy mothers with perfectly healthy pregnancies can still have shit go very wrong, very quickly during birth, and when that happens, only one setting is actually equipped to step between them and death from what is essentially bad luck.
Hey Nick you seem like a numbers guy when I tried doing some research I found comparable risk between planned home birth and hospital with a notable exception for first time mothers needing transfer more often then second timers and so on.
To me it isn’t terrible if my wife needs to transfer to a hospital if we have a home birth and it is needed. We are planning to have a child soon and have good hospital 15 minutes from our house. We also have friends that have had home births with a midwife they trust.My wife wants a home birth because she believes it’s a more personal/intimate experience.I was hoping you could look at this information and tell me if it’s biased or inaccurate so I can better understand the risks.
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2015/12/22/cmaj.150564
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1501738
https://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/birthplace
Thank you for your time
Jeff
ps there is also added risk for me if I try and talk my wife out of anything she has her heart set on.HaHaHa
So where are you located? The relative safety of home birth compared to hospital birth depends on many factors, and what country you are in is one of the big ones.
Bellingham, Washington state.
about 20 min to the border,about an hour to vancouver bc.So we could go to Canada for our birth if it made sense. Our hospital is st josephs.I looked up their c-section rate was 27%.Not good but we like the hospital otherwise.
Keep in mind that the 27% CS rate is not the rate that applies to you. That rate includes everyone, including women who plan a CS ahead of time for a myriad of reasons including twins, breech, previous uterine surgery, previous CS, maternal request CS etc. What matters to you is the rate of CS for a mother who walks into the hospital planning a vaginal birth. That rate is typically much, much lower.
If you do go with homebirth, make sure you plan it with a CNM (certified nurse midwife) NOT a CPM (lay midwives who made up a credential to award themselves to appear more official). There are no stats for Washington State, but the death rate in Oregon if you go with a CPM is 8x the comparable in hospital death rate (!).
One thing to consider very carefully is whether your wife has given birth before. First time mothers are especially risky at home. Take for instance the BirthPlace study (the one from the UK). To be included, these mothers had to be having 100% perfect pregnancies. Any past births had to have gone 100% perfectly. They received ALL the normal prenatal testing and ultrasounds. Any abnormalities automatically got them booted from the study. They had to live very close to a hospital. Their births were attended by TWO University-trained midwives who had admitting privileges at the local hospital. Any little hint of anything going wrong during their labors was an automatic transfer. The results? For first time mothers, over 40% were transferred to the hospital during labor. Despite all these extreme precautions, death rate was over doubled. Not good. Decide ahead of time if you can live with that level of risk.
What’s wrong with 27% C-section rates can vary widely, Does the hospital have a Level III NICU, does it take a lot of the complicated cases, if so Of Course it will have a higher rate of C-section than a hospital that doesn’t deliver many babies and sends all the hard cases somewhere else. How many are repeat C-sections because the mother had one section and did NOT want a VBAC but wanted a repeat section ? How many were repeat C-sections in mothers that had reasons for a section that affected all pregnancies for example inadequate pelvic outlet. How many were scheduled sections due to medical reason: breech, twins, large baby, placenta previa, transverse, pre-e.
My mother is alive because of a C-section so is my brother. My niece whose baby had a Huge head has a healthy kid because of C-section. My nephew’s wife would have been better off if she had a C-section. She went in at 39 weeks for her checkup and they said they would like to induce the next day due to the baby’s large size. Unfortunately she went into labor that night. The baby got stuck(shoulder dystocia) and once they finally got him out, he spent a week in the NICU (all 10 lbs 11 oz of him) He is lucky not to have permanent damage to his arm but luck is all it was.
Things go fine until they don’t. Home birth midwives do not know neonatal resusitation. If there is an issue at home with the mom AND an issue with the baby there is not a whole team there to help.
When my daughter was born and was not breathing there was an entire 4 person NICU team in the room, they were called down when the OB detected a problem on the fetal monitor.
That particular hospital he mentions has a 36 bed NICU. They are the only big hospital for miles.
The hospital transfers a lot of high risk patients to deliver there, since the NICU has 36 beds. They have a great NICU team and do a lot of transfers from other hospitals.
The thing about heading north to Canada for a delivery is that even the patients who are registered to give birth there don’t know what hospital they will end up delivering at. You can be living in and seeing a doctor in Richmond BC and not be able to deliver at that hospital and have to head across the Lion’s gate bridge to the north shore to a hospital there when it’s time to give birth. Traffic at the Peace arch crossing can be so long and it’s really uncomfortable to be in labor. I know there are places to walk there but walking might be really painful during labor too.
The hospital’s c-section rate is frankly irrelevant. Giving birth at a hospital with (say) a 27% CS rate doesn’t even remotely mean that your chances of getting a CS are anywhere near 27%. Here’s why:
– The more high-risk patients (moms or babies) a hospital sees, the higher its CS rate will be. That has nothing to do with you, unless you’re high risk.
– The more low-income patients a hospital sees, the higher its CS rate, because low-income patients tend to get inferior prenatal care, so emergencies are more likely to develop during late pregnancy or labor; and they also tend to have underlying health problems (obesity, diabetes) that significantly raise the risk of problems in late pregnancy or labor.
– A substantial number of CS patients are women who had a CS before. In the US at least, something like 80%+ of women who’ve had a CS do not even want to attempt a VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), and of the minority who do want to, many can’t because a hospital can’t safely provide VBACs unless they have 24/7 anesthesiologists and OR staff on site. (If you care, I can explain why medical ethics prevents hospitals from offering VBACs without those resources–long story short it’s because without them there is about a 1/200 risk of a dead baby in every VBAC). And of course, unless you yourself have had a CS, the fact that most women with prior CS will have another CS for future deliveries (which raises the hospital’s CS rate) has nothing to do with your likelihood of getting a CS.
The real question is whether it is terrible if something life threatening happens and you are at home, rather than in hospital where it can be dealt with expeditiously.
You’re assuming a home supporter who is not a hobbyist, who will be able to recognise trouble and transfer at the first sign of it, no traffic, no issue being admitted to the hospital-does your supporter have privileges to admit patients there, if not, your wife will go through emergency and be assessed there. And that the emergency itself can wait the hour or so all that might take.
Emergency to disaster can be a matter of how long you can hold your breath.
First timer? Hospital is a no brainer.
Wow scary.
I guess I should move closer to a hospital or better yet camp out at the hospital for the rest of my life.It would be safer in case anything ever happened,but instead I’ll keep livin on the edge sleeping in my own bed.
Jeff
Don’t give in to their fear.It is unsubstantiated.Those studies are straight forward once again showing the safety of home birth and the need for integration of midwives in the hospitals like your Canadian neighbors.
And like your Canadian neighbors the OBs and MDs
in the US should attend more home births to lessen their fears and hatred.
The rest of your life? No.
While going through a risky process that could turn into a medical emergency at a moment’s notice? Probably a good idea.
We should not allow CPM’s to practice, like our Canadian neighbors.
So are you saying you think OBs (who are MDs, by the way) should be required to attend home births?
It isn’t fear it is acknowledgement of risk.
Jeff, deeply understand the risks you are prepared to live with. This will be your baby as much as your wife’s. Ask how much it hurts to hold your breath, how it would feel if you couldn’t take another, and whether that is what you want to risk for your baby.
I have in the past described what is feels like to slowly lose consciousness as an anaphylaxis reaction inhibits your ability to breathe. It is, by far, the most painful experience of my life. The pain is on a whole different level than anything I’ve ever experienced, and that includes both childbirth and an approximately 30 foot fall off the side of a mountain. If women knew what this felt like, they wouldn’t be so blasé about “just 10 minutes to the hospital.”
You’ll notice that whenever there is a sport activity where there is a risk of injury, there is always an ambulance in the parking lot
That’s not living in fear, it’s taking the appropriate precaution when we know there is a significant risk of injury that might require medical assistance. Because the extra 5-10 minutes lost waiting for the ambulance to arrive could be the difference between life or death.
Birth can go wrong in many way. Women and babies have been dying in childbirth since forever. And if you are the unlucky one (because really, a huge part of it is dumb luck) then where you decided to give birth can be the difference between a healthy baby and a dead baby. Especially in the USA, where the midwives are so incompetent and take ridiculous risk with women who have multiple risk factors and have no accountability.
How long can you hold your breath?
I’ve tried, but nobody likes answering that question. It’s a conversation-stopper. *evil grin*
“Wow scary. I guess I should move closer to a hospital or better yet
camp out at the hospital for the rest of my life.It would be safer in
case anything ever happened,but instead I’ll keep livin’ on the edge
sleeping in my own bed.”
Yeah, and I’m sure you used the same argument to have the school of your children get rid of all those fear mongering equipment like fire alarms, smoke detectors, extinguishers and sprinklers!
Are you going to spend the entirety of the rest of your life in labour? Because that’s the only way your point about camping out in the hospital forever would be valid.
hospital may be 15 minutes away. But how long do you think it will take your wife to get in the car with full contractions and a baby stuck in her pelvis? What if there is traffic, or an accident on the road? Or very bad weather. How much more time will be lost with admission, having your wife evaluated by the OB, preping the surgery and actually getting your wife in that operation room?. You’ll be lucky if it’s less than 45 minutes overall. And by that time your baby may have suffered irreversible damage.
The risk of complication during a birth might be low, but IF you are the unlucky one and have complications, where your wife give birth will make the difference.
A low risk pregnancy can turn into an emergency delivery in the blink of an eye. My first labor was going fine until the doctor told me calmly and quietly to stop pushing as soon as the head emerged. The cord was wrapped around my daughter’s neck twice and the doctor needed to clamp and cut the cord. Delivering her further could have killed us both – her through suffocation if the cord was compressed before she could breathe and me through massive blood loss if the shortened cord tore out the placenta prematurely.
If the cord had been an inch or two shorter, if I hadn’t been ABLE to stop pushing, if my caregiver hadn’t recognized the danger immediately, if I or my caregiver had stupidly insisted on delayed cord clamping…So many ways that situation could have ended differently. Instead, I count my blessings and she’s turning 11 next week.
Jeff — the most important thing about the studies you list are that the two that quote equal safety are based in Canada and England, which have much different birthing/midwife systems than the US. Midwives have better training (medical vs lay person), and there is a system set up between them and the doctors at neighboring hospitals and birthing centers. Notice the one study in the US showed higher complications. Admittedly low overall, but roughly twice the risk. And that was just for death, not all complications and subsequent health problems.
In late 2014, Britain’s National Health Service concluded
that for healthy women expecting uncomplicated deliveries, it was
actually safer for both mother and child if the birth was at home rather
than in a hospital maternity ward, where doctors were more likely to
use surgical interventions or spinal anesthetics that could cause harm.
I guess you are all way smarter than Britain’s National Health Service.
Maybe use your unfounded fear to attack some other group, or even better
use your energy to make ALL births in this country safer.
Awesome way to save money by depriving babies women of state of the art medical care and pretending it’s for their benefit, right?
I don’t think the medical industry in the U.S. has ground to stand on in terms of talking $$$. It is an institution of capital greed not human welfare.
So midwives, doulas, childbirth educators, placenta encapsulators, work for free?
Often times they do work for free,but so do OBs just not as often.
What will you do to help,and I mean physically not hateful rhetoric?
What will I do to help? I will campaign vigorously to abolish the CPM and to educate women that CPMs are dangerous amateurs.
How about campaign to curb overused c-sections in your own organization. Even ACOG admits the overuse of interventions and is pleading with OBs to stop doing what you have been doing due to fear and money and use science based practice that is less risky . You can help START NOW.
or tell the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists there wrong too.
Which c-section that has been carried out was not necessary? How could you determine that it wasn’t necessary?
All of them, obviously. They’re never necessary. Come on, you know this!
Great. First step: define overused c-sections. Every c-section made when the team is not racing death and disability shoulder to shoulder with DaD showing clear lead and baby and team breathing their last? Every c-section resulting in a pink squealing newborn? I gather that’s what your “educated” opinion relies on?
By the way, how is developing this new, highly sensitive AND highly specific technology defining the babies going? Because THAT’s the only way to really identify unneeded c-sections in advice.
Interesting thing is, most of the women who screech, “I was a victim of unnecessary c-section BECAUSE EVIL MALE OB HAD TO GO GOLFING!” will likely make the same choice under the same circumstances. Maternal instinct usually kicks in, insisting “Protect the baby!” The rubbing that you spew only comes from their mouth afterward, in the security of knowing that their baby is safe now.
Really? They work for free just out of the goodness of their hearts?
Bwahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!
The only way to “help” as you say is to spread the word far and wide that CPM’s and home birth is NEVER as safe as hospital birth. That women should have to qualify FOR a home birth, if that is what they desire. But the women themselves don’t want to listen and take a OB’s or CNM’s advice when they advise that the mother should deliver in a hospital (first baby, multiples, breech position, GD in the mother, positive GBS test, etc). The mother basically tells the highly educated people who deliver babies every damn day that “she doesn’t LIKE their opinions, that they are trying to scare her or force her into changing her *perfect birth plan* and delivering at home or other nefarious schemes”. She then goes to a woman who has delivered 5 babies total in the last year, who tells her she is beautiful, that she CAN have a home birth, any questions or concerns are ignored or soothed by the “your body was meant to give birth, women have been having babies forever, your body cannot grow a baby you can’t deliver, TRUST BIRTH, you are a birth warrior now, just believe hard enough and trust your body”.
These CPM’s fearmonger just as much as they accuse the OB’s and CNM’s of doing. Except that they use a hospital stereotype that has not been standard since the 1960’s: “Enemas!! Shaving!! Strapped to a bed!! Not allowed to move a muscle!! Medications against your will!! Baby ripped from your womb with forceps!! CS for doctor’s convenience!! Medical experiments on your baby (eye ointment/drops, Vit. K shot, PKU testing)!! Bath for the baby!! Hats!! No breastfeeding allowed!! Babies in the nursery AT ALL TIMES!! Mandatory episiotomies!! Narcotics!! No food or drink during labor!! IV’s!! No respect for you or your baby at all!!”.
We will help the movement to eliminate the CPM “credential” and all insist that all midwives are held to an international standard, with malpractice insurance, hospital admitting privileges, OB backups (real ones), strict risking-out criteria, required continuing education, safety protocols, peer review of poor outcomes, an overseeing agency that can review cases, revoke licensure and mete out discipline. These are concrete things that can be done, as opposed to a nebulous “reduce the CS rate” sort of crap the NCB/woo brigade like to spout.
Amateurs and hobbyists have no business in the medical field. And yes, pregnancy is not an illness, but it does require medical monitoring as there are a myriad of things that can go wrong either during the pregnancy or during delivery.
Bullshit.
It seems homebirth in the US would be the safest choice if the hospitals embraced rather than shunned their medical colleagues.
Instead it seems there is outright hostility toward midwives and mothers choosing to birth out of hospital.If I lived in the states I would be frightened by the hospital C-section rates alone to birth in hospital.(20%-30% depending on state)
“C-sections can have complications, like damage to other organs, internal
bleeding, blood clots or infection. Recovery after a c-section is
typically longer than that of a vaginal birth. Moms who have c-sections
may experience as much as six weeks of post-operation pain and bleeding,
versus bleeding and vaginal discharge for two to four weeks
after a vaginal birth. Finally, women who have a c-section for their
first baby will face risks for subsequent pregnancies, like a higher
chance of the placenta implanting or growing abnormally, or uterine
rupture along the site of the scar. If they’re at high risk for
complications, U.S. mothers will probably need to have the operation for
all subsequent births, according to the American Congress of
Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ recommendations.”
It seems to me hospitals need to work on lowering unneeded interventions and embrace their fellow midwives working out of hospital. Only then can a true discussion take place.
Warmly Abby
But CPMs aren’t “medical colleagues.” They are lay people who don’t meet international standards.
Also, don’t you find it ironic to rail against the “dangers” of hospital birth and then whine that homebirth would be safer if hospitals would cooperate with it?
No. I don’t “rail” or “whine”.
Hospitals need to lower their c-section rates.
Hospitals need to not feel threatened by professional midwives.
This will make all people safer.
Calm yourself to think more clearly.
Why would hospitals feel threatened by CPMs who attend less than 1% of US births?
Why do you?
She’s not threatened by them, as far as I can tell. On the other hand, she is also quite aware that they pose a genuine threat to women and their babies, so she’s speaking out about it.
I don’t get the impression that Dr. Tuteur is threatened by them in the least; I get the idea that she sees them as a huge threat to people who hire them thinking they have actual medical qualifications.
CPMs are not professional midwives.
True
CPMs are Certified Professional Midwives
OBs are obstetricians
GYNs are gynecologists
CPNs are Certified Nurse midwives
Some are good, some are bad.
Some are new some have practiced a long time.
The science is constantly evolving.
Their education, training, and experience gives them knowledge.
Some are wise.
Some are ignorant.
CPMs have nothing in the way of education, training, or experience requirements that remotely approaches that of CNMs and OB/GYNs.
Really, asking OBs and CNM to work with CPMs is like asking me to consider the teenager working at the pet shop as a valued member of my team and consider his opinion on pet health care.
It’s just ridiculous.
And I’m colleagues with a guy who has a meth lab in his garage.
Why do they need to lower their CS rates? To meet some arbitrary number or because midwives say so?
And how do you suppose they should lower it? Do you have some magical piece of technology in you closet that is better than the ones OBs have to detect foetal distress?
The c-section rate is about as low as we can safely make it with our current technology. Lowering the rate for the sake of lowering it will only result in higher mortality for babies.
Let’s say for argument sake that the rate of c section is 30%. But only 1% of babies would die without one. (those are totally random and inaccurate number, as the 30% c-section does include maternal request, repeat c-section and c-section done for twins, breech, maternal health problems etc)
That means that for every 100 birth, 30 babies will show signs of distress (or any other. Only 1 one them is in real distress. But with current technology we have no way to know which of those 30 babies is THE ONE who will die.
So an OB will recommend a c-section for those 30 babies, because even 1 dead baby is one too many and you don’t want to take the risk.
A CPM will close her eyes and hope for the best. For 29 of those babies, it will turn out ok. But 1 of them will die. So, she has a lower rate of c-section. But a baby is dead.
Until we have a way to more properly monitor babies in utero, calls to lower the rate of c-section will only result in more dead babies.
But Abby and co are fine with a few dead babies.
Hospitals need to not feel threatened by professional midwives.
Hospitals with big obstetrics practices routinely have real midwives (CNMs) on staff. Threatened? Not at all.
The only people who are threatened by CPMs are the babies whose lives are sacrificed on the altar of home birth, and those babies’ grieving families. They are quite literally threatened by CPMs–threatened with lifelong disability or death.
Hospitals may feel threatened by the fact that when someone’s home birth disaster gets transferred to their ER, the hospital may end up being sued for anything that is wrong with the baby and the hospital may lose :
( The case was later overturned, as originally Johns Hopkins was not allowed to present information about the home birth midwife’s actions)
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2013-07-10/health/bs-hs-midwife-suit-decision-20130710_1_evelyn-muhlhan-maryland-court-hopkins-malpractice-case
From the article Count the number of things the midwife did wrong: A Hopkins doctor also told jurors that Muhlhan gave Fielding injections
of the labor-inducing drug Pitocin, which prevented relaxation between
contractions, making it harder for the baby to get sufficient oxygen.
Muhlhan also administered the drug through intramuscular shots rather
than slowly through an intravenous drip, which is standard practice.
…you literally just repeated what you said before. You didn’t even respond to any of the arguments put forward. Why bother commenting at all?
How. Myself and three women I now know had sections within 2 months of each other.
1. Me. Fully dilated, exhausted, dehydrated because my waters went first, passing out, blood pressure all over the place. Baby was tolerating labour great but would not budge from my mid pelvis. He wouldn’t descend even with forceps.
2. Friend A. Baby was breech. Hospital offered her a breech delivery, she declined because of a family history of dysfunctional labour/failure to descend.
3. Friend B. Mid labour baby suddenly becomes extremely distressed, heart trace is all over the place.
4. Friend C. Like me, she got fully dilated and her persistently back to back distressed baby would not descend.
All 4 of us have happy healthy children but whose section was unnecessary? We don’t know. Maybe my son just wanted another hour’s jiggle time or perhaps Friend A’s baby would have easily flowed through her pelvis feet first. Or maybe my husband would have been burying me and my friend would have been burying her daughter.
I take risks all the time, I drive too fast, I don’t always look properly when I cross the road, I run at night on my own, I ride horses and hike. I’ve white water rafted on melt waters, I’ve flown in tiny little planes and sailed on horribly rough seas.
Across my life, I’ve probably risked my life thousands of times doing all sorts of stupid and irresponsible things, including as a teenager getting in a car with someone who was exceedingly drunk in the driver’s seat.
Risk my son’s life…risk the life of the second child we hope to conceive soon…never on something so unimportant. My previous experience of childbirth was a horrible experience but I’d take that any day over pursuing a fantasy with potentially lethal or life altering consequences.
Tell us, won’t you, how hospitals lowering their section rates will make ALL people safer. That’s quite a claim. I can’t wait to see you make an arse of yourself backing it up.
“Hospitals need to lower their c-section rates.”
The easiest way to do that would be to deny maternal request C-sections.
So you’re in favor of setting strict limits on female bodily autonomy when it comes to birth. Nice.
You do realize that many of those women that fall into the 20-30% range are repeat c-sections or emergencies?
Hospitals are not threatened by CPM’s, they just have no respect for them. There is a huge difference between a medically trained CNM who goes to school and has a degree in nursing. While a CPM does not require an advanced degree and therefore do not have the knowledge required for medical intervention.
As opposed to the homebirth c-section rate?
Oh wait, only hospitals have the facilities and experts needed to perform a c-section, so any birth needing a c-section ends up in a hospital.
Colleagues?
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CPM’s don’t come close to being educated enough to manage a woman’s birth. And are suffering from delusions of grandeur if they believe OB’s and CNM’s think of them as colleagues.
What about the risks associated with vaginal birth? They are just as real as the risks of CS, but no one EVER addresses them, as they are too busy demonizing CS’s. Things like third and fourth degree tears, a broken coccyx, cervical lacerations, PPH, retained placenta, pelvic floor damage of varying degrees, urinary and/or fecal incontinence, fistulas, rectoceles, uterine prolapse, vaginal lacerations, amniotic embolism, and others I can’t think of right now. You never hear about *those* risks, because that is”fear mongering”.
True medical professionals (MD’s, CNM’s, RN’s) absolutely should NOT embrace midwives working outside of the medical/hospital setting as they have no standards, no education, and are dangerous and reckless.
You forgot tearing, urinary incontinence and painfull/less satisfying sex life in your list of vaginal birth complication.
Both have risks. And recovery is also very different between people. Many people here have found their c-section recovery faster and easier than their vaginal birth one. C-section are not ‘always worst’ than vaginal birth and vaginal births are not always easy and without complications. Vaginal birth is not always the best option by default. There are many factors at play.
You know. There are many OBs who do embrace their fellow midwives working out of hospital. Those are the OBs in country where the midwives are actually real medical professional with real education. TYou know, kinda like the CNM. You want to be respected by doctors as a midwife? Be a CNM.
It seems homebirth in the US would be the safest choice if the hospitals embraced rather than shunned their medical colleagues. Instead it seems there is outright hostility toward midwives
Hospitals do embrace their medical colleagues. Many hospitals have CNM teams on staff for women who prefer midwife-led care.
CPMs are not anyone’s “medical colleagues,” because they have no medical training. The educational requirements for becoming a CPM were “strengthened” in 2012 to add the requirement that they have a HIGH SCHOOL DIPLOMA (!!!). And since CPMs are who attend the vast majority of US home births, is it really any surprise that hospitals don’t “embrace” them?
Medical colleagues?
Are you sure you’re as well informed as you think yourself? CPMs bleat all the time that they are NOT medical providers, that they’re something much better.
Even if they had a more than an occasional drop of knowledge, I, as a human being with feelings (Guess what? Homebirthing speshul snowflaking princesses and loving “midwives” aren’t the only one who have them), I definitely would NOT have felt happy to embrace “colleagues” who talk shit about me and who think that embracing them means keeping silent about their incompetence and smiling when they dump their disasters on me to handle, as well as a possible lawsuit, when they already have their next brainwashed victim, ahem, client, to pray upon.
That’s, if I were a OB, CNM, or L&D nurse.
Are you, per chance, Abby Reichardt who visited us here a few months ago?
Abby, would you care to discuss the risks of vaginal birth as well? I know C-sections are surgery and thus come with those risks, but there are risks of adverse consequences of vaginal birth too, and I want to make sure the two are compared side-by-side to make a proper decision on the right choice for me (in the future, if should I have children).
Warmly,
Feminerd
Of course she wouldn’t. They never do.
PS: Vaginal birth can also have complications, like damage to other organs (a fourth-degree tear, for instance, rips right through the anal sphincter, causing fecal incontinence that can requires anal surgery to fix); postpartum hemorrhage; infection; permanent damage to the pelvic floor; and uterine, bladder or rectal prolapse.
And those are just the complications to the mother, of a SUCCESSFUL vaginal birth. Attempted vaginal births that go terribly wrong can end up in a crash c-section, which is far more dangerous to the mother than a prelabor or early-labor c-section. And vaginal birth can also have devastating complications for the baby that simply don’t happen to babies born via c-section: cord compression, head entrapment, shoulder dystocia, etc., can all kill a baby or cause cerebral palsy, brain damage or severe nerve damage (google “brachial plexus palsy”).
Notice, though, that I’m not trying to say vaginal birth is bad. I was born that way myself, after all, with no complications for anyone. All I’m saying is that either method of giving birth has risks; the risks are just different depending which method you choose.
Why is it that you list c-section risks and conclude that c-sections are bad, instead of acknowledging that both birth methods have risks?
Wait, you’re saying that shoving a watermelon out of your body through a straw can be risky? That’s quite a shock!
If you find a 20-30% section rate frightening, that’s indicative of a problem with you, not the number of sections being performed.
Well, Abby, I’m looking at 8 weeks off of work for reconstructive surgery thanks to a recotcele caused by an unmedicated vaginal birth that resulted in a cervical laceration. I’m also a candidate for an inter-stim device. Given that I was only planning on 1 or 2 children, had I known the risks of pelvic floor damage, I may well have elected to have a c-section since I would have been on maternity leave for recovery anyway.
Those complications are more likely for mothers who have an emergency c-section rather than those that are scheduled. They arise because of already existing complications or trauma that makes having a c-section necessary. As for the pain and bleeding, those are common for all women after giving birth not just those who have c-sections. Can you please provide a link to the quoted resource?
By the way, I’m recovering from a c-section, that was performed 10 days ago and I was up and moving about within 12 hours of the surgery, albeit slowly, but I am almost 100% and doing better than some of my friends who have had exclusively vaginal births.
But all this is beside the point, this is about the irresponsible midwives who encourage their ‘patients’ to forgo medical intervention even when necessary, they push the women to continue with their ‘journey’ or ‘experience’ without regards to the life of the child or mother. The hospital where I gave birth has both doctors and midwives, patients are given an option whether they want a doctor or midwife present during their labor. They do not encourage home birth however, not for money or numbers, but because it just isn’t safe, things can go wrong in a moment.
Wasn’t that announcement widely criticized as being based on cutting costs rather than actual data?
If you refer to NICE guidelines about homebirth in UK you may want to check out what they actually say: (https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/cg190/chapter/1-recommendations) . “advise low risk multiparous women (…) there are no differences in outcomes for the baby associated with planning birth in any setting.”
I’m not sure a previous caesarean section + long post-term baby, would qualify as “low risk” , and therefore eligible to homebirth within NHS. For sure in Italy it wouldn’t. And such prolonged uneffective labour would have led to a transfer.
And NICE refers to homebirth assisted by real midwifes, properly educated and trained, as qualified as the ones who work in maternity wards, with clear guidelines, and this is not the case in the US homebirth. Clearly it was not the case here.
And for further information, the documents also say “Advise low‑risk nulliparous women (…) birth at home is associated with an overall small increase
(about 4 more per 1000 births) in the risk of a baby having a serious
medical problem compared with planning birth in other settings. ” So it doesn’t seem to me that even according to this (questionable) document, giving bith at home is “safer” than hospital, at least if “serious medical problem” to your baby is the first
criterion for judging safety of birth.
I’m not sure a previous caesarean section + long post-term baby, would qualify as “low risk” , and therefore eligible to homebirth within NHS.
It definitely wouldn’t qualify as low risk–to the contrary, it’s high risk. But NHS rules require them to assist women who want home births even if the women are high risk. In other words the UK advice you’re quoting clearly indicates that VBAC and other high risk births shouldn’t be done at home, but in practice they will be done at home (with however tragic an outcome there may be) if the mother insists.
I love it when British/British invoking commentators parachute in, under the mistaken impression they’re actually telling us anything. Not only are lots of us here from the UK, but more than one regular commenter here is actually PART of the NHS. And some of us have had negative experiences giving birth in the UK.
Also yeah, read the guidelines. They emphatically don’t say what you think they do. There are a great many conditions attached, for a start. For example, you can be as healthy as you like and expecting as uncomplicated a delivery as can be, but homebirth still won’t be recommeded by the NHS if you’re having a VBAC. Or if you’re postdates and choosing expectant management rather than induction. Neither of these factors would render one unhealthy and a woman in either position could still realistically hope for a straightforward delivery, but homebirth would not be recommended.
Also, you can “expect” a normal delivery all you want…but it might not turn out that way.
As I learned to my cost with a second time low risk, previous VB, under 35, well positioned singleton that ended in a crash section!
Until something goes wrong in the middle of labour, like that cord twisted around the baby’s neck when her head was out but the body wasn’t out yet.
This makes me sick too. Since yesterday we’ve been greiving the death of a young friend’s baby at 7 months gestation. It is not a journey, it is a tragedy.
…candles were lit. Wut.
Okay though to be fair I did text my husband today that the candles have been lit…
…in context of “Hey, so Nailah was so antsy last night because she has diarrhea. Or had. In the bedroom. It’s as bad as it sounds. I’ll clean it up. Peppermint oil has been applied to upper lip, steam cleaner has been prepped, and candles have been lit. Pray for me.”
This is the only context where candles being lit have been worth a mention in our marriage for a long time. Maybe I’ll light candles or bring some kind of scented thing if the hospital let me when I’m in labor. For the exact same reason of covering up the smell of poo.
My only mention of lit candles in our marriage: once when the power went out.
What would she say if her daughter died in a car crash? “She didn’t die because I decided not to put her in a car seat; she died because it was her journey.”
YOU SENT HER ON THAT JOURNEY, ma’am.
Cars are VERY dangerous.Homebirth is not,but I defer to real statistics.http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jmwh.12172/full
It turns out hospital birth is more dangerous.
If I have a child it will be at home. Based on the the facts.
Stop the emotional ignorance and do real research.
Would you be willing to share your research?
Don’t hold your breath.
Don’t hate.
Find the truth.Do your OWN homework.
https://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/ajog_response.asp
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jmwh.12172/full
BUT this is not all.
Do your OWN homework
“I have made a statement! Since you asked me to back it up with data, I’ll tell you to go do that for me!”
OK, so you have the MANA paper, which demonstrates that the risk of death to your baby when delivering at home is higher than the risk of death to your baby in the hospital. That’s a bit the opposite of the point you’re trying to make. Got anything else?
I think you’re a little confused. Plagiarism is when you represent someone else’s ideas as your own. Outside of school and various publication settings, it’s perfectly okay to share your research with other people. They don’t need to “do their own” to get credit. LOL.
So you conducted those studies? Or you read them and assume that means you know how to interpret them?
Burden of proof.
Only sources YOU pick out that, oddly enough, support your views and never contradict them.
Hate isn’t the same thing as disagreement. Have some perspective.
The burden of proof is on you, not me.
When he or she says research, I don’t think he/she means actual RESEARCH, I suspect he/she means ‘research’.
I think the good doctor who writes this blog and repeatedly reads, references, and tears apart studies (both statistically and methodologically) has done her research. The real question is, have you?
Because if you’re comparing overall death rates, you’re doing it wrong. You have to compare similar characteristics (full-term, singleton, healthy mom) to get a full picture, and what you find out is that homebirth is hellishly more likely to kill an otherwise healthy baby. Hospitals lose very early preemies and babies with severe congenital defects, who are all born in the hospital and who, even with all our medical might brought to bear, are simply too sick or too undeveloped to survive at this time. Hospitals do not lose* healthy, full-term babies.
*It happens, but it is extremely rare.
https://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/ajog_response.asp
please do your own research and don’t give in to fear and hate mongering.
Take time and do research.I mean a lot of time nothing is black and white.
Regardless of the actual selection biases and cofounders in play here, that last line “a lot of time nothing is black and white” really reminded me pretty hard of the “60% of the time, it works every time” line. And now that’s what I’m thinking about.
Shirley, I’d love to be able to see your research, if you’re willing to share it.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jmwh.12172/full
https://www.midwiferytoday.com/articles/ajog_response.asp
If you want unbiased answers this is probably not the forum to be on.
The creator seems very angry at life completely clouding her judgment.
Oh sorry, you meant you did READING on the internet. I thought you meant you had actually CONDUCTED research. They’re not the same thing.
She’s not angry at life. She’s angry about the preventable deaths of tiny babies.
But LOL at using the words “unbiased answers” while at the same time linking to midwiferytoday.com. Gold star.
Shirley, what do you think of this study? It’s a very quick read, and it looked at over 10 million births in the US–all low-risk babies born over a 3-year period–so it’s about as comprehensive as it’s possible for a study to be:
http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2813%2901155-1/fulltext
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qo7qoonzTCE
I like actual studies and statistics, not fluffy websites. Try again with credible sources this time.
Also, some things are black and white. Homebirth is less safe than hospital birth. Period. There is no doubt about that. That doesn’t mean it will always end in death or disability, because obviously it won’t. It does mean there is a higher chance of death or disability happening if you have a homebirth.
Reading ‘Midwifery Today’ is ‘doing research’?
Excuse me for a second: Ahahahahahaaahaaaa!
Now – where were we?
In the same sense that reading People Magazine is sociology research.
On a side note: could you imagine sticking with one nick when trying to have a discussion? Based on your interpunction skills and writing style, you’re also Georgia, Kimber and (possiby) uroldschl, although I’m not sure about the last one.
you do realize that reading blogs is not “doing research” ?
I did “research” like you did research… I didn’t give into fear and hate mongering. I studied as a midwife’s assistant in a workshop with Ina May and was a doula. I was kind to nature and so nature was supposed to be kind to me… I suffered through my 30 hour homebirth and my son was born completely flat at homebirth and suffers a lifelong birth injury (it’s a complete miracle he’s alive). I was also injured. His traumatic birth and all the injuries would have been prevented if I were at a hospital and that is black and white. It took YEARS to understand the depths of deceit, lies, and “misinformation” that go around in homebirth circles and via lay midwives and CPMs. So much fear mongering among that circle actually… it’s pretty mind-blowing.
Haha. Imagine a world where 1.3 out of 1000 car trips ended in the death of a child. Kids who rode in cars everyday would be dead, on average, by age 3. Then cars would be as dangerous as homebirth, according to the link you posted.
If you google “are hospitals more dangerous than cars”
you get some interesting data.Check it out.
I’m now convinced that the hospital is a last resort where health is concerned.At least there is homebirth and home doctor visits for those who can afford it.
ps look closer at the data before throwing random numbers out you might mislead the herds by accident.
2! 4! 7! 1,503!
Oh, sorry. I thought you said we *should* throw random numbers out.
The suggestion that “hospitals are more dangerous than cars” is true, kind of, but really, really stupid.
Because the comparison isn’t even close to fair. That’s because the only people who go to hospitals are sick people. And, by definition, sick people are more at risk for adverse health outcomes than well people.
If non-sick people made billions of visits to hospitals each year, and if sick, including acutely sick people were driving around in cars, cars would be far more dangerous than they are, and far more more dangerous than hospitals are now.
So if you google “are hospitals more dangerous than cars” you do get some “interesting data” …that is all bullshit nonsense.
If you birth at home, you are ignoring, rather than deferring to, the real statistics in that link that show home birth is drastically more dangerous than comparable-risk hospital birth.
Maybe my masters of statistics degree is once again clouding my intuitive/rational reasoning, but the facts are facts. Look more closely
and you will see. You could also look at other industrialized nations data on PLANNED out of hospital births if you need more science to shed light.
There is a separate issue, even my kid has been on dozens of car rides, but he’s only been born once. (we do not have a car)
Oh, I’ve looked at it. I’ve noted the ~3x increase in perinatal mortality for low-risk primps in the UK for home vs hospital births, and the multiple-fold increase in mortality for HBACs (about 2/1000 for VBACs at the hospital vs 1/100 at home). I’ve seen the paper demonstrating that low-risk women under midwife care in the Netherlands have higher perinatal mortality than high-risk women under OB care.
For the data in the paper you posted, even if we took it at face value (and we have a lot of reasons not to, as noted above), it’s pretty grim. People slice and dice the exact hospital controls slightly differently, but no matter how you do it, any reasonably-paired hospital cohort has drastically reduced mortality compared to MANA’s best go at making homebirth look good. When you look at a reasonably well-done collection of data from planned home vs OOH births, as was done in Oregon, the increased death at home is 6-8x (a study done by a CNM supportive of homebirth). That’s not counting the increase in ischemic injury even if the baby lives, as the Grunenbaum paper demonstrated.
Which institution gave you a masters in statistics?
I’m guessing an offshoot of a CPM accreditation organisation?
Probably Bastyr, they will make up degrees in anything to make themselves sound educated
That’s not a study. It’s a self-reported survey completed by less than 25% of homebirth midwives. Did you even read it?
I love your bar graph.There is some real data.HA HA.
I’ll give up trying to explain that the world is not flat.It is too hard to swallow for fanatics. Good luck trying to discredit the mana study,because you simply can’t.
Been there, done that, got the tshirt.
http://www.skepticalob.com/2014/01/homebirth-midwives-reveal-death-rate-450-higher-than-hospital-birth-announce-that-it-shows-homebirth-is-safe.html
In other words, you didn’t read the paper and don’t know whether the data support the conclusions. I thought so.
“The rate of intrapartum fetal death (occurring after the onset of labor, but prior to birth) was 1.30 per 1000. The rate of early neonatal death (death occurring after a live birth, but before 7 completed days of life) was 0.88 per 1000; and the rate of late neonatal death (death occurring at 7 to 27 completed days of life) was 0.41 per 1000. When lethal congenital anomaly-related deaths were excluded (n = 0 intrapartum, n = 8 early neonatal, n = 1 late neonatal), the rates of intrapartum death, early neonatal death, and late neonatal death were 1.30 per 1000 (n = 22), 0.41 per 1000 (n = 7), and 0.35 per 1000 (n = 6), respectively”
Those numbers are VERY HIGH. Compare to deaths of CNMs in hospitals (they are going to be attending “low-risk” births). 2007-2103, filter for 37+ weeks, 2500 grams or more, and the hospital CNM death rate is 0.38
Yes, cars are dangerous. That’s why I go around telling women not to use car seats to minimize the danger.
What?
I think that’s a safe assumption. The handle and post seem to be intentional mockery of “Uroldschl.”
On that note, I have two friends who had home births who are always nattering on about car seat safety. The most minute details of how to put a child properly in a car seat are topics of much pearl clutching and indignation. I have yet to point out the hypocrisy.
Oh, please point it out–see the stats listed in my post above. I can hardly wait to hear how they process this info.
According to the NHTSA, 99% of children under 1 are restrained in cars. In 2003, 31 unrestrained infants died in car crashes (http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/809762.pdf). Assuming a 1% home birth rate and using MANA’s death rate of 2.06/1000, 84 babies died due to home births during the same year (CDC states 4,089,950 births in 2003). In other words, it is almost 3 times more deadly to give birth at home than to drive around for a year with your infant completely unrestrained.
If cars are very dangerous, homebirth is very, very, very dangerous. If you have a masters in statistics, as you claim below, you should know that motor vehicle death rates are appropriately measured in either vehicle miles traveled or (more accurately, as more than one person can travel in a vehicle at one time) passenger miles traveled. The NHTSA reports a rate of 1.08 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles in the U.S. for 2014 (the latest available.) I couldn’t calculate the passenger mile rate with the available stats there, but a Time Magazine story from 2013 cites a study of motor vehicle deaths between 1975 and 2010 that found a rate of 7.28 fatalities per billion passenger miles. It’s unclear from the story (and the study is behind a paywall) whether that rate is over a single year or 35 years, but either way, the rates all around are are significantly lower than the mortality rates (1.30 intrapartum, 0.41 early neonatal, and 0.35 late neonatal per 1000,from homebirth in the MANA paper.
No, ‘old school’ – intra-partum death is almost unheard of in hospital. For risk-matched cases, HB results in at least 3X mortality, and disability is not even reported.
HB is much more dangerous than driving, considering exposure.
The crazy thing about the MANA study you’re citing is that they didn’t COMPARE the safety of home birth to the safety of hospital birth. They just counted the deaths in the 16,000-ish home births that were reported to them (not all home births–many midwives who received the study questionnaire simply chose not to answer), and decided, “Hey, those numbers looks pretty good! Let’s put ‘safe’ in our conclusion.”
By concluding that home birth was safe, they arrogantly decided for you what number of deaths was acceptable. According to MANA, a death rate of 2.06 babies out of every 1000 born at home–just over 1/500–is “safe.” Here’s the math: they split the deaths into intrapartum, early neonatal and late neonatal, and reported death rates in each group of 1.3/1000, 0.41/1000 and 0.35/1000. Add all those numbers up and you get 2.06/1000. Do you think a 1/500 death rate is “safe”? Especially considering that home birthers are disproportionately lower-risk births?! I don’t.
And worst of all, MANA totally ignored the fact that for most people, when we ask whether home birth is safe, we really mean “is it safe compared to hospital birth?” Problem is, it’s not. Here is a study much, much larger than MANA’s: in it, Cornell University researchers pulled the records of every low-risk baby born in the United States over a 3-year period, so over 10 million babies. By “low risk” they meant full term, head-down singletons of normal weight (at least 2500g, or 5.1lbs). Then they looked at where those babies were born and who was attending: hospital/doctor, hospital/midwife, home/midwife (planned home birth), and home/other (accidental home birth and intentional “unassisted birth”). Here are the neonatal death rates for each (this number includes both early and late neonatal deaths–unlike MANA they didn’t break neonatal deaths down into two separate groups to make the numbers look smaller):
Babies born in hospitals with doctors (this group includes all high-risk moms, since hospital midwives aren’t allowed to attend births where either the mom or the baby is high risk, and also includes all home-birth transfers that resulted in a dead baby being born at a hospital): 0.54/1000
Babies born in hospitals with midwives (i.e., both the baby and the mom are low risk): 0.31/1000
Babies born at home with midwives (this group should not include any high-risk moms, though in practice it occasionally does; critically, it also doesn’t include home-birth disasters where a mom was taken to the hospital and had her dead baby there–so this study actually makes home birth look safer than it really is): 1.32/1000
Babies born at home without a midwife: 1.82/1000
Here’s the link–look at the chart at the bottom for these numbers (they’re expressed as x/10,000, I translated into x/1000):
http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378%2813%2901155-1/fulltext
It’s also interesting to me that the MANA study was completely voluntary: it asked midwives to answer, and just published the results for the ones who chose to answer. The other study looked at ALL births in the US. Is it really surprising that the small (16,000 births), voluntary MANA study–where midwives who presided over home birth disasters could just opt out of being included in the study–showed a lower neonatal death rate than the nationwide study of all births?
Here’s what I mean: Add MANA’s two neonatal numbers and you get 0.76/1000, but if you include all births instead of letting some home-birth midwives choose not to answer the study questions, it turns out home birth with a midwife actually has a neonatal death rate almost double that number (1.32/1000). And either way, whether you prefer MANA’s numbers or the numbers out of Cornell, the home birth death rate is much higher than the death rate at hospital births.
I don’t have access to the full article. But midwife here meant CNM, right? CPMs were “other”? Do I remember correctly?
No, my understanding is that in the Cornell study home/midwife meant any type of midwife (so mostly CPMs and a few CNMs), while home/other meant babies born at home without a midwife: unassisted births, dad or friend or taxi driver, etc.
Quote from the study: “There were a total of 10,453,778 term deliveries between 2007 and 2009 which met study criteria: 9,526,450 (91.13%) were by hospital physicians, 826,543 (7.91%) by hospital midwives, 30,415 (0.29%) by midwives in freestanding birthing centers, 48,202 (0.46%) by midwives at home, and 22,168 (0.21%) by others at home.”
Thanks for setting me straight.
PPS to Old School: And you don’t have to take my word for it… here’s an article pointing out weaknesses in the MANA study and how even MANA’s numbers show that home birth is several times more lethal for babies than hospital birth.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/03/13/neonatal-death-rates-after-home-births-and-a-strange-skeptic-kerfuffle/
PS: Home birth is actually much more dangerous than cars, even using MANA’s suspicious numbers (i.e. the numbers in the study you linked to). Here’s what I mean:
– The death rate for babies born at home in the US, according to MANA, is 2.06/1000 (which is the same as 20.6/10,000 or 206/100,000).
– The death rate of car crashes in the US, for everyone (adults and children, drivers and passengers), is 10.2/100,000. Here’s a link for that:
http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topics/t/general-statistics/fatalityfacts/state-by-state-overview
In other words, home birth is TWENTY TIMES as lethal as car crashes.
More fun facts: there is a 1/470 LIFETIME risk of dying in a car crash (http://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/mortality-risk). A 2.06/1000 death rate from home birth is the same as a 1/485 lifetime risk of dying in homebirth. Not great odds for comparing one activity that most people do hundreds of times per year for their entire life vs one that can, by definition, only happen once.
Another ‘medical care for me, but not for the baby’. Lovely.
OT: Who else is looking forward to the movie “Bad Moms?” Here’s the trailer:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0FNjPsANGk
I’m excited to go with my best friend who is also a mom of two. Maybe we can wear #shitmom Tshirts.
This is me. Except I’m not that beautiful 🙂
Ditto.
I definitely want to see it, but probably have to wait until I can rent/stream it!
My friends and I have already made plans to see it!
I’ll have to check out the trailer when I have audio-friendly time… but wasn’t Mila Kunis the one who was determined to go epidural-less because she wanted to ‘do it right’? :p
I think it was something along the lines of “I got myself into this mess”.
I looked it up – no epidural because “I did this to myself, I might as well just do it right.” Because if you’re not in unbearable pain, you’re doing it wrong, y’all #shitmoms.
Damn it, just one more thing I did wrong since I got the epidural almost as soon as I walked through the hospital doors. 🙂
No idea but wouldn’t that be ironic?
I am telling myself that pregnant with your first is a completely different world from active toddler wrangling. It is a lot easier to be a perfect parent when baby is on the inside.
I told one of my pregnant friends that. They’re much easier to take care of when they’re inside! You get a whole new education when the first one comes out!
I heard once that the time you know most about children is the time between when you decide you want one and when you have one.
“People don’t bother me until they get teeth.” ~Dr Gregory House, “House, MD”
Kunis also did some incredibly dangerous things in preparation for her role as a ballerina in “Black Swan” – to lose weight.
That looks AWESOME. Thanks for sharing.
If you really want to have a laugh, watch the restricted trailer!
Off topic and auf Deutsch but relevant to the general topic of OB: Six kilo baby born in Australia
Yep, it was a c-section, but ouch! That last month must have been “fun”.
Ouch. Her poor pelvic floor…
#2 was “only” 5kg. I’ll second that!
…and she herself is a doula. Good grief, these people are insane.
Reminds me of that terrible old medical trope “The operation was a success but the patient died.” Ugh.
“Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?”
Is this not something punishable in a court of law? Should not we be contacting the proper authorities to have charges pressed against this negligent man slaughter? It seems that the mother, along with the midwife at the very least should be sent to prison.
The unborn child has no legal rights. The mother refused medical attention, which is her right.
I’d be all for charging the birth hobbyist with whatever anyone could think of to throw at her.
Actually the unborn child DOES have legal rights, if the pregnancy is far enough along. Late term abortion is in-fact illegal. So a baby who is ‘late’ can certainly be the victim of man slaughter.
Depends on the jurisdiction.
It’s a tricky law to write-do we charge heavily pregnant mum if she slips on an icy footpath? Or trips down the stairs at home? Or do we charge her companion for not preventing her fall? The local authority for not keeping the footpath clear?
What about ‘criminal stupidity’?
Well if there was such a thing, the prisons would be even more full than they are. Surely you wouldn’t want only women, past a certain stage of gestation, subject to such a law?
But it’s not an abortion. As long as the baby is inside the mother’s womb, the mother has the final word. You cannot force a women to have an induction or a c-section or any kind of medical procedure against her will.
Some states will have law against ‘unlawful abortion’ but it’s not the same thing, as the mother is not trying to kill her baby.
But There should be accountability for the midwife. As I said, the mother has the right to refuse treatment, but she must be properly informed by her medical provider what the risks of refusing treatments are. Which is obviously not the case here, since the mother thinks her baby’s death is not due to the home birth. If any nurse or doctor had acted as that midwife did, he would have been investigated and most likely lost his licence.
Thanks for this. The mother can refuse or accept, pursue or ignore, any medical advice or treatment she likes.
Women agree to abortion, which is why it isn’t assault. Making a woman have a medical procedure for the benefit of the unborn would be assault, and presumably can only happen if the woman for some reason has no capacity to consent or refuse consent.
But yes, bust the birth hobbyist as if they were an actual professional.
Isaac, I hear you but you won’t get anyone here to agree with you.
As far as I am concerned this is the other side of the slippery slope everyone talks about i.e.. “up yours people, I’ll kill my baby if I want to and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Yes, and it’s a travesty that late term abortion is illegal. It makes me sad that someone with a Jewish last name is so ignorant of halacha. Fetuses aren’t people, dude.
If you believe this, then you must also support mandatory vaccinations for all residents of the US, as well as laws prohibiting parents from feeding their children trans fats, processed sugars, and anything over the RDA of sodium. Same for screen time – prosecute any parents who go against the APA’s recommendations! If it’s bad for kids, it has to be illegal, right?
Not necessarily. We are all for autonomy, as long as you understand the risks and accept the consequences of your choices.
Practically no one here supports mandatory vaccination, but many will support refusing access to certain places to unvaccinated people because they are putting other people at risk (unless they have a valid medical reason to not vaccinate) and other people have rights too.
Charging the birth hobbyist is another matter.
As medical professional, there are standards of care that must be respected.
If someone calls me because her dog has dystocia, I HAVE to advise a c-section and explain the real risks of both doing the c-section or not doing it. The owner has the right to refuse, it is her right, but she has been properly informed of the potential consequences of her choice. (same thing for a mother and her OB)
If I were to recommend that she just wait because birth is natural, and to trust birth and after the puppies dies I were to say that puppies dies in birth all the time and that some are just not meant to die, that is malpractice. I would totally lose my licence over this.
Birth hobbyist like CPM are going around pretending to be real healthcare provider and telling women false information on the real risk of birth. They advise them to avoid prenatal screening, tell them it’s safe to go past date, that labouring for 3 days is normal, that breech is just a variation of normal and is not any riskier.
Women who are told this false information are not able to make informed consent. And that is wrong and midwives who cause the death of baby by lying to mothers about the risks they are taking should be prosecuted. Unfortunately, they are not, because they are not real healthcare providers.
My comment ended up in the wrong place. It was meant to be to Isaac Shapira. I know the regulars around here don’t support that stuff, but I was trying to challenge him to think the consequences of his idea through to the end.
Not at all. I’m sorry your world view is so binary.
When a birth hobbyist tells a pregnant woman that there is no need for medical care during pregnancy and that her baby can be safely delivered at home, she is lying. Those lies, if the mother believes them, put the baby at risk. Why punish the mother because she was lied to? Punish the liar.
Right, so punish the lobbyist. Not the pregnant woman. And what if a woman has all the right information and understands it but chooses the riskier homebirth anyway? If you think that should be illegal, and that women should be forced to birth in hospitals for the sake of the baby, then you must also curtail parents’ rights after the child is born. Parents choose levels of risk for their children not only during childbirth, but all the way to adulthood when the child assumes all their own risk.
Hobbyist, though they may be lobbyists as well.
I can’t see how you stop a woman with legal capacity from choosing what medical care she wants or doesen’t want. She can’t be forced to give a kidney to save a life, she can’t even be forced to give blood. How can she be forced to accept medical care or treatment in any circumstances? And if she wants to birth at home, she can just stay there. Probably safer without a birth hobbyist in attendance.
Everyone’s rights are curtailed every day-drive here, don’t drive there. Pay your taxes. That’s how civil society works.
Sorry, somehow my comment ended up in the wrong place. I was not intending to respond to you, but Isaac Shapira.
All good.
You would think that it would be, but it’s astonishing how hard it is to prosecute a home birth midwife in the US.
It’s the mother’s body and she gets to refuse hospital care if she wants. (I can judge her privately, but I have to acknowledge her rights.) Depending on the qualifications of the midwife, I’d all be for prosecuting for practicing medicine without a license or a civil action for professional negligence.
I’m sorry, but that doesn’t makes sense to me. Her refusal of care is not only for her, but for the baby (which is past the point where abortion is legal). Is it legal to refuse care to your child, and have that child die?
While the child resides in your body, yes.
I think that would count as a later term abortion via neglect, which is illegal.
Good luck running it.
That would be an absolutely dangerous door to open, as any women who does anything potentially harmful to her unborn child could be prosecuted for child negligence.
I don’t like their decision, but I agree 100% that you cannot force a pregnant women to undergo any test or treatment she doesn’t want to. As long as she understand the risks and potential complications. Which sadly, lay midwives often don’t properly explain or outright lie about.
Exactly. I loathe this happens- but the slippery slope is way too dangerous to start down. The woman has autonomy.
And the slippery slope is not just a possibility: it did happen in some cases that a woman who was suicidal or had a miscarriage was prosecuted. I can’t imagine the horror piled on by law to what was already a human tragedy.
Exactly. Laws as described would be used to punish women for not using their bodies the ‘right’ way.
Not on.
They are already used to punish pregnant women. Some women who have in the past had substance abuse problems/ have current drug problems, avoid prenatal care if they get pregnant for fear of jail. Women have been arrested and force into the hospital for refusing to go on bed-rest, jailed for attempting suicide , which resulted in premature birth and the baby’s death. If you are pregnant and poor you may have fewer rights than a non-pregnant person. Maybe not on paper, but certainly in pratice.
If you are poor you have fewer rights, both pregnant and not pregnant. The notorious RBG speaks about this a lot.
Noticed that in the UK. With the mental health issues I had post pregnancy, had I been poor or a single Mother, I most definitely would have been referred to social work. It’s horrible.
Horrifying.
While pregnant with DD, it was discovered she was breech. My OB referred me to a MFM specialist to see if an external version (where they manually flip baby head-down) would be an option.
The MFM had an almost exclusively Medicaid-based practice, going by the posters on the walls/overheard conversations in the waiting room.
Two months after DD was born, I got a bill from their lab for over a grand that my insurance didn’t cover. Without my consent, they had done a complete drug screen (please note: my treatment there consisted of a tech doing a quick US and the doc saying “nope, not a candidate”), and had sent it to a lab that my insurance didn’t cover. When I called to raise hell about the situation, the office manager actually said, “You don’t understand. Most of our patients are on assistance, so they’re probably using drugs anyway. That means we test all our patients.”
I was so floored by both the attitude and the comment that I wasn’t up to telling her off, but I did contact my OB. He and his office manager, to whom I spoke to try to get some insight on the billing end of things, agreed this was a seriously unethical situation.
Why do you think this? You appear to be presenting it as at least a quasi-legal opinion rather than just a moral one.
Unfortunately the fetus has no legal rights until born alive. This is based on anachronistic law from 1601 and has been firmly placed in the legal ‘too hard’ basket by most (but not all) jurisdictions.
Why is that unfortunate? My right to body autonomy ends the moment I decide not to kill my fetus?
It is unfortunate because a fetus should have rights.
Sorry, I don’t support your right to kill your healthy term fetus so that you can brag to your mates on the internet.
Noone here thinks the woman this piece is about made a good choice, and I am appalled she would agree to medical attention for herself after allowing her baby to die for want of medical care.
Why should a fetus have rights? It isn’t a person. And we’ve seen what happens when people try to give fetuses rights. Women die. They are imprisoned. They are forced to undergo medical procedures without their consent. By the way, in places where C-sections are not available, killing the otherwise healthy term fetus to save the mother is a routine medical procedure.
Yes, Lisa Flatto is certainly is a great ambassador for maternal autonomy.
And what fucking planet are you talking about, again?
You seem upset.
Sorry, I don’t support your right to kill your healthy term fetus so that you can brag to your mates on the internet.
Good to know.
I don’t support the right you seek to tell me what to do, when, how and on whose say so, with my body or any residents thereof.
You an Lisa Flatto both.
Sure, whoever that is.
There is a long history of people telling women what to do with their bodies, for the good of those other than the woman. If you want to make a compelling argument, you might start by separating yourself from that history.
You don’t know who Lisa Flatto is?
Don’t think so, just googled her and she didn’t pop up.
She is the woman in this thread who killed her baby.
Sure.
Her baby died due to her choices concerning her medical care. That was an entirely foreseeable event.
Horrible outcome. And watching anyone preening themselves about such a thing is deeply distasteful. I’d be more sympathetic with her if she didn’t then accept medical treatment after the baby had died.
But forcing women to accept medical treatment they don’t want for the benefit of a third party ie the viable fetus, is not the answer.
I’m not upset, I’m baffled. Who is having abortions for the purpose of bragging? Please note that I’m asking who is actually doing this, not who your fevered imagination has conjured up.
We are discussing the blog and a woman who killed her healthy baby and bragged on the internet.
So, this fucking planet I guess.
No, we’re discussing a woman who chose care for herself that meant her child died, and then bragged about it.
The difference is subtle, but important to grasp. The outcome is an outrage, either way.
Deliberate choice and predictable outcome.
Your point?
Do you consider the situation of a pregnant woman in a Catholic hospital in the US to be on the ‘fortunate’ side of that balance?
Midwives fight against regulation and oversight. CPMs are technically not medical professionals, so they are not subject to regulation or standards of practice. They don’t want to be. THerefore, when they do something wrong and someone dies, there is NO recourse.
At most, they are subject to “peer review”, which consists of a “let’s commiserate” session with fellow CPMs. Sometimes a slap on the wrist.
When questioned, they cite “patient autonomy” and “patient choice”. These people have legislators and lobbyists on their side. They lobby for more power and less oversight. It sucks.
Wonder how many of her supporters are anti-choice. I bet a lot of them. We know “Modern Alternative Mama” is, for one (she’s anti-LGBT, too). So a 10-week fetus is a “precious life” but it’s okay to let your term BABY suffocate to death? All righty then.
It’s the prolifer abortion.
Yes, that’s exactly it.
It’s “natural”, or “god’s will”. Some babies are just meant to die, didn’t you know.
I had a stillbirth at 37 weeks, but to some there is far more outrage if someone terminates a pregnancy in their first trimester because mine was natural. I honestly believe with more research my stillbirth could have been prevented. I believe the technological ability is here but they have yet to find ways to utilize the technology to help better determine things like cord location and placental function (they can to some degree but to improve it and make it more accessible). Research for that up until recently has barely been funded. I speculate that if a fraction of the money spent on pro-life pregnancy crisis centres and lobbying went to stillbirth and pregnancy loss research, we would have a lot less losses of wanted pregnancies.
Very sorry for your loss.
I was actually shocked and annoyed by her chipper statement, “I went on to have another daughter.”
Hey, it doesn’t matter if you lose a daughter – just make another one! Daughters are easily replaceable.
That shook me up. To normal parents, each child is unique and irreplaceable. A birth loss is a tragic event that leaves a hole in the family, one that will never be completely filled, though other children can bring great joy.
This mom makes children sound like interchangeable parts.
People have weird ideas about families though. I have boy/girl twins, and people tell me all the time how great it is that I got the boy and the girl in one go, because obviously everyone wants just one of each, right? Except no: I actually wanted just one child of either gender. And some people want three boys, while others want six kids and don’t care the gender, etc. But the perfect nuclear family idea persists: Dad, Mom, boy, girl, dog. (I dislike dogs. I’m a bird and reptile person, myself).
The “three boys club”. Ugh. The third one drives you to drink. Seriously. (And I’m an all kinds of animal person, but MrC is allergic to furry animals, so we have birds).
When my mom took brand new me for my first stroll around the village, she got warned to take care not to meet a certain woman because she’d bring ill luck on me. Of course, she was the first Mom encountered. She was in good spirits, smiling, she congratulated Mom, commented on how lovely I was and gave me a coin to purchase a baby brother. It was “known” that everyone should have one of each at least.
P.P. It worked. Perhaps I should patent it as a failproof way to ensure the desired gender, eh? Feminine powers and so on?
Yeah, I love cats, but I am strongly allergic to them, and most furred things. Growing up, there were families with three boys and three girls on my block. I thought it looked fun. But I didn’t have to live with them.
Reminds me of “Malcolm in the Middle”. They end up with 5 kids, all boys.
Yep, the “three boys club”. Except it’s my first that drives me to drink! Oldest is a teen, so he likes to deliver karma on my parents behalf.
Wanting a particular gender isn’t the same thing as considering them replaceable. Most people wouldn’t want any other child once they have him/her but would prefer a particular parenting experience of having a boy or a girl. I was rather pleased to have a boy and a girl the first time and there’s no way I would be so cavalier about the death of my child as this woman is.
It’s not the same, but I think it’s a branch of the “of course what every family wants/needs is one boy and one girl” thinking. There’s nothing wrong with a family wanting a girl or a boy, but I find it weird that the rest of the world assumes everyone wants the same thing.
Exactly this. I desperately wanted a girl but I’m sure I’d have loved my child just as much if I’d had a boy instead. I wanted a baby, girl preferred…which I got. I think you can desire a certain gender…that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t love which ever individual you ended up having.
Nearly everyone in my family was fervently hoping my first would be a girl. We found out early he’d be a boy and the rest of them got over it long before toddlerboy was born.
I, probably out of sheer contrariness, anticipated he’d be a boy.
I’ve been wrong both times. I thought both my daughters were boys. We sent find out the first time so it was a huge surprise for me when she was born. Anyway, I guess I should stop guessing if we have another! I’m terrible at it!
My husband was so sure our son was going to be a girl that he shouted a shocked and confused “WHAT” when the ultrasound tech said we were having a boy. Since it was a level 2 ultrasound in the MFM clinic, I shushed him and hoped nobody thought we were getting bad news.
Everyone keeps asking if we’re going to “try for a boy”. Like that’s a thing you can do. Maybe next time, if we try REALLY hard, we’ll get a boy?
I was getting asked that before I even delivered my second daughter 8 weeks ago! And perhaps we’ll have a third, but it’s not just to “try for a boy.”
(As a side note, am I crazy for thinking I might want a third??? I feel like I’m not done yet but the world is certainly set up for families of four. Plus then we couldn’t do man to man defense, I guess.)
Ha! And I spend half my life thinking we were better off with just one. Two (baby is 10 months) is about five times harder than one. I don’t know much harder three is, but I’m told everything after three is just like three.
i always wanted 3. Mom and her brother both had 3 and they made it work (her sisters have one each, and that works for them.) Teachers are *always* outnumbered, so maybe that training helps with my nonchalance. (sp?)
That’s a good point. My whole family and a significant number of friends are in education. Maybe they can give me pointers! Hubby is more worried about being outnumbered than me. Maybe I’m just naive!
Going from one to two is actually harder than going from 2 to 3. When you add the second you have no experience juggling children, but when you add a third you have a bit of an idea. Plus the first one is usually old enough for a bit of independence even if they’re only 3. I have 3 and was recently considering adding one more to the family but sadly the window of opportunity is rather past. Biologically I could totally do it, but family life says no we’ve got to raise what we’ve got and call it good.
I have 2, and I am planning for 3 or 4 (depending on when my age catches up with me). I think of it as an odds game. If I only have two kids, then each kid only has one sibling; they might not actually like each other when they grow up. If I have 3 or 4 kids, it’s very likely they will actually have a sibling who is a friend.
Hey, I’m a single parent with twins. Two parents can manage three kids! It’s a challenge, but when they are different ages they don’t usually have as many crises all at the same time.
I don’t think you’re crazy! My friend was talking about having a third child-as I visited her right after she delivered her 10 pound VBAC baby. She loves being a mom. She is pregnant with her third baby now.
Ugh, I have boy twins, and right after they were born, I kept getting asked if we were going to try for a girl. 2 baby boys wasn’t enough?
I have one kid, I really only wanted one and didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl. After a couple of miscarriages I just wanted a healthy baby. People asked before she was 2 months old, Don’t you want a boy? Doesn’t your husband want a boy to carry on the family name…umm Nope! He had 4 uncles and they all had boys, plus he could not stand his father and consider changing his name to honor his step father for a while..
I also don’t get people that think “Oh I’m going to have a boy because I want to play sports/watch my kid play sports! I’m going to have a girl so I can dress up my little princess.” It comes as a shock and sometimes a problem for the kid if you get a girl who wants to play football/soccer/softball/video games or a boy who loves cooking/fashion/dolls/makeup.
I ended up with an Engineer/Everquest player who likes crafting, cooking and nail polish. And all those things are awesome.
“I also don’t get people that think “Oh I’m going to have a boy because I want to play sports/watch my kid play sports! I’m going to have a girl so I can dress up my little princess.”
LOL, true. “I’m going to have a boy so he can play with dolls!”
My parents had no expectations for me gender-role-wise, and I had a great deal of fun doing exactly what I wanted to. They ended up with three girls and a boy, but the three girls couldn’t have been more different if one of them had a penis.
I was lucky growing up as my sister and I where born first and second and there are years between me and my nearest brother. My dad just wanted a kid to show how to paint and putter with tools, so my sister and I spent quite a bit of time helping white-wash the foundations around the house and garage, digging in the garden and “helping” him work on his boat(a kit, never got to the water). For someone who was raised by immigrant parents (and born in 1927) he was surprisingly open minded.
We tried to be the same with our kid. Lets buy the baby, dolls and crayons and kid tool kits and toy trucks and Duplo and you play with whatever seems fun. she wanted to learn how to bake at 4, Cool lets make cookies. You want a Chemistry set and microscope, also a makeup kit and nailpolish for Christmas. Awesome!
Har. When we were kids, my brother had an anatomically correct male baby doll named Charlie. I fully intend to give my boys the same.
my boy has 3 baby dolls
Hahaha. In my family we use “embezzled” the way you used “burgled” here. As in, “somebody embezzled what was left of the peanut butter.”
Mom? Is that you?
Probably not but I’m probably old enough to be!
And then there’s the fact that although I am cis-female, I am nevertheless carrying on the family name, because I had my children solo, and therefore they both got my last name. So that one tiny part of our family history goes on, whatever.
With twins, at least I don’t get asked about whether I want to try again for a sibling, I guess. And of course I love them both now that they are here, but it was not my plan. And even with twins, I would rather have had two the same gender to avoid room-sharing issues later in life. But life is what it is, which is unpredictable.
Hey, I’m cis-female, married, and STILL carrying on the family name. Amazingly, I could just write it on the birth certificates that kids had my last name. Actually, it looked like I could have written any last name down for kids. Possibly would have gotten a call – didn’t when we gave them my last name.
I also only wanted one…but I desperately wanted a girl. Literally from the second I saw the positive pregnancy test, I said “you’re a girl…be a girl.” My husband said he didn’t care. I got lucky and got my girl.
that’s why i’m counting all those sports patterned onsies as unisex. Daughter could be more athletic than son, who knows?
I have one girl and I’m very happy with an only child but if I wanted a second I’d prefer another girl.
OT but an excellent article (about screen time being a feminist issue) that fits in with a lot of the themes of Dr. Amy’s blog (including a reference to the lactivist pressure to breast-feed): http://daily.jstor.org/screentime-feminist-issue/
Interesting. My sister is very averse to technology, she uses a computer only for work and a smartphone only to communicate. Or do it was until she had a child: now the computer also serves to watch DVDs, look up lyrics to the kid’s favorite songs, look up for things to do when it’s a rainy day on holidays… The smartphone is now a great way to take pictures and videos of happy moments, and re-watch then later. All of this in addition of more “traditional” activities (playing, reading books to the kid) but it certainly enhances the life of both mom and kid. And it helps on rainy days.
I bought into the no screen time thing until I had kids. Part of it was realizing how much the break they offered. I didn’t realize how mentally exhausting it is to just have to be there for the kids even if I’m not doing anything mentally or physically taxing. I also came to the realization that their world will not be my world. Whatever my personal judgement about the quality of our childhoods they will want to be a part of what it is now and that includes massive amounts screen time. I’m not doing them any favors by not letting them grow into the technology that will develop into the workplace of tomorrow. I know I used desktop computers as a child and how easy and natural working with them is for me compared to my mother who avoided them until they were in the workplace. I believe my kids are doing well, but I give them a nice variety of experiences. I take them to the library, let them watch TV so I can make dinner, play with their Leap Pads and digital cameras, take them to various museums and classes, read to them all the time, dance with them, sing with them, take them to the park, to outdoor concerts and more.
As to the article, people think that giving the kids electronics is the easy way out but that doesn’t mean the kids always go along with that. I’ve been out a number of times where the kids are just not interested in the electronics so I have to entertain them the old fashioned way anyway, like how my mother did with games and crayons and such.
I think the screen time thing is bullshit. It’s another thing that is being used as a club for upper middle class white women to beat others with. You see families who bend over backwards to provide enriching experiences for their kids all day long being judged for letting their kids watch half an hour of Sesame street while they make dinner, and meanwhile there’s no way for poor families to afford child care so you’ve got some elderly grandma watching seventeen youngsters and planting them in front of the TV all day because there’s no other option.
The weird thing is, all the moms I know are upper middle class, and we ALL admit to giving the finger to the screen time recommendations, at least to each other. We must not be in the right club. But then, as a single mother I seem to get a pass from everyone on screen time ‘you do what you have to, they’ll be fine.’
Since I am a media scholar by trade, including video games, I never expected to have screen-free children anyway. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if I enforced that rule.
“I know I used desktop computers as a child and how easy and natural working with them is for me compared to my mother who avoided them until they were in the workplace.”
Exactly this. I got such a jump-start on the job market and the world by being allowed to use computers. And it isn’t an either/or; I had plenty of joy playing outside, riding bicycles, sledding, etc.
It reminds me of the TV debates when I was a kid. IS parking your kid in front of a TV with their cereal in the morning and letting your toddler watch TV all day good , no of course not, but some TV is not going to rot their brains and some shows actually might teach them things! My mom kicjed us out side to ride bikes and play with bugs and toads and swing/dig in the sand. But with 4 kids she also let us watch TV after dinner so she could read.
Is letting your 2 year old play with an iPad 12 hours a day a great idea, probably not. But a mix of playing with blocks/crayons/puzzles/Playdoh, outside activities, cultural activities(Yay free days at the museums) and screen time might work well. Cutting kids off from tech thats going to be a part of the rest of their lives seems like a bad idea…
TV has Sesame Street and Cosmos!
Magic school bus (on DVD, but awesome)!
My kids have learned a lot of the alphabet from watching Super Why, for sure. So now I have a three-year-old who can spell her name out loud, which is great if she ever gets lost, because she can’t pronounce it very well!
I remember teaching my daughter her dads and my full first and last names because a local police officer said that was one of the things that helped if a kid got lost (as in my mommy’s name is Jane Doe and my daddys name is John Doe )
Oh good, I did the correct thing by teaching my three year old my and my S.O.’s first and last names then 🙂
Yes, the nanny and I have been teaching them, but their pronunciation isn’t great on our last name or my daughter’s first name. It sounds like her name is “Owie” when she says it. Ls and Rs are particularly hard, and we’ve got one of each.
I grew up with a mother who enforced an early bedtime until I was 12, and discouraged me from watching TV. The result was that I was excluded a lot in elementary school when everyone was having crushes on sitcom characters (age-appropriate ones, even) and I had never seen the shows. We’re talking The Cosby Show (obviously tarnished now, but not then), Silver Spoons, Diffrent Strokes, etc. It sucked for me. And you can say that it would have been better for the other children not to have watched those shows if you want, but it doesn’t change the reality that they were watching them, and I wasn’t, and that created a divide.
Sounds like my childhood. Kids need to have a shared culture with other kids. Sitcoms, clothing fads (in my childhood, jelly shoes and rubber bracelets like Madonna wore) and pop music (for me Tiffany, Debbie Gibson and New Kids on the Block) can help create that.
You and I are from the same era! So rad! 😉
Oh wow! There are lots of us from the same era too, not sure if you read it but we once got sidetracked and started a playlist for home birth and NCB and it turns out we all listened to the same stuff in grade school and middle school.
Ugh, jelly shoes…
I never got to wear them, so of course I wanted a pair.
That’s actually why we got a tv, when our older child was 4. We’ve never been big watchers of tv, and there was always something better to do with time and money than going to buy one, until the points you made were raised by a friend who had a similar experience to yours.
I, too, wasn’t allowed to watch TV, except at my grandparents. I liked going on Thursday night to watch the Cosby show.
While I don’t exactly wish I’d spent more time watching TV as a kid, it would be nice to share some of those experiences and cultural references. When I watch shows now, like Saved by the Bell or Full House, I just think the shows are kinda dumb (*ducks*) because I don’t have the warm fuzzy feelings my peers did.
Nah, they were totally dumb shows. But that doesn’t matter in playground politics.
Same experience here.
I just cannot get myself into the mindset of these types of women. The minute I peed on the stick and got a positive sign, my whole worldview shifted. All I cared about was keeping that baby safe and alive – in fact, the back of my mind was like a stuck record: “Keep baby safe. Keep baby alive. Keep baby safe….” To the point that I actually questioned if I had swung too far into “thinking only of baby” direction! No matter what I had to do to achieve my one main end goal of a healthy, living child, I was willing to do…even if (as martyr-y as it sounds) I had to give up my own life. I just assumed that this laser-like focus on my growing baby’s well-being was some kind of biologically-based thing that happens to all gestating mothers, barring major issues like addiction or whatnot. How can they not feel that protective urge, when in my experience at least, it was something that was impossible to ignore? The mind boggles.
Have you ever heard Jerry Seinfeld’s bit re: Scuba diving? “It’s a great activity where the main goal is to *not die*. That’s pretty much all I thought about that day – don’t die, don’t die don’t die don’t die – there’s a fish! there’s a rock! who cares! don’t die!” Seems like a companion piece to how you (and most women) feel about pregnancy 🙂
Ironically, an article I saw on scuba diving pointed out that it is actually quite a bit safer than pregnancy.
Scuba diving is about as risky as drunk driving. It’s 50 times safer than childbirth – for the mother.
The problem is that, as far as every day activities go, scuba diving is far riskier than anything else we do.
It’s delightful and joyous and peaceful. And there actually are surges!
Is it possible that the child who died was never considered as a child, so much as a facilitator for an experience-a tour guide to natural birth.
How can this woman be so controlling of her experience and then dismiss the baby as, essentially, unlucky?
How horrifying, made even more so by the fact that she clearly has zero guilt that her poor decisions killed her child.
Hugely upsetting, made worse I think by the fact that like her my labour started on a Friday but the NHS being what it is, he wasn’t born until the Tuesday morning and we both almost died in the process. Yes, we’re both fine now but articles like this remind me of how badly he was let down and how lucky we were.
They’ve just opened a fatal accident inquiry into the death of a baby who died in a Midwife let unit near us (nearest hospital is 33 miles away)… the same unit which links things like this on their Facebook page “Fear not mummies-to-be, humankind has been doing this since forever”.
I’m seriously considering asking my sister-in-law’s best friend to be my “doula” if I get pregnant again. Her two qualifications for the position, 1. Consultant Obstetrician in a major Maternity hospital and 2. She isn’t a huge fan of midwives, had PnD herself and can be extremely funny.
Hell, *I’d* love to hire your SIL’s best friend as my doula!
Ditto
Is that the Scottish MLU that Dr T posted about earlier today?
Yep, hadn’t seen her Facebook post until just now. A couple of my friends had babies there with mixed results but it’s just too rural. Hospitals are 33 miles away in one direction and 42 miles in the other, would be hard to be further way in fact. Roads are not awesome, plenty of single carriageways with lots of bends and random twisty bits plus the usual rural traffic including tractors and teenagers driving like they stole it.
🙁 Logistical problems addressed with “Don’t worry, nothing major will probably go wrong.”
Unless probability fucks up royally, as it’s known to do now and then.
“Hope for the best, plan for the worst” is a great mantra, IMO. What I’ve heard second and third hand about the MLUs is more “Hope for the best, don’t think about the worst and it won’t happen.”
Yup. Because you sure weren’t doing anything useful.
At some point the midwife has to come to terms with the fact that she’s an incompetent menace to women and babies.
Yesterday I had to face the mortality of one of my children. While it no longer looks so bleak, there were a few hours where I honestly didn’t know if my child would survive the year. I cannot describe what it felt like. The emotions I felt yesterday with just the chance that he might die soon were awful. It is simply incomprehensible to me that a woman would so callously disregard the life of her child.
Not to negate your fear but I get it (at a remove). My cousin is watching 2 of her children regress and die from a rare condition. She’s absolutely amazing and my heart breaks for her. I hope so much you don’t have to go through that and the news about your son keeps getting better.
I think it’s one of those things that you can’t really know, but you can get a really good idea if you’re an empathetic person. I’m glad you’re there for your cousin. My other two boys have a rare bone condition, but it’s not a fatal condition, just a royal pain in the butt.