I love Facebook; I ought to know since I spend a large portion of every day engaging with it. That’s why it pains me to point out that Facebook kills babies.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Facebook has turbo charged the ignorance of quacks, charlatans and ordinary people.[/pullquote]
How? By allowing users to create communities where access to accurate information is tightly controlled — through deleting, banning and vetting membership — it has empowered purveyors of pseudoscience; and pseudoscience kills babies and children. I’ve have written all too many times about brain injuries and deaths that occur in natural childbirth and homebirth Facebook groups. And don’t get me started about anti-vax groups.
Another potentially deadly situation is playing out right now.
TIME SENSITIVE
I went to my appt this morning (42 weeks) and had a cervical exam. Midwife said my cervix is closed and baby’s head is still a little high. She proceeded to tell me that my cervix is not good to have a VBA2C at this point and maybe a repeat C-section is best. I told her I won’t be doing an RCS unless there is a life threatening situation with me and/or baby.
…NST was perfect, however she said that there is basically no fluid around the baby (which is bullshit because I saw the huge amounts of fluid) …
She then brought the doctor down with her (and I know she prepped him) … He asked me why am I against being induced, at this point there is no more benefit being pregnant and both of them tried to tag team me using scare tactics, the usual big baby, baby could die, no fluid to cushion for contractions, over due, baby could get stuck. And basically telling me that my body will fail at a vaginal birth…
…I don’t really know what to do from here. I don’t feel like I can trust them but also feel stuck. Do I go back in for the induction? Do I just take my chances and stay home? Do I say fuck it and birth this baby by myself? (I don’t feel comfortable with that)
Because who you gonna call when your midwife and doctor tell you your baby’s life is at risk? Your Facebook friends, of course. Not surprisingly, she was deluged with suggestions on how and why both her midwife and doctor are wrong and she should just wait it out. Only a few commentors recommended that she listen to her healthcare providers instead of her instincts.
That makes for an interesting juxtaposition with this post from the administrator of a different unassisted pregnancy/unassisted childbirth group.
I’m sorry ladies but I have decided to close this group. I can no longer advocate for not having any medical testing during pregnancy or after birth. I will never knowingly have an unassisted pregnancy again.
My son has many health issues that may have been caught if I had chromosomal testing, an anatomy scan and newborn screening… The guilt is just too heavy …
My instincts were very very wrong…
In other words, calling on her Facebook friends for support in ignoring medical advice end up grievously harming her son and family.
Don’t misunderstand me: each woman has the right to do exactly what she is doing (in the case of the first mother) or did (in the case of the second mother), but both looked to private Facebook groups — where pseudoscience reins supreme, other viewpoints are rare or deleted, and accurate information is in very short supply — to bolster them in believing both that they know far more than they do and that their instincts are more accurate than the knowledge of midwives and doctors.
Facebook, more than any other entity, allows people to recuse themselves from reality and create a carefully curated faux “reality” instead. I’m confident that this was never what Mark Zuckerbeg had in mind; indeed, given that his wife is a pediatrician I suspect that it pains both of them to consider how Facebook has turbo charged the ignorance of quacks, charlatans and ordinary people. But like him I am at a loss for what to do about it.
Free speech is more important than ever and the right to assemble (including in the cloud) with like minded individuals is a precious freedom. But by allowing people to shield themselves from other viewpoints and from accurate information, Facebook facilitates the dissemination of deadly nonsense. Facebook kills babies — but it seems that beyond calling attention to it, there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.
So what happened? Did the baby survive?
Who else is dying for an update on this? I really hope that baby is okay.
Yes me too.
Can I just say that I love she realized that her instincts were not reliable. People think that you have an innate instinct over all sorts of things but they have absolutely no experience to rely on. I would trust doctors instinct and training any day over mine. We are taking my daughter to get her speech tested because I realized that my online sleuthing was not helping me figure out if it was a problem or not. I want a professional to give her an evaluation and not my very uneducated and emotionally involved “instincts.”
And it’s really horrible when you are emotionally involved. I take care of my dog’s preventive care, but I’m unable to objectively take care of him if he’s sick.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/ground-wasp-nest-vagina-tighten-warn-gynaecologist-painful-sex-bacteria-hiv-a7766376.html
Another bit of gynaecological quackery. Shove a wasp nest up your lady bits to improve your sex life.
So happy to be asexual lololol
I’m reasonably certain that no matter what their sexual preferences may be, most women would agree that “shoving a wasp nest up your nethers” ranks…low…on their sexual to-do lists. But then, perhaps I’m happily naïve, in which case, I hope to remain that way.
More of a ‘glad sex ranks so low on my ‘I care about this’ scale that it would never cross my mind to try and improve my sex life, least of all try it by putting a wasp nest up there haha
How do you know you’re asexual? Maybe you just haven’t found the right insect yet.
God damn, that’s where I’ve been going wrong! Is there a tinder for bugs?
I don’t understand how you say that you won’t have a cs unless a life-threatening situation arises, then refuse care when a life-threatening situation is discovered and explained. I guess she thinks the dead baby card is actually a joker.
The “…unless a life-threatening situation arises” is a get-out-of-guilt-free card. The person in question will never accept that the situation is life threatening and will accuse their care provider of “playing the dead baby card” if they point out, however gently, that the baby could be in danger and so could they without a c-section. But if anything goes wrong, they have that “but I would have accepted a c-section if someone had told me it was dangerous” thing in the background to protect their egos from taking responsibility for refusing life saving care.
She’s probably imagining a tv/movie situation where everyone’s rushing around and code carts fly past at the speed of light.
As much as I want to smack that first woman upside the head, I also want to at least pinch the doctor for that “I hear you’re causing trouble.” Not. Helping.
I dislike unprofessional remarks as much as the next person but do you really think it would have helped if he had said something different? This nutjob had already had her mind made up.
Sure, but another less-than-nutjob might not and might be pushed into nuttier territory. Not a good idea to make a habit of saying stuff like that.
I agree. NCB-types unfairly portray obgyns as paternalistic and insensitive. Anything that could be construed as support for this view–and this remark could so be construed–isn’t helpful.
But it’s also entirely possible that this isn’t what he said and meant.
He could have just said something like ‘I hear there is a problem’ ‘What seems to be the problem’ and she twisted it in her mind.
Not to be mean, but people in an emotional state will often distort what you tell them. I live it often.
I told an owner that she needed to change her cat’s food because it wasn’t appropriate for her cat’s specific health problem. She left the clinic saying I was a bitch and accused her of poisoning her cat by feeding it crap.
It happens every single day.
Oh, sure, we’re just going by what the woman said, but I don’t think we can dismiss her automatically as exaggerating or misreporting what the doctor said. And as a general rule, I think practitioners do have to be especially careful in what they say to patients who are worked up or otherwise predisposed to take things badly. None of this, of course, makes her any less culpable for risking her baby’s life in this manner, or less foolish for seeking medical advice from Facebook.
Yup, you can put it in writing and sometimes people will still swear that what you said, is not what you said…
Well Dad and his PCP’s partner would talk like that, but they were friends outside of the office. Bob was as big a nutter as Dad, at least when he wasn’t wearing the lab coat and stethescope. (I never saw him in his professional capacity)
I think a little more tact could go a long way, actually.
I’m quite surprised when I talk to people who come in with a 16 page “we want ALL-THINGS-NATURAL” birth plan, and when I take the time to talk to them about the reasons and rationales for why we do what we do, why we recommend what we recommend, and I do it respectfully – how often they will accept medical interventions.
This just happened the other day – I was completely surprised, actually. I was just honest. I told the patient “I see you are refusing this. You have a right to refuse this, this is the reason why we do it.” They thought about it, and they accepted it.
Truly, I was shocked.
Sometimes I wonder if these birth plans get written up with a doula or some unknowledgable fool, and when the patient has access to a trained professional who takes 2 minutes to explain to them what is done and WHY (oh, and I’ll tell them when something is truly just *routine* and there’s pretty much no rationale for it, either), people are quite often appreciative and receptive.
I’ve been surprised, on numerous occasions, when would be ‘nutjobs’ change their minds. I think a respectful, non-condescending approach goes a long way. My experience, anyway.
Sure, a little more tact could go on a long way. Sometimes. More often, not. As proven by the fact that all the tact in the world changes the minds of anti-vaxx parents. Sometimes. More often, not. Still, I am all for respectful communication. And still yet, I do recognize that sometimes, it’s simply beyond the capacity of the person making the effort.
Thank God I don’t have patients but clients. And employers for specific projects. Because while a rude doctor will be considered to have committed harrassment of sime kind, when I was rude to an employer (a publisher who wants to know a certain principle in translating and why I apply it in every freaking example when he doesn’t have the education to get it) after literally months of explaining the thing in general, the thing in this and that specific example, for hours each time every month, I got results. I told him in more unrestrained voice that I would have liked that he was wasting my time and while I appreciated his interest and acknowledged his right to know the reasons his book was done this way, at the end he hired me to do something that he couldn’t do himself because I had the education and experience to do it. If he didn’t trust me, if he’d question every little detail to death every single time, perhaps I was not the translator for him. All this in a manner I really didn’t like but I was exhausted and I have been repeating the same thing in various wordings for an hour trying to squeeze the theory of translation for someone with no background in language. Amazing, but I never got the incessant “why, why, why?” again. A question here and there, yes. But no more need to defend myself by going all academic on him with all I have learned in my student life.
Again, not recommending losing your nerves. But pushing all the blame on the one who simply didn’t know how to communicate with the different person isn’t helping either.
That’s your experience, and I’m not arguing with your experience.
I’m sharing with you my experience – which is with people who are patients – and I’ve found them to be reachable and amenable to new ideas, more often than not.
Yup, they’re done with a doula. We didn’t know any better and had a doula with our first. She was pushing us to adopt a birth plan. I didn’t care to have one, but went along with her idea. She gave me several “templates.” I chose the least ridiculous one, and if I didn’t understand what a procedure was for, I removed the corresponding item entirely. So “no active management of third stage,” for instance. That was on there! I was like “I have no idea what this is talking about, so I’m just gonna take that out.” What remained was pretty innocuous, but also unnecessary. It was all preferences that are easily accommodated without being written down.
In retrospect, I was soooo underinformed and ignorant, but so was she. I didn’t realize at the time how substandard birth centers and midwives are (not all midwives…), and saw those options as valid choices.
I’m glad my instinct, due to family history, was to go for OB-led care, and to trust that my doctor had only my best interests in mind. Me and my doc had a partnership, and the doula knew going in that if she was anything less than sunny and pleasant with him, her ass was out the door. She behaved beautifully 🙂
Yeah, I’m sure she would have found something else to freak out about if it hadn’t been that. So while I think the provider could examine his bedside manner, I question how much it would have helped in this case.
It’s easy to find that remark condescending, but, in reality, it’s an introductory throw-away line that is generally accepted for what it is by people who want to engage productively with their health care providers. It’s jsut a jovial way of saying “They’ve asked me to come and check something that does’t like quite right”. Perhpas the doctor didn’t realise that this woman had a different mindset.
Sorry – doesn’t LOOK quite right.
Well, that’s the kind of thing you need to take into consideration if you’re any kind of care provider. (And I am.) It’s part of your job. This woman is obviously unreasonable but there are lots of reasons why I reasonable person who is feeling scared and vulnerable would not respond well to that kind of remark. Or just someone who’s had bad experiences with medical care before and is a little gun shy. Plus, even if you’re dealing with someone who is really unreasonable, it’s still in everyone’s best relationship to not piss them off.
Of course, we can’t hear tone here. I could hear that comment being delivered in a friendly, jovial way but I could also hear it being said aggressively. We just don’t know although, admittedly, it’s pretty easy to guess what this woman was priming herself to hear.
If the woman is accurately reporting what the doctor really said. The idea that the midwife “prepped” the doctor into agreeing with her is pretty laughable.
I’m dubious that we are dealing with a 100% reliable narrator. I could see this being a break-the-ice throwaway line, but I could also see it being misrepresented.
That’s possible of course, but it’s not like it’s impossible that a doctor would say that. And it’s a pretty douchey thing to say, imo, and not at all constructive. Just because natural devotees rail on to a ridiculous and hyperbolic degree about how the entire medical establishment is against them and doctors just view people as inconveniences doesn’t mean that there are aren’t doctors who say that kind of condescending, dismissive stuff to patients, especially women. I’ve certainly experienced it. Doctors are just people, after all. But they are people in a position to cause a lot of harm with that attitude because it just feeds unfounded paranoia. (And it is also disrespectful. I mean, it’s a minor infraction, really but I wouldn’t like it if a male doctor especially spoke to me that way.)
I could see it being said but not in a mean-spirited way. I think I’ve had doctors say something like that to me as a joke. I can’t think of a situation where I’ve not generally agreed with my medical treatment so I never thought anything of them saying that. At worst, I thought it was an uncreative joke. I could see how she took it the wrong way, and it seems like as soon as he said, he realized he shouldn’t have.
Somehow, I sincerely doubt the doctor said that. It might be what she HEARD because she’s feeling guilty. Or he/she might have said “I hear there’s some trouble here (meaning no fluid, 42 weeks, etc) and mama made the comment all about her bad judgement.
How much of a leap is it between “I hear you’re HAVING trouble” and “I hear you’re CAUSING trouble?”
I can envision a few physicians I work with saying this. Absolutely, completely in their wheelhouse. They might think they’re being funny and friendly, but it comes off ALL WRONG. It happens.
I can also envision physicians NOT saying this at all, but having patients HEAR this – because, as others have said – when you’re the patient, you are often experiencing some degree of stress, and your mind is often running at a mile a minute, and so the meaning and intent of what was said can be misconstrued.
Recently had a patient say she was told she was going to have a c-section (there was NO indication, NONE, ZERO, zip) but that is what the patient HEARD. “Your patient seems to think you’re teetering on the decision to do a c-section in the next hour or so.” I ran that by the OB, his eyebrows went up, and he had another discussion with the patient clarifying the plan.
It really is amazing what patients hear. Sometimes in the same moment I will ask them to repeat back what I’d JUST SAID – and I’m amazed at how different is it.
I have a family member who has no clue what super serious illnesses she has. We aren’t sure if she has celiac, a rare form of leukemia, cirrhosis, fatty liver disease, and/or a rare blood disease but neither is she. She refuses to listen and glazes over when medical staff try to talk to her. All we know is that she had to have her colon removed, and she really thinks the doctors jumped the gun and all she had was a stomach bug – a stomach bug that brought her to the ER.
:-/
Yeah, generally the colon is not routinely removed for a ‘stomach bug.’
Uff da.
Well, she’s blaming the cirrhosis (which she’s told family for years she didn’t have but then said the other day she told them she’s known she’s had it for years) on the fact her husband bought Natty Light, as in it was cheap and only because it was cheap it destroyed her liver. I’m thinking it’s just a way to shift blame and avoid admitting drinking has really hurt her.
It is if the surgeon has a game of golf planned.
I wonder if what he said was “I hear you’re having trouble”? That would make more sense, especially given the midwife’s response. I can imagine the “causing trouble” remark, but it’s all too easy to mis-hear or misremember something in a stressful situation, even without the patient’s evident desire to believe that providers are hostile.
Reigns supreme. Reigns.
Am I the only one who read this and thought Gavin Michael? It’s eerily the same – a problem with fluid, turning to Facebook because doctors are fearmongering. Only, this time the mother is playing the part of both Christy Colling and Jan Tritten.
I hope the baby makes it. As to the mother… I have no words.
Sadly, odds are the post is going to get removed now that it appeared here and that group is going to go on a witch hunt to find out who leaked it. I am sure all of us here are hoping for a safe birth for this baby, which appears to not be the first priority of the poor thing’s mother.
Attempting VBA2C, saying “And basically telling me that my body will fail at a vaginal birth” – her aim is to prove to herself – or others – that her body can do this. But what if it can’t?
Nothing new – mothers’ bodies have failed at vaginal birth throughout all of history.
I mean, if she never really got a chance to try vaginal birth–say her first was a planned c/s for breech or placenta previa and her second was done because her provider routinely did RCS rather than VBAC attempts, and now she finally has a provider who will let her try for a VBAC–I can sort of understand wanting to try to see what it’s like and if she can do it… But the “my body CAN do this!” rhetoric seems to come more from those who had previous attempts go pear-shaped and are still experiencing the magical thinking that maybe this time will be different. If she had two instances of arrest of descent in second stage, the odds that this third time will magically be the charm are not great. Just because many people’s bodies can do this without problems doesn’t mean she’s one of them.
Yeah, that rhetoric is basically the party line in groups like ICAN and of course all the devotees of Ina May Gaskin, with their whole “your body is not a lemon” line.
Which starts from a faulty premise. Nobody except the all-natural crowd even thinks that being able to have a vaginal birth is the mark of “not a lemon.” I also find it laughable that people will say this while wearing glasses/contacts, or dealing with a chronic condition, or, in the case of a few people I know, conceiving only after fertility treatment. Why is getting a baby out the ONLY place where “not a lemon” equals no help?
My body isn’t a lemon. More like a grapefruit, larger and rounder
Ha! I like it!
A woman in a group I’m in made a wonderful meme to the effect of “your body may be a lemon, but your heart is not.” I actually wrote that down on a post-it note and stuck it on my mirror. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve found it so helpful, but in my lowest points, repeating it often to myself helps ground my head in reality rather than the really bad horrors it likes to play on repeat.
Mine’s the lemon in a gin and tonic.
“And basically telling me that my body will fail at a vaginal birth” – her aim is to prove to herself – or others – that her body can do this. But what if it can’t?
The thing I don’t get is… WHO CARES?! Who gives a dog’s fart about whether your body gives birth this way or that way? What does vaginal birth mean about you as person? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
It’s not even like an athletic achievement, where your own will power and self-discipline is a big part of what’s being tested. You can train for a marathon and that actually makes a difference in whether you’re able to complete it; it makes a big enough difference that if you didn’t train, you’re not going to finish.
But you can’t train for a vaginal birth. It just happens that way or it doesn’t. A sixteen-year-old who didn’t even know she was pregnant can give birth vaginally with no problem while a 26 or 36-year-old who eats all organic, does the perfect amount of exercise, meditation and prayer, does Hypnobabies, gets perineal massage, hires a doula, etc., still might end up needing an emergency c-section. (And if any “birth warriors” think that’s not true, I refer them to my friend the extremely healthy licensed acupuncturist/naturopath — and, sadly, antivaxxer — who despite all the effort she had put in, ended up needing an emergency CS).
It literally means nothing about you as a person. It’s like feeling proud of the arches in your feet or ashamed about your fallen arches. I JUST DO NOT UNDERSTAND.
It’s just basically what the whole NCB movement is about. Putting value in vaginal birth and other natural stuff and then raising their own worth by achieving it. And then convincing other’s of their own worth, making others want to achieve it.
It’s probably mostly a control and hope thing. Like all those with chronic condition or terminal illness who fall for quack medicine.
Iow, they set people up to fail.
Who are the ones telling people “your body is a lemon” if they have a c-section? It’s not doctors.
Heck, with all the “variation of normal” crap, doctors are the ones who say a c-section IS normal (not just a variation of such)***, and they certainly don’t put any value judgement on it. It’s just one thing that we can do.
***normal does not mean not imply most common. Having red hair is completely normal but also very rare (just a couple % of the general population, although maybe half the population at Hogwarts)
I don’t either, and having done it both ways I feel particularly well qualified to understand how uninmportant it is. But the unfortunate reality is that some people do care. The women who talk about feeling their bodies have failed, feeling judged or whatever, they didn’t invent that concept by themselves. Becomes a vicious circle.
I think she has fallen for the ancient, and fundamentally sexist idea that a woman’s worth is entirely centered in her body, and its ability to do the things that only woman’s bodies can do. Anyone can raise a baby, that’s no trick. But she probably, at some level, thinks that if she is not a man, and can’t do the things that women do either, that she is a waste of space. The doctor and midwife are telling her that she can’t give birth, and she is thinking “If that were true, it would be horrible. So it can’t be true”.
Speaking of similar bullshit, this was on Facebook via Chow Babe
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/e43350307d3efc23d21b8b5703951e6cec2220589f98f1974a6b9b435f0297be.png
That is really, really scary.
GO TO ER. Go directly to the ER. Do not pass the chiropractor, do not collect elderberry tincture from the naturopath.
She can go to the Naturopath afterwards, to get a remedy to “support the gut” through the antibiotic treatment, and to the Chiro to get the subluxation adjusted, which is always foudn to be there, no matter what the complaint is. All bases covered.
“I know they will try to push modern medical care on my injured son.”
Her poor kid.
By the way, the general consensus was soak them in ACV with the mother. I can’t even.
Dare I even ask what organic ACV is?
Apple cider vinegar.
Hmm. The trend of misusing dangerous things continues unabated amongst this lot. They’re all so obsessed with using marinade ingredients for healthcare purposes, I’m surprised not to have seen soy sauce make an appearance.
Well, most soy sauce has the glutenz and also SOY, which some of them think is the worst. They seem to favor coconut aminos and pink Himalayan salt for their salty condiment health fixes.
What is the mother?
In this context, the vinegar’s “mother” is all the bacterial gunk or whatever that you would normally filter away after fermenting the apples to make the vinegar. So picture cloudy, murky vinegar. (And of course, has to be “organic”!)
I mean, sure, sepsis caused by bacteria? Add TONS more bacteria, the bacteria from the ACV will WIN and we all know ACV bacteria is magic, It just MAKES SENSE, wake up sheeple.
The thing that turns apple juice into vinegar.
Actually wine. It goes juice, wine, vinegar.
It’s a gelatinous glob of microorganisms.
That poor child probably has septicemia. What is she going to say to him if he ends up with an amputation?
My husband had a perianal abscess that started to turn septic two years ago. In the course of five days he went from thinking he’d pulled a muscle to having outpatient surgery to drain the abscess. In post-op recovery he started showing signs of sepsis, so he was admitted. Spent three nights in the hospital, and for 48 hours he received three powerful antibiotics via IV. Following discharge he was on an antibiotic for another two weeks.
If only he’s soaked his ass in apple cider vinegar we could have saved some money and time!
People really don’t get that cuts and scrapes got infected, abscessed or gave people tetanus all the time back in the olden days. antibiotics, for all their over use, were a godsend.
Isn’t that how the kid died in A Separate Piece?
I don’t remember. I think he died fro a blood clot breaking loose during surgery to fix his broken leg.
I just remember my mom telling me about her uncle and cousin’s get hurt working on the farm (another part of the family had a dairy farm) when she was small and sometimes it took a very long time to get well.
Oh, that sounds right; I read it during the elder Bush’s administration. Dating myself, i know 😉
Glad none of them got a fatal case.
i think it said in the book that it was a splinter of bone or somesuch
Something similar happened to a co-worker’s husband and he was in the hospital for weeks and ended up on dialysis. You don’t fuck around with sepsis.
I don’t know. I hope she’d profusely apologize and comprehend what her negligence and defiance caused. However, I honestly think she might tell him, “Hey, at least I didn’t give you autism by getting you vaccinated!”
Her child is actually autistic. This may unfortunately what drew her to the anti-vaxx movement. 🙁
I’m perhaps more worried because he is autistic, and may have been hiding his symptoms for awhile.
I think he was hiding them. I think her only clue was the visible swelling. Hopefully he’s on his way to a real place of medicine, be it the ER, ped, or urgent care.
“Some kids just aren’t meant to have feet.”
Update on this: She says she will take him to the doctor when her husband gets home in a couple of hours from now. She says he doesn’t have a fever and seems with it. I personally wish she’d call a real doctor’s office (her ped dropped her over vaccines but I feel would still help her decide what to do) that could actually evaluate how emergent it might be. After all, no one on Facebook knows his medical background. Something could make this situation more dire than it appears. But at least she appears to be willing to go to the ER or something in a couple of hours.
please let us know if you get any further info, I can’t help but worry.
The person removed their post. Hopefully all is well.
It’s probably not. As others have noted, this could easily be sepsis and sepsis can be fatal. At least she hasn’t mentioned symptoms of tetanus yet, although who knows what she’s hiding.
My step-mother is a nurse. She took care of a kid with tetanus once. The background was a lot like this. The kid ended up spending a long time in a dark room with no human contact because any stimulus caused him to go into tetany. I don’t know if he lived or died–step mother’s rotation ended while he was still sick. This happened when she was a trainee and it still haunts her years after retirement.
The tetanus thing is a a lot worrisome. He has had some vaccines but isn’t up to date. I hope she lets go of her vaccination fears and gets him a booster.
I was just viewing this on Chow Babe since I’d have to be a member of Stop Mandatory Vaccines to see the full thing and I have no desire to be a member. It does look like she was in contact with a nurse at a doctor’s office and she posted a pic that didn’t really match the description I gleaned from her words. Of course seeing a doctor is rarely the bad decision and was definitely justified in this situation but based on the photo, if it was my son, I’d have taken him to the pediatrician, not called 911(but I also say that as someone who has her child fully vaccinated). If he doesn’t develop tetanus, I think he’ll be okay.
Sepsis is potentially deadly and can result in loss of limbs and organs in survivors. However, it’s generally survivable in previously healthy children and young adults so there’s reason to hope he’ll be okay.
If I understand correctly, any vaccination is better than no vaccination with respect to tetanus (though obviously complete vaccination is better), so hopefully he’ll avoid that, at least.
Removal of the post usually means a bad outcome, unfortunately. At least that’s my experience from seeing similar negligence.
🙁
My heart hurts.
It looks like she removed the post because some people called CPS (I don’t agree with that move but I suspect, like me, they had trouble keeping up with hundreds of comments and assumed the worst). I had a hard time following the thread but she had called a nurse’s line and wasn’t ultimately eschewing medical advice in this situation. I think her description may have made it sound more dire than it was. I’m glad she is in touch with real medical staff.
Shit. I kept checking back because I’m worried about the poor kid
I feel like he’s okay. I couldn’t see most the posts because I am not a member of Stop Mandatory Vaccines so I could only see bits and pieces of what was going on. However it sounds like a few people had gotten through to her and she was in contact with a nurse at a doctor’s office. I did finally see a photo and I’ll just say it didn’t match the picture I had in my head after reading her description. However, knowing she was in contact with real medical staff, someone (or multiple people) called CPS on her. That’s unfortunate really.
It’s a tough call sometimes. There are many people who by virtue of their professional licenses are legally mandated to report to CPS. I encounter this in my own group and my own teaching license. We tell members right in the rules that members of both the administration/moderation team, and just regular members are mandated reporters, and we will call authorities if necessary. And we have.
I’m still worrying about one woman from last year. you had to call the authorities on her partner more than her, but still. -HE- was a flamer.
Its so frustrating when you do all you can but its so damned little. That’s why I don’t blame people who turn to prayer for a bit comfort, as long as they do everything possible first. You cannot pray the cancer away, but if you do the chemo and everything your doctors’ recommend, alls you can do is wait and see if you’re one of the lucky ones. I’m not really talking about fundementalists or zealots who tend to take things to their logical extreme, just the everyday sort of believer.
We’ve seen her pop up in other, related groups, so she’s still plugging along and still mad at us for calling. Because I take the privacy of our members seriously, even if they’re ex members, I won’t comment on any specifics that I’ve learned. As for her being mad, I’d rather have a member safe and mad at us than dead. It’s always an agonizing decision to have to call authorities, and we don’t do it just willy-nilly, but there have been about 7 or so times when we’ve called. Sometimes authorities take us seriously, sometimes they don’t. But if we call then we know we’ve done everything we can.
As for religion, I don’t begrudge anybody something that gives them comfort. Our rules are that as long as it’s not being billed as a primary treatment, and the person who’s asked for the support is okay with it, then offers of prayers are totally fine. We’re tying to find that middle ground here, and so far it’s worked out mostly okay. We’ve had a few people butt-hurt about it, but you can’t run a group like this without pissing off at least a few people.
Oh, I totally get the privacy thing, which is why I haven’t overtly asked or looked for her; glad you’ve seen her elsewhere, though.
I was having a philosophical moment because I’d just been on places on FB where some atheists were bashing everyone who believes in the “sky-daddy,” saying they’re mentally ill and all that.
I’m the choir’s pet agnostic. I get a certain peace from the familiar rituals and they let me sing in public 😉 We did pick a very liberal church. Our recently retired pastor is more than a little socialist. I don’t know how liberal our prospective new pastor is, but I rather doubt she and her wife are ultra concervative young Earther types.
People implying that those question whether or not CPS should be called are making me really tetchy. I had not seen anything other than the initial post, and then Chow Babe posted something begging the mother to take her child to the doctor. The thread was long, and I didn’t know that she had talked to a nurse. I did not recommend that CPS be called because it wouldn’t happen quickly enough if the child was in imminent danger, but I could definitely see grounds for neglect if he wound up critically ill or dead. Once I saw that he didn’t have a fever and she was in touch with a doctor, I felt that it would not be appropriate to contact CPS at all. Clarifying that in the posting might have prevented people from taking that course of action. It’s also worth noting that in some states (including my own), everyone is considered a mandated reporter.
Yes, those of us who didn’t join SMV couldn’t see the full story and I wouldn’t blame anyone for suggesting it based on that one post. Of course, to have reported her, you’d have to have access to SMV where you could see the full story. Ultimately the one that bears responsibility for calling CPS is the one who actually called. There was a nurse who kept insisting everyone who was worried had watched too many medical dramas while leaving out that she had seen more than others had. Perhaps she didn’t realize that many people were only seeing a partial picture. To me, it was someone who wasn’t going to the doctor, her son had a horrible abscess and swelling. It would have been good to have had a timely update that the mom had called a doctor.
Yes, a simple, precise “the mother called the doctor” would have prevented so much I think. That is in real time, not after. I really don’t know what Chow Babe expected to go down when she only posted that one screenshot without being very clear that the mother was seeking legitimate medical advice. Sifting through hundreds of comments, most of them memes or just useless commentary, is nearly impossible.
“Seems with it”? Anti-vaxxers won’t call a doctor until their kid isn’t conscious any more? Eek!
I wonder what kind of “doctor” she’s talking about. Definitely update if you see an update
I think she was actually going to a real ER after both pro- and even some anti-vaxxers got through to her and she was on the phone with an ER nurse, I think, who felt like given probably better details than she posted to that anti-vaxx FB group it would be okay to wait until her husband got home to go. I later saw a pic of it, and I wouldn’t have called 911 had it been my son. I would have gone to his pediatrician from the get go, though (as in no home-lancing, honey or charcoal). Based on her description of it, I did think it sounded very emergent though. That being said, the tetanus threat is still looming (from what I get, it wouldn’t be symptomatic yet) and I just really hope he doesn’t have it.
For all the times people get a tetanus short for a wound that isn’t really tetanus prone, one that really IS tetanus prone and the mother wants to avoid it! GET THE SHOT! And some antibiotics!
Former colleague had a 5 year old unvaccinated patient in their practice who had a tetanus infected wound that led to leg amputation
Poor kid!
The horrible thing is, if you tell anti-vaxxers this (to clarify, as in real cases of VPD causing serious injury and permanent disabilities), they yell “fear mongering!” and think because they don’t see it happening all around them, the chances are rare. Like it doesn’t happen often precisely because of vaccines. Sigh.
Oh no! That poor unfortunate kid! His parents are probably racked with guilt ( I would think) .
The docs were sued for malpractice. Don’t think they lost. Was before my friend joined. “Dr x, did you expressly tell the family that the child could get a tetanus infected wound and have to have his leg amputated? Well.. no, not with those words, but—thank you, no more questions”
No, they always blame the real medical doctors rather than themselves or their quack gurus.
Yes, but the kid will never again get tetanus in that leg (that is no longer there)./s
Have actually heard that line of “reasoning” from antivaxxers. I want my kid to get ___, because then they’ll be protected the second time they’re exposed…better than being vaccinated. Of course that may be depending on the vaccine, but most of us don’t want our kids to suffer from the disease in the first place (or die), hence vaccination.
I’m hoping she actually did end up going to the doctor (she was convinced to call a doctor up, I’m thinking she even called the ER and was in contact with a nurse who felt like it could wait until her husband got home. She has 3 other children and her son is autistic so it sounds like going without backup is very difficult.) and is able to get over her fear of vaccinations and it isn’t too late for a booster. I hope the doctors can communicate this to her.
She doesn’t even seem (from what I can gather not seeing most of her posts) that anti-medicine. She seems like the sort of anti-vaxxer who has too much faith in modern medicine. You know, the kind who think measles, polio and tetanus (and I think a lot of them don’t get that tetanus is hanging out in their backyard and all it would take is an unnoticed nick to get exposure) were only big deals back in the day but now we have antibiotics, antipyretics, and IVs so it’ll all be just fine. I think her home remedies were more about avoiding someone who might not praise her decision to quit having her son vaccinated and a heavy dose of denial. I’ve worked in the ER and I have my doubts the nurses and doctors would line up to scream at her because what’s done is done. But I’m sure that’s the line she’s been sold.
Ugh. Her child could have cellulitis (extremely painful. I had it in my hand/ wrist ) and/or be septic. For her son’s sake, I hope she will get over her stupidity and take him to the ER
What is it with activated charcoal suddenly being the wonder cure? It’s an adsorbant – that’s why it is sometimes useful for toxic ingestions, and with benign causes of diarrhoea. Otherwise, it’s just black stuff.
I guess they are fulfilling a need that their children actually have access to life-saving treatments if things go pear-shaped. It’s just that they aren’t life-saving and the likelihood of us who have no medical licenses correctly diagnosing an ailment is slim.
They take things people used 150 or 250 years ago in the U.S. (because if you lived miles and miles from the nearest doctor you had to use what you had) and think it’s better because its “natural”.
People used things like willow bark tea for mild pain relief back then and honey to help fight infections because that was all they had! now we have things like aspirin because someone did the research to see what the actual active ingredient in willow bark tea was (so you didn’t have to risk Mom or Dad making a tea from what they thought was willow bark, and killing someone when it turned out to be some other (poisonous) plant…
SO now you have idiots recommending things like this:
Ginseng for fibromyalgia.
Kava Kava for tension headaches and neuropathic pain.
St. John’s Wort for sciatica, arthritis, and neuropathic pain.
Valerian root for spasms and muscle cramps.
And if the people who go buy these herbs and herbal tinctures get them from someone who either doesn’t know what they are doing, or is not honest, then they could be ingesting anything, or taking their “natural” cure with an OTC drug that makes it dangerous…Valerian for instance can depress the central nervous system, combine it with alcohol or antihistamines and the results could be unfortunate…
Plus many people do not mention the “natural herb and cures” they are taking when a health care professional asks what drugs or supplements they take…
You forgot a few– I know because my quacktivist friends recommend them to me all the time:
St. John’s Wort for depression
Honey and cinnamon for anything and everything
Lavender for migraine
Diatomaceous earth for digestion regulation
Honey and cinnamon are good in hot chocolate and excellent for making cookies. They will not, however, save you from any medical condition except acute hypoglycemia.
To be fair, honey is very good for healing and infection prevention during wound care.
But it’s not because of some magical properties of honey, it’s just the very high sugar concentration that kills bacteria and help healing.
We use ordinary, refined, white sugar in my clinic (yes, the same sugar we put in our coffee) It works just as well, for a fraction of the price and a fraction of the mess.
‘Lavender essential oil, apple cider vinegar, activated charcoal and honey’
I have all of these in my home. If I cut myself and suspected tetanus/sepsis, guess what I’d do?
That’s right, GO TO THE DOCTOR!
This stuff is nice in a face mask, but no good at medical conditions.
I think the thing is she couldn’t quite bring herself to suspect tetanus or sepsis. I mean, I think it did occur to her on some level because she seemed freaked out enough to ask the wrong set of people what to do. I dunno. :-
Being that overdue is bad enough… refusing to listen to your trained medical providers is even worse. I sincerely hope this child makes it out without paying the ultimate price.
My husband’s response when I gave him a summary of this post:
“She’s going to kill her kid… That ticks me off! I want to slap her. What the hell?”
Yeah, he just about summed it up.
It’s incredible how after the baby is there, we have to martyr ourselves to do EVERYTHING that is best for the baby, even at risk to our own physical and mental health. And the more you suffer, the best mom you are. Real mothers will keep breastfeeding with mastitis and cracked, bleeding nipples because breast is best.
But not for birth, risking your baby’s life to avoid the discomfort of a c-section is empowering and makes you better than everyone else.
There are some posts here from previous years about women who are so proud that they had a birth outside of the hospital with no medical interventions…and they care not at all about the vast number of interventions that their brain-damaged child is subjected to as a result.
The problem is that people believe c-sections *harm* babies. Their gut doesn’t get seeded, they will develop allergies, asthma, cancer, water elf disease, ergotism, encircling of the buttocks, autism, acne of the liver, or even Foucauldian fever.
They are warriors for standing up to the system that wants to harm their babies in their minds.
My last meeting with Amazing Niece a few days ago made me rethink the risks of c-sections again. One of the things I never gave much thought to because I know it exists is the risk of having the baby nicked by the scalpel. Guess what? Amazing Niece’s nose is still like a panda’s. Personally, I think it’s adorable but it doesn’t look like it’s going away at all. I can imagine that as a teen, she won’t be happy with it. Any suggestions how she got it?
I certainly never said there were no risks! It’s major surgery, after all. But a c-section that doesn’t involve a mishap (like nicking the baby) doesn’t have any proven effect on the baby (different gut biome, yes, but it remains to be proven that that is a harm).
Hehe, you lose. Amazing Niece got her panda nose from basically digging up a tunnel with her head to escape her mom, aka be born. She was vaginally born. All naturally, even, although SIL screwed that all natural badge when she got a full dose of drugs afterwards. Stiching her with her unmedicated? She was SO not into it.
Strange but I don’t see panda nose mentioned as a risk of vaginal birth very often.
Well, I was confused because you said she made you rethink the risks of c-sections.
There are no risks with vaginal birth, don’t you know that? lol
Yes, it did. If a nicking by a scalpel is something important enough to be made into something terrible, shouldn’t a panda nose by vaginal birth be there as well? The thing is, it clearly ISN’T this, else it should have disappeared. Well, we know nicking by scalpel leaves lifelong disfigurements. It’s all in the naturalness.
Why is it that we don’t call scalp haematoma, squashed face, squashed head etc etc “complications of vaginal birth”? A little sharp nick in newborns skin heals faster than those things.
I’ve told many times here about my dad’s first impressions of me: that with the thing they swore was my head, there was no way for me to have escaped brain damage. Does this count as a mental trauma of vaginal birth? He had a few tough days… not, more like a few tough months, going so far as to panic when the pediatrician asked if I really spoke in sentences. He thought that meant I should have been able to write poems or something – and I clearly wasn’t. Turned out I was, in fact, expected to say things like “mama”, “daddy”, “wa-ter” and the likes. But he got a scare because THE HEAD!
What’s a panda nose?
My term for a dark-tipped nose, like that of a panda. I created it for Amazing Niece. In the beginning, we were told it was due to vaginal birth because she was a determined little thing who made a mess in her striving to get out fast. But it hasn’t faded a lot, so it clearly isn’t that.
My mom’s goddson, though, sported a huge forcepc bruise right next to his eye for a long time. Next to the eye! Here but for the grace of God I do… and no, the possible problems with a possible instrumental delivery were never discussed with his mom either.
she needs to be less worried about her body “failing at vaginal birth” and more worried about her body failing to keep her baby alive.
Seriously. I feel like she’s read a bunch of those platitudes about “babies knowing when to be born,” which has no basis in reality. Probably a few about how her body was meant to do this, too. That one, unfortunately, was included in my childbirth class I took at the university hospital where I gave birth.
Babies know when*
*Except when they’re not. ugh
I’ve seen a fair number of babies outside of the womb. Even at that later stage of development, I’ll not look to them for medical decisions.
Yeah, they can’t control their poop or stand upright, but they can perfectly coordinate the complicated process of getting them out of mom?
yup, because they’re not earthside yet. They still have the wisdom of the stars.
Once they come out they get stupid for a few years.
I’m still waiting for my ‘stupid’ phase to pass. Does 40 count as ‘a few’?
The NICU babies seemed to miss out on both the star and Earth based wisdom.
Hence why my son used to try and remove his own ventilator tube……and got it out twice. Freaking terrifying at the time; a bit proud now….
Isn’t that why the knitted octopus thing started, cause they grab the legs rather than the tubes 🙂
Yes. We found out about that a week or two after my son had been transitioned to CPAP.
Well, really, he still grabs at all of his tubes but if he pulls one free now, it’s not fatal. (Although, he does behave as if having an NG tube placed will cause him to die 😛 )
Oh, I dunno…
I swear my kids could coordinate their poop WAY earlier than anyone would have given them credit for. They knew INSTINCTIVELY if I had forgotten to get the diaper bag on my way to the car, or if they had just peed through the last diaper in it. They KNEW.
#gifted
My friend’s daughter was born at 26+6, I told her that if babies know when to be born clearly her daughter was just stupid. She said that her theory was that she (the mom) was under so much stress at the time that her daughter was like “Whatever, Mom, I’m peaceing out.”
Poor woman. There isn’t always a reason, and that’s hard to accept. Is the kiddo doing alright nowadays?
Yeah, she’s 4 now and is doing quite well considering everything she’s been through (and it’s far enough in the past that we can kid about it now). It was touch and go there for a while, but she’s pretty much a normal kid now with just a few aspects where she needs some extra help as she grows.
My 24 weeker just turned 15 last week. For the most part, you wouldn’t know he was born so little. I do tease him about being a drowned rat at birth, as his birthweight was only 504g. He’s got some minor neurosensory issues and he’s really short. He got bad news today from the orthopedist. The growth plates in his leg bones are all closed. He’s permanently at 5’4.5″. Some of that has to do with prematurity, some has to do with an unrelated, genetic bone disease, and the rest has to do with the fact that his father is only 5’5″ himself. All in all, however, life is good.
She’s already had 2 c-sections I thought? That “my body won’t fail” ship sailed long ago.
Mine, if course, failed in 3rd grade.
“I told her I won’t be doing an RCS unless there is a life threatening situation with me and/or baby.” As far as I understand it’s her third baby. She had two c-sections. Isn’t it just plain common sense that 99% she’s gonna end up with another one? Yes, her body probably isn’t designed to birth vaginally. Why not get over it finally and either stop having kids or treat c-sections as an unpleasant but unavoidable procedure if you want one more baby. She reminds me of a toddler having a tantrum when smth doesn’t go as wanted. Sorry for her but she really REALLY needs to grow up.
Seriously, no matter how you give birth, it’s pretty much ‘an unpleasant but unavoidable procedure’
If we had some magical start trek beaming technology that could safely warp the baby out of the womb without having to go through labour, probably almost everyone would go for it.
Plus insufficient fluid IS life threatening for the baby, so is being over 40 weeks. Placenta’s have a use by date….
This is everything I’ve wanted to say about these horrific Mommy-blog echo chambers like MAM. It is so very frustrating for me as a nurse to see pictures of wounds or bites or rashes that should clearly be evaluated by a physician, but I can’t say anything because I’m blocked. It is infuriating beyond measure to read the irresponsible nonsense churned out by people like Kate Tieje and not be able to respond with some education. I keep saying this trend is going to rack up a body count, and it will, but how many of those parents will, like the Stephans in Canada, become martyrs to the cause?
Why the hell would someone ask the internet instead of oh IDK calling their GP or pediatrician? Calling one of the many free Nurse-lines?
NO let’s ask random strangers on the internet if they think this rash looks like measles, or chicken pox or a tick bite/Lyme disease.
because that’s who will tell her what she wants to hear.
Because you only do that if you want actual medical advice.
I get wanting to ask the internet. I’m not condoning it, but I get not wanting to go to the ER, pay a $150 copay and then sit there for hours waiting, meanwhile I’m still expected to complete the same amount of work I would have if I hadn’t had a kid emergency come up. Sometimes it’s tempting to consult someone who can give an immediate answer – does this look like it needs a doctor? Can I wait until tomorrow?
I understand that, but that is when I call the pediatrician’s advice line. Of course, I see that her pediatrician cut her from the practice because she doesn’t believe in vaccination.
Mine always just says “do you want to bring them in?”
That’s annoying! Mine is very helpful in assessing situations.
Reading through this thread I am more thankful than ever for my pediatrician and her nurses. I can call day or night, answer the many questions that they ask about whatever the issue is, and get concrete, solid advice on a course of action – bring child in, wait at home and look out for these signs, or go to the emergency room. This has made it easier for me to call and confident that I am taking proper measures. When I used to call the nurse line the insurance company had, I was always told to see a doctor.
Don’t you have a free health info phone line in the US? We have one here, 24/7, totally free for everyone.
From my own experience, most people who ask online actually want to avoid seeing a doctor, and they only want to be reassured that they are doing the right thing by not going.
I see it a lot in people who are trying to avoid calling in the clinic for their pets. It’s absolutely 100% free to call us and ask. We will absolutely tell you if we think a visit is needed. But they don’t want to know IF a visit is needed, they want to be told it’s ok to do nothing. So they go on facebook, where of course, some people will say that it’s fine to wait.
And in the case of that women, it isn’t about not being sure she needs medical attention or avoiding a costly trip to the ER. She was told by 2 different medical professional that she needed help ASAP. And if she went back to the hospital she wouldn’t have to wait, they would take her immediately.
She just thinks she knows better and want others to support her stupid decision.
I don’t know about a country-wide line, but I have called the pediatrician’s office when I’m not sure if I should bring someone in. But they invariably ask me if *I* want to bring the kids in. I also tend to think that any health line is automatically going to default to “bring the kid in” to cover their ass, especially for things they can’t see to make a judgement.
I *do* take my kids in, mind you. I just get not wanting to.
Our non-urgent health like in the UK (111) has nurses and doctors on staff, they go through a general questionnaire then based on your responses will send an ambulance, tell you to go to hospital, send an out of hours doc to you or you to them, tell you to make an appointment with your Primary Care doc in the morning, tell you to make an appointment ‘within a week’ or tell you to look after yourself at home. It might lead to some cases going to hospital unnecessarily, but it does help direct most people appropriately 🙂
Yeah, our options are nothing like that. That sounds nice.
And yet everyone complains so much about it, sometimes I wish they knew what it COULD be 🙁
Health info phone lines aren’t that great in the US. In order to make sure that people are not going to get in trouble legally, they are always going to say “go to the ER if you’re unsure in any way” which this woman obviously is. They are going to tell her go to the ER which she’s trying to avoid. “My child has a rash and a fever, can I stay home? No, I cannot see the rash so I can’t be sure so go to the ER to double check”.
I dare say they are more useful for specific questions, like “my contractions are like this, can I wait a little longer before going in?”
It varies wildly here.
The kids’ pediatricians are great, but their office sucks wastewater. The office nurse is as awesome as the pediatricians. Problem is, there are five pediatricians in the practice and just the one nurse, and that nurse’s responsibilities include answering the nurse line, talking parents through basic medical stuff, doing weights/measurements, giving vaccines, talking hysterical breastfeeding moms off the edge (ask me how I know)…for 15+ patients simultaneously.
So you can never actually get ahold of her immediately via the phone, callbacks take several hours, and since she can’t see the injury, there’s at least a decent chance she’s going to have to sigh and say, “I’m really sorry, but we’re booked solid for the next three days, and you’re going to have to take your kid to an urgent care or ER to get looked at.”
Ahhhhhh!
Really?
I just see sick kids (who I don’t think need to go to hospital, but need seen today) as extras (before or after my booked patients).
On a bad day that might mean seeing six sick kids and doing an extra hour or two of work.
Sick kids are easy- they either look very well, are bouncing about and you can reassure the parents it’s something minor, they look miserable but not unwell and you can prescribe some cream or antibiotics or laxative or whatever, or they look SICK and you provide emergency care until the ambulance arrives.
Thankfully, because I triage the calls myself, most of them are less sick than I expect, I send the ones I think need hospital immediately to hospital rather than to see me and only very rarely will a properly sick child appear for me to look at (usually acute asthma or anaphylaxis when the parents just bring the child without phoning first, because we’re closer than the hospital).
I suspect that that’s the case in a lot of smaller practices here, too. There, it’s a combination of big practice+a lot of part time docs (there are several mom-pediatricians who only work 2 or 3 days/week)+being in what is literally the largest medical center in the world. So, it’s really great if you want absolutely top-notch care when in the hospital or fast recommendations for interventions, but bloody impossible when you call and say “My kid is showing every sign of having a UTI.”
Out of the three times I have needed a kid seen that day (two UTIs for one kid, and then the time that both kids had RSV and one an ear infection to boot), I have gotten into the office once–though to their credit, it was for the RSV.
I accidentally overdosed my first daughter on antibiotics and it took three phone calls to get to a person who would give me any advice. I called my insurance’s nurse line, they told me to call the doctor’s nurse line. I called the doctor’s nurse line and they gave me the number for poison control. Thankfully, overdosing on antibiotics was not an emergency but it took me three phone calls to find out. The same happened when I passed a huge clot after my first child. Three phone calls until I talked to the doctor on call at the hospital I delivered at to tell me that it was not a big deal. So stressful. There is no good way of figuring out if something is major or minor without going to the doctor or ER and I hate going when I am unsure.
I sort of feel bad for people who come to Bea’s PPD group who -think- their crano-sacro-head-massage thingy or salt lamps or chiropractic or whatever really are evidence based. They don’t really have any more understanding on the subjects than I do, but their google searches were misleading them. We’ve had a fair few drop out because their favorite nonsensical thing wasn’t supported by the rest of us, never mind by science.
I was going to say “we’ve lost a few” but considering that particular group, that is likely to mean something very different.
“I told her I won’t be doing an RCS unless there is a life threatening situation with me and/or baby.”
I know I don’t come get my teen when she calls to say her ride home is drunk, I only offer her a ride when she calls screaming to say the drunk driver is weaving all over the road and they are currently crashing.
They’re even providing an option of an induction with a cervix that isn’t really ready for labor. They aren’t mandating a cesarean birth – they’re giving her options.
Yet she’s treating it like the choice is an unassisted birth at home or a cesarean in the hospital.
And fools on FB – who have no accountability for the outcome – will recommend that she UC – because that’s “empowering.”
Didn’t she say Rcs? They may not do vbacs at her hospital.
eta: still foolish, though
she did ask if she should ‘go back for the induction’ so apparently they do. But even that is apparently not good enough for her.
Likely not good enough for her Facebook group of friends, either.
And actually, even offering induction at 42 weeks with two previous sections is pretty pro VB, as facilities go. I think we all agree the NHS is pretty keen to push VB and VBAC, and even so I reckon you’d still struggle to get an induction in those circumstances.
My guess is they wouldn’t normally even consider it but are trying to at least get her in a hospital where they could at least do a crash C-section if it went south.
Yeah quite likely. Because the risk of uterine rupture has to be increased in those circumstances, surely?
She said the nurse told her after examining her that she was not a good candidate for VBAC after 2 C -sections. But you know, that’s just because the nurse is mean! And she told the nurse that she is not having a RCS unless it’s a LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCY, because waiting until your baby is in a LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCY is way better than having a C-section that day, because the doctor and the midwife think things are looking bad.
and the only way she’ll accept that it really is (well, was) a life threatening emergency is if the baby’s dead. Baby’s alive = he’s fine! They’re just scaremongering!
You know how we have people pop in here to tell us we’re a cult, clique, or “boring” because we side with science and facts and generally don’t let bullshit fly in the favor of being “open-minded”? However, Dr. Tuteur doesn’t delete or censor posts that don’t agree with her. Yes, a lot of us will defend our viewpoint. But these private Facebook groups that are both private and delete or ban people for simply giving an opinion that doesn’t agree with the hivemind is dangerous and does have the makings of a cult. Defending the idea that breast feeding can cost someone a lot of money and many times doesn’t work and formula is a perfectly good substitute for it whatever the reason, birth can become very dangerous very quickly, that outcome should trump process, that women are not their breasts or reproductive organs, and the actual real science-based facts on vaccinations doesn’t kill people. I can understand the appeal of belonging to a group. I’m a non-religious, non-crunchy (I say this because all the mom groups seem to have “crunchy” in the name) stay at home mom. Currently I don’t have work or church to meet people and that’s kind of huge when it comes to social matters. I wonder if this is playing the part in women being willing to join these groups? It’s ready-made friends really, so long as you don’t speak up against their tenets.
I think you might be right. I’m a SAHM now but before wee man I had a fulfilling (if somewhat stressful) career, I had great holidays (last one was to Marrakech and it was AMAZING), I sang in a band and was gigging most weekends, a super busy social life. Now I’m at home with the baby all the time. I had to stop gigging as it didn’t work around my OH’s job, I was made redundant whilst pregnant and my childless friends don’t invite me out as I guess they assume I won’t be able to go (either that or I’ve just bored the crap out of them talking about my son’s scary nappies all the time). My world has shrunk and I really do miss having conversations with other adults. I can really see the appeal of FB groups now whereas before I’d have just turned up my nose at the idea. It’s hard trying to make new friends in your thirties.
I so totally read that as “was giggling most weekends” and “I had to stop giggling as it didn’t work around my OH’s job”.
I need more caffeine.
Don’t worry, I read it the same way and wondered what was so funny on the weekends.
I did, too. I was trying to parse out uncontrolled giggling with a partner’s job as… a golf pro?
I immediately knew what was meant by gigging, but I pretended that the poster was off frog gigging.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigging
https://1source.basspro.com/index.php/component/k2/237-fishing-info/767-frog-gigging-and-the-art-of-catching-frogs
I find your childless friends a bit mean…a friend of mine just had twins a month ago, so this past weekend we worked out that we (2 other couples who don’t have kids or don’t have them at home) would bring and cook the food and help fed and rock the babies and the Mom and Dad can sit and have a glass of wine and talk to adults and we hand the babies around and play cards. I’m sorry you have fewer adult interactions now…It is sometimes hard to find a group of people you have things in common with that you also have the time to get together with.
My friends mostly had children years before I did and I always made it a point to meet on their terms once they had children, figuring I had more flexibility. Now that I have little ones and their children are mostly out of the house, I am finding little sympathy or flexibility on their part. I have stayed close only with those friends with other little ones. It has been an eye-opening experience as to who has remained close to me at this time in my life. As my children age and I again have greater freedom, I am going to remember to treat friends with little ones as well as you treat yours.
It takes a little more planning but I value my friends (I don’t have many and most are through my husbands work, I have social anxiety issues but luckily he’s a social butterfly!) I remember how alone I felt when I was newly stationed in Guam and had a 2 month old, and my husband was deployed. I was active duty so I went to work but then I would pick up the baby at the day care, go home, feed and change her…and then be by myself all night. I didn’t know how to make friends and was too tired most days after work, laundry, shopping etc to go anywhere else. The worst was a 4 day bout of the stomach bug (don’t ask) alone at home with an 8 month old. I learned then that making yourself a support system is really important. So I get the temptation to make friends on the Internet, but I don’t think I would trust my kids health to them(on the other hand at the time I had free military health care..)
It was fine at first when he was really new. But then it was as if the novelty wore off and I gradually found myself spending more and more time by myself. I have some friends with littles ones too and they’re the people I see the most of. I try and take my son out of the house most days (even if it’s just to the park or the local coffee shop) and have got better at making small talk with random strangers but it’s not the same as having actual friends and a social life. I’d heard of this sort of thing happening but I didn’t think it would happen to me until it did.
I felt very isolated after my first was born as well. A mother with older children told me that I would make plenty of friends when my kids started school/activities. This has been true for me – you get a ton of exposure to other parents and while some are annoying, it’s fairly easy to find ones you click with. Hang in there!
You sound like a lovely group of friends! I would have loved to have had friends like that when my first was born. I was the first of my friend group to have a baby, and it got lonely.
My friends are a mixture of childfree and mums with slightly older kids, and they were mostly great when my baby was little. But then, I had a bad bout of depression about six years ago and that does a pretty good job of weeding out the people who don’t particularly care, so my friendship group was already small-but-select anyway.
I did lose one 15-year friendship while I was pregnant but, with hindsight, it was a pretty toxic one anyway. I delayed telling her I was pregnant until the third trimester because I didn’t trust her not to say something insensitive if I had a miscarriage. Then, after I told her, she turned up at mine and spent about four hours alternating between cooing about how wonderful my news was and demanding to be made a godmother, and telling me that all her friends hate their children and wish they’d never been born and that women only have babies because the patriarchy brainwashes them into ruining their lives (oh, and when I said I was suffering from hip and back pain, she insisted on telling me in detail about a family friend who ended up in a wheelchair forever because she had a baby). After that, I tried politely to cut down on contact for a bit using pregnancy issues as an excuse – and, to be fair, it wasn’t entirely an excuse – so she sent me a series of ranting verbally abusive text messages and then became abusive with my parents when they stepped in to tell her not to scream at a pregnant lady. So, friendship over. (Not sure why I’m telling this story but it feels good to get it off my chest, and you all seem like a nice bunch!)
Facebook is the worst because the groups can be closed and posts deleted, so it’s not truly free speech. I comment on an open-access parenting website serve, and we have a great contingent of people who will counter any NCB craziness. For example – the lastest one was people subtly encouraging a mom with cholestasis to push back against the recommendation for a 37 week induction. That one got shot down right away. Because the moderator of this site is very light handed about deleting comments, there’s a much more balanced viewpoint.
my God, it’s Gavin Michael all over again. I wish we could get his mom in touch with this woman, maybe that would make her see the reality of the danger her baby is in.
I hope and pray this little one is luckier than Gavin was.
At least this time the Midwife is pushing to do something about it.
Ruth Rodley is still running the deadly HBAC group where the mom who is with zero fluid at 42 weeks is being encouraged to go against medical advice. Remember that slime? She called dead babies hiccups.
Baby Garlen. Baby Penelope. Baby Isaac. Baby Atlas. Baby Aurelia. All those babies died in that shitbag’s groups. At this point I can only wish that there is hell, and that in it Ruth Rodley will eternally be drowning in a pool of her own shit in order to experience the distress that post term babies she helped kill went through before they died.
More listed on this t-shirt, not all from that group but similar enclaves of NCB counter culture: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/691c7281bb80fe5785f22184735580611d11fa521ec280982df9f69bf01abf7c.jpg
Gavin Michael had no fluid during the ultrasound. The midwife lied about the severity of the situation to his parents, and he died while she was busy crowd-sourcing how to deal with the problem with other hack midwives on FB. And now we have an incredibly selfish woman who refuses to listen to the advice of both her midwife and an OB, someone so wedded to the idea of a vaginal birth that she blames her baby for causing trouble. I sincerely hope that her child does not pay the price for her arrogance and willful ignorance.
So she is 2 weeks overdue and the baby has NO fluid but if everything goes wrong is she going to say to the midwife and OB “But someone should have told me how dangerous it was to wait!!!!?” They did, you chose not to listen.
Ah, so I am not the only one to think it similar. Only, this birther is nothing like Danielle Yeager. Danielle was ready to do everything her healthcare provider advised.
Come on, baby, hold on!