HBAC stands for homebirth after cesarean. You often see it written with a number included, such as HBA2C, which means homebirth after 2 C-sections. In most cases, the attending midwife is violating her professional standards to supervise an attempted homebirth after multiple C-sections, but homebirth midwives think professional standards are for other people, not for them. Maybe that’s why they preside over the deaths of so many babies.
The latest completely preventable homebirth death is reported at The Guggie Daly:
Leilani had experienced two previous c-sections, with the last one being over 11 years ago…
But on June 15th, 2011, her precious son, Liam … was born still at 12:05AM. He weighed 10lbs, 5oz and was 22 inches long. He was chubby and perfect, with reddish brown hair and blue eyes like his daddy.
Leilani’s tragedy was rare and an extreme emergency whether at home or in the hospital. She had several hours of very hard labor with little progress when a severe pain across the middle of her abdomen appeared. It was extremely painful and did not go away.
The doctors verified she had experienced uterine rupture. This caused another rare emergency, a placental abruption, and this is what took Liam’s life. Her waters had broken and leaked into her abdominal cavity. It is a miracle that she is alive today. The doctors proceeded with a c-section after verifying that little Liam had passed on from this world. They had to clean out her abdominal cavity. Her uterus was shredded and the doctor spent a long time repairing it, but she will no longer be able to have biological children.
The doctors also diagnosed her with severe pre-eclampsia although she did not have that diagnosis during pregnancy, nor did she have symptoms.
Let’s see: a homebirth, 2 previous C-sections, a macrosomic baby, and undiagnosed pre-eclampsia. The perfect homebirth candidate!
And look how well it went. The uterus ruptured, the placenta tore away from the uterine wall and he baby died long before she ever got to a hospital. Way to trust birth!
As a bonus, the mother had a massive hemorrhage, extensive abdominal surgery and will be unable to bear any children in the future. Hey, ICAN, are you going to feature this story?
According to Guggie, uterine rupture is a:
… rare and an extreme emergency whether at home or in the hospital.
Not exactly. It’s far from rare, and is a known complication of attempting a vaginal birth after C-section. It is an emergency whether it occurs at home or in the hospital, but the difference is that in the hospital, they can save the baby’s life.
Even better, they can often prevent uterine rupture altogether by counseling women like Leilani that they are very poor candidates for VBAC and have a higher than average risk of this catastrophe. Had Leilani sought and followed the advice of an obstetrician, she would almost certainly be nursing and cuddling a live baby now, and probably bemoaning her “unnecessarean” as well.
This is what happens when you “trust birth.” You end up with a dead baby who didn’t have to die.
How many dead babies is it going to take before homebirth advocates realize that they have absolutely no idea what they are doing, and that precious babies are dying preventable deaths as a result of their arrogance and ignorance?
