It’s difficult to imagine anything more soul searing for a mother than the thought that her baby died as a result of her choice.
People Magazine reported:
Kara Keough Bosworth and her husband Kyle Bosworth are mourning the loss of their newborn son, McCoy Casey.
In an emotional Instagram post on Tuesday, the daughter of Real Housewives of Orange County star Jeana Keough revealed the tragic news that her son had died after experiencing “shoulder dystocia and a compressed umbilical cord” during the course of his birth.
What they didn’t mention was that his death was very likely preventable. It happened because Keough chose homebirth.
Low risk is never no risk.
As she explained to members of a shoulder dystocia Facebook group:
This has been the worst and hardest time of my life, and I can’t even wrap my brain around how we missed an 11 lb+ baby … I’m experiencing a lot of sell-blame and guilt. How did I not know? Would the outcome have been different in a hospital? Would he have been saved?
Why did Keough choose to risk her baby’s life in this way?
Once hospital rules changed and I learned my doula wouldn’t be allowed to attend and there were rumors that husbands might not even be allowed by the time I delivered due to COVID-19, I made the decision to switch to a home birth with a certified nurse midwife, her student midwife assistant and my doula.
After all, she had a completely normal pregnancy and had had a previous vaginal birth. She believed she was low risk. She was told her baby was “on the bigger side of the normal range.”
But low risk is never no risk and when emergencies happen at home babies die for lack of access to high tech medical care.
Crowning hurt but head came out in 2 effective pushes. I expected the body to slither out from there … But instead …midwife told me to get on all fours and I knew instantly – shoulder dystocia.
… [W]e did McRoberts, Gaskin maneuver, standing, supra public pressure, running start, Wood’s screw maneuver, she attempted to release the anterior shoulder, posterior shoulder, reach an arm/hand and break a clavicle. We ran through the maneuvers about 3 times each.
And during that entire time, Keough’s baby was deprived of oxygen. Once the head is born, the umbilical cord is trapped between the baby and the pelvis until the rest of the body is born.
It took so long to release the baby that EMTs had time to arrive and enter the house.
Baby McCoy had no heartbeat.
[H]e was immediately “bagged” to help him breathe and they were doing chest compressions. My husband followed him to the hospital – 4 blocks away (another reason we felt safe making the decision to birth at home) and they did manual compressions for 45 minutes – and they got him back with 3 shots of epinephrine… [He] was 11 lbs 4 oz.
They got his heart restarted, but his brain had suffered massive injury.
After 72 hours of cooling blanket and an MRI we were given the devastating news that our son’s brain was severely damaged from severe HIE (hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy)…
We had to make the decision to withdraw care and let his body join his soul after 6 days and we held him as he made the transition to heaven.
There are a variety of reasons that the outcome would almost certainly have been different in a hospital. Most importantly, there would have been physicians more experienced in managing shoulder dystocia and neonatologists who could have intubated the baby immediately. A Zavanelli maneuver (pushing the baby back up and performing and immediate C-section) might have been possible.
Another possibility is that an ultrasound might have revealed that the baby was extremely large and Keough might have been offered a C-section. Had that happened, baby McCoy would have survived and Keough would be mourning the loss of a vaginal birth, not the loss of her son.
Yet despite everything she has endured and lost, Keough is thinking about avoiding a C-section for her next baby.
My brain can’t help but jump ahead to my next pregnancy and the PTSD and how I would totally WANT a natural vaginal birth again … but I would no longer be a good candidate for a home birth (despite the fact that I really loved every minute until he was stuck)…
It’s shocking. It was her concern for her experience that cost her son his life; yet he hasn’t been dead for a week and she’s already worried about her future experiences.
Read about this story last year – v sad! Really hope that the family have reflected on their birth experiences and now are more informed. The risks
from previous births need to be taken seriously. Most likely to grow a large baby again (husband is tall and broad) and had 2 shoulder dystocias!!! Any health professional who agrees to provide a homebirth to this lady is unsafe. Having a lovely birth experience is great but you and your baby need to be in a safe, appropriate environment. You cannot ignore risk factors! Get a late scan to estimate size and position. If baby large, don’t allow it to get massive – deliver earlier. Deliver in a hospital that can deal with emergencies. If doula not permitted, surely you can chat over phone during labour and delivery. Above all, listen to the professionals that have had years of training and experience – they will offer you the safest birth plan. Remember you have waited 9 months to have a lovely baby and both of you want to come home safe! X
As much as you can, I also “loved” my sons birth up until I started to get frustrated and some things were looking a bit off. Luckily for my son, I was birthing with a qualified midwife who recognised this and quietly made back up plans. I really stopped loving the birth at that point when my babies head came out and suddenly it was like trying to push out a brick, luckily for my baby I was in hospital with the doctor already on stand by so one push of a button on a wall and my room was full of people experienced and qualified enough to get him out. Those medical staff were a lot more useful in that situation than my husband and a doula could ever have been.
It sounds like Kara blamed her first baby’s broken clavicle on the interventions used by the hospital. She probably figured that the worst outcome she could expect from a home birth is another broken clavicle. She mentioned choosing a natural-birth friendly practice, so it’s no surprise that the baby’s weight wasn’t monitored closely. Even many standard ob-gyn offices no longer do a size-check ultrasound as the due date approaches.
What a callous dissection of the worst experience of someone’s life. Thank christ you don’t have a clinical practice because your nasty rhetoric is what drives people to have a mistrust of healthcare professionals. She could have had a symphysiotomy or possibly a c/s *if* they could have pushed that 11lb baby back up. And maybe the OB she saw until 38wks could have sent her for a fetal assessment for size. I have certainly heard of fatal 4-10min dystocias in a hospital setting. And maybe we can speculate all day. You can’t understand her value system, got it. Where is your compassion?
Where’s your compassion? Kara Keogh made a stupid, risky choice and she paid for it. Her baby paid with its life. Where is your compassion for the babe that didn’t need to die?
The reason doctors distance themselves and use examples like this as a teaching tool is because they have to. They deal with death and bad consequences all the time, and they learn to distance themselves or they burn out. And for all the rest of us out here, seeing the real-life consequences of stupid, risky decisions is important. Do you get mad at the drunk driving commercials that show real-world wrecks, blood, and death? I hope not, because those are also some of the most impactful anti-drunk driving ads out there. Think of this as a very heartbreaking, very important PSA that homebirth is not safe.
This woman chose to have a home birth because she wanted her doula there for the birth. This is a selfish woman with a history of large babies. Her first Child suffered a broken clavicle from vaginal birth because the baby was too large. That automatically disqualified her for a home birth. This baby DIED because its mother felt she needed a doula besides her husband hold her hand and cheer her on. Call us callous if you wish but nobody here would let their baby die because of a preferred birth method or from a lack of cheerleaders. We are angry because guess what this is not the first time we have heard a story like this one and it will not be the last. We see this story play out all the time. So we can tell who is a narcissus and who was simply just mislead by people trying to make a buck, and those mothers we have an immense amount of sympathy for. The post this mother made is full of narcissism I suggest you read it again and think about it.
We have plenty of compassion for the dead child. For the person who killed the child? Not so much.
Yea, fuck those doctors who try to figure out what went wrong when someone dies a preventable death and try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Real healthcare professional understand that its better to just let it go, trying to learn from past mistakes makes you an uncaring monster.
Sorry for your loss
Looks like another quasi-celebrity, Iskra Lawrence, almost killed her
baby with home birth, but didn’t learn the right lesson. She posted about
her newborn, “our midwife saved your life by resuscitation.” It’s like
praising an arsonist for putting out a fire he’d started.
Oh my.
Hmm, not that I plan to practice home birth, but by the time I graduate with my midwifery degree I will have a four year nursing degree, four years of high-risk labor and delivery experience as a bedside registered nurse, and three years as a student certified nurse midwife, which is a master’s degree in clinical nursing with 700 clinical hours. How are midwives less trained? What happened is tragic and the CNM should have refused the transfer of care. She should have had the patient deliver with an OB at a hospital after doing an U/S for weight (which CNM’s can be trained to do). I don’t think it was lack of training that did it (she performed all the appropriate obstetrical manuveurs) but poor lack of judgement on both the patient and the midwive’s part
It depends on what type of midwife was attending. In the UK, our midwives are highly qualified and are required to have a degree level education (it used to be that you did midwifery qualifications after you qualified as a nurse, but now we have some direct entry midwifery degree courses). Either way, they undergo rigorous science based training with life long professional development. The certified nurse midwives in USA are the same high standard. But there are midwives allowed to practice in some USA states that don’t have this training-the certified professional midwives and licensed midwives. They only need to have a high school diploma and generally don’t have the formal training that CNMs have. In the UK, this type of midwife would not be qualified and would not be allowed to work. I haven’t been able to find out what type of midwife was involved, but I wonder if the problems arose because Iskra L had engaged a non-CNM midwife who didn’t have the background to recognise the risk factors?
American homebirth midwives have a highschool diploma. That’s all the education that’s required along with a few weeks of mentoring by another ignoramous in the same trade. They are ignorant dangerous fools.
That poor little boy. She threw away the life of her child in search of a birth experience.
I’m thinking that part of the problem is that doulas are talked about (and potentially market themselves) as more than just “emotional” support -they are spoken of as “essential’ to the birth team, in the same way that midwives, doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, etc are. I’ve seen a lot of articles saying that doula services should be covered by Medicaid programs, for example, because they “help” lower C-section rates and thus the cost of maternity care in general. I’ve also seen it mentioned that doulas can (in theory) advocate for women in ways the women can’t advocate for themselves, and thus potentially save lives. I’ve seen this noted especially in articles talking about the high maternal mortality rates among women of color.
I guess my point is that while many of us see doulas as woo-woo “nice to haves” along with your favorite playlist and a pillow from home, others see them as a crucial part of the medical team – and that choosing between a doctor and a doula seems like a choice between equals. Clearly this is the fault of the natural birth movement as they are NOT equals by any stretch, but I can see where someone would look at it that way. If I felt like I had to choose between having an ob to deliver my baby and an anesthesiologist to deliver pain relief, I would NOT be happy about it – obviously I’d choose the ob and suck it up/curse a lot through labor as the long term health of both of us is most important, but I wouldn’t be happy about it.
Regardless, losing a baby is devastating. Hopefully this will help inform others of the actual risks of childbirth and the need for appropriate medical care.
Yep, exactly.
It’s also just plain scary being in a frightening, unknown situation without someone you know and trust there. Two out of three C-sections, I had someone on the medical team who was kind and supportive even when DH couldn’t be there. The other, I didn’t, and it was honestly pretty disturbing, even though I’d had two already. I was treated like I wasn’t there or able to understand what they were saying, including some pretty unkind comments about my body’s appearance. The staff were dismissive and generally ignored me. Later, they drilled me on why I’d “failed” to give birth because the VBA2C didn’t work out. (Note: never when DH was there…)
Would I go through it again to have Baby Books 3? Absolutely. But it’s not unreasonable to expect to be treated with kindness and respect. and they seriously dropped the ball there. Don’t get me wrong, there were a few good people there, but they were either busy (my OB) or not nearby (the nursing students I invited to come watch) while it was all going on. It would have been really, really nice to have someone be there for me and reassure me while DH couldn’t be there. If they could somehow have a designated support person available from start to finish, even “just” a staff member, that might reduce the number of moms who feel they have to give birth elsewhere to get support.
I’m so sorry this happened to you. Yes, medicine is not neutral, and I don’t know how well people are being trained in respectful treatment of patients. I think this is hard to teach online…
It’s not unreasonable at all to expect kindness and respect. But the “designated support person” women have right now is someone they bring themselves and has vested interest in having as many mothers as possible need them.
The dichotomy between “safety first” and “expectations of kindness and respect” is a false one. They should be one and the same. But as you say, you’d do it again to have Baby Books 3. And you went to have this c-section to have a baby, not a support person. I can’t believe that grown women are ready to run the risk of losing a child in order to get support. I don’t know which one disgusts me more, a doula supporting a mother right into and through the funeral that she contributed to by wheedling her further into “natural” and “you can’t do it without me” or a doula dropping the mother as soon as things turn pearshape.
Oh, I quite agree about the reprehensibilness (Is that a word? It ought to be!) of that doula.
From a calm perspective, you don’t go into birth for a support person, you do it for the baby, of course, but it’s still pretty scary to handle alone. I think that a big factor in the poor decision making that happens is that few moms know people who have lost babies during birth, but just about all moms know another mom who had a frightening/painful/disturbing birth, so they discount the risk of a dead baby in favor of the risk of being alone, in pain (whether physical, mental, or emotional), and feeling out of control. I don’t agree with the decision at all, but I think that’s why it often gets made.
PS–thanks, very belatedly, for the story suggestion! Do I recall correctly that the translation was done by a rather good amateur?
You mean it ISN’T a word? Pity.
I do think that’s often a leading factor in the decision as well. What an irony – the general profile of these mothers usually paints a higher middle class to high class woman who fancies herself smarter than us sheeple because she has done “research” when usually, she wouldn’t know research if it bites her in the ass (this isn’t an insult, BTW, I wouldn’t know research in exact sciences if it bites the nose off my face and runs away with it jumping in joy and high-fiving other researches in exact sciences – but at least I am aware of it!). She just relies on anecdotes but insists that she’s all scientific.
No one’s inflated self-perception “deserves” to be punished by losing their child. But it’s worth noting that those who so love putting others down by claiming that they are the only ones who are truly educated are actually quite deluded.
Yes, a very good amateur. Personally, I avoid translating fiction to English. There is a reason why native speakers are preferred. But this amateur is quite amazing.
Omfg, slightly off topic, but the word sheeple makes me see red. For people who claim to think for themselves, they parrot the same rhetoric verbatim.
Yeah, same here.
Re story: interesting! I’ve been reading a little about Elin Pelin, and now I’m curious. Is there an English translation of “The Gerak Family”/”Geratsite” out there? I can’t seem to find anything, but maybe I’m not searching correctly.
I do agree that believing that one knows better than those who are actually trained in a given field is a dangerous thing.
Interesting how differently people can react to the same situation. When my kids were born, one of my greatest fears was being left alone during the section itself and, to a much lesser extent, in the days following. During the section, I was afraid that I would die and nobody would be there for me. (I wasn’t afraid for my kids at that point because they’d been on the monitor for hours, and if their heart rate started tanking or some such, I was literally in an OR and prepped for a section…baby could be outside and breathing in a matter of literal seconds.) Afterwards, I had the very real fear of dropping or rolling over on baby because I was post-op and weak but had no one to help me…not so much an issue with baby 2, when I had a wonderful friend stay with me at the hospital, but babies 1 and 3…ugh. Very, very secondarily, I hated not having a witness to some of the things that were said and done. I can quite understand your SIL’s worries about infections, especially now; I just had different ones. If the hospital had been willing to help take care of the babies, I would have been a lot more relaxed at least after the birth.
Your note about having a witness is so spot on. When I filed a complaint, I am sure that I was only believed because my husband has been there. They asked him to verify every detail I said because I hadn’t been “clearheaded”‘enough to remember things correctly. Sexist and unfair.
No, I don’t think there is an English translation of the Gerak family or if there is, I haven’t seen it. Honestly, Elin Pelin isn’t my top favourite but the man knew what he was writing about. (Sadly, he was the 7th or 8th child in his family and his mother become paralyzed after his birth. This much about the good old times when our bodies knew how to give birth.)
It is dangerous and in some fields, mistakes can be very expensive. I mean, I didn’t know how to melt chocolate before my friend from the cafe (graduated from a cooking school, now unemployed together with the rest of her colleagues because of this COVID-19 that, according to many, isn’t really a thing…) told me what I did wrong but the only casualties were the expectation for decently looking sweets. They even got eaten because there was nothing wrong with the TASTE. Not the same in medicine!
The cynical part of me thinks that hospitals making it a policy of not helping is simply about money (not having to maintain well baby nurseries and so on) and effort (I didn’t give birth to this baby, she did and she’s going to take care of them once she leaves anyway, so why not now?) It’s sad to think what people are capable of doing once they can get away with it. The only difference with our medical system of before is that now, it’s less likely for a midwife to tell a screaming woman, “What? When you were making this baby, you weren’t screaming, were you?” Then perhaps, given the attitude you got about the way your body looked – perhaps not.
Hmm, you’d think that would be a good project for a doctoral student, at least…if he’s one of Bulgaria’s biggest literary names, he ought to be shared with the rest of the world, says I!
One of the (many) perks to culinary science is eating your experiments, something that is, I believe, frowned upon in the harder sciences. I spent the first two weeks of the stay-at-home order baking and, according to the scale, eating, while not getting in my usual gym time. After gaining 6 pounds, I realized that this wasn’t actually a long-term solution, but I just might need to fire up the mixer today…
Agree 100% on the decision-making behind the hospital policies on well baby nurseries. What’s pathetic is that I suspect that if we have a turning point there, it’s going to be as part of a push by insurance companies who are likewise trying to save a buck and want to know WTF perfectly healthy babies are suddenly getting hospitalized for thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of care that would have been unneeded if they had simply been in a nursery and not in bed with mom. But hey, I’ll take it!
Oh, there are many translations but they aren’t in the internet – they are only in paper form. Still, there are some great translations in the web. Christopher Buxton was a teacher here many years ago and he specializes in translating from Bulgarian. His works are amazing! Look at this.
https://christopherbuxton.com/index.php/writing/translations/hristo-botev/
And then, Peter Tempest. I intended to buy his entire book of translated Bulgarian poetry but that was before I turned into an unemployed marginalized individual – that’s what our Minister of Finances all but called us self-employed!
https://www.slovo.bg/showwork.php3?AuID=283&WorkID=12946&Level=2
I do love eating my experiments far more than I love forgetting that I have something on the stove… I might be the only person in town who managed to burn a pot of lentils.
I think it’s a word, just spelled slightly differently.
Reprehensible is a word. Therefore reprehensibleness ought to be a legitimate conjugation of the word. I think the actual word is reprehensibility though.
I think “you went to have this c-creation to have a baby, not a support person” is super callous. Not sure if you mean it to come off that way. This is a great example of how poorly pregnant women are treated, what a cold thing to say to someone who is expressing a painful memory. A c-section is surgery, labor is scary, delivering a baby is a big deal. I understand the importance of a healthy baby, I just had one. And even though it took days of pain and then surgery to get her here, I’m elated that she is happy and safe. But it isn’t too much to ask for both: a respectful, safe delivery for mom AND baby.
First, congratulations on your baby. Second, thank you! Now we know who treats pregnant women poorly – me!
While you were being this indignant, did you fail to notice that I literally started my post with the statement that the two things should not be mutually exclusive? I just can’t understand risking safety in the name of support person if it comes to this choice. I’ll never understand this. I don’t really care how callous it makes me in anyone’s eyes.
I totally agree that they should not be mutually exclusive! You are so right. But I also think that there is a right and wrong way to address people who have been through something traumatic. You oddly made my point even more clear: we can both use our heads and be correct, along with our hearts and be compassionate.
(And it’s obvious that you aren’t callous to be happy that your family survived and thrived, what a strange straw man. It was, IMO, callous to speak the way you did in the comment I originally responded to.)
Using your head is something useful, I agree. IMO, banging into a site where you aren’t a regular presence and position yourself as the moral arbiter in a conversation between two regulars only makes oneself look like they aren’t using their heads but what do I know, you are the compassionate one!
I am quite impressed how you presume to know that this is the first time Keeper has written about this and the conversations we have had about this. World starting with you much? FYI, just so you don’t make yourself look stupid again: this isn’t the first time. All regulars here know how great two of Keeper’s births were and that she drew the short stick one time. And we have talked about this long before a new arrival undertook the part of the voice of compassion, demanding that everyone voices their sympathy right now because that’s the moment they saw the story for the first time.
I didn’t realize that there are gatekeepers and popularity contests here, I have always had pleasant and supportive interactions with people and no one has ever made me feel lesser than because I’m “only” an infrequent commenter.
It is impossible to know every convo between every pair of commenters. I was commenting on one remark made by you. Not your friendships with other commenters, not your family history, not your character as a whole. I was empathizing with someone who went through a similar experience to my own and was surprised by your words and tone. That’s it. I didn’t demand or presume anything. Maybe as a newer commenter I shouldn’t have said anything? I don’t know. But your reaction is a lot.
No, there aren’t gatekeepers. But I make it a point not to claim how commenters in sites I am new around sound in their conversation with others because I don’t know anything about their interactions. Using my head and all this.
And yes, I am angry right now. Not at you personally. But I am angry at people who claim to know how important a good outcome is because they had one… and then immediately say something that shows they have no idea, happily passing judgment on how others sound. I’m angry because right now, I’m in a bout of a recurring problem from really poor medical care that happened 21 years ago. Not childbirth related, thankfully. A clean broken bone treated by a surgeon who, unknowingly to us patients, was substituting for an orthopedist because the hospital had lost its wits, it seems. There was nothing complex about it. But it changed my quality of life, dooming me to reumatism at age 18 and being room-bound at least a few times a year. Just reaching my kitchen is a struggle right now. I do hope you get help for your trauma and it is effective. This far, none of my treatments has worked – no surprise here because the first expert I saw after the surgeon told me it wouldn’t, I would forever stay two months late. I really wish I had had the world’s nastiest orthopedist who would have ordered physical therapy the day they took the cast off because that was all I needed back then, instead of this very nice man who listened to me, was respectful of my wishes (no time for therapy, I’m starting uni 500 km away tomorrow, Doc, do I really need this therapy? It’s so going to interrupt with my getting used to the uni and stuff) and left me with lifelong problems. Ten years later, I got the same injury on my other foot. It got treated and a few years later, I almost forgot that I was ever injured. The difference is staggering.
Safety first. It might be the only thing that you can’t recover. Callous or not. I think your indignation at my comment – which was a compliment to Keeper, BTW – shows just how privileged and lucky you are. I don’t think those who came on the good side of statistics can understand how important it is. And I did not even have a particulary bad health outcome. I don’t want to imagine how a person who was actually disabled because of poor medical care might feel reading your flippant, “I understand because I fell on the good side” comment.
Look, I’m sorry this got so out of hand. I do empathize with your struggle and the pain endured by your family and everything you have shared here with me. I am sorry you are in pain and that it could have been prevented. I know how you feel!
I‘m not sure why you keep saying how lucky I am though. Yes, I said no one died. We both survived, like you did. You say you didn’t have a particularly bad outcome, I DID. And that’s why I empathized so intensely with the commenter you were addressing, because a lot of people made those types of comments to me and it hurt and it still does, and I think that type of language around childbirth needs to change. We just disagree about that, which is fine. And while I can’t understand your pain exactly, you might not be able to understand the kind of pain and indignity that I went through. I suffer permanent damage that is painful and disruptive, I am not lucky.
Definitely out of hand! And a good part of it is on me. There’s a reason why I don’t want people around me in RL when I’m in real pain – because I become pain to the others. IOW, a real bitch. Which I do apologize for. I didn’t mean to trigger anyone. I knew it had been a while for Keeper when I wrote this and frankly, I didn’t see your reply to her first comment about your own treatment by your medical team in time.
I am saying this because you came out with an intact baby and an intact self, physically speaking. That counts as being lucky in my book when we’re talking about safety. Everything else can be worked on – but the day of birth is the most physically dangerous for a child in their all 18 years of childhood. Everyone making it out healthy is not all there is to it, of course not – but without health in the long run, everything else kind of dims. You were lucky the way most people are lucky, the way I was lucky to have treatments for various health conditions work, some of them at the early stage where medicine stated that my body should not have realized something was even happening. I don’t think we can appreciate this luck because we have come to expect it. I think we don’t appreciate the privilege of expecting to make it to old age fully functional and in reasonably good health either. It’s just the time we live in.
Listen, this far I’ve only got one person around me who didn’t get lucky. But she was also the only woman around me who didn’t listen to doctors. Usually, it’s a bit of muttering how “they’re so c-section happy!” but the women follow their advice and complain about it later. Fine with me. God knows I’ve said my fair share of complaints as well. The point is, we follow medical advice. This one friend didn’t. She isn’t even a particularly big fan of natural. But she didn’t let them induce her when she passed term. Now, her child has speech troubles and as a result, troubles interacting. She just grew too big and there was too much pressure on certain spots of her head in birth. The chances of this happening were greater with late dates, of course, but they were by no means great. It just happened. She makes the 100% of the people in my circle who didn’t listen to medical advice in childbirth – and the 100% who wish they had. She was just unlucky.
I do sympathize with your experiences of being treated as “a piece of meat” as we say here. I’ve had such experiences as well. But I do separate them from actually poor medical care. I place them in the “poor bedside manner, disgusting human beings” category. Unless we’re talking about actual, lifelong problems with the quality of life, they just aren’t the same thing – they can be worked on in a way some birth injuries can’t. Which doesn’t mean that the people delivering this kind of “care” should be patted on the head and tolerated. If you can’t tolerate people, find a job in a field that doesn’t demand interacting with them.
I’ll end it with a more personal note: I am, as Keeper says, extremely blunt. This is an actual quote from an actual conversation with my 88 year old grandmother (a survivor of diphteria, eclampsia and two cancers): I asked how she was and she said, “Fine. Oh, it so sucks to be old! Why did I ever grow so old!” A line of muttering about how much it sucks to be old. Me: “That’s it! Discontent is a perpetual mindset of humankind! When someone grows old, they say, “Why did I grow old?” When someone dies young, it’s “Why did they have to die so young?” Really, Grandmother, would it have been better if you had died from diphteria as a child?”
Really, it’s nothing against you personally. It’s a combination of impatience with what I see as disregard of safety (at this site, we had more than one woman coming in to say she’s give birth at home because Dr Amy is mean), personal temper and being in bad mood because it’s “this time of the season again”.
I did want to add, and Grey Sweater, please correct me if I’m wrong: I think I remember that GS suffered a bad 4th-degree tear during her kiddo’s birth, so she may well be dealing with some pretty awful long-term physical consequences, though her baby is fine.
Heh. I had a sudden and hilarious, mental picture of Amazed offering doula services that mostly consist of fetching mom tea or coffee while vigorously telling off unpleasant medical personnel on an as-needed basis. Now that I just might pay good money for…
You’re right, and the effects are still wretched, so I think that’s why I maybe jumped the gun.
And I actually met a doula who I would maybe hire for my next birth assuming we are allowed support people. Very non-woo, mostly there for help in communicating with the doctors (which I feel like I need), giving massages, and she promised to push away the mean nurses and lactation consultants yelling at me about nursing 🙂
I can only imagine; I’m sorry!
Heh. With my second, my best friend came and stayed at the hospital with me. She breastfeeds her kids, but despises lactation consultants nonetheless, to the point that her birth plan with her last couple of kids consisted of a large, printed sign saying “NO LACTATION CONSULTANTS” taped to her door. She freely admitted that her motivation in helping me was in no small part the prospect of telling a lactation consultant exactly what she could go do with a breast pump, and was rather disappointed that the only one I encountered on that go-round was perfectly respectful of my plans to bottle feed!
You found the unicorn consultant! I’m like your friend which made it all even stupider. Breastfed as soon as I was out of surgery and just stopped sixteen months later. Never had an issue. Yet the consultants came every two hours and demanded I pump (surprise $200 to “rent” the pump!). Followed by a big bill for their services. What an experience.
Yes, she explained that she did suffer such an injury because someone was keeping a c-section off her because – reasons. VIR – very important reasons, I’m sure. I apologized to her after seeing her reply to you – a good thing that I looked because it disappeared. I’m sure it’s on the site, though. My internet has been playing tricks on me.
Oh, I am great at jumping the gun for other people. I hate the sight of someone harassing people because they’re in a temporary position of power over them. And I do make amazing coffee. I’ll only pour Arabica – both weaker and more aromatic. If the midwives behave themselves, I’ll offer them some as well. I might even make some Wien coffee – not sure how it’s called in English but I adore it. I’ll also provide the mother with an e-book and a list of book recommendations tailored to her personal taste… The music will be something like this… The song is called, “In the radiance of the moon…” and starts with, “In the radiance of the moon, the snow is turning silver… The three-horse cart is running down the road… Din-din-din – the horsebells are singing and this call, this sound means so much to me…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emPpnV3-Cpw&list=PLTCrMQPL4_POgC3Rf_zz7HnM1nPkcbM7H&index=2
Apologies all around then. I should have given you the benefit of the doubt after reading your comment rather than assuming meanness.
Part of my anger comes from being the recipient of poor bedside manner and also poor medical care. I’m your friend’s opposite: I was denied a c-section and once it was realized I needed one it was too late and they just had to pull the baby out, leaving me with a fourth degree tear, blood loss and ptsd. I was strongly in your lane before all this happened. I put so much faith in doctors and truly believed that they knew best and would ALWAYS advocate for my safety. I still believe this and know I’m an outlier case, but I have a smidge more empathy for people who fear giving birth in a hospital. I’ll do it again again because it’s the right thing to do, but it will be hard.
Good luck with your recovery then! Postpartum period IS very important, especially when there were troubles during birth. I’ll never know WHAT people defend by refusing a needed and wanted c-section but then, I’ll never understand how the mind of some people work. I mean the British OB-Gyn who didn’t informed a tiny patient properly because “if we told mothers the truth, they’d want a c-section and in my estimation, that is not in their maternal best interest!” No need to say how she came in the spotlight – the baby of the patient ended up needing lifelong care because he was just too big to be born both safely and naturally. I goggled when she actually got acquitted because, I kid you not, at the time of this birth informed consent was not a thing. IOW, lying to patients was A-OK.
I am sorry for your experience. In fact, you have TWO kinds of birth to recover from because you got the short end of the stick with both – a long labour that was painful and damaging and then an emergency c-section. And of course, the lovely team you were so inconsiderate to bother with giving birth and everything – that was the impression you were left with, wasn’t it?
I am very serious: do take care. Demand attention even when you only suspect something is wrong, even if they roll their eyes because stupid women tend to overworry (funny how this argument and expression is never aimed towards men). My mom did get her life saved after a lovely, natural, quick birth of a 10-pounder who caused quite the mess on his way out – but her quality of life was never the same. I suspect something went missed on the aftercare. Perhaps unnoticed anemia. She used to be an active, lively woman who was always in motion, running, dancing – but this birth put an end to it. From that moment on, I remember her only with headaches, backaches, neckaches and resting and every opportunity. Something went unnoticed. I suppose that in the crisis the entire economics was in, the healthcare system didn’t have the resources to track and actually take care of a woman who wasn’t in any immediate danger of dying or becoming disabled – and there was no way to receive treatment out of the “great socialized healthcare system that we didn’t pay a cent for”. I hope you are in a country where you can. Go for it.
Yes, hospital is the right choice but I do have a thing against people who are rude to others simply because their profession kind of makes them very needed. I’ve had one since the dark times when I was little and teachers and accountants did their best to remain the good graces of shop assistents because there was ONE shop for an entire neighbourhood and if you didn’t behave, you’d never get a good piece of meat or – oh god! – a package of toilet paper kept under the counter for you.
Oh, sadly, I never got the section. My doctor presented it as an option, changed her mind, and then later it (predictably) became an emergency and they just pulled the baby out as fast as possible. That’s why I had so many issues and why I am such an advocate of women being able to choose what kind of birth they have. I was shocked that this physician, who is a surgeon! kept talking about doing things the “natural” way, as things went further and further south. I am the textbook example of what you’ve been talking about: had I had access to amazing OB care, I would have had a much better outcome. Like that OB you referenced, my doctor decided to remove me from the equation entirely to achieve a “natural” birth, which ended in surgery and general anesthesia. Not natural. I was thanked for being a “learning experience” though, so at least that’s something! :/
Anyway, enough about my issues 🙂 I’m sorry again for questioning your tone and appreciate your kind and encouraging words. I hope your pain is being managed as well as possible right now <3
Thank you! And you take care of yourself and baby. And stay around. You’ve already encountered one of the most abrasive people around here – me. It can’t get much worse. You had an easy birth? That’s the place for you! You had a hellish birth? Welcome! You breastfeed? That’s your place! You formula feed? The same! It’s like this with sleep-training or not, attachment-parenting or not. Everything, as long as it isn’t dangerous. Here, everyone is welcome and there is a good number of doctors, nurses and midwives who are quite helpful.
Honestly, in the beginning I didn’t see most of your posts and decided you were just tone trolling.
Thank you for the encouragement, this place has been such a great resource for me. I finally feel like we can have a very wanted second child because of everything I’ve read here and all of the supportive commenters <3
FWIW, Amazed and I do have a long history here. 🙂 I appreciate what you’re saying, believe me, I do! I expect that I would have reacted much as you did a few years ago, but because she and I have had a lot of discussions here over the last 3-4 years or so, I know she means well when she says things that probably read as very harsh to someone who hasn’t been privy to our past conversations. And while we disagree on some things–well, that’s part of adulting, and I’m cool with that.
Amazed tends to be extremely blunt, but isn’t unkind in being so: she cares very much about safety in medicine and growing up as she did in a former Soviet Union country, she has a unique perspective on just how screwed up a medical system can get, while also having little patience for bad decisions made by emotion in part because she’s seen the outcome of appalling medical systems which had (slightly) better rationale behind them than some of the stuff that occurs here. I grew up in a very different world, so I appreciate her perspective a lot because it frames my own experiences in a broader context.
Stick around! You may well come to like her as you get to know her. FWIW, if I’d read the comment about “a baby and not a support person” a few years ago, especially without knowing the background, I’d have been hurt, too. And this whole pandemic situation…it’s a cruel time, and hard on everyone. 🙁
Thanks for this. Totally right. It’s a tough time right now and we should all be more patient, me especially. I saw too much of myself in your situation and I probably shouldn’t have felt the need to defend you. Appreciate your kindness <3
Like I said, I really do appreciate your defense. Tone of voice and background is dang near impossible to read in this context! Wishing you a peaceful day today. 🙂
You as well xx.
Just want to say I’m sorry this happened to you. I had similarly unkind medical professionals during my entire delivery. Cold, non-communicative OB and then after a fourth degree tear a surgeon who never bothered to speak to me or explain anything or cover my naked body at all. I totally relate to how you felt.
I understand this push to be safe and trust doctors and my brain agrees. But part of me understands why women look for a different experience. Yes, no one died, although my doctor was let go after my delivery and the clinic formally apologized to me for my poor care. Maybe there can be a balance where we are encouraged to rightly deliver at a hospital with an MD, but we are also allowed to demand respect. Pregnant women are treated badly across the board in my opinion.
I’m sorry. 🙁 And yes, I understand, too.
(To clarify, DH was there for all three births, but couldn’t be there for the whole thing, like when they took one baby away, he went with him, and he couldn’t be there when they put in the spinal or from that time until they’d started the section, per hospital policy.) And yes, I agree that pregnant women are often treated quite badly. Here’s to healing for us both!
<3
I’m Canadian, and my understanding was that (here) if you chose a hospital midwife delivery, the midwife was on their own without nurse support. So I think, in that situation, a doula makes sense and can even double as an extra set of hands or someone to grab what the mother might need. I think this is also why they’ll often discharge the mother from the hospital, usually within hours after delivery. Plus, the doula (I think) usually provides postpartum services for the mother as well. All in all, in theory, it sounds nice, but still not a medical professional. Pass.
“I really loved every minute until he was stuck.” What. The. Hell.
I can’t.
OK now that I have read all the prior comments I am going to say what on earth???? Seems there were issues with the delivery of her first baby, and her husband WAS A PRO FOOTBALL PLAYER. Think “the size of a garage.” He doesn’t appear overweight, but a really BIG guy. How DID she miss an 11 pound baby? How did she not hear (or how was she not told) that she needed to be careful (birth in hospital) with this one? Or did she just listen more to the doula throughout the entire pregnancy than she did the rest of the team? Gosh.
Perhaps if they had continued OB care someone might have noted that her husband is a very big guy, professional athlete, and might have been prepared for a dystocia or even suggested a C section. BUT, I have heard many people express opinions about it being “inhumane” to have women give birth without the support person(s) of their choice present; I just don’t know; I am sure it is scary and not the desirable outcome, but we have people dying separated from spouses of many decades as well, and there just aren’t good alternatives.
Exactly. It would be great if people could have their doulas or their moms there in addition to their partner, but people are dying without anyone with them. It is what it is and we just have to do what we have to do to get through this.
Yeah, I’m facing a possibility of delivering without my husband (still 6 months to go, so fingers crossed that in my country some restrictions are lifted) and thus reconsidering the choice of hospital (two biggest hospitals in our capital city have banned support persons, and it’s kinda understandable, as getting their staff sick and/or quarantined would compromise specialized care which is not possible in smaller hospitals). I could deliver in a smaller hospital in our hometown which offers rather cheap epidurals, so I can get through the labor alone; what bothers me more is the care for baby after delivery in case visitors are not allowed. Anyway, I don’t consider homebirth even though I had uncomplicated previous delivery, as the risk is still there, and transferring to hospital while our emergency care system (including transportation) is overwhelmed with COVID patients could very well mean deadly delay for a birth complications.
I cared for both my daughters by myself following my c-sections. My EX husband wanted to sleep in his own bed. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard. It was the years After that of caring for them entirely by myself that were harder!
I do hope that restrictions will ease in time for you to have a safe birth with your husband present in your hospital of choice. What a tough set of choices.
I read several articles about this but none mentioned that it was a homebirth. No wonder people think homebirth is safe… Every time a baby dies or is injured, even the newspapers leave out this key detail.
You know normally I have absolutely zero tolerance for home birth woo nuts, but this is the first time in history I’ve actually sort-of-kind-of understood why someone who would normally choose hospital, might go the home birth route. The whole COVID-19 infection risk/ no partner allowed rules would be very scary I can imagine. I even have a few pregnant friends on social media who previously gave birth in hospital, who are now having second thoughts. People are scared. It’s understandable.
So if anything, this story kind of serves as the perfect example of why choosing a hospital birth is STILL the best option, no matter how scary or unpleasant it may be. It should be shared far and wide!
No hospitals are limiting husbands/partners unless they are sick. I work in 2 hospitals. 2 hospitals in New York tried to limit partners but the governor overruled them because it was against the WHO’s recommendations. Doulas aren’t allowed currently at my 2 hospitals, but 1 support person is allowed. They must stay the entire time (they can’t leave and come back), it must be the same person at all times, and if they are sick they will have to leave. The partners are getting their temps taken also. Basically, she chose her doula over her son’s wellbeing. Most labor and delivery units work as their own unit so they aren’t connected to the ER/ICU/etc so they are actually a very safe place in the hospital.
Im not advocating for this woman. I just want to point out that it seems like she has some emotional trauma related to her previous hospital birth. She wasn’t planing a home birth from the start, but plans seem to change when the circumstances dictated that she would have less support. A previous shoulder dystocia should have ruled her out of midwifery altogether.
Less support? She CHOSE less support. She chose less support for her baby when she knew she was high risk for the same complication repeating.
Just when did “support” start to mean “someone taking your money to pretend they’re your friend and coddle your all-natural delusions during childbirth” as opposed to “keep you and your baby as safe as possible during one of the most vulnerable times in your life?”
This doula did NOT support her. She pocketed her money, that’s what she did, just like the midwife did. If the support was genuine, she would have told the mother to go to the hospital anyway. But money and self-asspats for being this awesome took priority over a mother and baby’s wellbeing.
The mother chose support for her ego, not her health and her baby.
Yes. SHE would have “less [emotional] support.” So she chose less medical support. She had a choice – best for her fee-fees, or best for her baby (and her own medical care). She sacrificed her baby for her fee-fees.
And sure, there are always tradeoffs, but as you admit, she was NOT a candidate for homebirth in any place in the world where it is an option. Except, of course, in crank midwifery USA.
Of course. Her precious doula should have let her know that (of course her midwife should have, too, but the expectations there are way too low).
Yes, we all have choices. I disagree with her choices. That still doesn’t mean her trauma wont impact her decisions.
We can agree the state of Midwifery in the US is not what it should be. Personally, I think Midwifes should only be in a hospital setting as a Certified Nurse Midwife. In this case I’m disappointed to find at it was a CNM. She should have never taken her on as a patient for an out of hospital birth.
As for her Doula, she is not a medical professional. A doula does not offer medical options.
Read theinnerchrone’s reply down below. She had a bad birth experience, and blamed the hospital instead of recognizing that it is a medical issue.
Which is why the “the CNM is a good one” claims don’t work. On the whole, sure CNMs are better than CPMs, and that isn’t even close. BUT any CNM that is willing to do an out-of-hospital birth is not an average CNM. CNMs doing homebirths have the same fundamental problems as CPMs. Sure, they might have the advantage of having actual medical training, but ideology trumps it.
A restaurant does not offer medical options, either, but many of them will not serve steak cooked rare for health reasons. If a restaurant can say, “We won’t serve you rare steak because it’s not safe” a doula can say, “I won’t help you in a homebirth because you are not a candidate.”
No one is required to enable reckless behavior.
According to a study posted in the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists February edition, a CNM doing a home delivery has a death rate for the baby that is 3 times higher than those in the hospital. So even though they are trained medically and would be taking on lower risk people only, there is still a 3 fold increase in the death rate just by not being close to emergency care.
Yep, as I said – CNMs doing homebirths are not the average CNMs. They are driven by ideology, which is a bigger issue than the medical training. They are the fringe element.
Sometimes I think that homebirth CNMs are the fringe element. But then sometimes I wonder if all CNMs are fringe. If nothing else, CNM leadership is complicit with the fringe. They refuse to call out CPMs and other lay midwives, in fact they actually circle the wagons and call them “sister midwives.” They refuse to call out homebirth. And even rank and file CNMs who only work in the hospital usually push an NCB philosophy.
Too many do, that is for sure.
It’s a fair point. Even those CNMs who do dare to speak out (Deena did that) get complete push back.
Granted that is again by the leadership, who have their own problems (those willing to be in leadership roles often do it to an advance an agenda).
There is no doubt, though, that the silence of the masses makes them complicit in the problems. The “I am just trying to do my best to help by working in a hospital” could work if there weren’t an element out there doing things to make you look bad.
If there really is a silent majority of “good” CNMs, why do they put up with the supposed small element that is bad? Unless, of course, the premise is flawed….
I used to think LCs were borderlne examples of Bofa’s Law*** (“If the defense of a group consists of ‘Not all the members are bad’ then that group has a serious problem”) but CNMs are also pushing it.
***That’s Bofa’s First Law. Remember Bofa’s 2nd Law: All else being equal, breastfeeding is better than formula. But all else is never equal.
According to her blog post about her first delivery, her doula dispensed medical advice about the water breaking, so it appears her doula was dispensing advice. Her doula knew she wouldn’t get as much money if she wasn’t there for the actual delivery (since the hospital was only allowing the spouse in as the support person). Her doula likely encouraged the delivery at home and this person chose her doula over her child’s safety.
She describes her first child as having the turtle sign during the delivery. Her first was definitely a shoulder dystocia. Luckily that child didn’t have permanent nerve damage.
Yes and that means she was not a candidate for home birth. She was not low risk like she claimed she was actually high risk because of the first baby, which I think ended up with a broken clavicle.
In her blog she mentions her first child was born with a broken clavicle at just over 8 pounds. She says the baby was OP and her OB had to put her whole hand in to get the baby out. It’s possible the OB was just rotating the OP position and that’s how the clavicle broke, or she could have even had a shoulder dystocia with her first. She writes about how she hated the hospital experience. She should have been monitored better so this child never got to 11 plus pounds. She should have had a c-section especially if her first had a broken clavicle. Her child’s death was preventable and it was her selfish ways that caused the death.
She hated the hospital experience but she loved this one… right up to the point where her little boy got stuck. Dear me.
She knew, she knew she was high risk, she was prepared to do a hospital birth anyway and she chose her doula over satefy anyway? I wonder if this doula held her hand at the funeral.
So she chose home, midwife took her on, doula kept her mouth shut to get her fee as well and the baby died… and all the time there WERE risk factors. God, what bunch of disgusting losers they all are.
I really don’t understand the magically thinking it takes to conclude that a)Something bad happened in my previous delivery, as in badly positioned baby, baby has wide shoulders that make delivery difficult, head not being engaged allows cord to become entrapped. SO b) bad experience in hospital because something went wrong somehow means having the next one at home will magically be OK and not have those problems because ?????
That’s not how this works, that’s not how any pf this works…
So wait – she actually DIDN’T have a successful previous delivery?
We always hear about how homebirth is more acceptable if there has been a previous successful delivery, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ok with a previous complicated delivery.
No midwife should have been anywhere near this.
I’m glad your cousin was smart and followed the advice and has healthy children. Your cousin is a smart woman!
One of my cousins’ first baby survived a nightmarish shoulder dystocia in a hospital where they tried everything and needed to do a Zavanelli with C-section. No history of GD but her son was a big baby with extremely solid shoulders.
He’s a tween now and absolutely fine. Still built like a linebacker.
His mom’s OB informed her that she should never, ever have another vaginal birth. Period.
She had two more kids by planned C-section.
Yes, I think the story she is telling herself is that the first baby was OP, and “somehow” broke her clavicle. In any case, it was surely not an uncomplicated delivery. Her blog post about the first birth does show her having the “I know better” attitude and feeling that the staff should have adhered to her preferences rather than hospital procedure, and also it seemed that the doula liked to somewhat undermine the relationship between her and the hospital team. So, she may have been told something different about that first birth and simply disregarded it, or she may genuinely have been told the story about baby being OP and been given no information about the “turtling” and the clavicle break, who knows, but the second birth was something of a setup for disaster.
I saw that too in her blog, how she was upset about the pit even though her water had been broken for days. Her doula talking somewhat negatively about the care since they increased the pit several times since her contractions weren’t strong on the low dose pit. I’m not sure why her OB got an ultrasound when she was crowning to check position. I would think she could have just checked position by feeling the sutures to see if the baby was OP. And turtling is a sign of a shoulder not of an OP baby. I’m thinking she misunderstood the situation and it was a shoulder dystocia and it was resolved because of the “rotation”. Even if her first OB didn’t explain the recurrence risk of a shoulder dystocia in future deliveries (which would be a necessity detail to give the patient), her midwife should have asked more details about the first delivery prior to accepting her as a home birth client after she saw a broken clavicle (unless she hadn’t put that in her health history form under delivery complications). You’re right, either way it wasn’t an uncomplicated delivery.
Poor baby. What a needless loss.
But still… she took the gamble over her doula? She took the risk because she was so terrified of losing THIS precious support? Even if her husband wouldn’t have been allowed to be with her, it’s still not worth it.
Women who sing paeans to natural, all-women-did-it-once birth are very quick to forget that until some 50 years ago, husbands were NOT there for birth. They just weren’t.
To each her own but I’m glad that my SIL chose a hospital where even new fathers aren’t allowed to visit, let alone the whole family. (Don’t start with how horrible it is. Another country, another system, here fathers being allowed in the delivery room isn’t this widespread and I’m not arguing that keeping them out is a good thing at all… and there ARE women who prefer to know that other father’s potential diseases are kept away from their newborns because, frankly, they aren’s sure they can trust the hospital to effectively isolate everything unless it’s a private suite). At least COVID-19 will be less of a thing there. Unless it reaches the hospital before Amazing Niece No2 makes her appearance, of course. SIL very much hopes that her doctor will be safe and present when the time comes. She does love him.
Really, this baby died because of a DOULA?
Yes it was all because of a fucking doula. What a piece of shit this woman is. I feel sympathy for this baby and the rest of the family and that is it.
Being this woman was a television star on Real Housewives which features some of the most entitled and spoiled women in America the doula thing was not a surprise. She has to show her social status somehow and pregnancy is probably the best time to brag, even if you are just bragging that you can afford to pay a doula.
I just… it sounds so unrealistic to me. Over a doula.
Its absolutely insane.
“My brain can’t help but jump ahead to my next pregnancy and the PTSD and
how I would totally WANT a natural vaginal birth again … but I would no
longer be a good candidate for a home birth (despite the fact that I
really loved every minute until he was stuck)…” So in other words she didn’t learn anything. She would do it again but knows she will be risked out.
Most loss mothers probably dont think about the next baby right after losing one (unless biological time is running out, IVF, ect.). This was clearly not about the baby everything she said admits that. She seemed more concerned that her doula would not be able to be with her in the hospital `than the safety of her baby.
The thought that scares me is that for the next baby she will most likely discover that if she gets risked out by a CNM she can still have a home birth with a CPM.
Honestly she sounds traumatized, and I don’t think anything someone says while in that state can be judged too harshly. She did say earlier on that she is suffering from a lot of guilt and self-blame, so it sounds like on some level she KNOWS she caused her baby’s death. Everyone deals with grief differently. (I had a friend whose boyfriend was killed in a car crash and she spent the week leading up to the funeral absolutely obsessing about finding the right dress to wear. On the surface it sounds vain and selfish and like she didn’t care that her boyfriend had literally just died but trust me, she cared! She cared way too much and the only way she could deal with the trauma at that time was by finding something shallow and insignificant to fixate on. I suspect something similar is going on here)
All your other points are spot on though. This woman and others like her will be easy prey for greedy home birth doulas and CPM’s looking to take advantage of her grief and convince her that the only way to “heal” from the trauma is through another unmedicated vaginal home birth. It’s quite sickening.
She does sound traumatized, yes, but the decisions she made in her particular circumstances and particularly the reasons for them show that she was a right POS. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Oh, I won’t have the precious support of my doula! Bring out the world’s smallest violin. Support IS a wonderful thing but this situation shows how spoiled and self-obsessed some women are. It’s all about them. Never mind the risk factors.
I wonder how it comes that these strong warrior mamas cannot face some 24 hours without the help they hire to pretend that she cares for them – when they have the medical team that is best poised to ensure the safest outcomes. Are they strong warrior mamas or wiliting flowers willing to compromise their child’s satety in the most dangerous day of their life because A DAY of THEIR mental wellbeing is more important and cannot POSSIBLY be compromised?
And if she does have a “healing home birth”, she’ll get the cover of People magazine. Ugh.
I was wondering if this was a home birth when I read the article in people. So sad to think that this could have been avoided had she been at the hospital
SO part of her take away is “Even though home birth and lack of a C-section killed my baby, I totally want a NATURAL, VAGINAL child birth the next time” . WTF