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2nd Trimester
I am watching right now on DHealth Channel a show on "Freebirthing"
(Its where a mom gives birth completely unassisted-without a dr, midwife, nurse, etc). All I can say is wow. There is one mom on this show who had to seek medical help after giving birth because her placenta would not come out and the dr there at the hospital is obviously pissed at her because she freebirthed at home.
Wow.
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Re: I am watching right now on DHealth Channel a show on "Freebirthing"
That's just crazy to me. Risks way too big for this lady.
It takes all kinds, I guess.
I am not pissing all over those who choose to freebirth. All I was saying is that I am watching this show and its wow...ie eyeopening for me.
That is all.
Yeah, this is completely insane and dangerous and typically women who do this also do not seek much prenatal care as well so there is an even higher risk of something going wrong as they may not have identified other underlying issues that could potentially make the L&D process even more complicated.
I have a cousin who does this and she is not only risking the life of her unborn child, but her life as well. This is not something to mess around with. To me having a healthy baby is more important than having the birth experience that I want to have.
9 angels in heaven-3 in my arms and 1 in the NICU
Mono/di twin girls: Josephine born to heaven and Evangeline born Earthside at 25w
I wish they'd gotten some women from states in the US who are not allowed the freedom of choice and are legally denied caregivers to assist their births instead of more of the fringe people.
There are women who feel they have no other options because the governments refuse to allow women access to adequate care.
Until that issue is resolved, I cannot completely condemn UC, though it is not something I would EVER choose for myself.
Gabriel Ross - August 24, 2009 * Vivienne Rose - May 1, 2012
My Blog
Could not agree more... What annoyed me with the american woman is that she really seemed so clueless about everything... The UK woman was at least prepared medically... I would never EVER put my baby at that much risk to get the birthing experience I wanted...
Gabriel Ross - August 24, 2009 * Vivienne Rose - May 1, 2012
My Blog
This morning, I made a post about how I had a patient who had a completely unassisted birth at home in a bathtub and the baby got sepsis because it swallowed yucky stuff, etc and had to be admitted to the hospital and my GOD did I get my head bitten off by like 90% of the people who responded. Apparently I'm a moron and I make home births look bad and I'm rude and it was an inflammatory post, etc. because I was talking about something that someone else did... Hmm.
Why is it ok if it happens on a tv show but if I see a real life account of it happening and say something about it, I'm an a$$hole? Just out of curiosity.
But yeah. I personally prefer to be under medical supervision at the time of delivery. The risk of something going wrong is WAY too scary to me to ever even think about doing it at home, especially unassisted.
Because you (in your OP AND in this post) conflate freebirth with ALL homebirths. It's ignorant.
OH, well I SINCERELY apologize for conflating such a thing. The woman had an unsupervised birth at home. My mistake for being so incredibly ignorant and calling it a homebirth because it is obviously apparent to everyone BUT me that it is not indeed such a thing, even though it was a birth at home. Silly little me thought I was making a statement about a specific incident, but I guess I was talking about every birth to happen at home ever in the entire world. Again, my apologies.
That, and your post was unnecessarily rude and condescending. In fact, I'm still angry about it hours later.
Gabriel Ross - August 24, 2009 * Vivienne Rose - May 1, 2012
My Blog
This post is also why you're an assshole. Maybe you should just stop typing.
Oh, so defensive. Sorry for being offended at being attacked for telling a story about what a felt was an irresposible incident. I went back and re-read what I wrote and I still don't feel I said anything offensive for you ladies that got all upset about it. The lady had the baby, it got sick, got put in the hospital, & she was blaming the staff for hurting it. Then I said cool if you wanna have a homebirth but it seems smart to have some sort of medical supervision in case anything would go wrong and that I would personally not choose to do so. Still trying to figure out what exactly bunched the panties of so many... But yeah. I'm sure I'm an assshole for many reasons. Attack, attack, attack.
Simply put, it was your tone. I don't know how many ways to explain this to you.
You may think you just told a story, but the entire second half of your post was condescending and rude. You didn't just express that this wasn't a choice for you, you were disparaging about homebirth, when you are clearly ignorant enough on the subject to be unaware of the difference in homebirth and unassisted birth (hint: location is not the central point).
I doubt you will ever get it, but you could not have been more judgmental in your post if you tried. I had a really great conversation today with others about homebirth - and the entire difference was tone.
Gabriel Ross - August 24, 2009 * Vivienne Rose - May 1, 2012
My Blog
Well I just went back and read your post and what bothered me is you seem to lump all homebirths into 1 bucket. Homebirths with a midwife are very safe. I have no knowledge about freebirthing so I'm not even going to comment.
acutting, I didn't see your original post -- but you keep saying that this woman had a homebirth. No, she had a freebirth. Like easjer said, there's a big difference, and it's not just location. I think that's why people are getting upset...
As for freebirth, I came across the blog of a woman who I just happen to have met once (we were considering her for child care for my daughter about a year ago, ended up going another direction). Turns out she had a freebirth a few weeks ago. It was her fourth baby, and she had VERY negative hospital experiences with the previous three, bordering on traumatic/abusive. Reading through her posts, I could understand why she felt she couldn't go back to a hospital.
Now. I do think she could've done a better job with her previous births of choosing her hospital, and her provider, so that she could've had more positive experiences in the past. But, well, she can't change the past now, so she just has to make the best decisions based on her current circumstances, and I can see why she thought freebirth was the best decision for her.
It's not something I ever expect to do. I'm pretty sure we're done after this one, and even if we're not, I have a lot of faith in the hospital and provider I've carefully chosen, and so I highly doubt I'll have a traumatic experience like she did. But I can start to understand why other women might not feel that way.
But, yes, you have to educate yourself a LOT if you're going to take on the responsibility of freebirthing, and the American woman in the documentary was pretty stupid.
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
I actually read acuting's post as saying...here's an example of someone making a crappy choice about her and her baby's care...so if you plan to homebirth make sure you avoid doing what this dumbass did.
That's how it read to me.
However, what I wanted to ask was a pp said something about American women not having the freedom to choose.
Is homebirthing not "legal" in the US? Or all states. Obviously I see that no one can stop you giving birth at home, but will midwives/doctors not provide care to people who homebirth?
I just wasn't sure what the pp was saying. Here in NZ government pays for all pre-natal care and with your midwife/doctor you choose where you want to give birth: Home, hospital or birth centre.
Birth centres are clinics that provide for low-risk births. They don't do epidurals but other pain relief choices are available. They have showers and birthing tubs you can use, although our local hospital has tubs for water birthing and pain relief management.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
I read it the same way. I don't see why this got blown so out of proportion. Then again, it's the Bump...what did I expect....
I'm a little late, but I'll answer your question anyway. There are currently about 12 states (I'm fuzzy on the number, but thats about right) where it is currently illegal for a MW to attend a homebirth. In five of those states, its a felony. In other states, its not illegal for a liscensed MW to attend a homebirth, but those states refuse to conduct the yearly test that liscenses new MWs, so once the currently practicing MWs either retire or die, there won't be any new MWs to replace them.
I'm lucky enough to live in a state where it's legal, but it really sucks for the people who don't...leaving many women feeling like they have no option but to birth alone.
Ditto this, 100%.
Writing "SINCERELY" in your apology does not make your apology sincere. In fact, it seems pretty INSINCERE to me. Just sayin'.
Frenchy is correct (well, haven't double checked the number, but . . .).
But it's more than that. Some states allow homebirth to be attended by midwives, provided the midwife is backed up by an OB. Which seems very logical, right? But a lot of OB's refuse to back up midwives, period, let alone homebirth midwives. Because then they are legally responsible for overseeing the care, and the second a patient walks into their office, the OB's malpractice insurance covers them. So if my mw screws up? and I see her backup (as I have in both this pregnancy and a previous one, but not for screw-ups) and something goes badly? I can sue him. And I'll likely get money settled out of court. And malpractice insurance premiums increase when extended to cover homebirth.
So I really can't fault OB's for not agreeing to back up midwives, but it effectively eliminates safe, responsible birth outside a hospital (some areas do not have or license birth centers over here).
Additionally, insurance does not have to cover homebirth or midwives in many areas. I'm very lucky that Texas has minimum requirements for insurance, so that any company with insurance in Texas is required to cover midwives (and consequently birth centers or homebirths) at a minimum level - for me, it's out of network, meaning higher out of pocket costs, but there is still coverage (and because my homebirth is comparatively inexpensive, the costs actually work out the same as what I would pay for hospital costs and l&d).
So, no. In many areas, women do not have freedom of choice or the option of a legal attendant if they choose to birth outside the hospital. In some areas of legal midwifery and homebirthing, legal charges of abuse and neglect and child endangerment have been brought against parents or midwives who had unfortunate outcomes in homebirth - even though the same charges would never have been brought if the same thing happened in a hospital.
And it is HARD to have an unmedicated birth in some areas. My area is known as being particularly unfriendly to natural birth. There are only a handful of OBs who will do more than pay lip service to unmedicated options and the c-section rates are abominable. The last thing a laboring woman needs is to shift her focus from the task at hand - birthing her child - to bureaucracy and fighting to get the simple, uncomplicated birth she desires.
It would be very different if hospitals and health care professionals were respectful and actually practiced evidence based medicine, but they often don't.
Gabriel Ross - August 24, 2009 * Vivienne Rose - May 1, 2012
My Blog
oh easjer's F/U to my post reminded me:
In countries where homebirth is accepted as a reasonable option, there is a system set up for transfers. If something goes wrong or you just decide that you want the epi after all, it's ok to transfer, OBs are prepared for you, and hospital staff is presumably accepting of you. In the vast majority of places here, a homebirth transfer (whether an emergency or not, negligent or not) would be ridiculed at the hospital. I've heard many stories of L&D staff feeling that they need to punish the mom coming in and being FAR from respectful of her (often reasonable) wishes. They do this because of our culure's attitude towards homebirth. I don't hear of this happening in England, the Netherlands, etc.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology AND the American Medical Assoc. have both release statements against homebirth and written "model legislation" against it (meaning, if a local chapter wanted to make homebirth illegal--for the moms not just for MWs--on a state level, an example of that law has already be written). When a position is taken like this by an organization as large as the AMA, it seems like we're taking steps backwards and actually making homebirth less safe, just by ostracizing those who choose to.
Um, yes. And that is what is offensive. It starts with an assumption that homebirthing mothers need to be educated by her on what is safe and what is an acceptable risk. I daresay that - on the whole - homebirthing mothers have done VASTLY more research on childbirth than those planning to show up at the hospital and ask for an epi. Because they've had to.
Not only was that post condescending, it perpetuates the myth than homebirths are themselves a riskier option than a hospital birth. Not true at all.
This. Exactly. Easjer, you are my favorite person on this board.
I suppose I'm not offended by people pointing out the need to do something sensible even if it does seem blindingly obvious.
We have drunk dirving ads, non-smoking ads, don't get fat ads and I don't find any of those offensive either...some people DO need to hear the message. You didn't and that's great but some do.
You assuming that a woman who goes to the hospital and has an epi had done less research than a woman who chooses ot give birth at home, unsupervised is equally as offensive.
Sure some people will rock up to a hospital and have not given it a thought assuming that the medical staff are always "right"...but many will have considered all options and decided that that is the birth experience they want.
I don't think it perpetuates any ideas about homebirths being more dangerous. Everyone knows that there can be issues and problems during and after a birth for both mother and child. These things can happen anywhere. I don't think that the post said the complications would not have happened if the baby was birthed in a hospital.
Anyway, you're offended by it. I'm not. Whatever.
Elizabeth 5yrs old Jane 3yrs old
Well, here's part of my point right here - I was not talking about freebirth, but homebirth. And I stand by my assertion that someone planning a homebirth is far more likely to have done more research about L&D than the average person planning a hospital birth.
Agreed. I was simply pointing out where the offense lay, since you and another poster seemed perplexed with how some of us read the post.