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Natural Birth
irishgrl317
member
WWYD if this was your Midwife (Warning: Sad Link Inside)
irishgrl317
member
Obviously, I know that sometimes bad things happen and no one can do anything about it. I also know that this is only one side of the story, but it just goes against so many of the midwife rules and regulations here in Texas that I have become a little wary. I have been so excited to have made the switch to a midwife and birth center, but am now second guessing myself (and, my husband is VERY apprehensive). So, what would your reaction be if the midwife in this story was your midwife?
https://hurtbyhomebirth.blogspot.com/2011/03/thomas-story.html
This discussion has been closed.
Re: WWYD if this was your Midwife (Warning: Sad Link Inside)
Change midwives IMMEDIATELY! She did so many things wrong and made so many horrible decisions. Those poor parents.
Yes, this is my midwife (one of the 3 at the birth center). We came to her group because we were looking for a natural birth experience outside of the hospital and she came highly recommended. We have some friends set to have a homebirth with these midwives in about a month. They had their first at the birth center and loved their experience. Since my husband doesn't feel comfortable with a home birth, this was our next best option.
We have already switched care once during this pregnancy (from OB to midwife) and I am really disappointed that we are even having to consider switching again. I do have an appointment coming up and am trying to figure out how to broach this topic so I can at least get both sides of the story (due to privacy issues, though, I am not sure she could even say anything at all about it).
i understand how awful it is when something goes wrong at a birth. sometimes there are no warning signs and babies die, moms die. birth doesn't always go the way we want it to.
imo that mom in the story that you linked to should never have been a candidate for a home birth. a woman with a history of preterm labors and a cerclage? no. i would not have accepted her as a client. she is not considered low risk.
fwiw, i think that the stories could be of babies that died or moms that died during childbirth regardless of where they chose to birth. babies do not only die at home. with low risk women and properly trained mw's home birth is perfectly safe.
Oh, I absolutely agree with everything you wrote. I feel totally comfortable delivering at a birth center, even at home (although my husband does not feel the same about home). It is the seemingly poor judgment and decision-making of the midwife, both in accepting this patient and then once in labor, that has me second-guessing her as my care provider. Since my husband is not comfortable with homebirth, though, if I do switch, it will have to be to another midwife practice that is unfortunately, much further away and delivers only in hospital.
this is a terrible and sad story for all involved.
my mws would also not accept a woman with this sort of history as a client.
I would be looking into switching midwives asap......since the one mentioned in the article is clearly incompetent as is her assistant. I find this article incredibly disturbing.....for many reasons but cannot stop questioning why why why the mother did not go to the freaking hospital when her contractions got so severe and why 911 was not called when the baby was clearly not getting enough oxygen......it's called mother's intuition for a reason! This story is so sad but because stupid mistake after stupid mistake was made over and over by both the midwife and the mother.
I'd really have a hard time staying with that midwife knowing that huge lapse of judgement. That mom really should have been with an OB with her history. She should have never been taken in the first place. It would make me leery that she could make competent decisions during a birth. I mean, there were so many red flags that she ignored in that birth story. Could I really trust her with my own care?
I agree with this 100%, but "low risk women and properly trained MWs" doesn't seem to apply in this case.
The red flags for me are:
1. accepting this high risk mom as a candidate for homebirth
2. insisting a cerclage be removed early
3. being willing to go outside her scope of practice (removing a cerclage)
4. not recognizing and responding to obvious respiratory distress in the infant
I couldn't finish the story, there may be more.
Had it been a case of, for example, shoulder dystocia, that can happen without any warning signs I would stay with the MW. Bad things do happen, and babies die regardless of setting or provider. But with the level of incompetence and poor judgment shown in that story... I would be running for another MW.
My heart just breaks for that family.
If this is one of your mw's I would most certainly find another one.
The fact that she took someone who was NOT low risk and attempted to do things "she had never done before" and she refused MULTIPLE times to go to the hospital when the mother asked is unacceptable.
Please find someone who is trustworthy and ask LOTS of questions.
There is no way my HB MW would have done ANY of those things
so i've been reading that blog and thinking about all of this for the last hour or more and i'm upset. obviously my opinions are biased, i am a home birth mw, but that blog seems to be written in a way to steer people away from mw's and home births. i realize that all births are not happy and we need to know about healthcare providers that are negligent in order to protect others. in some of the stories it is not clear if the outcome would have been the same if the mom had been in a hosp.
i have attended hundreds of healthy normal births and a few scary ones. i have never lost a baby or mom, nor has anyone i've known due to negligence. we have had to transport a few moms and baby due to various reasons.
at the birth center i worked for last year we had a mom that was pg with her 7th baby and she was a VBAC, her labor pattern was abnormal and the mw transported her to the hosp. sometime later that day, while at the hosp and being fully monitored, her uterus ruptured and the baby died. the mom almost died due to blood loss, but she recovered.
it was incredibly sad and we all mourned the loss of this little precious life. the mother had a complete hysterectomy and can no longer have children. that alone was tragic for her and her family. never once did the family blame the mw, in fact they thanked her for transporting them because had they stayed home, as they wanted to, the mother might have died too.
overall the general mood of the blog is to scare women. there are even some statements on there that are flat out lies. the decision to use a mw and have a baby at home is not the right choice for every woman.
i do not think that malpractice insurance is the answer either. most mw's do not carry it. in some states it is not available to mw's and in other cases it would be too expensive to carry. people have the right to not use a mw if she doesn't have insurance and they should be made aware of this at the fist appt with her.
if the ob/gyn's would open up their minds to mw's it could be a great scenario to women. if all mw's could deliver in the hosp this would also open up more options for women and in some cases it would def provide a safer option. instead, some dr's look down on mw's and think that we are untrained and illprepared to take care of women in pg, labor, birth and the postpartum period. imagine what could be accomplished if the two groups would work together, instead of against each other. the losers of this stupid battle are women and their families.
i'll stop there...
Can't CNMs already deliver in hospitals? What is the difference in training between a CPM and a CNM? I've been wondering that.
Yeah... after clicking a few links, it appears that the blog is run by "Dr. Amy" of the blog "The Skeptical OB" which seems to have no point other than to mock and antagonize natural childbirth supporters/midwives.
I would run far and fast from this midwife. I had preterm labor with my DS, I managed to carry him to term (and beyond), but it took a lot of meds and a lot of monitoring to be able to do that safely. I am considered high risk for all future pregnancies. No midwife (excepting a CNM who practices out of a hospital) should ever agree to take me on.
Taking on a woman who had a cerclage in is just stupid and way to risky for mom and baby. The cerclage needs monitoring to make sure it is doing it's job, it needs to be taken out if delivery is imminent, or a C-Section needs to be preformed if that is not possible (some cerclages are abdominal and permanent).
Thomas ~ 07/07/2008 ~ 8 lbs, 5 oz
What's in my camera bag: Nikon D5000, Kit Lens 18-55mm, 55-200mm, 35mm 1.8G, 50mm 1.8G, 85mm 1.8G, Tamron 28-75mm, SB 600 Speedlight
Global Developmental Delay consisting of a receptive language delay and self help skills delay
CNM's are RN's that went to midwifery school, or have midwifery training and therefore can work in hospitals.
CPM's, DEM's, LM's, RM's are not RN's, they are women who went directly to midwifery school.
yeeeeeeeah, i noticed that. sigh.
I noticed this earlier today. I had never heard of this blog until I read the review of this particular birth center on Google. The reviewer (the mom) stated her full story would be on hurt by homebirths. I did a search and found the blog. Blogs like this get under my skin, as well. The only reason I was at this one, in particular, was to try to get the full story of what happened with my particular midwife.
irishgrl- you are right to check out the mw that you are using. i'm glad that you found this info so that you can go with a different provider. bad healthcare providers are out there, obviously, and they exsist in all fields.
i hope that you are able to find someone that is competent and that you have the birth that you want.
If it were a blog about support for families who lost a baby during a homebirth that would be one thing, but knowing it's run by Dr. Amy makes it seem like a slimy, exploitative way for her to try and make a point. Ugh that makes me sick.
I noticed that right away. I believe that the purpose of that blog is to intimidate and scare women (going as far as posting a picture of a dead baby in a coffin.) Whoever runs that blog should be ashamed of themselves.
It is a real shame that OBGYN's and midwives can't work together to better the care of pregnant women in this country (for the most part.) Why would the OB who runs that blog feel so intimidated by MW's that she needed to start a website to scare the sh&* out of women? It's sad.
I absolutely agree with this statement from Texas77again, especially the final clause.
After reading that story, I have problems with just about everybody involved. I certainly would not want that midwife as my provider and would search for somebody else. The fact that she was willing to go outside her scope of practice is the biggest red flag for me - and it obviously turned out very sadly for this particular family.
But I also question the mom for even considering a home birth when she knew she had a history of high risk and preterm labor. I know that we all want to have the perfect birth experience, but in some cases you have to be willing to sacrifice your perfect birth location for the health of the baby. I am not high risk, and I desperately want to have a home birth. But that isn't a feasible option for me where I currently live (Sicily) due to a number of factors - cleanliness in Sicilian healthcare is generally not up to American standards (the one woman I know here who had a home birth ended up with a very bad infection because of this problem), language barrier (My Italian is pretty good, but since I don't talk about healthcare and doctors and pregnancy often I'm not well versed in that area of the language. I worry that the language barrier could pose a difficulty to receiving the best care possible), and distance (the closest midwives are 2 hours away and with the quick active labor I had with DS, that makes me nervous for a second baby). So, because of these reasons, I sacrifice my ideal location and choose the military hospital. It stinks. I'm truly jealous of you mamas who get to have home births. But I had to make the best choice for my family. I think this mother should have taken a hard look at what she wanted vs. what was truly best. And that doesn't let the midwife off the hook by any means. She too should have made better decisions - i.e. not taken this woman as a patient to begin with!
And I do agree with the pp who wonders why the doctor was willing to undo the cerclage early when he clearly was against it, and saying that he had completely removed it when in fact he had not. Lying doesn't help anybody. If he was just going to "play along" and keep most of the cerclage in place, then he should have just never picked up a pair of scissors to begin with and not made anybody think he had removed it.
In the end, as Texas77again has stated, it is the mother and the family who paid the price for a chain of really really bad decisions. I don't like the looks of that blog, but my heart does break for that family. All in all, OP, I would change providers if this story was about my midwife. She may be a really competent provider and had just this one time of being human and making a devastating mistake. She may have learned from her mistakes and is now a fabulous and safe medical professional. But the what-ifs would run through my mind for 9 months straight and the stress alone would be reason enough for me to switch.
Technically, CNMs are advance practice nurses - RNs with masters degrees in nurse midwifery, or I suppose an RN with masters in nursing and then additional midwifery training. As of 2010, all CNMs must have a graduate degree. All the CNMs I know are also nurse practitioners. I'm sure some things can vary with state requirements though.
Make a pregnancy ticker
There's no way I would stay with that midwife. There are a lot of red flags and I wouldn't be able to trust her at all.
And the story about the mom's uterus rupturing, ugh that scares me. Going back to my happy bubble now.
This story does not scare me away from MW's......but, it would have me running as fast as I could from that one.
OP: find someone else who can react with good judgement in the event of an emergency. This particular midwife did not use good judgement (or even common sense).
I hate to say it but the woman in the story had options and chose not to go with her gut and stayed with the midwife. If she felt uncomfortable with the care she was getting as she stated, she could have just gone to the hospital and refused the midwife's care, but she didn't. This story, IMO, highlights the need for mother's to trust their instincts and do what they feel is best.
If this is your midwife and you are confident in your (and your husband's ability) to know when a transfer is necessary (trust your instincts) then I say go with the type of birth you want. You do not need the midwife to call 911. If you are uncomfortable with your care or DH is, just call and get transferred.
If this story is true, the midwife sounds grossly incompetent. I don't think the OP should stay with her, counting on the fact that she and her husband can call 911. If something goes wrong, they may not be in the right mind to make sound medical decisions. They don't have the training to necessarily recognize when something is wrong in the first place. That's the midwife's job.
I'm all for home birth but if something goes wrong, you don't have a whole team of medical professionals and the resources of a hospital. You have your midwife and she better know what she's doing.
Yes, the woman in the story could have done things differently but she listened to her midwife and I don't think she should be blamed for that. The midwife failed her in many instances. That is not the mother's fault.
Taking the word of a blog as the gospel "this is exactly how it happened" is not something I can swallow.
If any of it is true (and considering the source, there is a good chance that this is largely fiction) then the mother and her support (sister, husband...was there someone else) has to blame themselves for some bad decisions from the get go.
But IMO, the story is too farfetched to be the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
This is what I was thinking. It may be true, or it could be a bit of sabotage. We really have no idea if any of it is true. I think I'd question the birth center about it and about how they would handle x,y,z situations. If you don't get a good feel from their answers, find another mw/bc.
Exactly. It's easy to look at a story and say "Oh, the mom should have ____." Well, yes, maybe she could have gone with her instincts and called 911, etc. Just like women CAN refuse an induction, interventions, drugs, c/section, etc. You have the right to do so, but when you're in labor and things start to look scary, the bottom line is that your provider has more training/education than you, and you SHOULD be able to trust your provider to be competent and have your best interest at heart. (I don't mean trusting blindly because they have a degree, you should do your research and all, but I'm talking emergency situation.)
I can't blame the mom for trusting her midwife when she said, "oh no, everything is fine." While WE can see from reading the story that things are not fine, considering the mom's state of mind at the time... I can see how she did what she did.
Also, I wanted to add... regarding "going with your gut" or "trusting your instincts"- when I was having my external cephalic version, my "gut" told me that I wanted the OB to keep pushing until the baby turned, his heart rate would be just fine. When he didn't turn, and even walking into the OR, my "gut" told me to run away and lock myself in the bathroom, that even being breech I could deliver him myself and we would both be fine. A friend who had a lovely homebirth told me while in labor her "gut" told her to tell everyone to forget this whole idea, she was calling an ambulance to go to the hospital for a c/section. Well, his heart rate was NOT fine when they pushed on him, locking myself in a bathroom could have been catastrophic, and she was just in transition.
I guess my point is... when emotions are running high, your gut can tell you all sorts of crazy things, and it can be hard to know whether to follow them or listen to someone else- especially when that someone else is your MW or OB. That's why I think the OP should find a new MW- the MOST important step in having the birth you want is finding a like-minded, competent provider that you TRUST.
I agree with the concerns that many posters shared about this blog being used to scare people off from homebirth. I actually think Dr. Amy has a lot of great things to say, but my big problem with her is that she paints homebirth as bad bad BAD across the board. When really, it's very dependent on the midwife. It's like taking some stories about babies who died during hospital birth due to OB incompetence (and there are stories out there like that...) and saying, "See! Hospital birth is dangerous!" Birth is dangerous with an incompetent provider. Period. It's up to moms to seek out a competent provider, regardless of birth location.
I do think homebirth is more prone to incompetent providers due to the lack of licensing standards. This is a HUGE difference between homebirth in the USA vs. homebirth in other countries. (Which is a very valid point that Dr. Amy makes over and over. Many studies showing that homebirth is safe were performed in other countries. Taking those results as proof that American homebirth is safe is really comparing apples to oranges.) But that doesn't mean that homebirth in the USA is inherently unsafe.
It simply means that parents need to be diligent about researching their midwife. I have NO concerns about the midwife I used. Zero. In finding her, I ran acrosss other midwives who I would never, ever, ever consider delivering with. Too many red flags.
So... OP, if you had put in that link and said, "Should I be concerned about homebirth?" I would say, "No, just make sure you have a better midwife." But since she IS your midwife... I would run, fast and far. Those aren't red flags, those are huge flashing red signs saying "DON'T DELIVER WITH HER!"
Mommy to DD1 (June 2007), DS (January 2010), DD2 (July 2012), and The Next One (EDD 3/31/2015)
Exactly.
If there were a blog "Hurt by the Hospital" and someone found a story like this about their OB, I think everyone on this board would be telling her to run far away from that OB and probably even that hospital.
Could this story be riddled with inaccuracies or be flat out fiction? Sure. Do deaths happen to the best professionals, and in all settings? Of course. But do you want to go into your birth wondering if you can trust your midwife with basic competency? Hell no.