The Perils of (Bad Reporting on) Home Birth

[...] The Perils of (Bad Reporting on) Home Birth [...]

I’d hear about this and was ready to be outraged, as a supporter of home birth who had a home birth, but when I watched it, I actually thought it was pretty balanced for a mainstream piece. The stuff about spa and hedonism was one piece, a guy quoting some doctors, to me it was kind of vague…and like the blogger here said, a little laughable. The segment actually included a couple who had a good outcome to balance the one who had the worst of all outcomes (baby’s death) and ended with questions to ask a prospective midwife. Also, while I support homebirth, I think the midwife attending the birth of the couple whose baby died maybe took it a little too far…I mean, laboring for 3 days is not a NORMAL, HEALTHY situation. Sometimes interventions are appropriate. For a mainstream piece, the Today piece was balanced and about what I’d expect.

That midwife needs to lose her license. Now. Isn’t she the same one who was going to let the main character in “The Business of Being Born” deliver a three pound baby at home?

No. Cara Muhlhahn did not deliver Abby Epstein’s baby at home in “BoBB.” Abby went into premature labor and called Cara, who came over and assessed that Abby should go to the hospital. Abby had a C-section in the movie. I think it’s completely fair to question Cara’s judgment; perhaps she should have told Abby over the phone to go to the hospital immediately since she was only about 7 months pregnant. But the movie clearly shows that baby was delivered at a hospital, not at home.

All healthcare workers should carry malpractice insurance. It is a deterrent to taking chances. AS for a 4 day labor, all midwives learn that a prolonged labor almost always ends in fetal death or injury and sometimes maternal death. Where did that quack get her training?

Yeah, she fucked up. Royally. That better?
I don’t think the cord around the neck is the problem, that happens all the time. It’s the 3 or 4 day labor. At some point during that long ass time, they should’ve gone to the hospital. For normal, average labors, like within the 12-14 hour range, like mine, its not a big deal most of the time to have a home birth.

ACOG is protecting their interests. Birth is the biggest moneymaker for hospitals. They recently put out an open call for homebirth horror stories on their website. I’m sure this “report” is first in line of a slew of negative homebirth information in an effort to stem the tide of women making informed choices about birth.

speechless.

Comments This piece was not one sided at all. Very well reported, actually, including a couple that had a successful home birth and a former World Health Organization guy who was also featured heavily in The Business of Being Born.

Comments
Things can go wrong anywhere. This wouldn’t have happened in a hospital. That baby would be alive. Midwives DO have an obligation to send women laboring for three days to the hospital.
The statistics are inaccurate for home birth because 40% of home births end up in the hospital. There is an increased risk to mother and baby in one’s home and people don’t realize this. We don’t have 100% of women giving birth at home and if we did the stats would show how much safer a hospital birth is.

I agree with the previous poster. At any point did the parents say “I want to go to the hospital”? At any point did Cara say “I think you should go to the hospital”? We don’t know because we weren’t there. It’s also possible that this same baby could have died in the hospital. We don’t know. There’s lots we don’t know. I also agree with a previous poster who commented about the lack of mentioning that babies die in hospitals every day. Every day. And I must say, as an RN and homebirther, I would have a baby in the hospital if they could let me birth and keep their damn hands and policies off of me and my baby.

I’m sorry I read the comments, a big part of me wants to describe to all of you what happened during those four days that I labored, the other part if appalled to find that a baby’s death is not heavy enough and that we need to have thousands more for this to have any impact on how midwifes operate. I had two ACNM certified midwives attending me during the birth of my baby, a labor and delivery nurse, and an acupuncturist who had birthed with Cara. My husband and I asked to go to the hospital about 5 times a day, we asked them if things were ok, if my progress was normal, they kept reassuring me, they kept reeling us in. Their response was, “There is NO clinical reason why you need to go to the hospital” We were first time parents, we took the classes, we read the books, nothing could have prepared us for this birth, we trusted our midwives, I remember looking at them, crying, saying, you’d tell me right?, you’d take me to the hospital if this is not going correctly, right? I remember saying to them, this does not feel right but what do I know?. My husband with tears in his eyes looked at our midwives and said, my priority is my baby and my wife, she responded, our interests are aligned. We trusted, when you are laboring parents, you can’t help but trust your care-providers. The previous posters that commented on it pretty much being our responsibility, try laboring for four days, try not eating, not sleeping, and then tell me if you could go against the people that are in charge of your care, if you could fight them, but I don’t excuse myself for trusting, that is something I have to live with day and day out, nobody forced me to trust.
Noa did not die of a tangled cord, that was not reported accurately. I live with the knowledge that if I would have been in the hospital, my baby would be alive today, and she would be 6 months old. I know women who have lost their babies in the hospital, it’s tragic, my baby was not given the chance to live, can you say that about most of the hospital’s deaths? A child that was meant to live is now dead because of care-providers. When you don’t have malpractice insurance, then you don’t have an insurance company saying to you, watch it, don’t walk that thin line, at the end of the day, my question is who is looking at my baby’s death, who is asking questions, who is Cara accountable to? Are our eyes the only eyes looking at this? That’s what we wanted when we gave that interview, we wanted other eyes on this, we wanted to inform people that when things go wrong, there is little you can do, there is no accountability. At the end of the day, I have to live with the absence of our daughter who still has a nursery, there will never be justice, or fairness, we just want some basic answers.