I know alot of people go on and on about how horrible hospital births are because of this or that. Be darned if I wasn't one of them!! We talk about how safe homebirth is and poo poo those who don't agree with us or support us. We warn other moms about the horrors of hospital birth. You know when people would tell me that babies used to die because they were born at home, I had my "research and statistics" to back me up and prove they were wrong. Wanna know one thing I have learned now??? We don't hear about deaths after homebirths because of the stigma. Your baby dies in the hospital and people feel sorry for you. Your baby dies after a homebirth and people automatically blame you, even if it wasn't your fault. Because you made the choice to birth at home, you don't really have a right to grieve. I have read so many stories of loss and there are actually groups just for homebirth loss. If homebirth was so much safer than the hospital, we wouldn't need those groups would we??? We talk about how if your low risk home is much safer. I have NEVER been high risk before yet home was the worst place my daughter could of been after her birth. Please, please think about how you promote homebirth as being so safe and wonderful. My daughter is dead because of homebirth. You don't want to be a number or a statistic.
If you want to promote homebirth, fine but please encourage the people to do their homework. There is more to homebirth than just labor and birth itself. There can be problems in the newborn. Make sure your midwife has no birth injuries, deaths, or stillbirths under her belt. Stillbirth can strike anyone, but please be concerned if someone has mulitiple ones. We do our research n the c-section rate of a hospital or doctor, but do you do the research on mortality rates in the midwife you are using??? Do they know anything about newborns?? Have you found out why a baby was injured or died from the parents and not just taken the midife's word??
My 4 hospital babies are here and healthy. Out of my two homebirth babies one is here and healthy while the other is in a cemetary. She is proof that homebirth isn't as safe as we all think.
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12 comments:
I am so sorry for your loss and your pain. I have been following your blog since you started it, and you write very movingly.
I run the Homebirth Debate blog where I have written repeatedly about the fact that all the existing research shows that homebirth increases the risk of neonatal death, but homebirth advocates are not honest with women about this information. It is up to a mother to decide what risks she wants to take, but she cannot make an informed decision without accurate information.
I am writing to ask your permission to link to your blog. Your words will have a powerful impact, and your story may prevent something similar happening to someone else. You can respond here or you can write to me privately at DrAmy5atAOL.com (replace the at with @).
Alternatively, if you would prefer not to have a link, but would like to tell your story, I will post it for you on my blog.
Sincerely,
Amy
You are such a strong woman Bambi. I keep your family in my prayers. this is Carey from CMF
Also, You have been tagged. You can check out the rules in my blog
http://3wonders.blogspot.com/
I am sorry for your loss, really I am. But, as a fellow Christian I must ask you if your faith in mankind is so strong that you know for a fact your daughter wouldn't have been a hosptial statistic either. There is still a chance that you or your child can die during a hospital birth. There are no guarantees in life or in birth, not even in a hospital. It is God who ultimately decides life or death, and He obviously decided to bring your little one home. Statistically speaking, home birth is safe. Doctors regard amniocentiesis as safe and there is a 1 in 200 chance it will cause the unborn child to die. With home birth there is a 1 in 1,000 chance your child will die. By modern logic, it is still safe. I am sorry that your child happened to be a statistic. But, for all you know tomorrow you could be the 1 in 77 statistic that dies in a car crash. Are you going to stop driving? God is in control. He was still in control during your daughter's birth. Do not be angry with yourself. Do not be angry with home birth advocates. If you need to direct your upset, direct it to the one who made the call.
I went back and read your earlier posts, but I still don't know enough about what happened to be able to judge what exactly happened.
One thing I note, however, and that is you advise finding a midwife who DOESN'T have a history of bad outcomes, or at least checking to find out how many births with bad outcomes she has attended.
There is a difference between an incompetent midwife, and a midwife who has seen enough catastrophes in her career to have a deep respect for the problems of birth, and who does not take the "trusting birth" attitude to absurd extremes.
As a certified nurse midwife who has been delivering babies for 40 years, I wouldn't take a gravida 6 as a patient for a homebirth, because of the risk of hemorrhage and uterine atony in the mother.
Since I'm not a Christian either, I don't buy the fatalism of the previous poster either, nor do I think the chances of the baby were as bad, or worse, in the hospital. Homebirth is NOT as safe as hospital birth, and that is not a statement of opinion, but of FACT.
You have my deepest sympathy. Losing a baby is a devastating, heartwrenching experience, regardless of where it takes place, but it is even more difficult when you feel that others blame you for your choices.
Here in the U.S., women are forced to choose between two extremes. You can go to a hospital where there's a one in three chance you'll have uneccessary surgery, or stay home with (probably) inadequate or no medical backup. The widening dichotomy and outright hostility between the "home" and "hospital" camps is disturbing and dangerous. It seems that unassisted childbirth has become more popular and the desire to birth at home "no matter what" more prevalent among some home birth advocates in recent years, while the AMA and ACOG have responded by vilifying home birth and direct-entry midwifery. The health and safety of mothers and babies would be better served by a middle ground position that acknowledges both the advantages of home birth and the necessity for qualified attendants and medical backup for the safety of mother and baby.
I am a board member of Ohio Families for Safe Birth, a consumer-led group that is advocating for licensure for midwives in Ohio, creating a minimum standard for practice to protect consumers and make home birth safer for families.
I am so very sorry for your loss of your beautiful little girl. Please know that you are in your readers' thoughts, and I am sending you healing energy.
A great book about loss is Empty Cradle, Broken Heart: Surviving the Death of Your Baby, which helped some of my friends after they lost their precious one to a congenital heart defect.
Much healing love your way...
Sincerely,
Karen
Dearest Mama,
I am so sorry that you have suffered this most tragic loss. I am so sorry that you have to live without your beautiful little girl by your side. I just want you to know that you are in my thoughts during this dark time. Please know that with time and much grief work you will begin to see the light again. Your curtain of grief will begin to lift...in time it will, I have seen it myself.
Take all the time you need to be with your grief. Never let anyone make you feel like you must rush through it, it is your grief...and no one elses.
Much love, sympathy and support.
Erin
Birdies Mama
3/7/2007
You say people feel sorry for you when you lose a baby that was born in the hospital but they blame you for losing a baby that was born at home. I imagine people do think that way & it must hurt you deeply.
You were only looking out for your daughter & trying to make the best choices for her....I can tell by your words that you love her very much.
I'm so sorry for your loss!
I'm so sorry for the loss of your dear baby. I can't imagine how much you must miss her.
Thank you for sharing your story and encouraging women to really think about the risks they are taking when they choose homebirth. I have had two babies at home (one accidentally and one planned), but I will not be planning any more homebirths now that I see how dangerous it really can be.
I am so sorry for the loss of your little one. I can't even begin to imagine why your midwife didn't recommend transferring care at the first signs of preterm labor!
I hope that your heart is healed over time, and that God grants you, and any other mothers who have lost their babies while doing the best they could for them (home or hospital births, as babies can die in either place), sufficient grace to make it through. I pray also that those who would do harm to women, or recommend routinely circumventing God's plan for women's bodies and birth, will not succeed by using tragic stories like yours to promote their callous agenda.
I am so sorry to hear about the loss of your precious baby. Thank you for doing what you can to educate people about the risks of home-birth. Please find peace in knowing that you made the best decision you could with the limited information you had at hand--what happened wasn't your fault.
I just wanted to say, I really agree 100% with you. Sadly with our first birth, our daughter almost died in the hospital. The doctors said it was a freak thing and my next pregnancy would go well. They never ran any tests. So we tried 2 years to get pregnant, and decided to go with a homebirth midwife. I will regret that decision for the rest of my life sadly. Homebirth is great for some people, but others, they will have to live the rest of their lives wondering teh "what ifs"...I really am not sure where I stand on homebirth anymore.
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