Midwife charged in DC? Karen Carr, CPM...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The problem is not getting sued -- the problem is getting the verdict against you. Any given the average jury, with grieving parents on one side, and a deep pocketed doctor and hospital on the other, money getting awarded regardless of fault is not unheard of.

I've experienced jury making a decision they felt was fair, rather than the one supported by the evidence. I was traveling and got held up at knife point. The perpetrators were caught, and tried. The jury found them them not guilty on the theft charge, but guilty on the knife charge (even though some of the stolen goods were found in their possession when they were arrested). That outcome makes NO actual sense, but the jury basically made the decision that while robbing tourists was fine, using a knife to do it was inappropriate and that was where they drew the line.

Yes. There IS a big problem with the legal system the way it is... The idea of the "jury" is American, stemming from the beginning of the nation, when being judged by your peers was truly that. But it seems more of a travesty today, as anyone who has been to several jury selections could attest to (unless you are a lawyer of course). The lawyers always eliminate the people that are educated in the field the case is about, and the selection in the end is often, well, questionable , because neither are they your 'peers' in any way, nor do they have any background in a related matter that may aid in sensible decision making...
I don't want to make anyone angry, but I feel the Jury system, while it was a great idea at the time, is outdated now... or should be.

For this case I predict that when they do the Jury selection, in the end, not a single person left in the jury will have any health education background whatsoever, and there will probably be no brand new moms/dads or pregnant women either.

[Anonymous]

previous PP 22:06: Sorry, of course the IDEA of the jury is not American... I guess I meant to say the idea of how it was started in this country initially...

other countries share this system, especially in the British Commonwealth, however I do not know if their Jury selection procedures are the same as here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity what drugs did they give that caused your baby to stop breathing?

I will mention that while I am 100% on board with informed consent, I do not think that the memory of laboring mothers is 100% accurate about what has gone on in their care, and whether risks were explained.

For example, I was saying to my husband shortly after the birth that before I got my epidural, I had no recollection of anyone discussing risks, etc. with me. My husband was there and said that in fact a brief but detailed discussion had gone on and that they asked specifically for my additional consent after that discussion. I 100% didn't recall this happening.

Not the pp but any narcotic pain medication given to the mother can cause respiratory distress in the baby. AT my midwife attended hospital birth, this was explained to me by the anesthesiologist. I think it is interesting that people equate being at a hospital with caring more about the baby than yourself, when the most common interventions, pain relief fOr the mother, have small but real risks for the child but are done for the comfort of the mother. It is totally hypocriticaL to claim not to care about the "experience" but then get pain relief. If you didn't care, you would just suffer to avoid ANY risk to the baby. Both sides care about the "experience" and both sides are full of It when they claim otherwise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity what drugs did they give that caused your baby to stop breathing?

I will mention that while I am 100% on board with informed consent, I do not think that the memory of laboring mothers is 100% accurate about what has gone on in their care, and whether risks were explained.

For example, I was saying to my husband shortly after the birth that before I got my epidural, I had no recollection of anyone discussing risks, etc. with me. My husband was there and said that in fact a brief but detailed discussion had gone on and that they asked specifically for my additional consent after that discussion. I 100% didn't recall this happening.

Not the pp but any narcotic pain medication given to the mother can cause respiratory distress in the baby. AT my midwife attended hospital birth, this was explained to me by the anesthesiologist. I think it is interesting that people equate being at a hospital with caring more about the baby than yourself, when the most common interventions, pain relief fOr the mother, have small but real risks for the child but are done for the comfort of the mother. It is totally hypocriticaL to claim not to care about the "experience" but then get pain relief. If you didn't care, you would just suffer to avoid ANY risk to the baby. Both sides care about the "experience" and both sides are full of It when they claim otherwise.

That's a very good point. Natural childbirth with no medication is safest for the baby unless C-section is absolutely necessary. My cousin nearly died from an allergic reaction to anesthesia when he was two years old. This could happen to anyone. I had unmedicated birth and my two babies were wide awake and alert, never had any of the sleepiness that babies have when their moms are medicated. My other kids were adopted at birth and their birthmoms were medicated and had epidurals. I could hardly wake those two kids up for weeks. I was so worried! It was hard to get them to even finish a bottle. I don't believe that epidurals don't effect the baby. I have seen so many sleepy epidural babies and when you compare them to the unmedicated babies of some of my friends, you can really see the difference! There are so many reasons not to use medication during vaginal birth but most women do this. Then they say you are putting the baby first when you choose hospital birth! It seems very hypocritical to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: I think it is interesting that people equate being at a hospital with caring more about the baby than yourself, when the most common interventions, pain relief fOr the mother, have small but real risks for the child but are done for the comfort of the mother. It is totally hypocriticaL to claim not to care about the "experience" but then get pain relief. If you didn't care, you would just suffer to avoid ANY risk to the baby. Both sides care about the "experience" and both sides are full of It when they claim otherwise.

So true! Women endure the sensations of natural childbirth because they want nothing to get in the way of their child's breathing or their ability to get the baby out safely or their ability to breastfeed the child, which is a health concern first and foremost. Not because they want a medal or to prove something. I think that all puts the child first, does it not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity what drugs did they give that caused your baby to stop breathing?

I will mention that while I am 100% on board with informed consent, I do not think that the memory of laboring mothers is 100% accurate about what has gone on in their care, and whether risks were explained.

For example, I was saying to my husband shortly after the birth that before I got my epidural, I had no recollection of anyone discussing risks, etc. with me. My husband was there and said that in fact a brief but detailed discussion had gone on and that they asked specifically for my additional consent after that discussion. I 100% didn't recall this happening.

Not the pp but any narcotic pain medication given to the mother can cause respiratory distress in the baby. AT my midwife attended hospital birth, this was explained to me by the anesthesiologist. I think it is interesting that people equate being at a hospital with caring more about the baby than yourself, when the most common interventions, pain relief fOr the mother, have small but real risks for the child but are done for the comfort of the mother. It is totally hypocriticaL to claim not to care about the "experience" but then get pain relief. If you didn't care, you would just suffer to avoid ANY risk to the baby. Both sides care about the "experience" and both sides are full of It when they claim otherwise.

That's a very good point. Natural childbirth with no medication is safest for the baby unless C-section is absolutely necessary. My cousin nearly died from an allergic reaction to anesthesia when he was two years old. This could happen to anyone. I had unmedicated birth and my two babies were wide awake and alert, never had any of the sleepiness that babies have when their moms are medicated. My other kids were adopted at birth and their birthmoms were medicated and had epidurals. I could hardly wake those two kids up for weeks. I was so worried! It was hard to get them to even finish a bottle. I don't believe that epidurals don't effect the baby. I have seen so many sleepy epidural babies and when you compare them to the unmedicated babies of some of my friends, you can really see the difference! There are so many reasons not to use medication during vaginal birth but most women do this. Then they say you are putting the baby first when you choose hospital birth! It seems very hypocritical to me.

If you think that the baby was sleepy for weeks because of an epidural you are sadly mistaken! Newborns SLEEP!!!! That's what they are supposed to do, the pediatrician will be concerned if they are too awake and alert from the get-go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RE: “it’s NOT about you”:

I this inflammatory comment (and the ones leading up to it). I also wrote about 5 COMPLEX responses here without taking the side of either hospital or homebirth, but promoting safety in calculation of risk. Mother’s HEALTH matters. The experience? DISTANT SECOND. And I’m noticing how many people respond to this “inflammatory” one but totally ignore the intelligently written others, by me or many other posters with a respectfully ‘camp do-what’s-best-for-every-situation-not-just-what-you’d-planned-for-yourself” stance. Much easier to jump on the quick answer than to have to argue against the well-articulated ones, I guess. Certainly easier to vilify anyone who disagrees with you (or at least doesn’t agree 100%). And if you think saying parenting being “not about you” translates to “screw you”, then you have much more than birth plans to figure out. BOTH MOTHERS AND FATHERS.

And to the poster who argued against my comment meaning “your child's health and safety should obviously trump the mother's desire to have a home birth/avoid a c-section. In many cases, both can be accomodated, but not all.”, you’re wrong. THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I MEANT.


And by the way – people who prefer a hospital don’t necessarily prefer the medicalization of the “experience”. YOU CAN SPEAK UP. I personally faced a very difficult birth and MANY parts of it should have been better, but do NOT condemn hospitals for it. Rather, I learned to speak up for myself no matter where I give birth. I didn’t like how they dealt with my complications but I do know they were real, medically surprising (though they run in my family), and require further hospital births. THEY CAN’T DO ANYTHING YOU DON’T CONSENT TO. I know that now. I will use that now. IF HOMEBIRTH IS SHAPING UP TO BE A SERIOUSLY INCREASED RISK AS IN THIS CASE, THEN YOU CAN INVEST THE SAME AMOUNT OF RESEARCH IN YOUR PROVIDER AND HOSPITAL AS YOU WOULD IN YOUR HOME BIRTH TEAM. And while I very much agree that it’s a sad and terrible thing that a breech vaginal birth won’t even be tried much in hospitals anymore, attempting this at home was riskier than the hospital’s c-section. Risking more for yourself won’t change the system that let you down. It’s just endangers you. And just b/c you don’t like c-sections doesn’t mean you don’t genuinely need one!

I didn’t imply that all homebirthers overrate the experience – I was responding to some posters who do. And this overrating of the “experience” part of birth when it comes to the detriment of the mother OR baby’s health is troublesome to me. HEALTH AND SAFETY OF BOTH in the forefront. So in the end, NO, it’s NOT about your birthing experience, it’s about a successful outcome. The minute your personal experience comes before that, you’re not making wise decisions anymore.

I'm one of the posters who responded to you. I appreciate your comment and on many levels, I do agree with you. I would never have made the choices the mom in this case made. I would also never decline a c section if a doctor I trusted thought I should get one. In my own midwife birth center birth, I did not decline AROM or the episiotomy I had after 3 hours of pushing, because I trusted my midwife's judgment.

This is NOT true of everyone. We can talk all we want about how if you don't trust your provider, you should just find a new one. I think it's important to recognize that that's not always possible. One thing I learned during my pregnancy was the almost overwhelming variety of choices that we have in this area. In my hometown, your options are 2 hospitals, which are basically the same. There are no birth centers. Until pretty recently, home birth was illegal and even now that it's no longer illegal for a midwife to attend homebirths, the long history of underground birth makes unlicensed CPMs basically the only ATTENDED option for women who don't want to birth in a hospital. Some of my friends have done this. For most of them, it went really well. For one of them, it did not. Her pregnancy was otherwise low risk. She and her baby almost died.

I also just cannot accept that the only way to have a good birth experience in a hospital setting is to fight for it every step of the way. We shouldn't have to fight for it. We have enough to deal with in labor. Arguing with the nurse over why you decline to have an epidural for the 10th time and explaining why you would prefer to push in whatever position feels right to you over and over again is not a good use of a laboring woman's energy.

My positive feelings about my birth experience make me feel excited to have another baby. It was hard and scary. Some parts of it did not go quite the way I'd planned. I didn't fight the changes because I didn't feel that they were being forced on me by an unfriendly medical person who saw me as just another name on a chart. I agree also with the poster (maybe you? I can't even tell anymore) who said that the birth experience is just one component of being a parent, but for many people, it's a huge component. If my experience had been traumatic, I would probably be going over and over it in my head, trying to figure out ways to avoid the things that went wrong next time. If the traumatic experience took place in a hospital, one thing I would probably want to avoid would be hospitals. If the traumatic experience took place at home, I would probably want to not have a second home birth. I think that's natural - thinking about our experiences and rationalizing our decisions. For me, the experience of labor and delivery was about 50% physical and 50% psychological. I came away from the experience physically AND psychologically healthy.

Bottom line: if a mom comes away from her birth experience physically healthy but psychologically damaged, it was NOT a healthy birth experience. Saying "suck it up and advocate for yourself" places the blame for the woman's psychological trauma solely on her shoulders. Maybe that's where it belongs, maybe not, but regardless of culpability, we have to learn to treat psychological problems as real problems, rather than something frivolous and made up.

[Anonymous]

Natural childbirth with no medication is safest for the baby unless C-section is absolutely necessary

What are you basing this on? Facts, please.

I got an epidural after enduring excruciating labor for well over 24 hours. I could still feel my contractions and I would argue that not being distracted by this preventable pain helped me deliver my healthy, alert baby vaginally. This notion that epidurals lead to drugged and drowsy babies is just plain bullshit.

Expectant mothers out there, don't believe the hype. Getting an epidural is your right as a modern woman living in a modern age. Would men undergo painful medical prodedures without pain medication? Would you insist that your child do so?

[Anonymous]

PP, I was going to write something similar in response to that post. Also, babies don't HAVE to finish bottles: they should drink what they want and not be forced to have a proscribed volume of milk. Has nothing whatsoever to do with whether the mom had an epidural.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If you think that the baby was sleepy for weeks because of an epidural you are sadly mistaken! Newborns SLEEP!!!! That's what they are supposed to do, the pediatrician will be concerned if they are too awake and alert from the get-go.

I guess you have never seen a naturally birthed baby? They most certainly do not sleep as hard as long-epidural babies. I've had two of each. Drug-free babies are wide awake at birth and can actually crawl to the breast and latch themselves on under their own power. I couldn't get my epi babies to even latch on until the next day.

[Anonymous]

Many women dilate much more quickly after being given an epidural. They are finally able to relax and let their body do what it needs to do. Much better for the baby that prolonged labor.

[Anonymous]

I guess you have not seen a hospital born baby whose mother had an epidural. Both of my babies latched on and nursed vigorously right after birth. One vaginal delivery and one (gasp) c-section delivery. Both alert, both nursing, both loved and mom completely fine. Years hence, both active and smart.

[Anonymous]

It's really nobody's business except the woman's and her partner's. I don't see, how in a world where there is choice concerning abortion (which there should be) there would be so much condemnation about choice concerning birth. If we trust that women are smart, sovereign humans (and we must, really) we must let them make their own decisions about matters of their bodies. Maybe my opinion or yours is that the mother here made an unwise choice, but it was hers to make and hers to live with.

I don't see how you can say that when the mother is blaming Birthcare and Karen Carr. Maybe it is their fault, I know nothing about what they did or said, but this person is not saying "I made my own informed decision and I must live with it."

[Anonymous]

think it is interesting that people equate being at a hospital with caring more about the baby than yourself, when the most common interventions, pain relief fOr the mother, have small but real risks for the child but are done for the comfort of the mother.

Of course, it depends on whether there is a medical need to be in the hospital (a high risk birth etc.). Also, just because you are at a hospital doesn't mean you need to get an epidural. I didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just out of curiosity what drugs did they give that caused your baby to stop breathing?

I will mention that while I am 100% on board with informed consent, I do not think that the memory of laboring mothers is 100% accurate about what has gone on in their care, and whether risks were explained.

For example, I was saying to my husband shortly after the birth that before I got my epidural, I had no recollection of anyone discussing risks, etc. with me. My husband was there and said that in fact a brief but detailed discussion had gone on and that they asked specifically for my additional consent after that discussion. I 100% didn't recall this happening.

Not the pp but any narcotic pain medication given to the mother can cause respiratory distress in the baby. AT my midwife attended hospital birth, this was explained to me by the anesthesiologist. I think it is interesting that people equate being at a hospital with caring more about the baby than yourself, when the most common interventions, pain relief fOr the mother, have small but real risks for the child but are done for the comfort of the mother. It is totally hypocriticaL to claim not to care about the "experience" but then get pain relief. If you didn't care, you would just suffer to avoid ANY risk to the baby. Both sides care about the "experience" and both sides are full of It when they claim otherwise.

That's a very good point. Natural childbirth with no medication is safest for the baby unless C-section is absolutely necessary. My cousin nearly died from an allergic reaction to anesthesia when he was two years old. This could happen to anyone. I had unmedicated birth and my two babies were wide awake and alert, never had any of the sleepiness that babies have when their moms are medicated. My other kids were adopted at birth and their birthmoms were medicated and had epidurals. I could hardly wake those two kids up for weeks. I was so worried! It was hard to get them to even finish a bottle. I don't believe that epidurals don't effect the baby. I have seen so many sleepy epidural babies and when you compare them to the unmedicated babies of some of my friends, you can really see the difference! There are so many reasons not to use medication during vaginal birth but most women do this. Then they say you are putting the baby first when you choose hospital birth! It seems very hypocritical to me.

If you think that the baby was sleepy for weeks because of an epidural you are sadly mistaken! Newborns SLEEP!!!! That's what they are supposed to do, the pediatrician will be concerned if they are too awake and alert from the get-go.

This is because doctors are so used to medicated babies now. It has become the "norm" that it's difficult to wake a newborn but mothers with unmedicated babies know that their babies are alert and not too difficult to wake up all of the time. This does not mean that they don't sleep at all! It means that they have long periods of "quiet alert." No doctor is going too worry if your baby is awake and alert! That's crazy!