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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One fact I learned today -- that comes from the statement of facts agreed upon by the plea deal -- is that Carr tried for 20 minutes to free the baby's head and then another 13 minutes to resuscitate the baby before calling 911. Waiting 33 minutes to get additional medical help is inexcusable. I was supportive of her until I learned that.

Can you provide any sort of source for this? I am going to have nightmares about this for a long time to come. If this is true....poor little baby.....

It's in the Washington Post article linked to earlier in this thread.

[Anonymous]

Assuming the statement about 13 minutes is true, I am utterly shocked...My daughter was born a few weeks ago in a large hospital. She wasn't breathing well (1-min Apgar was 3) and had to be resuscitated. The NICU people appeared within 30 seconds of her birth and got her breathing normally within a few minutes. I can't imagine waiting 13 minutes to call for help!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the statement about 13 minutes is true, I am utterly shocked...My daughter was born a few weeks ago in a large hospital. She wasn't breathing well (1-min Apgar was 3) and had to be resuscitated. The NICU people appeared within 30 seconds of her birth and got her breathing normally within a few minutes. I can't imagine waiting 13 minutes to call for help!

Your baby survived easily. This poor baby died. In the year 2011 in Washington, DC, there is no excuse for this sort of ignorance. It's tragic.

[Anonymous]

Quote from the Washington Post: “When you add everything together, it was criminally negligent,” said Krista Boucher, chief deputy commonwealth’s attorney in Alexandria. “The baby never had a chance.”

If that is so, why did you then not pursue it? You are charging her only a few thousand dollars of the fee she has to return to the family? Really that's it? She can continue to practice?? Who cares if she can't practice in VA - DC and MD are right next door.

And then this from the same article:
"After Carr was arrested, Jolley, a certified professional midwife, founded In Service to Women, a group focused on providing legal aid to midwives and uniting home-birth advocates. She said the group has raised $45,000 in less than two months"

I feel sick.

[Anonymous]

I had the benefit of a doubt this whole time, because I thought; well, we don't really know what happened.

But after reading the Washington Post article, esp, the part about not calling 911, I feel enraged that someone can so easily get away with murder... you just have to be a certified professional midwife without a license and with a huge ego apparently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not calling 911 first is insanity (and utter negligence). It's the first step of CPR that you learn in any CPR course. CALL 911. Then and only then begin attempts at resuscitation.

Actually, for infants, you start rescue breathing first, and then call. But what I'm wondering is this-- there were other folks there, a birth assistant and the father, and perhaps others... no one thought it would be a good idea to pick up the phone and call 911? How can anyone stand there and watch someone do CPR for 13 minutes and not call 911?

This (starting rescue breating first, then call) is of course only, when you are completely alone, like in the woods without a cell phone. Like you wrote NOT if you are in a house with several other adults around, you tell someone to effing call 911 immediately while you are starting CPR. I can only guess that the other people present were in shock or under her spell or I don't know what. UNBELIEVABLE.

I'm just thinking of the PP who wrote she hopes that Carr will be available for her July home delivery... well, you got it girl. Hope you got the 3200 dollars ready for her.

[Anonymous]

I wonder... if she would have been a doctor who does home visits, but is not licensed in VA - the following would likely have happened: she would loose one by one all other licenses in all other states never to be practicing again, lawsuit would have been in the double digit millions, and noone would have raised any money for that woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One fact I learned today -- that comes from the statement of facts agreed upon by the plea deal -- is that Carr tried for 20 minutes to free the baby's head and then another 13 minutes to resuscitate the baby before calling 911. Waiting 33 minutes to get additional medical help is inexcusable. I was supportive of her until I learned that.

Can you provide any sort of source for this? I am going to have nightmares about this for a long time to come. If this is true....poor little baby.....

Why THE HELL is everyone so shocked by this? It was already said in the original article! It's the basis for SO MANY anti-Carr posts in here, and the basis of equally damning ones on how far midwife research can really take you. Did you think we were making it up??

I can only assume she either has a messianic complex or that she was covering her unlicensed ass by avoiding the 911 call. When I pushed on this, a Carr defender said “there was nothing that a speedy transfer would have accomplished in this case. When a baby is stuck, there is no EMT on the planet who is going to have more skill than the midwife to get it out, and, by the time you make it to a hospital it would be too late anyway” – like that makes the entire home-birth plan for this case any more logical???!!!!!! It just proved my point that controlling your birth plan FROM the hospital is safest.

Carr’s a perfect example of a how easy it is to misrepresent yourself as an experienced, responsible, ethical and competent, CERTIFIED midwife. Ego+$+covering her ass from liability. Sounds like what many have accused OBs of here… Women have the right to choose where to give birth. Exercise it objectively and defensively at least. Learn from this – ask what the plan is for emergencies and keep your cell phone nearby to override the midwife if you insist on doing this from home.

[Anonymous]

I can only assume she either has a messianic complex or that she was covering her unlicensed ass by avoiding the 911 call. When I pushed on this, a Carr defender said

May I ask, are you a reporter, or a lawyer, or?
Do you mean you were in the courtroom?
What about the very delayed 911 call?
Why did it go this way?
Why did the prosecution strike (propose?!) this deal?
A $5000 fine? In the Post they are talking about "criminally negligent", 'Reckless", "not providing the help that was needed to save the boy"...
How does that fit with a $5000 fine?

I could get fined more driving on the HOV lane at the wrong time!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I can only assume she either has a messianic complex or that she was covering her unlicensed ass by avoiding the 911 call. When I pushed on this, a Carr defender said

May I ask, are you a reporter, or a lawyer, or?
Do you mean you were in the courtroom?
What about the very delayed 911 call?
Why did it go this way?
Why did the prosecution strike (propose?!) this deal?
A $5000 fine? In the Post they are talking about "criminally negligent", 'Reckless", "not providing the help that was needed to save the boy"...
How does that fit with a $5000 fine?

I could get fined more driving on the HOV lane at the wrong time!

I don't know, but I wonder if it has to do with this part of the Washington Post article:

"Fifty to 75 people — including numerous babies — joined Carr in Alexandria Circuit Court on Thursday, standing when she walked into the courtroom in what supporter Nicole Jolley said was a show of respect. Jolley said Carr has “amazing skill.”"

Prosecutors are at least somewhat sensitive to public sentiment, and no one wants to look like a hater of women and babies. Karen has the perfect support group. Everybody loves babies, and everybody hates the jerk by himself in the HOV lane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I can only assume she either has a messianic complex or that she was covering her unlicensed ass by avoiding the 911 call. When I pushed on this, a Carr defender said

May I ask, are you a reporter, or a lawyer, or?
Do you mean you were in the courtroom?
What about the very delayed 911 call?
Why did it go this way?
Why did the prosecution strike (propose?!) this deal?
A $5000 fine? In the Post they are talking about "criminally negligent", 'Reckless", "not providing the help that was needed to save the boy"...
How does that fit with a $5000 fine?

I could get fined more driving on the HOV lane at the wrong time!

I wrote this and I'm sorry if it sounded like i was in the courtroom - Not at all. I was referring to the article from which this thread spawned, and a defender within the thread. Sorry - no courtroom info. I'd like answers to all these questions too. Parents, to a point, have the right to be the vulnerably mislead here or to do what they want with their body. Supposed professionals, however, have no right to be stupid and assist in it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I can only assume she either has a messianic complex or that she was covering her unlicensed ass by avoiding the 911 call. When I pushed on this, a Carr defender said

May I ask, are you a reporter, or a lawyer, or?
Do you mean you were in the courtroom?
What about the very delayed 911 call?
Why did it go this way?
Why did the prosecution strike (propose?!) this deal?
A $5000 fine? In the Post they are talking about "criminally negligent", 'Reckless", "not providing the help that was needed to save the boy"...
How does that fit with a $5000 fine?

I could get fined more driving on the HOV lane at the wrong time!

here's the article where the 911-delay was described before it was done so more extensively in court. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/midwife-faces-involuntary-manslaughter-charges/2011/04/18/AFTsqs1D_story.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the statement about 13 minutes is true, I am utterly shocked...My daughter was born a few weeks ago in a large hospital. She wasn't breathing well (1-min Apgar was 3) and had to be resuscitated. The NICU people appeared within 30 seconds of her birth and got her breathing normally within a few minutes. I can't imagine waiting 13 minutes to call for help!

Your baby survived easily. This poor baby died. In the year 2011 in Washington, DC, there is no excuse for this sort of ignorance. It's tragic.

You do realize that there are other babies who die and/or are severely brain damaged - yes, even in hospitals - due to getting stuck? Yes, it is tragic, but it has nothing to do with ignorance. In rare cases, babies get stuck and die at birth. Awful but true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Assuming the statement about 13 minutes is true, I am utterly shocked...My daughter was born a few weeks ago in a large hospital. She wasn't breathing well (1-min Apgar was 3) and had to be resuscitated. The NICU people appeared within 30 seconds of her birth and got her breathing normally within a few minutes. I can't imagine waiting 13 minutes to call for help!

Your baby survived easily. This poor baby died. In the year 2011 in Washington, DC, there is no excuse for this sort of ignorance. It's tragic.

You do realize that there are other babies who die and/or are severely brain damaged - yes, even in hospitals - due to getting stuck? Yes, it is tragic, but it has nothing to do with ignorance. In rare cases, babies get stuck and die at birth. Awful but true.

Yup, and it's also awful but true that at a hospital there are lots of skilled people around, so if a baby happens to get stuck she gets unstuck pretty quick. This scenario in a hospital (20 minutes trying to "unstick" a stuck baby, followed by 13 minutes of trying to resuscitate the baby alone before calling for help) would be called malpractice.

And I do think it has to do with ignorance. If you are a professional homebirth midwife, you need to have a better plan then "oh well, babies just get stuck sometimes and die." Karen Carr represented herself as an expert at breech delivery after having delivered 40-50 babies, but the way she handled this birth makes me wonder how many of those other breech babies may have had oxygen deprivation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One fact I learned today -- that comes from the statement of facts agreed upon by the plea deal -- is that Carr tried for 20 minutes to free the baby's head and then another 13 minutes to resuscitate the baby before calling 911. Waiting 33 minutes to get additional medical help is inexcusable. I was supportive of her until I learned that.

Can you provide any sort of source for this? I am going to have nightmares about this for a long time to come. If this is true....poor little baby.....

Why THE HELL is everyone so shocked by this? It was already said in the original article! It's the basis for SO MANY anti-Carr posts in here, and the basis of equally damning ones on how far midwife research can really take you. Did you think we were making it up??

I can only assume she either has a messianic complex or that she was covering her unlicensed ass by avoiding the 911 call. When I pushed on this, a Carr defender said “there was nothing that a speedy transfer would have accomplished in this case. When a baby is stuck, there is no EMT on the planet who is going to have more skill than the midwife to get it out, and, by the time you make it to a hospital it would be too late anyway” – like that makes the entire home-birth plan for this case any more logical???!!!!!! It just proved my point that controlling your birth plan FROM the hospital is safest.

Carr’s a perfect example of a how easy it is to misrepresent yourself as an experienced, responsible, ethical and competent, CERTIFIED midwife. Ego+$+covering her ass from liability. Sounds like what many have accused OBs of here… Women have the right to choose where to give birth. Exercise it objectively and defensively at least. Learn from this – ask what the plan is for emergencies and keep your cell phone nearby to override the midwife if you insist on doing this from home.

You are letting your rage get the better of you, or perhaps you don't really know much about birth. When a baby gets stuck during the birth, the only option is to work to free the baby and complete the delivery. A speedy 911 call is NOT going to change the outcome. An EMT is NOT going to be able to offer anything greater than what the skilled midwife/OB is already doing. Even having an operating room three doors down is NOT going to help. Once a baby is partially born, there are no other magic answers; you have to finish getting the baby out, and if more than 10 minutes pass, the baby is just not going to make it unless there is a miracle. Maybe you take some personal comfort from thinking that a hospital could have saved this baby, and I think that as mothers who are horrified at this case, it is easy to believe that the right medical team could have saved this baby. However, I honestly believe that the outcome would have been exactly the same regardless of where the birth occurred. This is a risk - thankfully an extremely small risk - that all mothers take when they give birth vaginally.

I think your assessment that Carr was just trying to cover her ass by not calling 911 is wrong, too. In these situations, the only reason homebirth midwives call 911 is precisely TO cover their asses. Everyone knows that it is not going to actually help the baby, it just helps relieve the care providers responsibility. Just because something goes wrong at a birth, it does not mean that the care provider has some huge ego or did something incompetently.