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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am all in favor of women making choices about how and where she gives birth, and that includes giving birth at home. But people like you make the whole homebirth movement look stupid with comments like this. Unless, of course, you're some kind of troll who is trying to do exactly that.

I never thought of myself as that
but I have 2 close friends who have had still births.
What are you after? Victimizing women or criminalizing people who want something more than assembly line care?
Or are you trying to deny this could not have happened in a hospital?
If her health was that much at risk, she would not have been able to have a home birth. The midwives actually work with the doctors, not against them

What "her"? The mother in this case? Her homebirth certainly wasn't condoned by an OB, and Karen Carr, illegal midwife, doesn't work with OBs.

I'm very sorry for your friends, but the intrapartum mortality rate is 0.3/1000 in the US. That is, the rate at which a baby is alive at the beginning of labor and born dead. It's very, very rare for a baby to start labor alive and be born dead in a hospital.

Obviously you have a great deal of hatred for direct entry midwives, and I suppose that is your right. However, many highly educated women disagree with you. Additionally, while you may think you know all the details of this particular case, YOU DO NOT. In this case, no one advised the mother that she must have a cesarean. The OB she consulted with agreed to attend a vaginal breech delivery with her. Also, Karen Carr does in fact collaborate with some local OBs - not that you would know this, because you have an intense bias against CPMs and make sweeping statements about them without knowing the facts.

I also meant to say, that it is pretty much a straw man to say that "her homebirth wasn't condoned by an OB", because, well, there aren't any OBs who condone homebirth. ACOG continues to put out statements which damn homebirth, based on studies which have been completely discredited. Which, interestingly enough, contributes to women's perceptions that OBs lie and cannot be trusted.

Right. Go look at the raw data available online for homebirth deaths in Colorado and Wisconsin and then tell me more about how I'm lying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Obviously you have a great deal of hatred for direct entry midwives, and I suppose that is your right. However, many highly educated women disagree with you. Additionally, while you may think you know all the details of this particular case, YOU DO NOT. In this case, no one advised the mother that she must have a cesarean. The OB she consulted with agreed to attend a vaginal breech delivery with her. Also, Karen Carr does in fact collaborate with some local OBs - not that you would know this, because you have an intense bias against CPMs and make sweeping statements about them without knowing the facts.

I also meant to say, that it is pretty much a straw man to say that "her homebirth wasn't condoned by an OB", because, well, there aren't any OBs who condone homebirth. ACOG continues to put out statements which damn homebirth, based on studies which have been completely discredited. Which, interestingly enough, contributes to women's perceptions that OBs lie and cannot be trusted.

Actually, my OB does condone homebirth for low-risk moms with a skilled attendant. She worked with Doctors without Borders and I have a feeling she "gets it". I only saw her for my D&C when I lost my last pregnancy and told her I would continue to see her until I had a viable pregnancy at which point I was planning to switch to a hb practice. She was cool with that. As luck would have it, I'm pregnant with twins and basically the only literature I could find on safety for a primip to deliver twins at home...is well, nonexistent (unless you count a few YouTube videos and blog stories). I don't want to deliver in a hospital, but I've had to weigh risks and benefits and there are very, very few options for who to deliver with in the area (Karen Carr being one of the few, but I don't think she's taking on new clients these days). My doc is allowing my care to be comanaged with the midwives group and will let me go to full term. Imagine that?!

[Anonymous]

I also meant to say, that it is pretty much a straw man to say that "her homebirth wasn't condoned by an OB", because, well, there aren't any OBs who condone homebirth. ACOG continues to put out statements which damn homebirth, based on studies which have been completely discredited. Which, interestingly enough, contributes to women's perceptions that OBs lie and cannot be trusted.

Actually, my OB does condone homebirth for low-risk moms with a skilled attendant. She worked with Doctors without Borders and I have a feeling she "gets it". I only saw her for my D&C when I lost my last pregnancy and told her I would continue to see her until I had a viable pregnancy at which point I was planning to switch to a hb practice. She was cool with that. As luck would have it, I'm pregnant with twins and basically the only literature I could find on safety for a primip to deliver twins at home...is well, nonexistent (unless you count a few YouTube videos and blog stories). I don't want to deliver in a hospital, but I've had to weigh risks and benefits and there are very, very few options for who to deliver with in the area (Karen Carr being one of the few, but I don't think she's taking on new clients these days). My doc is allowing my care to be comanaged with the midwives group and will let me go to full term. Imagine that?!

[Anonymous]

This thread won't die. What are the odds that it's KC herself playing the role of the spokesperson for the empower women/nature knows best/all ob's are evil etc etc point of view?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread won't die. What are the odds that it's KC herself playing the role of the spokesperson for the empower women/nature knows best/all ob's are evil etc etc point of view?

This made me laugh out loud. Because I personally know Karen, I would say the odds are 0%. There are so many posters on here posting bullshit about Karen Carr and CPMs, just dragging in their own agenda and bias, without ANY inside information about this case and the people (family and midwife) involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am all in favor of women making choices about how and where she gives birth, and that includes giving birth at home. But people like you make the whole homebirth movement look stupid with comments like this. Unless, of course, you're some kind of troll who is trying to do exactly that.

I never thought of myself as that
but I have 2 close friends who have had still births.
What are you after? Victimizing women or criminalizing people who want something more than assembly line care?
Or are you trying to deny this could not have happened in a hospital?
If her health was that much at risk, she would not have been able to have a home birth. The midwives actually work with the doctors, not against them

What "her"? The mother in this case? Her homebirth certainly wasn't condoned by an OB, and Karen Carr, illegal midwife, doesn't work with OBs.

I'm very sorry for your friends, but the intrapartum mortality rate is 0.3/1000 in the US. That is, the rate at which a baby is alive at the beginning of labor and born dead. It's very, very rare for a baby to start labor alive and be born dead in a hospital.

Obviously you have a great deal of hatred for direct entry midwives, and I suppose that is your right. However, many highly educated women disagree with you. Additionally, while you may think you know all the details of this particular case, YOU DO NOT. In this case, no one advised the mother that she must have a cesarean. The OB she consulted with agreed to attend a vaginal breech delivery with her. Also, Karen Carr does in fact collaborate with some local OBs - not that you would know this, because you have an intense bias against CPMs and make sweeping statements about them without knowing the facts.

I have an intense bias against CPMs who don't have enough knowledge to take on high-risk cases, and then take them on anyway. Babies die that way. And I call bs that Carr "collaborates" with local OBs. OBs have to carry malpractice insurance, and anyone actually collaborating with them (CNMs, for example) falls under the umbrella of that insurance. Since Carr has demonstrated that she won't be limited by the law or common sense, all she would have to offer in such a "collaboration" is an increased risk of getting sued. So no, I don't believe for a minute that she "collaborates" with OBs. She might have someone who will help her get some prenatal testing done, but that's about it. Collaboration doesn't mean "I do what I want until I mess up and then you fix it." Collaboration means that everyone on the team is on the same page regarding patient care.

Also, I will take what statistics say over what "highly educated women" say when choosing the safest course for my family. To do otherwise is certainly your right.

You kind of sound crazy with the depth of your hatred. No one is encouraging you, or anyone else for that matter, to choose ANY type of birth. The entire point here, with this case, with homebirth, and with CPMs, is that all women should have the option to birth as they wish, with the type of care provider that they want. Yes, I personally know many highly educated families who choose to birth their breech, twin, and VBAC babies (along with regular singleton, vertex babies) with the assistance of CPMs. Most of them have undertaken extensive research to help make their decisions, as well as having strong personal reasons to avoid the medical model of birth. As I've read through this thread, I have found myself wondering over and over why it is that we, as a nation, so easily grant women the right to abort their babies, yet seem to struggle so deeply with allowing women to make decisions about how to birth their babies. Truly, the only concern that we should have about this case is whether or not Karen Carr misrepresented her skills and experience to this family. In other words, did they have full informed consent? If so, no one did anything wrong. Also, I completely reject your statement that Karen lacks common sense or knowledge about high risk cases. Midwives in this area will often recommend a woman have a consultation with Karen, precisely because she is so skilled and knowledgeable. You are also wrong about her relationship with OBs. She does in fact collaborate with some, as well as with CNMs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am all in favor of women making choices about how and where she gives birth, and that includes giving birth at home. But people like you make the whole homebirth movement look stupid with comments like this. Unless, of course, you're some kind of troll who is trying to do exactly that.

I never thought of myself as that
but I have 2 close friends who have had still births.
What are you after? Victimizing women or criminalizing people who want something more than assembly line care?
Or are you trying to deny this could not have happened in a hospital?
If her health was that much at risk, she would not have been able to have a home birth. The midwives actually work with the doctors, not against them

What "her"? The mother in this case? Her homebirth certainly wasn't condoned by an OB, and Karen Carr, illegal midwife, doesn't work with OBs.

I'm very sorry for your friends, but the intrapartum mortality rate is 0.3/1000 in the US. That is, the rate at which a baby is alive at the beginning of labor and born dead. It's very, very rare for a baby to start labor alive and be born dead in a hospital.

Obviously you have a great deal of hatred for direct entry midwives, and I suppose that is your right. However, many highly educated women disagree with you. Additionally, while you may think you know all the details of this particular case, YOU DO NOT. In this case, no one advised the mother that she must have a cesarean. The OB she consulted with agreed to attend a vaginal breech delivery with her. Also, Karen Carr does in fact collaborate with some local OBs - not that you would know this, because you have an intense bias against CPMs and make sweeping statements about them without knowing the facts.

I have an intense bias against CPMs who don't have enough knowledge to take on high-risk cases, and then take them on anyway. Babies die that way. And I call bs that Carr "collaborates" with local OBs. OBs have to carry malpractice insurance, and anyone actually collaborating with them (CNMs, for example) falls under the umbrella of that insurance. Since Carr has demonstrated that she won't be limited by the law or common sense, all she would have to offer in such a "collaboration" is an increased risk of getting sued. So no, I don't believe for a minute that she "collaborates" with OBs. She might have someone who will help her get some prenatal testing done, but that's about it. Collaboration doesn't mean "I do what I want until I mess up and then you fix it." Collaboration means that everyone on the team is on the same page regarding patient care.

Also, I will take what statistics say over what "highly educated women" say when choosing the safest course for my family. To do otherwise is certainly your right.

You kind of sound crazy with the depth of your hatred. No one is encouraging you, or anyone else for that matter, to choose ANY type of birth. The entire point here, with this case, with homebirth, and with CPMs, is that all women should have the option to birth as they wish, with the type of care provider that they want. Yes, I personally know many highly educated families who choose to birth their breech, twin, and VBAC babies (along with regular singleton, vertex babies) with the assistance of CPMs. Most of them have undertaken extensive research to help make their decisions, as well as having strong personal reasons to avoid the medical model of birth. As I've read through this thread, I have found myself wondering over and over why it is that we, as a nation, so easily grant women the right to abort their babies, yet seem to struggle so deeply with allowing women to make decisions about how to birth their babies. Truly, the only concern that we should have about this case is whether or not Karen Carr misrepresented her skills and experience to this family. In other words, did they have full informed consent? If so, no one did anything wrong. Also, I completely reject your statement that Karen lacks common sense or knowledge about high risk cases. Midwives in this area will often recommend a woman have a consultation with Karen, precisely because she is so skilled and knowledgeable. You are also wrong about her relationship with OBs. She does in fact collaborate with some, as well as with CNMs.

who? please name one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am all in favor of women making choices about how and where she gives birth, and that includes giving birth at home. But people like you make the whole homebirth movement look stupid with comments like this. Unless, of course, you're some kind of troll who is trying to do exactly that.

I never thought of myself as that
but I have 2 close friends who have had still births.
What are you after? Victimizing women or criminalizing people who want something more than assembly line care?
Or are you trying to deny this could not have happened in a hospital?
If her health was that much at risk, she would not have been able to have a home birth. The midwives actually work with the doctors, not against them

What "her"? The mother in this case? Her homebirth certainly wasn't condoned by an OB, and Karen Carr, illegal midwife, doesn't work with OBs.

I'm very sorry for your friends, but the intrapartum mortality rate is 0.3/1000 in the US. That is, the rate at which a baby is alive at the beginning of labor and born dead. It's very, very rare for a baby to start labor alive and be born dead in a hospital.

Obviously you have a great deal of hatred for direct entry midwives, and I suppose that is your right. However, many highly educated women disagree with you. Additionally, while you may think you know all the details of this particular case, YOU DO NOT. In this case, no one advised the mother that she must have a cesarean. The OB she consulted with agreed to attend a vaginal breech delivery with her. Also, Karen Carr does in fact collaborate with some local OBs - not that you would know this, because you have an intense bias against CPMs and make sweeping statements about them without knowing the facts.

I have an intense bias against CPMs who don't have enough knowledge to take on high-risk cases, and then take them on anyway. Babies die that way. And I call bs that Carr "collaborates" with local OBs. OBs have to carry malpractice insurance, and anyone actually collaborating with them (CNMs, for example) falls under the umbrella of that insurance. Since Carr has demonstrated that she won't be limited by the law or common sense, all she would have to offer in such a "collaboration" is an increased risk of getting sued. So no, I don't believe for a minute that she "collaborates" with OBs. She might have someone who will help her get some prenatal testing done, but that's about it. Collaboration doesn't mean "I do what I want until I mess up and then you fix it." Collaboration means that everyone on the team is on the same page regarding patient care.

Also, I will take what statistics say over what "highly educated women" say when choosing the safest course for my family. To do otherwise is certainly your right.

You kind of sound crazy with the depth of your hatred. No one is encouraging you, or anyone else for that matter, to choose ANY type of birth. The entire point here, with this case, with homebirth, and with CPMs, is that all women should have the option to birth as they wish, with the type of care provider that they want. Yes, I personally know many highly educated families who choose to birth their breech, twin, and VBAC babies (along with regular singleton, vertex babies) with the assistance of CPMs. Most of them have undertaken extensive research to help make their decisions, as well as having strong personal reasons to avoid the medical model of birth. As I've read through this thread, I have found myself wondering over and over why it is that we, as a nation, so easily grant women the right to abort their babies, yet seem to struggle so deeply with allowing women to make decisions about how to birth their babies. Truly, the only concern that we should have about this case is whether or not Karen Carr misrepresented her skills and experience to this family. In other words, did they have full informed consent? If so, no one did anything wrong. Also, I completely reject your statement that Karen lacks common sense or knowledge about high risk cases. Midwives in this area will often recommend a woman have a consultation with Karen, precisely because she is so skilled and knowledgeable. You are also wrong about her relationship with OBs. She does in fact collaborate with some, as well as with CNMs.

I have read every single entry and I can honestly say that I haven't read much pro-hospital that translated to "home birth shouldn't be an available or legal choice". I have read opinions that inform everyone in making their choice, and I have read much about having legal regulations in how home births are monitored and accounted for, and regarding the qualifications involved. None of that says "it should be illegal and women shouldn't have the choice".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You kind of sound crazy with the depth of your hatred. No one is encouraging you, or anyone else for that matter, to choose ANY type of birth. The entire point here, with this case, with homebirth, and with CPMs, is that all women should have the option to birth as they wish, with the type of care provider that they want. Yes, I personally know many highly educated families who choose to birth their breech, twin, and VBAC babies (along with regular singleton, vertex babies) with the assistance of CPMs. Most of them have undertaken extensive research to help make their decisions, as well as having strong personal reasons to avoid the medical model of birth. As I've read through this thread, I have found myself wondering over and over why it is that we, as a nation, so easily grant women the right to abort their babies, yet seem to struggle so deeply with allowing women to make decisions about how to birth their babies. Truly, the only concern that we should have about this case is whether or not Karen Carr misrepresented her skills and experience to this family. In other words, did they have full informed consent? If so, no one did anything wrong. Also, I completely reject your statement that Karen lacks common sense or knowledge about high risk cases. Midwives in this area will often recommend a woman have a consultation with Karen, precisely because she is so skilled and knowledgeable. You are also wrong about her relationship with OBs. She does in fact collaborate with some, as well as with CNMs.

I'm not sure why you keep insisting that I'm full of "hatred" because I argue that CPMs don't have enough knowledge or training to work on there own with no backup except to call 911. Why don't you argue by telling me about the experience they all get in handling the most common maternal and neonatal complications before they can practice alone? Or the excellent way their training compares to that of CNMs and OBs? Or about their excellent mortality statistics? When you keep making assumptions about my personality and claiming that "highly educated people do it so it must be safe" instead of supporting your case, you look like you don't have anything to support your case.

And Karen is so knowledgable that she told a newspaper in an interview that she 1) didn't recognize the importance of respiratory distress in a newborn, and 2) didn't bother to find out what caused it even after the newborn died. That's not the kind of knowledgable practitioner I want anywhere near my baby. Again, to choose otherwise is your right.

[Anonymous]

This was posted on another site.

"I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with mothering.com. It’s a “natural family” magazine that promotes attachment parenting and alternative healthcare. It also has an extremely active forum. On this forum, a C-section is the height of tragedy, always caused by needless interventions from OBs. Homebirth is a much better option, only topped by “unassisted birth,” which is the pinnacle of crunchiness.

Anyway, here is a recent situation from the forum. A woman at 38 weeks posts that she is having trouble with her homebirth midwife. Her blood pressure has been rising, and she feels that the midwife is being unnecessarily alarmist Her BP is 130/100. At her next visit two days later, her BP is still high. Her midwife tells her that she needs to transfer her care to the high-risk OB that she works with. She tells her that she most likely will need to be induced in the hospital. There is lots of rallying around the poster on the forum, with almost all of the people telling her that the midwife is fear-mongering and will crush her dreams for a homebirth. A few days later, the poster states that she has found a new midwife, but she’s keeping it on the down-low because there are “licensing issues.” No further word for two weeks, and then this gets posted:

“DP and I unexpectedly and unexplainedly lost our full-term baby late Sunday.

I went through 4.5 days of labor, the last day very intense with painful contractions one on top of the other. Labor was progressing, and we were hoping for a mother's day baby, but we (and our midwives) were starting to get worried that labor was lasting so long. It seemed like the head was presenting in a non-flex position and I still had a cervical lip (but was soft and fully effaced) - those factors were making labor slightly difficult, but other than that, the baby was still positioned well and had a healthy heartbeat around 2pm.

We decided to transfer to the hospital because of the head position and the fact that I was starting to get exhausted. When we arrived (and it took them nearly 90min to check us in, even though it was clear I was in active, painful labor!), even the senior-most OB staff were unable to find any indication of fetal heartbeat and informed us that there was no way to resuscitate or otherwise fix the situation.

I gave birth to a beautiful little stillborn girl later that night - pushed her out in about 25 minutes even though the medical staff insisted it would take no less than two hours.

The doctors don't really have an answer as to what happened with the baby. One doctor speculated that she'd been dead inside me for several days (he didn't seem to believe that a midwife/doula's doppler heart beat reading could be accurate - he assumed they must have been getting the maternal heart rate), but we have strong evidence otherwise . All the doctors seemed clear that most often in cases like this, a cause is rarely found, and statistically speaking, about 3% of babies just don't make it. We're still waiting to see if the labs that were sent off will tell us anything, but we know they may not.

I'm very fortunate I was able to deliver vaginally and everything is looking healthy, so there's no question that any future children can be delivered naturally/vaginally. I checked myself out of the hospital AMA this morning (they wanted an extra 24 hours of observation beyond any treatment) - DP and I just wanted to get home, cleanup the mess from the labor and the constant stream of people in/out of our house for 4 days …

DP and I are now at home recovering, grieving, and trying to put the pieces back together.”



Horrifying and completely preventable, IMO. The midwife took on a patient with PIH and let her labor past term for 4.5 DAYS!!

This is what happens when people value their “birth experience” over having a healthy baby."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YAnd Karen is so knowledgable that she told a newspaper in an interview that she 1) didn't recognize the importance of respiratory distress in a newborn, and 2) didn't bother to find out what caused it even after the newborn died. That's not the kind of knowledgable practitioner I want anywhere near my baby. Again, to choose otherwise is your right.

Don't bother. I've said this in 4 separate posts and NOT ONE Carr advocate has addressed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was posted on another site.

"I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with mothering.com. It’s a “natural family” magazine that promotes attachment parenting and alternative healthcare. It also has an extremely active forum. On this forum, a C-section is the height of tragedy, always caused by needless interventions from OBs. Homebirth is a much better option, only topped by “unassisted birth,” which is the pinnacle of crunchiness.

Anyway, here is a recent situation from the forum. A woman at 38 weeks posts that she is having trouble with her homebirth midwife. Her blood pressure has been rising, and she feels that the midwife is being unnecessarily alarmist Her BP is 130/100. At her next visit two days later, her BP is still high. Her midwife tells her that she needs to transfer her care to the high-risk OB that she works with. She tells her that she most likely will need to be induced in the hospital. There is lots of rallying around the poster on the forum, with almost all of the people telling her that the midwife is fear-mongering and will crush her dreams for a homebirth. A few days later, the poster states that she has found a new midwife, but she’s keeping it on the down-low because there are “licensing issues.” No further word for two weeks, and then this gets posted:

“DP and I unexpectedly and unexplainedly lost our full-term baby late Sunday.

I went through 4.5 days of labor, the last day very intense with painful contractions one on top of the other. Labor was progressing, and we were hoping for a mother's day baby, but we (and our midwives) were starting to get worried that labor was lasting so long. It seemed like the head was presenting in a non-flex position and I still had a cervical lip (but was soft and fully effaced) - those factors were making labor slightly difficult, but other than that, the baby was still positioned well and had a healthy heartbeat around 2pm.

We decided to transfer to the hospital because of the head position and the fact that I was starting to get exhausted. When we arrived (and it took them nearly 90min to check us in, even though it was clear I was in active, painful labor!), even the senior-most OB staff were unable to find any indication of fetal heartbeat and informed us that there was no way to resuscitate or otherwise fix the situation.

I gave birth to a beautiful little stillborn girl later that night - pushed her out in about 25 minutes even though the medical staff insisted it would take no less than two hours.

The doctors don't really have an answer as to what happened with the baby. One doctor speculated that she'd been dead inside me for several days (he didn't seem to believe that a midwife/doula's doppler heart beat reading could be accurate - he assumed they must have been getting the maternal heart rate), but we have strong evidence otherwise . All the doctors seemed clear that most often in cases like this, a cause is rarely found, and statistically speaking, about 3% of babies just don't make it. We're still waiting to see if the labs that were sent off will tell us anything, but we know they may not.

I'm very fortunate I was able to deliver vaginally and everything is looking healthy, so there's no question that any future children can be delivered naturally/vaginally. I checked myself out of the hospital AMA this morning (they wanted an extra 24 hours of observation beyond any treatment) - DP and I just wanted to get home, cleanup the mess from the labor and the constant stream of people in/out of our house for 4 days …

DP and I are now at home recovering, grieving, and trying to put the pieces back together.”



Horrifying and completely preventable, IMO. The midwife took on a patient with PIH and let her labor past term for 4.5 DAYS!!

This is what happens when people value their “birth experience” over having a healthy baby."

Unfortunately, from what I read, they seem to blame the docs and nothing else. Don't get me wrong - 90 minutes to check in someone in active labor is ridiculous (THIS IS WHY HAVING AN INFORMED OB AND HOSPITAL "ON-CALL" IS SO IMPORTANT WITH HOME-BIRTHING!!!!). But that said, the distress seemed to have started long before they got to the hospital despite an active heartbeat. Seems to me that even when the "goddess midwife" suggests a hospital, she's then seen as a villain who's sold out to the med indust. and replaced with a less responsible one. Also, mothering.com is incredibly biased to their own cause and if that post had been a warning regarding certain issues with home birthing, it would have been removed before you could read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was posted on another site.

"I’m not sure how many of you are familiar with mothering.com. It’s a “natural family” magazine that promotes attachment parenting and alternative healthcare. It also has an extremely active forum. On this forum, a C-section is the height of tragedy, always caused by needless interventions from OBs. Homebirth is a much better option, only topped by “unassisted birth,” which is the pinnacle of crunchiness.

Anyway, here is a recent situation from the forum. A woman at 38 weeks posts that she is having trouble with her homebirth midwife. Her blood pressure has been rising, and she feels that the midwife is being unnecessarily alarmist Her BP is 130/100. At her next visit two days later, her BP is still high. Her midwife tells her that she needs to transfer her care to the high-risk OB that she works with. She tells her that she most likely will need to be induced in the hospital. There is lots of rallying around the poster on the forum, with almost all of the people telling her that the midwife is fear-mongering and will crush her dreams for a homebirth. A few days later, the poster states that she has found a new midwife, but she’s keeping it on the down-low because there are “licensing issues.” No further word for two weeks, and then this gets posted:

“DP and I unexpectedly and unexplainedly lost our full-term baby late Sunday.

I went through 4.5 days of labor, the last day very intense with painful contractions one on top of the other. Labor was progressing, and we were hoping for a mother's day baby, but we (and our midwives) were starting to get worried that labor was lasting so long. It seemed like the head was presenting in a non-flex position and I still had a cervical lip (but was soft and fully effaced) - those factors were making labor slightly difficult, but other than that, the baby was still positioned well and had a healthy heartbeat around 2pm.

We decided to transfer to the hospital because of the head position and the fact that I was starting to get exhausted. When we arrived (and it took them nearly 90min to check us in, even though it was clear I was in active, painful labor!), even the senior-most OB staff were unable to find any indication of fetal heartbeat and informed us that there was no way to resuscitate or otherwise fix the situation.

I gave birth to a beautiful little stillborn girl later that night - pushed her out in about 25 minutes even though the medical staff insisted it would take no less than two hours.

The doctors don't really have an answer as to what happened with the baby. One doctor speculated that she'd been dead inside me for several days (he didn't seem to believe that a midwife/doula's doppler heart beat reading could be accurate - he assumed they must have been getting the maternal heart rate), but we have strong evidence otherwise . All the doctors seemed clear that most often in cases like this, a cause is rarely found, and statistically speaking, about 3% of babies just don't make it. We're still waiting to see if the labs that were sent off will tell us anything, but we know they may not.

I'm very fortunate I was able to deliver vaginally and everything is looking healthy, so there's no question that any future children can be delivered naturally/vaginally. I checked myself out of the hospital AMA this morning (they wanted an extra 24 hours of observation beyond any treatment) - DP and I just wanted to get home, cleanup the mess from the labor and the constant stream of people in/out of our house for 4 days …

DP and I are now at home recovering, grieving, and trying to put the pieces back together.”



Horrifying and completely preventable, IMO. The midwife took on a patient with PIH and let her labor past term for 4.5 DAYS!!

This is what happens when people value their “birth experience” over having a healthy baby."


Seems like when you blindly wedded to an ideology and mindset, common sense and reality never set in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YAnd Karen is so knowledgable that she told a newspaper in an interview that she 1) didn't recognize the importance of respiratory distress in a newborn, and 2) didn't bother to find out what caused it even after the newborn died. That's not the kind of knowledgable practitioner I want anywhere near my baby. Again, to choose otherwise is your right.

Don't bother. I've said this in 4 separate posts and NOT ONE Carr advocate has addressed it.

At the risk of being told again that I need a kick in the ass or that i'm stupd, I'll address this question again. The above are not correct quotes from the newspaper. Copied directly from the Post's webiste:

In November, Carr attended to a mother pregnant with twins in rural Maryland. One was having trouble breathing after delivery, so paramedics were called, but by the time they got there, the baby was doing better, and the ambulance was sent away.

“Some hours later, the baby started going down again, so I brought the baby to the hospital. And it didn’t make it,” Carr said. “I’m not sure what happened to that baby, why it wasn’t breathing.”

---
Now you could read the I'm not sure what happened as the final word but is it possible that the author of the article left something out. Maybe they did an autoposy and the results were inconclusive? Now I have no idea if that is correct, but neither do you or anyone else for that matter. It is possible that what was actually put in the Post and what was left out was done to make Karen sound like she doesn't care. Unless you can have a copy of the full interview done with Karen, you don't really know all that was said. Regardless, it doesn't quote Karen as saying she didn't care enough to find out and it doesn't prove that she did anything wrong in that situation. And accrding to her supporters there were factual errors about some of the events described. (and no not the mom that had complaints about Karen).

But go ahead and tell me how stupid I am for accepting the fact that realize that I don't have enough information about this case or Karen's practice in general to damn her the way many posters have on this board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And Karen is so knowledgable that she told a newspaper in an interview that she 1) didn't recognize the importance of respiratory distress in a newborn, and 2) didn't bother to find out what caused it even after the newborn died. That's not the kind of knowledgable practitioner I want anywhere near my baby. Again, to choose otherwise is your right.

Don't bother. I've said this in 4 separate posts and NOT ONE Carr advocate has addressed it.

At the risk of being told again that I need a kick in the ass or that i'm stupd, I'll address this question again. The above are not correct quotes from the newspaper. Copied directly from the Post's webiste:

In November, Carr attended to a mother pregnant with twins in rural Maryland. One was having trouble breathing after delivery, so paramedics were called, but by the time they got there, the baby was doing better, and the ambulance was sent away.

“Some hours later, the baby started going down again, so I brought the baby to the hospital. And it didn’t make it,” Carr said. “I’m not sure what happened to that baby, why it wasn’t breathing.”

---
Now you could read the I'm not sure what happened as the final word but is it possible that the author of the article left something out. Maybe they did an autoposy and the results were inconclusive? Now I have no idea if that is correct, but neither do you or anyone else for that matter. It is possible that what was actually put in the Post and what was left out was done to make Karen sound like she doesn't care. Unless you can have a copy of the full interview done with Karen, you don't really know all that was said. Regardless, it doesn't quote Karen as saying she didn't care enough to find out and it doesn't prove that she did anything wrong in that situation. And accrding to her supporters there were factual errors about some of the events described. (and no not the mom that had complaints about Karen).

But go ahead and tell me how stupid I am for accepting the fact that realize that I don't have enough information about this case or Karen's practice in general to damn her the way many posters have on this board.

She "didn't do anything wrong"??!! The baby was having trouble breathing. Good, she recognized that. But she COMPLETELY MISSED the relevance of that fact! It DOESN'T MATTER if the baby seemed to start breathing better; anyone who knows anything at all about neonates (especially twins, who are often born not quite as mature as singletons) knows that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER ignore respiratory problems in a neonate. That baby should have been rushed to a NICU for observation at the first thought of problems, but instead she chose to trust her instincts or whatever and turn away the ambulance. The fact that she "didn't know what happened" is just the icing on the cake. As someone who actually knows something about caring for sick newborns, this aspect of her "service to women" really makes me ill.