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Midwife charged in DC? Karen Carr, CPM...
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Anonymous
I cannot effing believe that that shrew FELT A FOOT - a footling breech! The one with the worst outcomes even in a hospital setting! And she thought she could just safely deliver that woman’s child?! It’s unconscionable. Any OB or midwife can lose a baby. There are no guarantees in life. But she is sloppy. She is a murderer. |
Anonymous
She’s clearly got a personality disorder. I wonder if she even enjoys when the babies die. |
Anonymous
+1000. There was a cult midwife at GW who should not have been anywhere near pregnant women. Even some of the people named in the Carr cases like the assistant in on of the Amish deaths was frequently posted about on DCUM as a cult favorite doula. |
Anonymous
Oh also - the *birth photographer* that Carr allowed to monitor the fetal heartbeat in this story is still practicing and even brags on her website about having had a high risk (macrosomic) homebirth and forgoing medical care. There’s a real cult around “natural birth” in this area that I myself was also caught up in, in a way that seems totally inexplicable to me now. It takes a lot of cojones to try to exert ideological control over women at such a vulnerable time. |
Anonymous
The woman should be applauded. If people are dumb enough to do a home birth, that’s their choice. Lucky for that woman her midwife was moral enough to take her to a hospital instead of letting her bleed out at home. |
Anonymous
Yes, this. The midwife/NCB cult in DC is really enticing to a first time mom, but the trouble is all these doulas, birth assistants, CNMs, birth photographers, CPMs, etc. all play in the same circles, and many suffer from some serious blind spots about the risks inherent in childbirth because they just believe so strongly in giving birth in a particular way (the only way they can deliver). Then they tell pregnant women, don’t listen to “bad stories” because it will “undermine your own confidence” - which is a really great way of convincing someone to remain ignorant of their own volition. A practicing midwife I had care from who is still working in this area is a CNM, but trained in the hospital and at home birth settings. She regularly posts insane content about free birthing, home birth, alternative medicine, etc. she practices in the medical Establishment but her views are fringe and she ignored my delivery complications, I think due to her own bias. |
Anonymous
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Really good data at the end of the article for those who may have not read the whole thing.
“To conduct this investigation, The Washington Post analyzed data from the National Center for Health Statistics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on births and infant deaths from 2017 to 2021. In looking at the data, reporters consulted with studies for the best ways to understand home births and their relationship to births in hospitals. The death rate calculated for infants born in hospitals is 4.46 deaths for every 10,000 births. For infants born in planned home births attended by midwives, the death rate is 9.37 deaths for every 10,000 births. To compare death rates for home births and hospital births, reporters used only planned home births attended by midwives and hospital births attended by any provider. The Post excluded unattended births. The Post used both categories of midwives identified by the CDC in its analysis. The category for “certified nurse midwife” includes certified nurse midwives, certified midwives and advanced practice registered nurses. “Other midwife” is all other midwives, including certified professional midwives. In analyzing death rates, The Post limited the data set to include only infants who were 37 weeks into their gestation and weighed at least 2,500 grams, and infants who were born alive but died before 4 weeks of age. The Post analyzed only births involving mothers with no reported pregnancy risk factors or congenital anomalies in the children. Death rates were calculated by dividing the number of deaths within these parameters by the number of births, using the same parameters in the same years. The Post excluded California from its death rate analysis because until 2021, the state did not report whether home births were planned.” |
Anonymous
And it’s not even just midwives. There was a doctor down in Atlanta who became known as the doctor to go to for high risk women who wanted to VBAC. Or women who switch practices to find someone willing to do a vaginal birth after other doctors recommend a c section due to high risk. A whole Facebook group was started where women shared their stories of birth injuries and then some people countered and protested in support of him. He eventually lost his privileges at one hospital, but overall it seems like a lot of this stuff is handled quietly with closed door investigations and it is up to patients to find grassroots ways to notify the public of the risks. Add in vulnerable women with a history of distrust of the medical community (maybe even rightfully so after a past trauma), and it’s just ripe for a cult following of these people. https://www.ajc.com/news/public-affairs/atlanta-doctor-focus-natural-birth-controversy/3id7GI3yOorV3Ibw8K5k6O/ |
Anonymous
Those aren't comparable samples, though. Part of what makes Karen Carr so horrific is that most midwives/OBs are responsible and will NOT attend (or recommend) homebirths in risky circumstances. So, the home birth sample overall is much lower-risk than hospital births. Hospital births in this case would also include planned home births that went awry and were transferred to hospitals, so there's that. Childbirth is high-risk, inherently. When there is a provider who is consistently negligent in the ways Carr has documented to be, that's a problem with that specific provider. I agree with other PPs about the cult of natural birth. It would be great if licensing bodies would do their jobs and not license people like Karen Carr. The fact that "women deserve choices" doesn't mean those licensing bodies can greenlight anyone who wants to practice. |
Anonymous
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This was such a sad sad read.
I had all 3 of my children with Birthcare midwives and the care was excellent. Two birthing center births and the last was a homebirth. I would never have hired midwives who were afraid to show up at local hospitals. |
Anonymous
I couldn't believe this either. What kind of delusional hubris do you have to have to think you can handle this? Like WTF? And I do blame the parents too. When multiple people turn you away as too high risk, maybe they're onto something? They could go down the rabbit hole searching for a sketch provider to do what no one else would do but couldn't google "footling breach" and get it through their skulls there was a high probability of infant death delivering vaginally? Does not compute for me. |
Anonymous
I’m the PP you’re replying to and the midwife (not Karen Carr) who turned me over to an OB was clear that the frank breeches she’d attended were straightforward and simple. I know that I was terrified of surgery, like terrrrrrified and that was motivating me. I read the article but I don’t remember; did Carr tell them she felt a foot or did she just bumble along thinking she was going to be the hero here? |
Anonymous
Oh and from a place of deep pettiness nearly 13 years on: the only person to try and make me feel like I was a failure for having had a c-section was my Bradley Birth instructor, Julie Maimones. She really wanted to know what I could have done differently to have a vaginal birth and I’m still stunned, so many years after the fact, that that was her take. I still think that at a lot of hospitals, you go in and you’re on a conveyor belt and it might not be best practices. At GW I felt like I was a valued human and not a vessel to be cut out of the way, but I don’t think a lot of women in other locales get those same choices I was presented with and I can see why, especially if someone has had birth or sexual trauma, that one of those highly medicalized, you’re getting your cervix checked as often as we see fit and one of the OBs still has a habit of cutting episiotomies births is terrifying enough to drive women to home births. |
Anonymous
| The statement that CPM’s only going through apprenticeship is false. I went to school for 4 years and did 3 years of clinicals 7 to be exact pass medical boards we are under the same board as nurses. Definitely ask about creditials and schooling. But if you are planning to do a vaginal home birth I would hire a cpm over a cnm. Cpm have done more home births and only learn about out of hospital births so they are better suited as this is all they studied |
Anonymous
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The higher death rates for home births is even more shocking when you consider that it is almost certainly a substantially lower risk population. Women on Medicaid aren’t doing these home births, nor are women with previa, toximia, GD, or the drug addicts.
The truth is that in either setting, odds are you and your baby will survive. But what risk level are you okay with? I had what many people would consider a “traumatic” hospital birth. Nearly died, hours in the table with painful procedures, days in IcU immobilized so I wouldn’t pull out the shunt, etc. But I’m very happy about that trauma because if I’d had a home birth, I’d almost certainly be dead. Transfusions and injectable foam saved my life and allowed my children to grow up with their mommy. I don’t look back on those days as trauma—I look at them as a medical victory over the “nature” that killed so many of the women that went before us. Yay medicine! |