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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

I’m really glad that you survived a heavy duty birth, but please don’t denigrate women who literally do have medical trauma. Not everyone experiences or deals with trauma in the same way and you might have had medical care that made you feel a part of the decisions vs women who aren’t. I have a friend whose first pregnancy went badly sideways around 23 weeks with HELLP syndrome and a really intensive few hours (and then her preemie in the NICU for six months). She was able to move past it, but I met her a few years after and she was still shaken up. Grateful but shaken.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

I’m really glad that you survived a heavy duty birth, but please don’t denigrate women who literally do have medical trauma. Not everyone experiences or deals with trauma in the same way and you might have had medical care that made you feel a part of the decisions vs women who aren’t. I have a friend whose first pregnancy went badly sideways around 23 weeks with HELLP syndrome and a really intensive few hours (and then her preemie in the NICU for six months). She was able to move past it, but I met her a few years after and she was still shaken up. Grateful but shaken.

DP you’re obnoxious and that word does not mean what you think it means. If your friend gets into an accident with a seatbelt on does she stop wearing a seatbelt every time she’s in a car? Your friend isn’t experiencing “trauma”, she is simple-minded and apparently can’t understand that a bad experience is perhaps separate and below *the entire medical establishment*.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

CPMs do not need a degree in anything to practice! Stop lying. You can have a high school degree and literally do it. FFS you are just lying through your teeth here. Pass boards, lol. What a joke. Your “profession” is not akin to that of an actual MD or CNM and is dangerous. CMs and CPMs have higher infant mortality rates. You can’t perform instrumental births or C sections. All you can do in an emergency is call 911 so the patients can get to a real medical
Facility where they have ORs, anesthesiology, imaging, NICUs, blood banks, and the actual instruments, medicine, tools, and professionals who can help after the home birth screw ups.

https://www.midwife.org/acnm/files/cclibraryfiles/filename/000000008490/20220418_CNM-CM-CPM%20Comparison%20Chart_FINAL.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

lol why would I hire someone who had never seen a high-risk delivery to deliver my baby? absolutely nuts that you think that is a selling point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Let me ask you this. If this was you, and you were the midwife. Would you continue to practice as you were, after babies had died on your watch? Really ask yourself this question. if you had been charged with manslaughter? negligence? Watched the pain dawn on the parent's faces as the realization began to dawn in your mind that perhaps--just perhaps there was something you might have done or not done that contributed to that death and suffering?

At the time of the Timmerman ordeal, there was an article that touched on this, and part of her defense of her actions was essentially that sometimes babies die. As another PP said, she really doesn't believe it's her fault.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Gosh I remember thinking that Bradley was what the “good moms do” but I didn’t get it together to sign up. In retrospect I think I am glad I didn’t waste all that time! So odd to place so much emphasis on birth when it’s over in a day and literally the ONE TIME you should be seeking out the best in modern medicine …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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!

A thousand times this. REALLY shocking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

CPMs do not need a degree in anything to practice! Stop lying. You can have a high school degree and literally do it. FFS you are just lying through your teeth here. Pass boards, lol. What a joke. Your “profession” is not akin to that of an actual MD or CNM and is dangerous. CMs and CPMs have higher infant mortality rates. You can’t perform instrumental births or C sections. All you can do in an emergency is call 911 so the patients can get to a real medical
Facility where they have ORs, anesthesiology, imaging, NICUs, blood banks, and the actual instruments, medicine, tools, and professionals who can help after the home birth screw ups.

https://www.midwife.org/acnm/files/cclibraryfiles/filename/000000008490/20220418_CNM-CM-CPM%20Comparison%20Chart_FINAL.pdf

Oh leave her alone. She’s an “expert in normal birth.” Which we literally all are. I can deliver a baby with zero complications. Actually, a baby with zero complications can deliver itself.

[Anonymous]

Home birthing is like being anti-vax. Luddites, all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

You went to midwifery school for 4 years? Where?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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

CPMs do not need a degree in anything to practice! Stop lying. You can have a high school degree and literally do it. FFS you are just lying through your teeth here. Pass boards, lol. What a joke. Your “profession” is not akin to that of an actual MD or CNM and is dangerous. CMs and CPMs have higher infant mortality rates. You can’t perform instrumental births or C sections. All you can do in an emergency is call 911 so the patients can get to a real medical
Facility where they have ORs, anesthesiology, imaging, NICUs, blood banks, and the actual instruments, medicine, tools, and professionals who can help after the home birth screw ups.

https://www.midwife.org/acnm/files/cclibraryfiles/filename/000000008490/20220418_CNM-CM-CPM%20Comparison%20Chart_FINAL.pdf

Oh leave her alone. She’s an “expert in normal birth.” Which we literally all are. I can deliver a baby with zero complications. Actually, a baby with zero complications can deliver itself.

Any idiot on the street with a towel can catch a baby in an uncomplicated delivery. It’s the large percentage of complicated ones that is the issue. And you never know which one you get until after it’s all over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!

I’m really glad that you survived a heavy duty birth, but please don’t denigrate women who literally do have medical trauma. Not everyone experiences or deals with trauma in the same way and you might have had medical care that made you feel a part of the decisions vs women who aren’t. I have a friend whose first pregnancy went badly sideways around 23 weeks with HELLP syndrome and a really intensive few hours (and then her preemie in the NICU for six months). She was able to move past it, but I met her a few years after and she was still shaken up. Grateful but shaken.

I am really not trying to denigrate anyone. But I think this concept of medical trauma or birth trauma is really dangerous to normalize and we women sell ourselves short when we do so. The brain is weird and Many people have irrational responses to many things. I’m terrified of heights for no particular reason. But people should not make health decisions based on irrational anxiety—instead they should get treatment for that anxiety. I was stitched up for over a half hour with no anesthesia — it wasn’t great. And no one asked my permission to do it. (And actually it didn’t even work so really just ended up being pointless pain.). But I absolutely do not blame that OB. She was trying what she could in the moment and at the end of it all, I walked out of that hospital which is what matters. Once sh-t starts to fly, medical professionals are almost always choosing between bad options. Nature has a real brutal side — I think we’re so insulated in our post-industrial world that we forget it and get seduced by this idea that “natural” is better. It’s nature that’s the trauma — not the medicine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unbelievable that this woman is still allowed ti practice.

I just googled. She still has pages up.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP. When I saw the story on the WaPo website (https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/interactive/2023/home-birth-midwife-karen-carr/) right now, I remembered this thread and wondered if the midwife in today's story was the same as the one I'd read about on DCUM so many years ago, when I was pregnant with my midwife-delievered VBAC baby. I'm shocked that yet another baby has died, but in a way I'm relieved to know that there's only one notoriously dangerous midwife in our area. Maybe now something will be done.

My heart goes out to this family.

If you think that there is only one dangerous midwife in our area, you are sorely mistaken. There are CNMs in this area who are just as narcissistic and egomaniacal as Karen Carr. If you want to search you can find some cases in the DC Superior Court records - and those are just the instances of poor outcomes where the women filed suit, not the ones where women had bad outcomes and advocated against the negligence or mistreatment they experienced in other ways.

I’m not anti midwife. There are also some who are truly fantastic. But I could list off, by name, several CNMs in the DMV that I had care from personally who suffer from the same hubris as Carr did.

There was a great comment on the article by a retired OB or L and D nurse that said something to the effect of, there are women in this profession who really enjoy having power over other women, and it is so true. It’s not true of every provider, but it’s definitely true of some.

+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.

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.

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/

Ohhh. I have friends who delivered with him. My own CNM cut ties unofficially. I wasn’t aware he was no longer practicing, but his cult was REAL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Home birthing is like being anti-vax. Luddites, all.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In this day and age using a midwife why?

Oh o guess the dumb Bible thumping crowd not liking science

Being a parent means doing the best even in childbirth that means a hospital

There's variety in midwifery care. Both of my DDs were delivered by CNMs (Certified Nurse Midwives) in a hospital. I had to be induced, and I received epidurals both times. Prenatal and postnatal care was attentive, excellent, and evidence-based.

Delivery by CNMs in a hospital setting is best of both worlds, in my experience.

People need to understand that there is a tremendous difference between a CNM (tons of training) and a CPM (basically an apprenticeship). Karen Carr is a CPM.
Never ever hire a CPM.

+1 from the PP who linked to the (most recent) Post article, and who saw CNMs for all three pregnancies/L&D.

Also: I am livid with Maryland for deciding to "license" CPMs. I remember voting against this proposal when it was on the ballot and unfortunately, it passed. That Karen Carr can continue to legally practice in this state is unconscionable.

Why are you against licensing? The Wapo article says "Overall, full-term infants in the United States are more than twice as likely to die after planned home births attended by midwives as those delivered in hospitals by any providers, according to a Post analysis of CDC data over five years." Why wouldn't you want licensing? or am i missing something here?