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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of male and female OBs and female midwives.

Male OB/RE: botched saline sono and caused a horrific high risk pregnancy (very thin C section scar that was threatening to spontaneously rupture before the due date) against my wishes, horded records in an attempt to cover it up. The abnormality is so large is plainly visible on the memory FET ultrasound the nurse gave me not realizing what happened right in front of her
Male OB: asked if I needed to take my pants off for an ultrasound (which the above condition needed), he said "No, I'm keeping mine on" and told me to "trust me" about extremely dangerous VBAC, lied to me and said my uterus was normal, fired him and went to-->
Three female midwives: engaged in a group conspiracy to "run out the clock" on the above pregnancy, pretending the issue was being addressed when it was not
Male OB who did 2nd C section: Told him in plain English I thought I had an infection, gave me a deer in the headlight look then didn't do anything to help me. Refused to see me in person after because he's "high risk". Sent me to below OB-->
Female OB: "It doesn't matter" when I told her my baby almost died, tried to bully me out of having my uterus fixed. I walked on on this b--ch

Finally met a competent surgeon, turns out my uterine edges were 100% separated, spanned by thin adhesion only, and my uterus was infected with poop bacteria for over a year, and yes I did have symptoms and complained about them, everybody blew me off

As for this midwife, I am shocked she's being charged with a crime when partial birth abortions are legal. It's wrong to bully a woman for getting an abortion but it's fine to bully her for her birth choice? Total BS. This will just cause women to give birth at home unassisted. Why is there no consequences for the horrific behavior of these providers? Why is this culture of treating women like absolute s--t institutionalized in obstetrics? Those are the real questions that need to be asked.

Are we just BANNING all vaginal breech births? So mom has ONLY the choice between surgery or a late term abortion? What happened to that baby could have easily happened in a hospital attempted vaginal breech delivery. The baby was only stuck for 20 minutes and chances are even in a hospital a C section would not have been done in only 20 minutes

I have done alot of research on this topic and I am convinced that C sections cause more babies to not be born due to maternal choice and silent infertility than they save from fetal loss during birth, probably a 10:1 ratio. Just look at countries with the worst healthcare systems, they are teaming with babies.

99% of women who are asked to choose between TOLAC and repeat C are not being given the most critical piece of information to make that decision, namely their residual myometrium/lower uterine segment thickness, which highly inversely correlates with uterine rupture risk. There is a conspiracy to keep this information away from women because routinely scanning would expose the OBs with incompetent surgical technique and open them up to lawsuits. OBs would rather babies just die or bully women into repeat Cs, which carry a risk to their lives. "Just cut everybody" cannot and should not be the solution to every obstetric problem in the world.

You are blabbering on about *a lot* but I can say with 120% certainty this is not true. There is not a proven direct correlation and while uterine health examinations exist, no peer-reviewed studies have shown a direct relationship uterine rupture. This is why some doctors (rightfully) refuse VBAC.

I do however agree with you that doctors need to be much more forthcoming about the risks than they are, and honest that there is no single test that will put a former cesarean woman’s mind at complete ease.

Signed, I do this research as part of my job.

DP. Doctors refusing to do VBAC doesn’t seem to be something that’s based in science or research at all. I requested double layer sutures at my c -section and waited the two years my OB said would allow maximum healing before getting pregnant again. The first practice affiliated with Inova Fairfax that I found for my second birth paid lip service to me VBACing but by my second trimester it was clear I was going to get a repeat c-section, so I switched. The midwife at the second practice showed me my records on which the doctor had written, in all caps, by hand, do not allow VBAC. I ended up at GW with the OBs (though one of the midwives there was the second set of eyes for my resident, who was on the newer end) and had a safe VBAC.

I’m pretty staunchly opposed to home births, and I used to be all in on the cult. But honestly when you get a chance to personally see some of the voodoo and biases in obstetrics? Look at your post and then someone posts actual research - and you claim to do research for this field for a living? I’m glad I’m done having kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

I'm a healthcare professional myself, licensed in DC. Becoming licensed to practice independently should be a high bar to clear, with the requisite educational and supervised practice requirements. CPMs don't meet that standard, IMO. Licensure has implications for practice and for insurance reimbursement and validates the individual's credentials, even if they're specious AF. So, a woman looking for a home birth in MD, for example, could see that CPMs are licensed and think that equates with quality healthcare by a provider qualified to provide that service. In this case, again IMO, they would be wrong.

As I noted earlier, CNMs provided all of my prenatal care and delivered my three kids (in a hospital, with epidurals two out of three times). I am NOT against the midwifery model of care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

NP. I share your pettiness. The only person who was overtly nasty about my C-section was the leader of a babywearing group I attended briefly after birth. She was actually angry that I had a quick, easy recovery and was successfully breastfeeding, more than some of the women in the group who had had unmedicated birth, and berated me for my c-section in front of the group.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the natural birth community has a deeply misogynist strain of people who are actually angry when women don’t suffer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

I had by all accounts a “traumatic birth” (put under during birth for an 8-hour surgery, lost my uterus, baby born disabled), and processing trauma like PP suggested is exactly how therapists suggest processing it and yes - this is key - *moving on*. These “I had a last minute c-section and have birth trauma 5 years later” people wouldn’t know trauma if it hit them on the back of their head. They like being a victim and playing that card or they’d be able to be on the other side in about .2 seconds. There is a science to overcoming trauma, and I have found most people who experienced an unfortunate event and self-label it “trauma” are not at all interested in the science. It’s an emotional game to them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

NP. I share your pettiness. The only person who was overtly nasty about my C-section was the leader of a babywearing group I attended briefly after birth. She was actually angry that I had a quick, easy recovery and was successfully breastfeeding, more than some of the women in the group who had had unmedicated birth, and berated me for my c-section in front of the group.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the natural birth community has a deeply misogynist strain of people who are actually angry when women don’t suffer.

Oh my god, what a bad person she was! (For the record I did not get an easy recovery and kept wondering what I was doing wrong that I wasn’t sailing through like everyone else seemed to after their c-sections).

I think misogyny is something that many women have internalized and don’t consider, but it’s just during pregnancy/birth/early baby when everything is so intense that it’s the first time many of us experience misogyny from outside our families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

I had by all accounts a “traumatic birth” (put under during birth for an 8-hour surgery, lost my uterus, baby born disabled), and processing trauma like PP suggested is exactly how therapists suggest processing it and yes - this is key - *moving on*. These “I had a last minute c-section and have birth trauma 5 years later” people wouldn’t know trauma if it hit them on the back of their head. They like being a victim and playing that card or they’d be able to be on the other side in about .2 seconds. There is a science to overcoming trauma, and I have found most people who experienced an unfortunate event and self-label it “trauma” are not at all interested in the science. It’s an emotional game to them.

Yep, this is a perfect example of what I meant when I said not to denigrate women who have traumatic births.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

I had by all accounts a “traumatic birth” (put under during birth for an 8-hour surgery, lost my uterus, baby born disabled), and processing trauma like PP suggested is exactly how therapists suggest processing it and yes - this is key - *moving on*. These “I had a last minute c-section and have birth trauma 5 years later” people wouldn’t know trauma if it hit them on the back of their head. They like being a victim and playing that card or they’d be able to be on the other side in about .2 seconds. There is a science to overcoming trauma, and I have found most people who experienced an unfortunate event and self-label it “trauma” are not at all interested in the science. It’s an emotional game to them.

Yep, this is a perfect example of what I meant when I said not to denigrate women who have traumatic births.

Trauma is in the eye of the beholder. Someone can experience birth trauma even when from the outside their birth looked fine. PTSD does not discriminate, so let’s not compete in the trauma Olympics. Clearly the OP thinks she has a gold medal but there are lots of other women who have less clinically difficult births who may still experience birth trauma and deserve care and treatment for that to process it and move forward with their lives. Being in extreme pain, fearing you or your child might die, and other factors can happen in a range of births.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

I had by all accounts a “traumatic birth” (put under during birth for an 8-hour surgery, lost my uterus, baby born disabled), and processing trauma like PP suggested is exactly how therapists suggest processing it and yes - this is key - *moving on*. These “I had a last minute c-section and have birth trauma 5 years later” people wouldn’t know trauma if it hit them on the back of their head. They like being a victim and playing that card or they’d be able to be on the other side in about .2 seconds. There is a science to overcoming trauma, and I have found most people who experienced an unfortunate event and self-label it “trauma” are not at all interested in the science. It’s an emotional game to them.

Yep, this is a perfect example of what I meant when I said not to denigrate women who have traumatic births.

Trauma is in the eye of the beholder. Someone can experience birth trauma even when from the outside their birth looked fine. PTSD does not discriminate, so let’s not compete in the trauma Olympics. Clearly the OP thinks she has a gold medal but there are lots of other women who have less clinically difficult births who may still experience birth trauma and deserve care and treatment for that to process it and move forward with their lives. Being in extreme pain, fearing you or your child might die, and other factors can happen in a range of births.

Yep.

And in the case of what drives women to make bad risks and have a home birth, other (medical, sexual, other) traumas prior and other reasons are involved. The breech mom, Eric’s mom, didn’t want to comment for the article. She wasn’t doing well, she was 43, first kid, breech baby (post term? I don’t remember). Whatever her reasons for deciding to have a homebirth, that wretch Karen Carr should have evaluated the situation and said, no, we’re going to the hospital, this isn’t safe. That Karen Carr now has THREE neonatal deaths on her watch is just… gobsmacking.

I believe that the most recent family was unable to find out anything about her. And if you’re remotely in that community, most people have fine outcomes, blah blah blah. Once you fall prey to the idea that homebirth is just all around better, more wholesome, the right way to birth, the healthiest, the closest to God, whatever your deal is… you’re ripe for someone like Carr and her total lack of judgment to take advantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

No one denigrated women who have birth trauma. The PP you originally responding to was pointing out that her traumatic birth would have instead been 1-2 deaths if she had a home birth. The point is that home birth is much, much more dangerous than hospital birth. Not sure what you are trying to achieve by turning this into a weird argument about trauma.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

NP. I share your pettiness. The only person who was overtly nasty about my C-section was the leader of a babywearing group I attended briefly after birth. She was actually angry that I had a quick, easy recovery and was successfully breastfeeding, more than some of the women in the group who had had unmedicated birth, and berated me for my c-section in front of the group.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the natural birth community has a deeply misogynist strain of people who are actually angry when women don’t suffer.

I'm sorry this happened. I was a birth center patient turned hospital transfer and c-section and my CNM celebrated my baby like she did all the others.

[Anonymous]

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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.

NP. I share your pettiness. The only person who was overtly nasty about my C-section was the leader of a babywearing group I attended briefly after birth. She was actually angry that I had a quick, easy recovery and was successfully breastfeeding, more than some of the women in the group who had had unmedicated birth, and berated me for my c-section in front of the group.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the natural birth community has a deeply misogynist strain of people who are actually angry when women don’t suffer.

I'm sorry this happened. I was a birth center patient turned hospital transfer and c-section and my CNM celebrated my baby like she did all the others.

Good for you. My friend had a CNM home birth that turned into a hospital transfer and the midwives dumped her at the door. After the birth they Ghosted her on calls, never followed up, and left the birthing pool full of water in their home and never came to get it. The baby had complications and needed the NICU and they didn’t even see if they were ok. Took her many months just to get her scrubbed medical records from them.

[Anonymous]

I don't think anyone should be allowed to be a midwife that does not have explicit medical training. I'm fine with midwives that are also RNs and know several people who delivered with midwives at GW and VHC, but there is too much that could happen for us to just allow any random cuckoo who has "trained" to call herself a "certified" midwife.

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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.

I have suffered terrible abuse at the hands of male and female OBs and female midwives.

Male OB/RE: botched saline sono and caused a horrific high risk pregnancy (very thin C section scar that was threatening to spontaneously rupture before the due date) against my wishes, horded records in an attempt to cover it up. The abnormality is so large is plainly visible on the memory FET ultrasound the nurse gave me not realizing what happened right in front of her
Male OB: asked if I needed to take my pants off for an ultrasound (which the above condition needed), he said "No, I'm keeping mine on" and told me to "trust me" about extremely dangerous VBAC, lied to me and said my uterus was normal, fired him and went to-->
Three female midwives: engaged in a group conspiracy to "run out the clock" on the above pregnancy, pretending the issue was being addressed when it was not
Male OB who did 2nd C section: Told him in plain English I thought I had an infection, gave me a deer in the headlight look then didn't do anything to help me. Refused to see me in person after because he's "high risk". Sent me to below OB-->
Female OB: "It doesn't matter" when I told her my baby almost died, tried to bully me out of having my uterus fixed. I walked on on this b--ch

Finally met a competent surgeon, turns out my uterine edges were 100% separated, spanned by thin adhesion only, and my uterus was infected with poop bacteria for over a year, and yes I did have symptoms and complained about them, everybody blew me off

As for this midwife, I am shocked she's being charged with a crime when partial birth abortions are legal. It's wrong to bully a woman for getting an abortion but it's fine to bully her for her birth choice? Total BS. This will just cause women to give birth at home unassisted. Why is there no consequences for the horrific behavior of these providers? Why is this culture of treating women like absolute s--t institutionalized in obstetrics? Those are the real questions that need to be asked.

Are we just BANNING all vaginal breech births? So mom has ONLY the choice between surgery or a late term abortion? What happened to that baby could have easily happened in a hospital attempted vaginal breech delivery. The baby was only stuck for 20 minutes and chances are even in a hospital a C section would not have been done in only 20 minutes

I have done alot of research on this topic and I am convinced that C sections cause more babies to not be born due to maternal choice and silent infertility than they save from fetal loss during birth, probably a 10:1 ratio. Just look at countries with the worst healthcare systems, they are teaming with babies.

99% of women who are asked to choose between TOLAC and repeat C are not being given the most critical piece of information to make that decision, namely their residual myometrium/lower uterine segment thickness, which highly inversely correlates with uterine rupture risk. There is a conspiracy to keep this information away from women because routinely scanning would expose the OBs with incompetent surgical technique and open them up to lawsuits. OBs would rather babies just die or bully women into repeat Cs, which carry a risk to their lives. "Just cut everybody" cannot and should not be the solution to every obstetric problem in the world.

You are blabbering on about *a lot* but I can say with 120% certainty this is not true. There is not a proven direct correlation and while uterine health examinations exist, no peer-reviewed studies have shown a direct relationship uterine rupture. This is why some doctors (rightfully) refuse VBAC.

I do however agree with you that doctors need to be much more forthcoming about the risks than they are, and honest that there is no single test that will put a former cesarean woman’s mind at complete ease.

Signed, I do this research as part of my job.

DP. Doctors refusing to do VBAC doesn’t seem to be something that’s based in science or research at all. I requested double layer sutures at my c -section and waited the two years my OB said would allow maximum healing before getting pregnant again. The first practice affiliated with Inova Fairfax that I found for my second birth paid lip service to me VBACing but by my second trimester it was clear I was going to get a repeat c-section, so I switched. The midwife at the second practice showed me my records on which the doctor had written, in all caps, by hand, do not allow VBAC. I ended up at GW with the OBs (though one of the midwives there was the second set of eyes for my resident, who was on the newer end) and had a safe VBAC.

I’m pretty staunchly opposed to home births, and I used to be all in on the cult. But honestly when you get a chance to personally see some of the voodoo and biases in obstetrics? Look at your post and then someone posts actual research - and you claim to do research for this field for a living? I’m glad I’m done having kids.

Wow. I’m not so sure I’d be that cavalier about such a clear recommendation against VBAC from a doctor. What was it based on? Just because you ended up with a successful vaginal birth does not mean the risk was low. You need to understand risk statistics before you start claiming that obstetrics is “voodoo.”

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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.

are you suggesting your friend’s 23 week premature birth would have been less traumatic if she did it at home with a midwife?

No, and I’m not sure where you pulled that bad faith argument from. I was just pointing out not to denigrate women who have traumatic births and don’t process them as easily as the PP did.

I had by all accounts a “traumatic birth” (put under during birth for an 8-hour surgery, lost my uterus, baby born disabled), and processing trauma like PP suggested is exactly how therapists suggest processing it and yes - this is key - *moving on*. These “I had a last minute c-section and have birth trauma 5 years later” people wouldn’t know trauma if it hit them on the back of their head. They like being a victim and playing that card or they’d be able to be on the other side in about .2 seconds. There is a science to overcoming trauma, and I have found most people who experienced an unfortunate event and self-label it “trauma” are not at all interested in the science. It’s an emotional game to them.

Yep, this is a perfect example of what I meant when I said not to denigrate women who have traumatic births.

Trauma is in the eye of the beholder. Someone can experience birth trauma even when from the outside their birth looked fine. PTSD does not discriminate, so let’s not compete in the trauma Olympics. Clearly the OP thinks she has a gold medal but there are lots of other women who have less clinically difficult births who may still experience birth trauma and deserve care and treatment for that to process it and move forward with their lives. Being in extreme pain, fearing you or your child might die, and other factors can happen in a range of births.

DP. I think I understand what PP is saying: the evidence-based way to prevent and treat PTSD is to become desensitized to the event so it doesn’t trigger you. If you received effective PTSD therapy you probably would not focus on labeling yourself a “birth trauma survivor” as a way to help “process” or whatever.