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

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know the test for involuntary manslaughter in VA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who equates a hospital birth (with an epidural or other interventions) with being forcibly raped has some serious mental problems...

You obviously haven't spent much time reading birth stories. Inserting fingers/objects into a vagina w/o permission IS rape...even at a hospital. It happens.

I'm not going to say it never happens. But I will say that it could just as easily happen by a midwife at home as well. I just think you have a vivid imagination, coupled with selective reading skills. You clearly SEEK OUT the most horrifying birth stories to try to support your opinions. It is like waking up one morning with a headache and going on the Internet to search for "brain cancer". Lo and behold - everybody who has ever had brain cancer had a headache first so you MUST have brain cancer!!!

You are probably going to some midwife/home birth friendly websites and reading about "birth stories". You are seeing one side of this. Your viewpoint is beyond warped. To the point where - yes - I think you are in some need of therapy.

[Anonymous]

omg. This thread is 60 pages. I forgot how really, really intense pregnancy hormones can be. Carry on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the denialism prevalent in the past few pages of this thread about the fact that women get abused, coerced, bullied, and have things done to them without their consent in hospitals when they are in labor. Is this THE universal hospital experience? No, thank God. But talk to any doula (think what you will about the profession, but they witness a lot of births) and they will tell you that these things happen ALL THE TIME. I just a few days ago heard yet another story from a friend of a nurse who tried to break a mother's water without even informing her first what she was trying to do, much less asking for her consent. (Fortunately the mother caught on soon enough to tell her to stop, which also fortunately the nurse did ... though apparently that was not the only negative thing that happened during this woman's labor). Many, many women have experiences where they are treated with respect and caring in hospitals. Many, many others are not treated so well. Do I know the exact percentage? No. I do know that it seems to depend a lot on the hospital, and which nurse you get, and the attitude of the care provider, and the ability and willingness of the patient to be assertive if necessary. I also know that lower-income women are more likely to be treated with disrespect, but the same thing has happened to upper-income women I know.

Now, should knowing this type of treatment is a possibility in a hospital drive you to make decisions that jeopardize the life of your baby? No. But please, stop with the blanket rosy pronouncements about how great hospitals are and the absurd contention that people who home birth make things up about hospitals. For Christ's sake, a good portion of the home birth population are women who themselves have had those things happen to them in hospitals and don't want to experience it again.

Are you reading the same posts I am? I haven't found any that are making blanket rosy pronoucements. I have read a few who are like - hey, equating a hospital birth with rape is just going too far and is hurting your attempts at sounding sane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I cannot believe the denialism prevalent in the past few pages of this thread about the fact that women get abused, coerced, bullied, and have things done to them without their consent in hospitals when they are in labor. Is this THE universal hospital experience? No, thank God. But talk to any doula (think what you will about the profession, but they witness a lot of births) and they will tell you that these things happen ALL THE TIME. I just a few days ago heard yet another story from a friend of a nurse who tried to break a mother's water without even informing her first what she was trying to do, much less asking for her consent. (Fortunately the mother caught on soon enough to tell her to stop, which also fortunately the nurse did ... though apparently that was not the only negative thing that happened during this woman's labor). Many, many women have experiences where they are treated with respect and caring in hospitals. Many, many others are not treated so well. Do I know the exact percentage? No. I do know that it seems to depend a lot on the hospital, and which nurse you get, and the attitude of the care provider, and the ability and willingness of the patient to be assertive if necessary. I also know that lower-income women are more likely to be treated with disrespect, but the same thing has happened to upper-income women I know.

Now, should knowing this type of treatment is a possibility in a hospital drive you to make decisions that jeopardize the life of your baby? No. But please, stop with the blanket rosy pronouncements about how great hospitals are and the absurd contention that people who home birth make things up about hospitals. For Christ's sake, a good portion of the home birth population are women who themselves have had those things happen to them in hospitals and don't want to experience it again.

As a nurse who works with said population (i.e. low income women), I have to say I admire the treatment our patients receive in my hospital. I treat all of my patients with respect and compassion regardless of their lifestyle or income status. Most of my patients have no health insurance, are unemployed, several with partners who are incarcerated and unable to be present for the birth. Many of these women have multiple children (some by multiple fathers) all by the age of 25. Their experience in LIFE is far different than my own story. My own story perhaps is more similiar to the mother in Ms. Carr's case - I am a primigravida of advanced age desperately hoping to have a healthy pregnancy with a good outcome. For years, I have wanted a homebirth, but now that I am pregnant with twins, I need to put my fantasies of the home waterbirth aside in order to do the difficult thing and make a decision for the health of my children. I am mourning the loss of my birth experience, but I am a women of reason who understands evidence over rhetoric. I cannot find research (i.e. scholarly journal articles) to support the safe homebirth of twins for a primigravida mother. When it is your first birth experience - you live with all of the uncertainty and risk of what could be. Ultimately, when the only evidence I can come up with are a few videos on YouTube, I have to be reasonable and say, "perhaps this is not the best option for me or my babies".

I know many, many people in the homebirth community and many of them came into this work after a traumatic birth experience (and yes, women can experience PTSD, much like a rape victim or war survivor if they've had a traumatic birth). I know that many of them wanted to change birth to make it an empowering experience for women. Ms. Carr is no exception - she came into midwifery after her own c-section birth. Still, I have to say that if you've expereinced birth at least once, you have something to base your decision-making on. For those of us who are primigravidas, we have nothing to go on - it is merely blind faith. There are countries in AFrica where one in 16 women die during childbirth. There is a saying in those countries that when a woman is pregnant she is on a journey that she may not return from. We are priviledged to have much lower rates of maternal mortality in our country. The marriage of midwifery and modern obsterics have made this possible.

Ultimately, the mother should be given all of the facts (and not scared or wooed into making a decision) about where it is best to birth her child. I feel sorry for the mother in this case because she has publicly gone on record (through her CitySearch review which has now been taken down) to say that she felt let down, confused by what she was told and the horrible outcome of what happened. It is no secret that the malpractice crisis we exist under causes OBs and nurses (and many other health professionals, midwives included), to operate more cautiously and carefully. if the risk is too great (From vaginal breech birth or otherwise), practitioners will not feel comfrotable offering that service. Do you blame them? This poor mom did not want to be the 1% (some say 8-10%) whose baby experiences head entrapment, yet she was. Some will say it's the unfortunate risk she took...she rolled the dice and her baby lost. While it was her choice to make, I have to ask - did she have true informed consent from all of her providers involved in the case? I have discussed this case with my colleagues at work and the bottom line (For other RNs, CNMs, OBs and anesthesiologists) is: did she understand the risks involved (of breech vs. cesarean)? If we can prove that she did infact understand her risks, then some of the burden should be taken off of those who were involved with her care, but after reading her online post, I got the clear impression that she felt like everyone involved with her birth let her down. If this is the case, well then that's a damn shame.

So to the OP, I have to ask - are all of us "nurses" just cold-hearted, uneducated peole who treat patients like a hunk of meat? Or are we perhaps a lot like you?? I leave you with that question before you bash an entire profession of people - many of which (myself included) who take our jobs very, very seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anybody who equates a hospital birth (with an epidural or other interventions) with being forcibly raped has some serious mental problems...

You obviously haven't spent much time reading birth stories. Inserting fingers/objects into a vagina w/o permission IS rape...even at a hospital. It happens.

I'm not going to say it never happens. But I will say that it could just as easily happen by a midwife at home as well. I just think you have a vivid imagination, coupled with selective reading skills. You clearly SEEK OUT the most horrifying birth stories to try to support your opinions. It is like waking up one morning with a headache and going on the Internet to search for "brain cancer". Lo and behold - everybody who has ever had brain cancer had a headache first so you MUST have brain cancer!!!

You are probably going to some midwife/home birth friendly websites and reading about "birth stories". You are seeing one side of this. Your viewpoint is beyond warped. To the point where - yes - I think you are in some need of therapy.

Nobody said it couldn't happen at home w/ a MW. I've read some pretty horrific stories about that too. That's reaaly just a red herring.

As previuosly stated, abuse stories can be heard from many sources. I'd love to know how you could possibly back up the conclusuion that you have come to WRT a complete strangers viewpoint/imagination/viewpoint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I care very much about my birthing experiences. Just like I care very much about my sexual experiences.

I don't want to be raped. I prefer to be made love to. I'll accept just plain good, fun sex.

I feel the same way about birthing a baby.

I don't want to be ripped apart to birth a baby. I don't want to be cut open, for a c-section or an episiotomy.

I don't want to have anything roughly, forcefully slammed into my vagina - to check my cervix or for any other reason.

I don't want to be held down against my will, by hands or monitoring equipment or an IV line forcing me on my back to birth.

I don't want to be threatened or verbally abused: told that I'm killing my baby because I want to labor in my own way rather than in a way that's convenient to medical personnel.

I don't want to be drugged up in order to make things easier for someone else. And I don't want to be called names for choosing natural birth.

I want for the person assisting with my child's birth to be gentle, not rough; caring, not cruel; concerned about my well-being as well as my child's, not preoccupied with what time it is or whether there will be a lawsuit or countless other people that have to be tended to.

My birth experiences haven't been perfect. There have been complications. But, with both of my births, I felt as though I was being seen and respected as a person, not as a womb or a paycheck or an inconvenience. I felt as though I was treated with consideration. These are things that matter a great deal to me. And if I hadn't experienced them, how would I have been able to look at my children without anger and resentment? How would I have been able to treat them gently, with respect and consideration? How they got here is as important to me as the fact that they did get here. The journey matters, as does the destinati

you know, I've replied several times on this thread. But now I'm bowing out. It's no fun arguing with the mentally ill.

To the woman who wouldn't be able to look at her own child without anger or resentment because of a less than ideal birth experience: Up your meds or get psychiatric help. You have gone and lost your damn mind.

[Anonymous]

Plus it is the whole "everyone-in-medicine-is-out-to-birth-rape-pregnant-women-I-have-seen-it-many-many-many-many-many-many-many-times." Really?

OBs and nurses and CNM don't spend years studying and actually choosing to go into their fields because they want to stick items into women. They too love the birth process also. They are at the forefront of saving women and babies and making it safer for women to have homebirths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most women will have good outcomes statistically no matter what. You need a skilled provider for those minority of cases when something goes wrong quickly and you have to recognize what is happening and intervene.

AMEN to that! It's not the 99% of good outcomes we worry about, but the 1% of bad outcomes that you need to be ready for.
- A CNM student

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Plus it is the whole "everyone-in-medicine-is-out-to-birth-rape-pregnant-women-I-have-seen-it-many-many-many-many-many-many-many-times." Really?

OBs and nurses and CNM don't spend years studying and actually choosing to go into their fields because they want to stick items into women. They too love the birth process also. They are at the forefront of saving women and babies and making it safer for women to have homebirths.

Who said "everyone"?

[Anonymous]

I don't want to have anything roughly, forcefully slammed into my vagina - to check my cervix or for any other reason. I don't want to be held down against my will, by hands or monitoring equipment or an IV line forcing me on my back to birth.

Doesn't your midwife check your cervix?

I don't know about you, but I can almost do somersaults with an IV line in my arm!

Noone has ever held me down...
Where do you get these ideas that you will be verbally and physically abused and held down?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
So to the OP, I have to ask - are all of us "nurses" just cold-hearted, uneducated peole who treat patients like a hunk of meat? Or are we perhaps a lot like you?? I leave you with that question before you bash an entire profession of people - many of which (myself included) who take our jobs very, very seriously.

I was not bashing an entire profession. Please reread my post. I said that the bad stuff is *not* the universal experience. Yet, it happens. If you are someone who would never do something like that, great, wonderful. There are lots of great L&D nurses out there. As you must know, though, there are some bad apples in every bunch and nursing is no exception. I'm not trying to take away anything from those who do their jobs with compassion and integrity. Indeed, I am still grateful to those who were good to me in the hospital. I'm just really sick of the denial on this thread that these things never happen. They do. As I said, that fact would not lead me to take a risk I felt uncomfortable with. But it is something to be aware of. Maybe it doesn't happen very often in this metropolitan area, as I hear stories from all over the U.S.

The emotional trauma of a bad birth experience -- by which I mean not having had interventions per se, but being treated disrespectfully and having things done to them without consent or under coercion -- has driven some women to a place where they dismiss the entire medical profession, even including homebirth midwives for some, and embrace views about home birth and unassisted birth that are extreme and factually incorrect. I read their posts all the time on Mothering, and I always wonder if they had just been treated like participants in their care rather than like children or animals, would they now be putting themselves and their babies in danger? These women didn't start out like this. They went to the hospital for their first birth (or sometimes second or third too) and trusted their care providers and came out of it feeling betrayed and abused. Often these women were not even necessarily seeking an unmedicated birth. But things happened to them that made them feel that they could not trust any doctor or hospital. It is sad to read/hear about. I am glad that there are many great nurses and OBs out there, but the ones that do not treat women well are the ones we hear about more often, even if they are a very small minority, and they clearly do exist.

[Anonymous]

So to the OP, I have to ask - are all of us "nurses" just cold-hearted, uneducated peole who treat patients like a hunk of meat? Or are we perhaps a lot like you?? I leave you with that question before you bash an entire profession of people - many of which (myself included) who take our jobs very, very seriously.

I'm not the previous poster but after two kids and longer than normal experience in labor and delivery due to multiple trips for PE and NICU, I am amazed at the vast range in quality, attitude, and professionalism among nurses. There was very little consistency. I encountered some very rude, obnoxious ones who did try to treat me as a hunk of meat, some giggly idiots who I fail to understand how they ever graduated from nursing school, and some amazing, intelligent ones. Hands down the absolute best nurse I encountered was a guy. He was supportive, respectful, well trained, professional, and funny which helped so much to put us at ease during tense situations. We were lucky to get him. If the nurse on the previous shift has been ours for delivery it would have been a nightmare.

A bad labor and delivery nurse who wants the patient in bed, on a epidural so there is less work for her, and who has an attitude the minute she hears a birth plan exists does as much harm as an overl interventionist ob/gyn.

[Anonymous]

"These women didn't start out like this. They went to the hospital for their first birth (or sometimes second or third too) and trusted their care providers and came out of it feeling betrayed and abused."

That's not necessarily so -- I believe there are people with the proverbial "glass jaw" that are more likely to be traumatized by things that others do not find traumatic.

I had complications after my c-section -- not the dr.'s fault and I am happy with having done the c-section. But I was in the hospital for an extra week. One of my lactation consultants went on and on about how difficult and traumatic the whole thing must be and how she hoped I was journaling to "process the experience". No, it wasn't a fun experience, some of the things were difficult and scary, but they were not traumatic -- not something that I carry with me and need to "process". Others might have needed therapy..

[Anonymous]

The plural of anecdote is not data.