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Midwife charged in DC? Karen Carr, CPM...
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Anonymous
More like the FDA regulating our food source or the EPA placing limits on environmental hazards (IMO). I don't believe this is similar to Congress telling DC how it can spend its own tax dollars. Many of us (most of us) believe that there should be licensing requirements, etc. put in place for individuals performing medical procedures. I get that child birth is as old as the human race, but that doesn't mean there should not be regulations governing the practice (food is as old a the human race as well and most of us can agree that REASONABLE regulations governing the safety of our food source is important). I'm trying to find a sound argument that midwives shouldn't be regulated, when other professionals who are in a position of trust (not just doctors, but lawyers, accountants, etc.) must undergo a licensing review, continuing eduction, etc. |
Anonymous
No, but perhaps she is lacking in judgment (especially if it turns out that she attended the home birth when pretty much everybody else - Tchabo, Birthcare, etc. - refused). |
Anonymous
| Her insurance won't cover this and I bet she is going to lose everything in a civil case. Not a tragedy like the loss of the baby, but the whole thing is terrible. |
Anonymous
I don't think anyone questioned that -- just that she may lack good judgement in not complying with the law. Some people may think that a license is just a silly piece of paper but it is still the law. At a minimum, I would hope that people "hire" (I am sure she was getting paid for this) would be compliant. From birth provider to pediatrician to daycare provider to school, I just want them to comply with the law when dealing with my child. Not a huge hurdle especially if she does that the medical training. |
Anonymous
She is trained. She has the same credential the licensed midwives in VA have - a CPM. |
Anonymous
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The mom's post on another web site:
http://washingtondc.citysearch.com/review/10493926?reviewId=201120661 I understand that this mom is grieving. However, unless Karen promised her a 100% risk-free birth, she had to have known the risks. Why else would Birth Care and Dr. Tchabo turn her away? Why is this a blame game, vice something awful, awful, awful that happened to all involved? I can't imagine any midwife ever being ok after losing a baby in their care. This has to be hurting Karen, too. I can't imagine that Karen knocked on the mom's door and said, hey, I hear you have a breech baby. Can I be your midwife? The family had to go looking for a care provider. |
Anonymous
| There's a massive difference between birthing a frank breech baby vaginally and a footling. From her post I assume her baby was footling, perhaps even "stargazing". I can see a frank breech vaginal birth with an experienced midwife, but not a footling. Not ever. |
Anonymous
| Also, Tchabo does breech birth, to my understanding! Something must have been funky -- baby was already footling or there was something that made him say no. |
Anonymous
Yup. And looking for a care provider after multiple very natural birth friendly providers turned her away -- and I can't imagine they didn't give a reason. I can't imagine Tchabo didn't say, hey, footling is just not safe vaginally, period. I'm guessing that they just didn't think the worst would happen to them. It would be difficult to accept making that choice to vaginally birth a footling breech if things went wrong. |
Anonymous
So Carr is a sheetmetal worker? Delivering super high risk women? I was a patient of Tchabo. When my baby went from frank to footling and a version didn't work c-section was the only option. If that link really was the mom of the baby who died it sounds like they didn't really know what they were getting into. Don't see how that can be given that they were risked out by several other providers. If anyone can log onto the court site it would be interesting to get more of the facts, although both sides will be spinning now. So sad. |
Anonymous
| This is heart-breaking. I'm not even sure what to think. I had a wonderful homebirth with Karen and found her to be wonderful, but yes, very hands off. She seemed so confident that birth would just happen. I can see getting caught up in the natural birth for any type of birth message. I can't stop thinking about this. Any other home birthers out there? How does this make you feel? |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| What's the relationship between Karen Carr and Birthcare? |
Anonymous
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i had a baby at home. not with karen -- with a CNM. i work in the birth community, and i heard about this situation when it first happened though there weren't a lot of details. just "karen has been arrested, and might need support...stay tuned" type of thing.
on one hand i support the right of women to birth how and with whom they want. many people certainly thought i made a dangerous choice by birthing at home, so whenever i am inclined to think something is dangerous (such as breech birth at home, or birth with an unlicensed CPM, or unassisted birth, or elective cesarean, all of which i must admit do seem dangerous to me personally), i really try to remember that everyone has a different threshold of risk, and i try to support the choices that others make even if different than my own. that said, i worry that maybe some midwives are being irresponsible by taking on clients who have a very high chance of adverse outcomes if giving birth at home. i believe home birth can be a reasonable option for low risk women, and i know the definition of 'low risk' is extremely controversial, but to me, there are some situations where i feel like the midwife just shouldn't agree to attend a woman. but where that "line" is in terms of what's safe and what's not is very hard to draw. some home birth midwives will attend women who want a VBAC and some won't. who am i to tell a woman or midwife what level of risk is acceptable or who is a 'good' candidate for home birth? it's very hard to find that line. i do think women deserve accurate information about the risks of various settings. the problem is that research on home birth is not very clear. there is a lot of controversy over whether home birth does or does not have a higher risk of perinatal death. when i planned my home birth, i really wasn't aware of this controversy. everything i had read suggested that home birth was as safe as hospital birth, and this is what i wanted to believe -- but most of these studies were from other countries, where the system works differently. so i'm not sure i really did have all the information on the risks of being at home, or even that such information actually exists. i think sometimes there's a tendency on the part of home birth supporters and midwifery supporters to defend midwives and home birth at all costs, and to not see clearly when there might be circumstances where home birth is not a wise choice, or when a midwife makes a poor decision. without knowing the details of this situation, i can't really know what happened in this case. i certainly wouldn't blindly support a midwife without knowing the details of a situation, nor would i condemn her. i feel like sometimes in situations like this, the whole birth community rallies around the midwife, and there isn't much self reflection or questioning or even thoughts about the baby who has died. it kind of is off putting to me. midwives throughout history have been harassed, arrested, put out of business, and labeled as witches, often by doctors who conveniently benefit from all the business left behind when midwives can't or won't practice. so i am always very skeptical about any efforts to silence midwives or stop them from doing their work, because i believe that most if not all midwives really want to help women, and believe they are offering an important option that has almost been wiped off the map here in the US. so i do think it's sad that midwives have to suffer for providing care that women want and demand. but i have to think there's a better way for care to be provided than doing so without licensure. i know licensure is controversial and some believe that it limits midwives too much and restricts their ability to help the women who need them most, but the idea of midwives practicing without any oversight or regulation makes me very nervous. birth does go well almost all of the time, but when it doesn't, the person who's there really needs to be able to recognize that there's a problem and address it. the whole "babies die in hospitals too" argument doesn't really resonate with me -- because i think that often what babies die from at home is very different than what babies die from in the hospital. so while it is certainly true that babies die in both settings, i think home birth supporters do need to be humble and accepting of criticism when there are bad outcomes at home, and to work hard to make home birth safer, rather than just pretending it's perfect and that babies that die are just random flukes. i think we owe it to those babies and mothers to try and prevent those situations from happening. |
Anonymous
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Wow -- that is a great post.
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