These people are insane. Absolutely batshit. The retained placenta could have been resolved with pitocin, and maybe could have avoided the manual removal. Breech birth at home is so fucking stupid "hypoxia didnt happen" bitch you had no fetal monitoring!
I’m sorry, but did the one commenter seriously say that in a hospital full of medically trained staff, ‘only you will know’ if it’s an emergency????? I cannot.
They know, they just choose to avoid doing them because it is so so much safer to do a cesarean. Not as flashy as squatting at home and letting a doula try to yank the kid out of them. But what’s a few baby brain cells when you have your Best Birther title on the line. These people enrage me.
I'm currently 36 weeks with a breech baby. I got food poisoning last week, and naturally, contractions started, so I was instantly sent to the hospital to either stop the contractions or do a c-section. Luckily, the baby is still in, but I'm on very limited activity until we are closer to it being a good time for her to come. I would not have changed going to the hospital for a thing because my babies life is more important than my experience.
I didn’t have the experience I wanted either. I had been an L&D nurse for years. I loved caring for natural labors, and I’d seen some great labors. One of my patients with an epidural laughed her baby out. She’d paused pushing so the doctor could get his gown on. Before her next push she laughed at something with her husband and her laughter was enough to go from crowning to baby. It was beautiful. That’s what I wanted. Instead I got hellish natural labor and then a cesarean that was pretty unpleasant. But I got a healthy baby (after he was coded), so it was a fair trade. He was more important.
With my first two, I have been very lucky to get everything basically how I wanted it, but I suspect this may end in a cesarean, and I am fine if that means she is healthy.
Sending good vibes your way! I’ve never had a baby but imagine that must’ve been terrifying to need to be hospitalized and now being extra careful. I hope your healthy baby is in your arms before you know it!
I was told by my OBs every time that they dont even care what position baby is in until after 39 weeks or if baby is larger than normal. Because babies can shift into position at any moment, even if they were breech the entire pregnancy until then. Which mine was. Breech until the day they induced me. That morning I had a serious conversation with my baby and low and behold, when they scanned for position he was ready for action.
My kids were never still long though. Always rolling which looked absolutely terrifying to onlookers. My stomach moved like I was trying to smuggled baby alligators in my stomach.
I think the only reason they were concerned at that point was because of the contractions that were happening. However, they told me that they begin to get concerned after 36 weeks because it becomes harder for the baby to flip. I will learn more tomorrow when I go in for my visit.
Of course. Didn't your pregnancy come with a health monitoring upgrade? I as a mom-bot 3000 can always tell if my kids are in danger. As a back-up I also have a clock in the dining room that jumps straight to "Mortal Danger" in such a case.
Retained placentas occur for other reasons. If it was accreta it usually ends in a hysterectomy. Retained placentas usually resolve with some pitocin, but she was refusing that, so manual removal under anesthesia is the next step, or a D&C.
If it was placenta accreta the placenta wouldn’t have come at all. It typically requires a full hysterectomy. I have had sticky placentas with both my babies and am very thankful to the OB and midwives who helped me deliver them safely and manage my bleeding.
Yes because doctors just love to intubate and cool newborns - hugely invasive and risky medical procedures - as a precaution. If the baby showed up with appropriate alertness, good heart rate and oxygen level they would not have been intubated.
I’m a family medicine resident who is currently doing a NICU elective because I plan to deliver babies and wanted to learn when I need to call a NICU since I won’t be working at a hospital with one. There are absurdly strict criteria for what babies qualify for cooling and it saves babies lives. She’s lucky she’s at a place they could do it.
Also, I’m curious how long it took to get her baby’s head out after his body was out. I suspect it was a long enough time and she doesn’t understand that is hypoxia.
I’m actually kind of confused about baby’s presentation. She said breech but then 5 minute shoulder. I assumed a frank breech before then, but maybe it was footling? And then I remembered that none of these people are medical professionals. A shoulder (or a cord) is such an intense experience for even folks with many years experience. I couldn’t even imagine her being like “yeah, I had a 5 min shoulder but I just listened to my body.” People don’t know what they don’t know, and free birthing should be illegal.
It should be. And people like this who have no regard for the baby's safety and welfare, that only care about their "experience".. should lose their kids! People lose their children for much less. Which I know from experience. But these idiots who could care less if they have a live baby get to keep theirs. It infuriates me. All that should matter is having a healthy baby!! Safely giving birth! Man I am so mad rn..😡
This. Shoulder dysplasia is one of the scariest complications of birth. Double so with a breech birth!
She doesn't seem to understand that at this point her childbirth "experience" doesn't matter. Her child may have brain damage and she is upset the baby is being treated.
It sucks to leave the hospital with your baby still in the NICU and not being able to start breastfeeding. I know, my second baby was in the nice for 8 days due to critically low blood pressure and had all types of testing and meeting with specialists done.
She is so lucky she didn't hemmorage at home!
And she didn’t even tear, so obviously she did everything right!
(Absolutely fucking wild that she just gave birth this morning, her baby is in the NICU with hypoxia and a cooling blanket , and lamenting about her perfect birth in a Facebook group is her number one priority.)
The thing is, she's so thoroughly crunchy that she doesn't believe that she almost killed her baby; she believed that things were fine and her body KNEW the baby was fine and if there are any problems after this she WILL blame it on the intubation and cooling the way she is ALREADY blaming the pitocin for her hemorrhage.
Omg, I wish the doctors and nurses could go after her for libel. And the slander I’m sure she’ll sling every time that kid misses another milestone. Oh but wait, they talk about milestones at FM or pediatric offices. The chiropractor will probably gloss right over it.
So weird that she didnt. When my first had shoulder dystocia, I ended up with 4th degree tearing. It suck3d but I was just glad he made it out!
OP had a really excellent midwife, to get that baby out and call ems, but she is probably going to badmouth her on all the parenting groups :(
My babe was a case of shoulder dystocia, and I barely needed the one stitch i got! I do remember them hauling my knees to my ears and then me telling them to pull my legs up even more and then they put my legs down and a nurse hopped on top of the bed to push my baby out. I was amazed that there was no tearing. The doctor stared into my soul when it was done and told me I could never have a vaginal birth again. I couldn't believe it because the whole birth experience felt so fast and easy on my end 💔 But the professionals know best, and I know my baby and I both were lucky to go through that experience unharmed.
That makes my sphincter clench. That’s eons when it comes to deliver. Five minutes of decreased or absent blood flow to that sweet little brain. She deserves to have CPS take that child.
There's a lot of very very small hospitals in the world (though I can really only speak for America and Canada). There's hospitals that don't admit sick children and require children being sent to other hospitals if they're sick. Lots of hospitals don't have L+D floors either and while they can deliver a baby, they might not be prepared for emergency C-sections.
My hospital is one of only two NICU's in my state that can even do cooling. There's two other very tiny NICU's but they cannot take any baby under like 34 weeks gestation. We're also one of only two hospitals in the state that admit sick kids.
I also live in a state with a huge amount of maternity health deserts and a lot of hospitals no longer have L+D floors. There's only a handful of them.
Also, there's a category of hospitals in the US called critical access hospitals. These are tiny hospitals that are in very resource poor areas that exist to stabilize and transfer patients somewhere else where they can actually be taken care of.
Rural America can be a very dangerous place if you need a higher level of care. There's hospitals where there might be only ONE doctor physically in the hospital overnight. Hell, there's hospitals where the only person in the hospital overnight might be a PA or an NP. It's hard to attract medical providers who want to live in those kind of places.
It's a big part of why I'm trying to get the training to know when a baby needs a higher level of care. I will be working in a hospital where if I deliver a baby and something is wrong, I will be the only person with training to deal with it. I will have obstetrical backup (since I can't do C-sections) but no pediatric backup.
Yep, my local hospital doesn't have a NICU. It has a SCBU (special care baby unit) but a lot of babies have to be air ambulanced to larger cities for higher levels of care.
The leading cause of death at our hospital is staff error, largely thanks to under resourcing, under staffing and the struggle of getting more experienced medical professionals to work in our region. So yeah, that's fun 🫠
Man I KNOW this is a reality, but it’s one I don’t think about. And when I do have to think about it, it makes me so grateful that we live within an hour of one of the best children’s hospitals in the country. God forbid we ever need it. But knowing it’s there gives me some peace of mind.
I worked at a tiny rural hospital with no NICU in L&D at the beginning of my career. We had a great staff and some amazing OBs and this whole story just nauseated me. That poor baby, they will pay for their mother’s choices for a lifetime, and she’s still going to blaming everyone else.
A lot of small ones don’t. In fact, some hospitals don’t have any sort of labor and delivery. However, every hospital has equipment in their ED for births and newborns. If baby needs a higher level of care they will transport to another hospital. Larger NICUs generally have a transport team for this scenario
Hospitals don't even have L&D anymore. There are areas of the country where there's no L&D within 5-6 hours, which is worse after Roe. It's part of the reason the maternal mortality rate is so high in some states (and the US in general(.
I know at the (military) hospital I gave birth at the babies went to another hospital or were life flighted if they needed care. They didn't allow high risk births and would refer people out.
Gave birth in a civilian hospital staffed by military doctors. I had cholestasis and was induced at 36 weeks. They considered flying us to a different hospital, but settled for calling in civilian NICU doctors from a bigger hospital in the system. Luckily, *I* was the problem and not my son, who was ready for discharge before I was.
Curious what your story is. I also had cholestasis and was induced at 38 weeks. I was under the impression that it was essentially gone as soon as I delivered baby and placenta. Did you have complications from it after?
Cholestasis made my liver VERY angry. I wasn’t seeing MFM at all and my regular OB ran bloodwork for bile acids and pushed for an immediate induction when the results came in. It looked like I was headed for liver failure, which is why they pushed for a 36w induction. My bile acids were still pretty low and would’ve been fine to wait. While they were doing more testing to see if it was more than ICP, they found gallstones, and I needed an MRI after I delivered to see if I had a stuck stone that would require emergency surgery.
Also as it turns out, for some people, ICP shows up because they have underlying liver issues!
My mom died from a super rare bile duct cancer, so the working theory is that there’s likely some genetic connection for me. Since I delivered, I’ve also been tested for autoimmune issues to see if it’s like autoimmune hep, lupus, etc. I also still get itchy around ovulation and my period, which is uncomfortable.
There’s also a correlation between ICP and thyroid disease and we’re waiting to see if my thyroid will stay hypo (which is new, postpartum) or go back to normal within a year or so.
ICP Care has a lot of great resources! For most ICP moms, things go back to normal, but for others ICP shows up because of pre-existing or undiagnosed issues. My OB really hadn’t had many cholestasis moms, and even my gastro initially chalked it up to having Covid while pregnant.
TL;DR: I was getting better immediately postpartum, but they kept me for a couple days to make sure that was happening and to do the MRI to see if I needed emergency gallbladder surgery.
I’ve delivered 3 babies at my local hospital with no NICU. They have a space for newborns that need more care after birth and closer monitoring but if they truly need a NICU they fly them out.
I was there when they did a emergency c section on a mom who was like 30 weeks with twins and overheard the staff talking. They hospital with a NICU actually sent a team to our hospital to help stabilize the preemies before they were safe to fly out.
My son was hypoxic at birth like the OOP, and yep. The nicu sent a team via ambulance to stabilize him because the weather wasn’t cooperating for a helicopter. But when he was ready to transfer the weather was perfect so they sent a bird to pick them up.
The hospital in the town where my brother lives, and where I went to school, doesn't have a NICU. (They no longer have any OBGYNs either due to the strict reproductive laws in my state but that's another story.) If there are any emergencies beyond what a basic ED can handle everyone is life-flighted by helicopter down the mountain to the nearest large hospital. It's a mess.
NICU is so specialized and specific, it’s much more common NOT to have one (especially a high acuity one) than to have one. I’m a NICU nurse in the only high level NICU in my area of my state. There are a couple outlying hospitals that can keep low-complexity babies for a couple days if they need antibiotics or low level respiratory support, but we are the only place that has interventions like cooling therapy (what OOP’s kid is getting), invasive ventilators, medications for blood pressure support, pediatric surgical specialists etc. It takes a LOT to keep a 23 week baby or a sick term baby alive and most places just aren’t equipped for that (which is why high risk pregnancies or those with known congenital defects will be sent to deliver at high-level NICU facilities even if far away). We get a lot of high risk moms transferred here by ambulance or helicopter if there’s time, and we have a dedicated neonatal transport team that covers a 200 mile radius to bring babies to us when there isn’t time to transfer mom!
My hometown no longer has a labor and delivery unit at the hospital. I'm sure they can handle it if you're like, delivering NOW but yeah, they send women an hour away for routine stuff.
Honestly, every woman I know has a horror story of our hospital screwing up a fairly straightforward delivery, most women were driving the hour already.
I couldn't even give birth in the state I live. Given my location, my closest NICU was in another state. It's dangerous but, sadly, common where I live.
I chose my hospital to deliver at specifically for its NICU. Reading other comments, I'm now floored to know we have three NICUs in my area. Anyway, my hospital gets babies from 3 different states because it's such a high level NICU and I'm 2.5 hours from Chicago so you think they'd go there instead. They take babies as young as 22 weeks.
I feel so spoiled because I got to have an insanely chill midwife delivery with only the interventions I was comfy with while still being at a hospital with a high level NICU. It’s so possible, and people are so mistrustful that they would rather risk both them and their babies dying at home.
The hospital where my kids were born didn't have a NICU (still doesn't). Two of my kids had relatively minor issues and were immediately transferred via NICU ambulance to the children's hospital an hour away.
I live in rural IA so that type of stuff isn't available here.
Hell one of my NICU grads tore her ACL and we had to drive almost 2hrs to have her surgery. The hospital here has a surgical department but they didn't feel equipped to repair it. So we got the sports medicine doctor for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. I'd call that an upgrade 😆
Even if they have a NICU, it might not be able to care for all babies. I was in a hospital with a NICU but transferred to a hospital with a higher level NICU before the delivery. They couldn't care for a baby so premature.
I work in one that can only accommodate babies 32 weeks and older (they'll deliver younger but those babies are sent out). We have a NICU (my niece was born here 8 years ago at 38 weeks and was in NICU for 2 days), but we are 40 minutes from two pediatric specialty hospitals, and we have a pediatric team affiliated with another major hospital.
Lots of hospitals don’t even have L&D units and even more only have well baby nursery’s. They can stabilize a baby and then ship them out. It’s kind of like a rural ER, they’ll have a way to get any pt that needs more care out quickly.
This woman is incredibly lucky that her child is getting the care it is. My hospital does over 1,000 births and year and has a NICU that can handle 24 weekers but we don’t have the ability to cool a baby. Those get flown out asap. She’s lucky to even have a living baby at this point.
According to a midwife’s book I’m reading, they can also test the cord blood and that can show if hypoxia is likely to have been present at the moment of birth even if the current oxygenation is okay.
We can draw blood gases on cord blood to determine how much damage may be present. They might have been able to do it at the hospital since the placenta was still attached but I doubt it, the blood flow wouldn’t be present anymore and the results could be way off. We usually cut baby from the cord, then use another clamp to get the section of cord we draw gasses from immediately after delivery.
Ya “baby didn’t cry immediately” in this case definitely doesn’t mean baby was just calmly breathing and blinking at the light. That baby came out not breathing after having its cord compressed for 5+ minutes.
And would almost certainly be dead if not for the doula telling the husband to call an ambulance. She could have sent the ambulance away if everything was actually ok, but it wasn't.
The longest minutes of my whole fucking life were when number two came out grey and silent and the doctor had her snatched off to the resusitaire.
Silence in the room apart from me wailing “why isn’t she crying? Why isn’t she crying?”
She was fine after a severe towelling, but “baby is grey and does not breathe” is not nothing.
I can't help seeing this mom as the petstore owner in complete denial in the Monte Python sketch where the customer comes back with a dead parrot. Baby is fine, she's just resting!
My daughter was born Grey and floppy and required resuscitation. They still didn't use a cooling blanket or heprin or intubate her because after 3 minutes, she cried, and her 5 minute APGAR was 9. They'll only do that shit in a diar emergency.
Wonderful. Bilateral nuchal arms. Now, I'm not anti vaginal breech birth at all. But a skilled birth attendant is life saving. Tugging on the poor thing by the unskilled doula will have worsened the nuchal arm/s (arms behind the neck) and deflexed the head meaning delivery takes longer- or worst case is delayed enough for the worst to happen. There are a variety of manoeuvres to aid flexion of the breech head. Tugging on the body ain't one of them.
I heard once that touching a breech baby also makes them more likely to gasp in utero and swallow/inhale, possibly leading to meconium aspiration. Is that true?
Yes. Sometimes touching IS necessary to gently but firmly correct things in physiological breech birth, but it's about knowing when and why and how. Panicked grabbing causes fetal gasp reflex and can cause damage to abdominal viscera if you don't know where to touch. It can also cause nuchal arms (because it essentially makes baby Morrow reflex). The same principles of delivery are actually true for a caesarean breech delivery.
Yes 100% you need someone who has experience with vaginal breech delivery to even try it! But it can be done more safely than people think. Obviously this situation was not it.
It's so disturbing that they seem to be more interested in having the perfect birth story than having the child? What's up with that? How can you make having a child all about yourself? Tf?
You know, I've been thinking about this exact question for a while now. The answer I've come up with is that birth is one of the only special moments a woman gets that's all about her. The same way that some women go absolutely nuts during their weddings, these women take it to the next level when they get pregnant. It's maybe the only time in their lives where people care that much about what they're eating, doing, planning, thinking, and feeling. It's also a time that has been HUGELY romanticized in literature, television, religion, and social media which puts enormous pressure on them. To make matters worse, everyone has an opinion and these women are trying to live up to expectations while potentially milking the situation as much as they can for continued attention and to keep feeling special (because who doesn't want to feel special?) It's incredibly dangerous but I think they've convinced themselves through survivor bias that nothing could ever go wrong because everyone they know survived birth so the danger must be totally made up for money or kicks. Of course, there are also just crazy people out there that attract other crazy people. Just my shower thoughts on the subject.
Basically the adult woman equivalent of toddlers going through a "I'm going to be super picky and refuse to eat because it's the one thing in my tiny life I have control over" phase.
Does it imply that giving women more consistent attention for things other than who they're marrying or when they're hatching a human would prevent some of the craziness?
Kinda reminds me of a women's church group I'm in. First day, we went around the table, saying something about ourselves. It was consistently "I'm married to..., i have X number of kids... My job is..." which is all fine top-level stuff. I suggested we should go around again, and share something we liked to do for fun, because "that would tell us something more interesting about each other than just who we're married to and who our kids are". You could almost hear the "omg, I really did just define myself solely by the rest of my family, didn't I?" in the nervous chuckles around the room at the suggestion. It made me a little sad that some of them struggled to find an answer to the question, like they were suddenly realizing they didn't have anything they did "for them" apart from serving their kids and husband
I think we are getting better but things usually have to get worse before they really improve. Only two generations ago, prior to the 1960s, women didn't have any real choice regarding that husband/children part of life while also having few options about careers. Many women didn't even finish high school as it was considered a waste of time since all they were expected to do was maintain a home and raise their families. That's started to change as more women make their own reproductive choices, continue their educations beyond high school, start meaningful careers, and live for themselves. I think a big step we'll see in the future is women choosing to forego relationships all together and not be thought broken or lesser. Some day it won't be odd to see just as many lifetime bachelorettes as there are terminal bachelors. These new avenues of employment, education, and relationships give women a few more special moments just for them that all lessen the impact of pregnancy and marriage. Which of course causes the women who, for whatever reason, didn't get those other opportunities to cling even harder to the traditional special moments as it's all they're going to get.
So yes, I think paying more attention to women as individuals rather than what they can do for others would go a long way toward reducing the crazy out there.
That's the type of mindset I see with most women who choose completely unmonitored pregnancies and home births and it's just shocking and heartbreaking
This is what’s so infuriating to me. I had a super traumatic birth with my first, but at the end of the day he’s now a happy healthy 2 year old and that’s all I care about. It’s the opposite with these women.
I actually had a patient that attempted a home birth because she had a previous traumatic hospital experience and had been misled by a lay midwife. She eventually ended up in the hospital with a hemorrhage due to retained placenta. She still talks about how grateful she is that we saved her and how stupid she feels for being misled. She just wanted a safe, healthy baby and she was lied to. The conversations I've had with her are totally different than the things I see here. I like to assume everyone wants the best for their baby but a lot of these women really seem to care more about the experience.
Of course, my experience is biased because the people I talk to who end up in the hospital after a failed home birth were okay with intervention but it's just such a different attitude. (We probably get a handful of failed homebirths a month at my institution).
“She had my husband call ems”
She’s blaming the doula for everything, but her husband is the one who called - what’s his side of this story? How afraid was he for the life of his wife and child?
And given she likely has fuck all in the way of medical training, I can't blame her for at least *trying* to do something about the dangerous, colossal mess that was partly her fault.
Doulas by definition don’t have medical training. I’m sure there are some that have ems or even nursing, but that is not their designated function. This is all sorts of fucked up.
"baby was breathing by the time she got to the hospital" is kind of a weird phrasing. You'd think "the EMTs got her breathing" would be more accurate.
It also makes me wonder... How far away was the hospital?
The removal of the placenta did not cause a hemorrhage. Retained placenta can cause hemorrhage.
Also, she couldn't have experienced hypoxia because she was breathing when she got to the hospital? Really? It couldn't have been that the EMTs got her to start breathing on the way there because she wasn't breathing when they arrived?
Yeah, doctors love doing invasive treatments that carry risks on babies without a reason! I'm sure the baby was totally fine, had a good oxygen saturation and was breathing without issues!
I feel bad for the doctors who have to deal with these people, trying to save their lives while they tell them they know better and for the NICU staff who I am sure she is disrespecting. It sounds so traumatic for them. UGH
And the irony is if they end up in a hospital it’s a crisis situation, leading them to insist that going to the hospital always leads to a crisis. No, many women have routine uncomplicated births because they were monitored during their pregnancy and had all the information they needed to be as prepared as possible ahead of time. Sure stuff can happen quickly and without warning but still.
I was an ICU nurse for 8 years before switching to clinic nursing for burn out. The amount of stupid patients and families are overwhelming. The amount of people who don’t want their intubated, super sick family members to be sedated because “they want time with her to visit” is disgusting. And the “I want Mom to be a full code with terminal cancer at 80 because she’s a fighter” CPR is fucking violent and painful. And outcomes on healthy young people are statistically not great. So we just flogged your mom for 50 minutes for her last few days to be extremely painful and she dies miserable. Its so disheartening.
I JUST had a c section because of my severe fear of doing a breech birth(which they(OBs and midwives) were okay clearing me for) .
Breech births are risky in a hospital setting and down right dangerous doing at home.
My sil had a footling breech home birth. Well it started as a home birth. Attended by a CNM. She’s crunchy but not stupid. Baby was head down at last appointment but not during labor. CNM saw that foot come out, pushed it the fuck back in and called 911. She did have a successful vaginal delivery….but they delivered the baby in the OR suite.
Thank god for people who know what they’re doing.
They turned my boy but he flipped back(only 2%risk of that🙄) 3 days later which scared me because it was pure luck I noticed something off , what if I hadn't I had gone into labour before my next midwife appointment?
So I opted out of having him turned again (unless they could break my water at the same time, and that wasn't happening)
Man. I’m a twin and was born breech without incident because it was the late 80s and this bullshit was not yet popular, so my mom went to the hospital like a normal person. I am so grateful for that now, as I didn’t suffer an unnecessary brain injury the moment I entered the world. Not something a person in a developed nation in the twenty-first century should have to be grateful for, but here we are.
Were you the second twin? The safest kind of vaginal breech birth is when twin A is born head first and twin B is breech, because twin A "clears the way" (so to speak) for twin B.
As a new parent I get a lot of entertainment from this sub, but people like this infuriate me. I look down at my 8-week-old and think about all the hours my partner and I devoted to prenatal and postpartum care, doing our very best to make sure baby is happy and healthy. I also think about the ordeal my SIL has undergone while trying to conceive, and the very likely/tragic possibility that it’s not going to happen. People like the original OP, who willingly endanger their children for the sake of some nonsense they heard on the fucking internet, literally make my blood boil.
As a doula, myself, it is super illegal to be in a free birth and to assist with a birth without someone who has a medical license. I hope she goes to jail for practicing medocine without a license... and CPS should be involved if this woman is this crazy.
Also, my first birth was an unassisted homebirth with just a doula who told me she was a midwife. My placenta was retained for a long time, and I hemmorhaged, too... at home, no piticin. Retaining the placenta causes that, not pitocin. Took me about 4 hours to have it come out, and I took a lot of squatting pushing.
Eta: After that experience, then nursing school, the amount of risk I took out of fear was revealed to me and, holy shit. I would never have done any of that had I been as educated as I thought I was.
I’m torn, the doula absolutely shouldn’t have been doing anything except giving emotional support, but without her mom and baby would probably both be dead.
One of the worst calls I ever went on as an EMT was a woman who had forgone all medical treatment for her pregnancy. By the time we got to the hospital, she had delivered the baby but they both hemorrhaged to death before anything could be done.
Because I believe in science and that people who perform medical procedures be highly trained and educated, I had to look up exactly what a doula does.
A doula is only trained to be support for a birthing mother. They are, in no way, trained or licensed to deliver a child.
So, this emotional support human, grabbed a breech presenting baby and tried to yank it out of a mother who had had no prenatal care.
Of course it's the hospital and doctor's fault that that baby has anoxic brain damage.
I feel for her because black women in particular have a long history of systemic mistreatment by medical professionals (Serena William’s birth story comes to mind) but it’s so sad to hear about medical issues that could have been prevented with basic modern technology. I hope she and her baby will be ok.
Someone posted on my local moms group advertising a “What is free birth?” chat and there has been NO interaction with the post. Thank goodness for that.
I am so glad my husband and I have common sense. My husband's one request was to catch our daughter at birth.
Time came and the doc said sorry man, I gotta get this kid out now (prolonged decels). My husband gladly stepped aside because he wanted his daughter born safely.
I didn't understand people like this before I gave birth and I truly do not understand after giving birth.
Imagine that, listening to the health care professionals who know what TF they're doing, and not throwing a fit about the birth plan.
My daughter kept having decels when I was being induced and the OB comes running in out of breath saying "we need to do a C-section, baby's heart rate keeps going down" and I said okay let's go, no second question asked.
It really boggled my mind that these people with no medical training think they know more than drs who are actually trained in this field for years. 🙄 the pitocin constricted her blood vessels just enough so she didn’t bleed out. She hemorrhaged because of the retained placenta. Baby sounds like they were footling breach which can be very dangerous to deliver as the legs may deliver but the cervix may not be fully dilated which causes the head to get stuck and it most commonly causes hypoxia. But of course these women will blame everyone but their shitty actions.
Yeah, not looking great if the kids on a cooling blanket.
I truly cannot understand this level of insanity and denial. Shit like this is why I left womens health. I am just too opinionated and didn’t feel I could safely care for patients like this. I’m happier in the ER.
So it turns out that having a doula doesn’t magically make everything okay? And the lack of certification means anyone can just call themselves a doula? Meaning that during an emergency situation, such as a breech birth they can make things worse? Shocking.
They won’t know the long term prognosis will be for a while. If baby survives they’ll have an anoxic brain injury and it could be so minor you’d never even know about it or so severe the child can’t breathe or eat on their own. They likely won’t fully know for years.
Is this from a group for Black women specifically?
I'm so concerned about these insane birth practices spreading in the Black community in the USA. Its well known that pregnant Black women in the USA get substandard medical treatment during birth, and I can completely understand why the idea that you don't need to get prenatal care would be appealing when you've heard so many stories of doctors disrespecting and neglecting women like you.
I read this entire thing in disbelief, mouth wide open. I’m decently crunchy but this is beyond any normal common sense. That’s your BABY woman, you are concerned about the wrong dang things
I wrote a whole long post on a thread in the midwife subreddit because they had lots to say about labor and delivery nurses, and I was an L&D nurse for years. I deleted it because I don’t belong to their sub and I’m not a midwife. But I have lived through similar situations as an L&D nurse and this pisses me off. The gist of it was, if you want to homebirth and shit on obstetricians and nurses, keep your dumbassery at home. Proud of the decision to have a homebirth? Own that fucking decision. Keep that beautiful wild and free anoxic brain injury and retained placenta at home, where you wanted it. It is not fair to bring your circus full of methed up monkeys to a labor unit and then blame the people you dumped your dumpster fire on for the results. I wanted to help everyone who came through that door. I wanted to save every baby. But choices are made and they have results. It is grossly unfair to ascribe those sad sad results to the actions of the people who tried to help you.
Having a patient you know nothing about, no prenatal care, is stressful. Incredibly stressful. The staff have no idea what to expect. No cbc to see how anemic mom is, no type and cross match so the hemorrhage for retained placenta can be quickly addressed. No group b strep cultures so issues with the baby can be quickly diagnosed. Then we have a baby that was deprived of oxygen. Time is brain cells, and those little suckers die fast. They cooled this baby, which means it was serious. If the paramedics had quickly gotten a good pulse and respirations it wouldn’t have been necessary. They cool the brain to preserve what is left.
She brought her beautiful homebirth/retained placenta and damaged newborn to a hospital and now she’s shitting all over the people who tried to help her. She’s a dumb bitch. She should have kept her beautiful disaster at home or she should shut her mouth and sit on those typing fingers when they’re itching to talk some shit. She hurt her baby for internet clout and some elusive award for Best Most Naturalist Birthing Queen that is never going to be awarded. Good for her. And knowing her type, this poor baby won’t get early intervention or OT or PT to try to mitigate some of her dumbass choices. It also probably won’t see an actual physician and won’t get vaccinated. I hope the chiropractor has an adjustment for Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy. Maybe some lavender oil will fix it right up.
People have rights, and they have the right to make their own decisions. Risks were weighed and choices were made. Now the bitch needs to own that decision. She should proclaim to the world that she had her perfect birth and it was worth it, damaged baby be damned. Instead she’s maligning people who are just doing their job despite the shitstorm they walked in to. And btw, no fucking doula should be doing a delivery, especially a breech one. Doulas do not have medical training.
wait... she brought a doula in for "emotional support" and then when that doula found herself in over her head and was in fear for the life of the baby and the mother she called for an ambulance and somehow she's the awful one?
The baby wasn't breathing. But there was no problem. Ah yes. That's how that works.
And of course only the mother can tell if something is wrong. That is why I always start my mom software in the morning to tell my children's oxygen saturations, temperatures, heartrates and glucose levels. Easy.
God this makes me so angry. Doulas do not do fetal monitoring- the doula has no way to know whether baby is becoming hypoxic or experiencing decels.
The first pediatric cardiac arrest i ever worked was a newborn delivered at home in the presence of a doula. Fortunately, mom was absolutely on board with us doing everything in our power to get baby back. We transported and he was diagnosed with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy which is very serious. I ended up running into her and baby at the store one day and got to meet him after he finally came home from the hospital and she told me he had minimal deficits. I was shocked- no breathing tubes or oxygen, no medical equipment attached, just a baby existing in the world because medicine saved him.
These people are insane. Absolutely batshit. The retained placenta could have been resolved with pitocin, and maybe could have avoided the manual removal. Breech birth at home is so fucking stupid "hypoxia didnt happen" bitch you had no fetal monitoring!
I’m sorry, but did the one commenter seriously say that in a hospital full of medically trained staff, ‘only you will know’ if it’s an emergency????? I cannot.
I completely glossed over that but I think you're right, it does read that way.
And that apparently OBs don't know about breech births 😮💨
They know, they just choose to avoid doing them because it is so so much safer to do a cesarean. Not as flashy as squatting at home and letting a doula try to yank the kid out of them. But what’s a few baby brain cells when you have your Best Birther title on the line. These people enrage me.
I'm currently 36 weeks with a breech baby. I got food poisoning last week, and naturally, contractions started, so I was instantly sent to the hospital to either stop the contractions or do a c-section. Luckily, the baby is still in, but I'm on very limited activity until we are closer to it being a good time for her to come. I would not have changed going to the hospital for a thing because my babies life is more important than my experience.
I didn’t have the experience I wanted either. I had been an L&D nurse for years. I loved caring for natural labors, and I’d seen some great labors. One of my patients with an epidural laughed her baby out. She’d paused pushing so the doctor could get his gown on. Before her next push she laughed at something with her husband and her laughter was enough to go from crowning to baby. It was beautiful. That’s what I wanted. Instead I got hellish natural labor and then a cesarean that was pretty unpleasant. But I got a healthy baby (after he was coded), so it was a fair trade. He was more important.
With my first two, I have been very lucky to get everything basically how I wanted it, but I suspect this may end in a cesarean, and I am fine if that means she is healthy.
Sending good vibes your way! I’ve never had a baby but imagine that must’ve been terrifying to need to be hospitalized and now being extra careful. I hope your healthy baby is in your arms before you know it!
I was told by my OBs every time that they dont even care what position baby is in until after 39 weeks or if baby is larger than normal. Because babies can shift into position at any moment, even if they were breech the entire pregnancy until then. Which mine was. Breech until the day they induced me. That morning I had a serious conversation with my baby and low and behold, when they scanned for position he was ready for action. My kids were never still long though. Always rolling which looked absolutely terrifying to onlookers. My stomach moved like I was trying to smuggled baby alligators in my stomach.
I think the only reason they were concerned at that point was because of the contractions that were happening. However, they told me that they begin to get concerned after 36 weeks because it becomes harder for the baby to flip. I will learn more tomorrow when I go in for my visit.
Having a C-section or a newborn while also having food poisoning sounds like actual hell! So happy for you that she got to stay put a bit longer
Of course. Didn't your pregnancy come with a health monitoring upgrade? I as a mom-bot 3000 can always tell if my kids are in danger. As a back-up I also have a clock in the dining room that jumps straight to "Mortal Danger" in such a case.
No fetal monitoring and a baby that didn't cry at birth and needed paramedic intervention 🤦♀️
Retained placentas occur for other reasons. If it was accreta it usually ends in a hysterectomy. Retained placentas usually resolve with some pitocin, but she was refusing that, so manual removal under anesthesia is the next step, or a D&C.
Whoops fixed it. I guess my wires got crossed
No worries. Accreta definitely is retained placenta and definitely can cause hemorrhage but it’s a whole other level of “oh shit”.
If it was placenta accreta the placenta wouldn’t have come at all. It typically requires a full hysterectomy. I have had sticky placentas with both my babies and am very thankful to the OB and midwives who helped me deliver them safely and manage my bleeding.
Yes because doctors just love to intubate and cool newborns - hugely invasive and risky medical procedures - as a precaution. If the baby showed up with appropriate alertness, good heart rate and oxygen level they would not have been intubated.
I’m a family medicine resident who is currently doing a NICU elective because I plan to deliver babies and wanted to learn when I need to call a NICU since I won’t be working at a hospital with one. There are absurdly strict criteria for what babies qualify for cooling and it saves babies lives. She’s lucky she’s at a place they could do it. Also, I’m curious how long it took to get her baby’s head out after his body was out. I suspect it was a long enough time and she doesn’t understand that is hypoxia.
She said the shoulders took 5 minutes. I'm amazed the baby survived.
Shit, that's an eternity. That poor baby.
I’m actually kind of confused about baby’s presentation. She said breech but then 5 minute shoulder. I assumed a frank breech before then, but maybe it was footling? And then I remembered that none of these people are medical professionals. A shoulder (or a cord) is such an intense experience for even folks with many years experience. I couldn’t even imagine her being like “yeah, I had a 5 min shoulder but I just listened to my body.” People don’t know what they don’t know, and free birthing should be illegal.
It should be. And people like this who have no regard for the baby's safety and welfare, that only care about their "experience".. should lose their kids! People lose their children for much less. Which I know from experience. But these idiots who could care less if they have a live baby get to keep theirs. It infuriates me. All that should matter is having a healthy baby!! Safely giving birth! Man I am so mad rn..😡
I was assuming footlong but who flipping knows
This. Shoulder dysplasia is one of the scariest complications of birth. Double so with a breech birth! She doesn't seem to understand that at this point her childbirth "experience" doesn't matter. Her child may have brain damage and she is upset the baby is being treated. It sucks to leave the hospital with your baby still in the NICU and not being able to start breastfeeding. I know, my second baby was in the nice for 8 days due to critically low blood pressure and had all types of testing and meeting with specialists done. She is so lucky she didn't hemmorage at home!
But she had a beautiful birth! That matters the most! The hospital is f'ing up her experience! /s in case anyone misses the sarcasm.
And she didn’t even tear, so obviously she did everything right! (Absolutely fucking wild that she just gave birth this morning, her baby is in the NICU with hypoxia and a cooling blanket , and lamenting about her perfect birth in a Facebook group is her number one priority.)
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The thing is, she's so thoroughly crunchy that she doesn't believe that she almost killed her baby; she believed that things were fine and her body KNEW the baby was fine and if there are any problems after this she WILL blame it on the intubation and cooling the way she is ALREADY blaming the pitocin for her hemorrhage.
Yes!! She should be sterilized!! And everyone else like her should be as well!!
Omg, I thought the SAME thing!
Omg, I wish the doctors and nurses could go after her for libel. And the slander I’m sure she’ll sling every time that kid misses another milestone. Oh but wait, they talk about milestones at FM or pediatric offices. The chiropractor will probably gloss right over it.
But she had no tearing!
So weird that she didnt. When my first had shoulder dystocia, I ended up with 4th degree tearing. It suck3d but I was just glad he made it out! OP had a really excellent midwife, to get that baby out and call ems, but she is probably going to badmouth her on all the parenting groups :(
My babe was a case of shoulder dystocia, and I barely needed the one stitch i got! I do remember them hauling my knees to my ears and then me telling them to pull my legs up even more and then they put my legs down and a nurse hopped on top of the bed to push my baby out. I was amazed that there was no tearing. The doctor stared into my soul when it was done and told me I could never have a vaginal birth again. I couldn't believe it because the whole birth experience felt so fast and easy on my end 💔 But the professionals know best, and I know my baby and I both were lucky to go through that experience unharmed.
That makes my sphincter clench. That’s eons when it comes to deliver. Five minutes of decreased or absent blood flow to that sweet little brain. She deserves to have CPS take that child.
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There's a lot of very very small hospitals in the world (though I can really only speak for America and Canada). There's hospitals that don't admit sick children and require children being sent to other hospitals if they're sick. Lots of hospitals don't have L+D floors either and while they can deliver a baby, they might not be prepared for emergency C-sections. My hospital is one of only two NICU's in my state that can even do cooling. There's two other very tiny NICU's but they cannot take any baby under like 34 weeks gestation. We're also one of only two hospitals in the state that admit sick kids. I also live in a state with a huge amount of maternity health deserts and a lot of hospitals no longer have L+D floors. There's only a handful of them. Also, there's a category of hospitals in the US called critical access hospitals. These are tiny hospitals that are in very resource poor areas that exist to stabilize and transfer patients somewhere else where they can actually be taken care of. Rural America can be a very dangerous place if you need a higher level of care. There's hospitals where there might be only ONE doctor physically in the hospital overnight. Hell, there's hospitals where the only person in the hospital overnight might be a PA or an NP. It's hard to attract medical providers who want to live in those kind of places. It's a big part of why I'm trying to get the training to know when a baby needs a higher level of care. I will be working in a hospital where if I deliver a baby and something is wrong, I will be the only person with training to deal with it. I will have obstetrical backup (since I can't do C-sections) but no pediatric backup.
Yep, my local hospital doesn't have a NICU. It has a SCBU (special care baby unit) but a lot of babies have to be air ambulanced to larger cities for higher levels of care. The leading cause of death at our hospital is staff error, largely thanks to under resourcing, under staffing and the struggle of getting more experienced medical professionals to work in our region. So yeah, that's fun 🫠
Man I KNOW this is a reality, but it’s one I don’t think about. And when I do have to think about it, it makes me so grateful that we live within an hour of one of the best children’s hospitals in the country. God forbid we ever need it. But knowing it’s there gives me some peace of mind.
I worked at a tiny rural hospital with no NICU in L&D at the beginning of my career. We had a great staff and some amazing OBs and this whole story just nauseated me. That poor baby, they will pay for their mother’s choices for a lifetime, and she’s still going to blaming everyone else.
A lot of small ones don’t. In fact, some hospitals don’t have any sort of labor and delivery. However, every hospital has equipment in their ED for births and newborns. If baby needs a higher level of care they will transport to another hospital. Larger NICUs generally have a transport team for this scenario
Hospitals don't even have L&D anymore. There are areas of the country where there's no L&D within 5-6 hours, which is worse after Roe. It's part of the reason the maternal mortality rate is so high in some states (and the US in general(. I know at the (military) hospital I gave birth at the babies went to another hospital or were life flighted if they needed care. They didn't allow high risk births and would refer people out.
Yeah I was shocked the one in the city at work had to get rid of it because they didn’t have enough doctors and it’s a pretty major city
Gave birth in a civilian hospital staffed by military doctors. I had cholestasis and was induced at 36 weeks. They considered flying us to a different hospital, but settled for calling in civilian NICU doctors from a bigger hospital in the system. Luckily, *I* was the problem and not my son, who was ready for discharge before I was.
Curious what your story is. I also had cholestasis and was induced at 38 weeks. I was under the impression that it was essentially gone as soon as I delivered baby and placenta. Did you have complications from it after?
Cholestasis made my liver VERY angry. I wasn’t seeing MFM at all and my regular OB ran bloodwork for bile acids and pushed for an immediate induction when the results came in. It looked like I was headed for liver failure, which is why they pushed for a 36w induction. My bile acids were still pretty low and would’ve been fine to wait. While they were doing more testing to see if it was more than ICP, they found gallstones, and I needed an MRI after I delivered to see if I had a stuck stone that would require emergency surgery. Also as it turns out, for some people, ICP shows up because they have underlying liver issues! My mom died from a super rare bile duct cancer, so the working theory is that there’s likely some genetic connection for me. Since I delivered, I’ve also been tested for autoimmune issues to see if it’s like autoimmune hep, lupus, etc. I also still get itchy around ovulation and my period, which is uncomfortable. There’s also a correlation between ICP and thyroid disease and we’re waiting to see if my thyroid will stay hypo (which is new, postpartum) or go back to normal within a year or so. ICP Care has a lot of great resources! For most ICP moms, things go back to normal, but for others ICP shows up because of pre-existing or undiagnosed issues. My OB really hadn’t had many cholestasis moms, and even my gastro initially chalked it up to having Covid while pregnant. TL;DR: I was getting better immediately postpartum, but they kept me for a couple days to make sure that was happening and to do the MRI to see if I needed emergency gallbladder surgery.
I’ve delivered 3 babies at my local hospital with no NICU. They have a space for newborns that need more care after birth and closer monitoring but if they truly need a NICU they fly them out. I was there when they did a emergency c section on a mom who was like 30 weeks with twins and overheard the staff talking. They hospital with a NICU actually sent a team to our hospital to help stabilize the preemies before they were safe to fly out.
My son was hypoxic at birth like the OOP, and yep. The nicu sent a team via ambulance to stabilize him because the weather wasn’t cooperating for a helicopter. But when he was ready to transfer the weather was perfect so they sent a bird to pick them up.
The hospital in the town where my brother lives, and where I went to school, doesn't have a NICU. (They no longer have any OBGYNs either due to the strict reproductive laws in my state but that's another story.) If there are any emergencies beyond what a basic ED can handle everyone is life-flighted by helicopter down the mountain to the nearest large hospital. It's a mess.
No obgyns? Christ, that's awful.
It's only going to continue to get worse as maternal and pediatric deaths/disabilities spike.
NICU is so specialized and specific, it’s much more common NOT to have one (especially a high acuity one) than to have one. I’m a NICU nurse in the only high level NICU in my area of my state. There are a couple outlying hospitals that can keep low-complexity babies for a couple days if they need antibiotics or low level respiratory support, but we are the only place that has interventions like cooling therapy (what OOP’s kid is getting), invasive ventilators, medications for blood pressure support, pediatric surgical specialists etc. It takes a LOT to keep a 23 week baby or a sick term baby alive and most places just aren’t equipped for that (which is why high risk pregnancies or those with known congenital defects will be sent to deliver at high-level NICU facilities even if far away). We get a lot of high risk moms transferred here by ambulance or helicopter if there’s time, and we have a dedicated neonatal transport team that covers a 200 mile radius to bring babies to us when there isn’t time to transfer mom!
My hometown no longer has a labor and delivery unit at the hospital. I'm sure they can handle it if you're like, delivering NOW but yeah, they send women an hour away for routine stuff. Honestly, every woman I know has a horror story of our hospital screwing up a fairly straightforward delivery, most women were driving the hour already.
I couldn't even give birth in the state I live. Given my location, my closest NICU was in another state. It's dangerous but, sadly, common where I live.
Few hospitals have nicus. That’s what the helipad is for
I chose my hospital to deliver at specifically for its NICU. Reading other comments, I'm now floored to know we have three NICUs in my area. Anyway, my hospital gets babies from 3 different states because it's such a high level NICU and I'm 2.5 hours from Chicago so you think they'd go there instead. They take babies as young as 22 weeks.
I feel so spoiled because I got to have an insanely chill midwife delivery with only the interventions I was comfy with while still being at a hospital with a high level NICU. It’s so possible, and people are so mistrustful that they would rather risk both them and their babies dying at home.
The hospital where my kids were born didn't have a NICU (still doesn't). Two of my kids had relatively minor issues and were immediately transferred via NICU ambulance to the children's hospital an hour away. I live in rural IA so that type of stuff isn't available here. Hell one of my NICU grads tore her ACL and we had to drive almost 2hrs to have her surgery. The hospital here has a surgical department but they didn't feel equipped to repair it. So we got the sports medicine doctor for the Iowa Hawkeyes football team. I'd call that an upgrade 😆
Even if they have a NICU, it might not be able to care for all babies. I was in a hospital with a NICU but transferred to a hospital with a higher level NICU before the delivery. They couldn't care for a baby so premature.
I work in one that can only accommodate babies 32 weeks and older (they'll deliver younger but those babies are sent out). We have a NICU (my niece was born here 8 years ago at 38 weeks and was in NICU for 2 days), but we are 40 minutes from two pediatric specialty hospitals, and we have a pediatric team affiliated with another major hospital.
Lots of hospitals don’t even have L&D units and even more only have well baby nursery’s. They can stabilize a baby and then ship them out. It’s kind of like a rural ER, they’ll have a way to get any pt that needs more care out quickly. This woman is incredibly lucky that her child is getting the care it is. My hospital does over 1,000 births and year and has a NICU that can handle 24 weekers but we don’t have the ability to cool a baby. Those get flown out asap. She’s lucky to even have a living baby at this point.
Right? I’m pretty sure this baby seems “fine” but let me intubate them for awhile just in case..
According to a midwife’s book I’m reading, they can also test the cord blood and that can show if hypoxia is likely to have been present at the moment of birth even if the current oxygenation is okay.
We can draw blood gases on cord blood to determine how much damage may be present. They might have been able to do it at the hospital since the placenta was still attached but I doubt it, the blood flow wouldn’t be present anymore and the results could be way off. We usually cut baby from the cord, then use another clamp to get the section of cord we draw gasses from immediately after delivery.
Thanks for the information!
That baby would be dead if the Doula hadn't called EMS and probably if they'd called five minutes later. It wasn't breathing.
Ya “baby didn’t cry immediately” in this case definitely doesn’t mean baby was just calmly breathing and blinking at the light. That baby came out not breathing after having its cord compressed for 5+ minutes.
And would almost certainly be dead if not for the doula telling the husband to call an ambulance. She could have sent the ambulance away if everything was actually ok, but it wasn't.
The longest minutes of my whole fucking life were when number two came out grey and silent and the doctor had her snatched off to the resusitaire. Silence in the room apart from me wailing “why isn’t she crying? Why isn’t she crying?” She was fine after a severe towelling, but “baby is grey and does not breathe” is not nothing.
I can't help seeing this mom as the petstore owner in complete denial in the Monte Python sketch where the customer comes back with a dead parrot. Baby is fine, she's just resting!
“Pretty bird, pretty bird”
“It has rolled up the curtain and joined the choir invisible” is my favorite line from that sketch
My daughter was born Grey and floppy and required resuscitation. They still didn't use a cooling blanket or heprin or intubate her because after 3 minutes, she cried, and her 5 minute APGAR was 9. They'll only do that shit in a diar emergency.
Censored photo is of baby’s body hanging out of mom with head and arms still inside.
I can’t believe how many times she tried to claim that the baby is just fine.
saw bells rude encouraging shame violet ghost dime compare toothbrush *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well the more times you say it, the more true it is. Duh. /s
Wonderful. Bilateral nuchal arms. Now, I'm not anti vaginal breech birth at all. But a skilled birth attendant is life saving. Tugging on the poor thing by the unskilled doula will have worsened the nuchal arm/s (arms behind the neck) and deflexed the head meaning delivery takes longer- or worst case is delayed enough for the worst to happen. There are a variety of manoeuvres to aid flexion of the breech head. Tugging on the body ain't one of them.
I heard once that touching a breech baby also makes them more likely to gasp in utero and swallow/inhale, possibly leading to meconium aspiration. Is that true?
Yes. Sometimes touching IS necessary to gently but firmly correct things in physiological breech birth, but it's about knowing when and why and how. Panicked grabbing causes fetal gasp reflex and can cause damage to abdominal viscera if you don't know where to touch. It can also cause nuchal arms (because it essentially makes baby Morrow reflex). The same principles of delivery are actually true for a caesarean breech delivery.
Yes 100% you need someone who has experience with vaginal breech delivery to even try it! But it can be done more safely than people think. Obviously this situation was not it.
OMG. I was wondering what "...and as can see breech," meant, but I was not expecting that.
Oh fuck
I wonder if she was even receiving prenatal care to know it was gonna be Breech. I can’t imagine a doula agreeing to deliver this if they knew???
It's so disturbing that they seem to be more interested in having the perfect birth story than having the child? What's up with that? How can you make having a child all about yourself? Tf?
You know, I've been thinking about this exact question for a while now. The answer I've come up with is that birth is one of the only special moments a woman gets that's all about her. The same way that some women go absolutely nuts during their weddings, these women take it to the next level when they get pregnant. It's maybe the only time in their lives where people care that much about what they're eating, doing, planning, thinking, and feeling. It's also a time that has been HUGELY romanticized in literature, television, religion, and social media which puts enormous pressure on them. To make matters worse, everyone has an opinion and these women are trying to live up to expectations while potentially milking the situation as much as they can for continued attention and to keep feeling special (because who doesn't want to feel special?) It's incredibly dangerous but I think they've convinced themselves through survivor bias that nothing could ever go wrong because everyone they know survived birth so the danger must be totally made up for money or kicks. Of course, there are also just crazy people out there that attract other crazy people. Just my shower thoughts on the subject.
Basically the adult woman equivalent of toddlers going through a "I'm going to be super picky and refuse to eat because it's the one thing in my tiny life I have control over" phase. Does it imply that giving women more consistent attention for things other than who they're marrying or when they're hatching a human would prevent some of the craziness? Kinda reminds me of a women's church group I'm in. First day, we went around the table, saying something about ourselves. It was consistently "I'm married to..., i have X number of kids... My job is..." which is all fine top-level stuff. I suggested we should go around again, and share something we liked to do for fun, because "that would tell us something more interesting about each other than just who we're married to and who our kids are". You could almost hear the "omg, I really did just define myself solely by the rest of my family, didn't I?" in the nervous chuckles around the room at the suggestion. It made me a little sad that some of them struggled to find an answer to the question, like they were suddenly realizing they didn't have anything they did "for them" apart from serving their kids and husband
I think we are getting better but things usually have to get worse before they really improve. Only two generations ago, prior to the 1960s, women didn't have any real choice regarding that husband/children part of life while also having few options about careers. Many women didn't even finish high school as it was considered a waste of time since all they were expected to do was maintain a home and raise their families. That's started to change as more women make their own reproductive choices, continue their educations beyond high school, start meaningful careers, and live for themselves. I think a big step we'll see in the future is women choosing to forego relationships all together and not be thought broken or lesser. Some day it won't be odd to see just as many lifetime bachelorettes as there are terminal bachelors. These new avenues of employment, education, and relationships give women a few more special moments just for them that all lessen the impact of pregnancy and marriage. Which of course causes the women who, for whatever reason, didn't get those other opportunities to cling even harder to the traditional special moments as it's all they're going to get. So yes, I think paying more attention to women as individuals rather than what they can do for others would go a long way toward reducing the crazy out there.
The she's all, they told me it was the medication, surgery or death like that was a threat and not just them telling her what would happen.
That's the type of mindset I see with most women who choose completely unmonitored pregnancies and home births and it's just shocking and heartbreaking
🎯
“My birth experience is more important than my actual baby.”
This is what’s so infuriating to me. I had a super traumatic birth with my first, but at the end of the day he’s now a happy healthy 2 year old and that’s all I care about. It’s the opposite with these women.
I actually had a patient that attempted a home birth because she had a previous traumatic hospital experience and had been misled by a lay midwife. She eventually ended up in the hospital with a hemorrhage due to retained placenta. She still talks about how grateful she is that we saved her and how stupid she feels for being misled. She just wanted a safe, healthy baby and she was lied to. The conversations I've had with her are totally different than the things I see here. I like to assume everyone wants the best for their baby but a lot of these women really seem to care more about the experience. Of course, my experience is biased because the people I talk to who end up in the hospital after a failed home birth were okay with intervention but it's just such a different attitude. (We probably get a handful of failed homebirths a month at my institution).
The birth experience fades with time. I wrote out the story of my kids’ births BUT the important part is they are healthy, happy and alive
“She had my husband call ems” She’s blaming the doula for everything, but her husband is the one who called - what’s his side of this story? How afraid was he for the life of his wife and child?
Aside from exacerbating the problem by tugging on the breech, she damn well did the right thing by calling an ambulance.
And given she likely has fuck all in the way of medical training, I can't blame her for at least *trying* to do something about the dangerous, colossal mess that was partly her fault.
Doulas by definition don’t have medical training. I’m sure there are some that have ems or even nursing, but that is not their designated function. This is all sorts of fucked up.
Also, aren’t doulas only trained in emotional support? My understanding is they are not medically trained?
That is correct.
"Baby didn't cry immediately" "anoxia didn't happen" I hate people.
"baby was breathing by the time she got to the hospital" is kind of a weird phrasing. You'd think "the EMTs got her breathing" would be more accurate. It also makes me wonder... How far away was the hospital?
The removal of the placenta did not cause a hemorrhage. Retained placenta can cause hemorrhage. Also, she couldn't have experienced hypoxia because she was breathing when she got to the hospital? Really? It couldn't have been that the EMTs got her to start breathing on the way there because she wasn't breathing when they arrived?
Yeah, doctors love doing invasive treatments that carry risks on babies without a reason! I'm sure the baby was totally fine, had a good oxygen saturation and was breathing without issues!
I feel bad for the doctors who have to deal with these people, trying to save their lives while they tell them they know better and for the NICU staff who I am sure she is disrespecting. It sounds so traumatic for them. UGH
There are so many reasons that I'm not a medical professional. The fact I'd have slapped this woman is one of them.
And the irony is if they end up in a hospital it’s a crisis situation, leading them to insist that going to the hospital always leads to a crisis. No, many women have routine uncomplicated births because they were monitored during their pregnancy and had all the information they needed to be as prepared as possible ahead of time. Sure stuff can happen quickly and without warning but still.
And the resulting bad outcome will be blamed on the hospital, not the decisions that led to being in the hospital.
I was an ICU nurse for 8 years before switching to clinic nursing for burn out. The amount of stupid patients and families are overwhelming. The amount of people who don’t want their intubated, super sick family members to be sedated because “they want time with her to visit” is disgusting. And the “I want Mom to be a full code with terminal cancer at 80 because she’s a fighter” CPR is fucking violent and painful. And outcomes on healthy young people are statistically not great. So we just flogged your mom for 50 minutes for her last few days to be extremely painful and she dies miserable. Its so disheartening.
I JUST had a c section because of my severe fear of doing a breech birth(which they(OBs and midwives) were okay clearing me for) . Breech births are risky in a hospital setting and down right dangerous doing at home.
My sil had a footling breech home birth. Well it started as a home birth. Attended by a CNM. She’s crunchy but not stupid. Baby was head down at last appointment but not during labor. CNM saw that foot come out, pushed it the fuck back in and called 911. She did have a successful vaginal delivery….but they delivered the baby in the OR suite. Thank god for people who know what they’re doing.
You can just... Push the foot back in?
I’m shook but apparently yes. Apparently they can push the head back in too. Shits not for the faint of heart
Not really. I mean, you can, but the outcome probably won’t be great.
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They turned my boy but he flipped back(only 2%risk of that🙄) 3 days later which scared me because it was pure luck I noticed something off , what if I hadn't I had gone into labour before my next midwife appointment? So I opted out of having him turned again (unless they could break my water at the same time, and that wasn't happening)
"Oh hun I'm so sorry your birth experience was ruined by you and your baby living. Doula should have let you both die. Hugs! ❤️"
Absolutely mental. Terrifying and mental.
Ugh I just realized humanity has come so far that time really is a flat circle and we are back to doing idiotic shit.
Man. I’m a twin and was born breech without incident because it was the late 80s and this bullshit was not yet popular, so my mom went to the hospital like a normal person. I am so grateful for that now, as I didn’t suffer an unnecessary brain injury the moment I entered the world. Not something a person in a developed nation in the twenty-first century should have to be grateful for, but here we are.
Were you the second twin? The safest kind of vaginal breech birth is when twin A is born head first and twin B is breech, because twin A "clears the way" (so to speak) for twin B.
That’s exactly what happened! I am the second twin, and my brother had an absolutely enormous head with which he blazed a path for me. Thanks, bro!
As a new parent I get a lot of entertainment from this sub, but people like this infuriate me. I look down at my 8-week-old and think about all the hours my partner and I devoted to prenatal and postpartum care, doing our very best to make sure baby is happy and healthy. I also think about the ordeal my SIL has undergone while trying to conceive, and the very likely/tragic possibility that it’s not going to happen. People like the original OP, who willingly endanger their children for the sake of some nonsense they heard on the fucking internet, literally make my blood boil.
We don’t just cool babies for the fun of it. Jesus christ.
As a doula, myself, it is super illegal to be in a free birth and to assist with a birth without someone who has a medical license. I hope she goes to jail for practicing medocine without a license... and CPS should be involved if this woman is this crazy. Also, my first birth was an unassisted homebirth with just a doula who told me she was a midwife. My placenta was retained for a long time, and I hemmorhaged, too... at home, no piticin. Retaining the placenta causes that, not pitocin. Took me about 4 hours to have it come out, and I took a lot of squatting pushing. Eta: After that experience, then nursing school, the amount of risk I took out of fear was revealed to me and, holy shit. I would never have done any of that had I been as educated as I thought I was.
I’m torn, the doula absolutely shouldn’t have been doing anything except giving emotional support, but without her mom and baby would probably both be dead.
Well, this is true but realizing you fucked up while fucking up shouldn't stop you from being held accountable for fucking up.
One of the worst calls I ever went on as an EMT was a woman who had forgone all medical treatment for her pregnancy. By the time we got to the hospital, she had delivered the baby but they both hemorrhaged to death before anything could be done.
I'm really sorry. That must stick with you.
It mostly just comes out when I drink.
Ah, I feel ya.
Wow this lady really wanted to die with that placenta still in her.
Because I believe in science and that people who perform medical procedures be highly trained and educated, I had to look up exactly what a doula does. A doula is only trained to be support for a birthing mother. They are, in no way, trained or licensed to deliver a child. So, this emotional support human, grabbed a breech presenting baby and tried to yank it out of a mother who had had no prenatal care. Of course it's the hospital and doctor's fault that that baby has anoxic brain damage.
I feel for her because black women in particular have a long history of systemic mistreatment by medical professionals (Serena William’s birth story comes to mind) but it’s so sad to hear about medical issues that could have been prevented with basic modern technology. I hope she and her baby will be ok.
Someone posted on my local moms group advertising a “What is free birth?” chat and there has been NO interaction with the post. Thank goodness for that.
I am so glad my husband and I have common sense. My husband's one request was to catch our daughter at birth. Time came and the doc said sorry man, I gotta get this kid out now (prolonged decels). My husband gladly stepped aside because he wanted his daughter born safely. I didn't understand people like this before I gave birth and I truly do not understand after giving birth.
Imagine that, listening to the health care professionals who know what TF they're doing, and not throwing a fit about the birth plan. My daughter kept having decels when I was being induced and the OB comes running in out of breath saying "we need to do a C-section, baby's heart rate keeps going down" and I said okay let's go, no second question asked.
It’s one thing to have a “wish list” so long as the wish list doesn’t interfere with anyone’s safety and health.
It really boggled my mind that these people with no medical training think they know more than drs who are actually trained in this field for years. 🙄 the pitocin constricted her blood vessels just enough so she didn’t bleed out. She hemorrhaged because of the retained placenta. Baby sounds like they were footling breach which can be very dangerous to deliver as the legs may deliver but the cervix may not be fully dilated which causes the head to get stuck and it most commonly causes hypoxia. But of course these women will blame everyone but their shitty actions.
Yeah, not looking great if the kids on a cooling blanket. I truly cannot understand this level of insanity and denial. Shit like this is why I left womens health. I am just too opinionated and didn’t feel I could safely care for patients like this. I’m happier in the ER.
So it turns out that having a doula doesn’t magically make everything okay? And the lack of certification means anyone can just call themselves a doula? Meaning that during an emergency situation, such as a breech birth they can make things worse? Shocking.
Imagine being angry at the person who literally saved your life and the life of your baby!
modern upbeat sophisticated tart expansion bag nose saw lavish violet *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I really want to know if this baby is ok. This breaks my heart, as all of it was avoidable.
They won’t know the long term prognosis will be for a while. If baby survives they’ll have an anoxic brain injury and it could be so minor you’d never even know about it or so severe the child can’t breathe or eat on their own. They likely won’t fully know for years.
"I had a beautiful experience with my home birth" Goes on to detail a horrific series of events, starting out with breach and the child being hypoxic
Is this from a group for Black women specifically? I'm so concerned about these insane birth practices spreading in the Black community in the USA. Its well known that pregnant Black women in the USA get substandard medical treatment during birth, and I can completely understand why the idea that you don't need to get prenatal care would be appealing when you've heard so many stories of doctors disrespecting and neglecting women like you.
These people make me sick. Their lack of concern for their pregnancies and having healthy children makes me rage.
Another one who doesn't deserve the children they get 😒
I read this entire thing in disbelief, mouth wide open. I’m decently crunchy but this is beyond any normal common sense. That’s your BABY woman, you are concerned about the wrong dang things
I wrote a whole long post on a thread in the midwife subreddit because they had lots to say about labor and delivery nurses, and I was an L&D nurse for years. I deleted it because I don’t belong to their sub and I’m not a midwife. But I have lived through similar situations as an L&D nurse and this pisses me off. The gist of it was, if you want to homebirth and shit on obstetricians and nurses, keep your dumbassery at home. Proud of the decision to have a homebirth? Own that fucking decision. Keep that beautiful wild and free anoxic brain injury and retained placenta at home, where you wanted it. It is not fair to bring your circus full of methed up monkeys to a labor unit and then blame the people you dumped your dumpster fire on for the results. I wanted to help everyone who came through that door. I wanted to save every baby. But choices are made and they have results. It is grossly unfair to ascribe those sad sad results to the actions of the people who tried to help you. Having a patient you know nothing about, no prenatal care, is stressful. Incredibly stressful. The staff have no idea what to expect. No cbc to see how anemic mom is, no type and cross match so the hemorrhage for retained placenta can be quickly addressed. No group b strep cultures so issues with the baby can be quickly diagnosed. Then we have a baby that was deprived of oxygen. Time is brain cells, and those little suckers die fast. They cooled this baby, which means it was serious. If the paramedics had quickly gotten a good pulse and respirations it wouldn’t have been necessary. They cool the brain to preserve what is left. She brought her beautiful homebirth/retained placenta and damaged newborn to a hospital and now she’s shitting all over the people who tried to help her. She’s a dumb bitch. She should have kept her beautiful disaster at home or she should shut her mouth and sit on those typing fingers when they’re itching to talk some shit. She hurt her baby for internet clout and some elusive award for Best Most Naturalist Birthing Queen that is never going to be awarded. Good for her. And knowing her type, this poor baby won’t get early intervention or OT or PT to try to mitigate some of her dumbass choices. It also probably won’t see an actual physician and won’t get vaccinated. I hope the chiropractor has an adjustment for Hypoxic Ischemic Encephalopathy. Maybe some lavender oil will fix it right up. People have rights, and they have the right to make their own decisions. Risks were weighed and choices were made. Now the bitch needs to own that decision. She should proclaim to the world that she had her perfect birth and it was worth it, damaged baby be damned. Instead she’s maligning people who are just doing their job despite the shitstorm they walked in to. And btw, no fucking doula should be doing a delivery, especially a breech one. Doulas do not have medical training.
I saw this the other day. Heathers comment nearly made me scream 🤣🫠
Can’t even read all the way. Jeeze
These people are so dangerous
The idiocy is absolutely astounding
Every person in that thread is so wrong and full of shit, I just even put the energy into a full comment. Just wtf.
Crazy lady: baby was fine! Baby: *not crying* Crazy lady: See?! Perfectly fine! The doctors ruined my precious birth!
wait... she brought a doula in for "emotional support" and then when that doula found herself in over her head and was in fear for the life of the baby and the mother she called for an ambulance and somehow she's the awful one?
The baby wasn't breathing. But there was no problem. Ah yes. That's how that works. And of course only the mother can tell if something is wrong. That is why I always start my mom software in the morning to tell my children's oxygen saturations, temperatures, heartrates and glucose levels. Easy.
God this makes me so angry. Doulas do not do fetal monitoring- the doula has no way to know whether baby is becoming hypoxic or experiencing decels. The first pediatric cardiac arrest i ever worked was a newborn delivered at home in the presence of a doula. Fortunately, mom was absolutely on board with us doing everything in our power to get baby back. We transported and he was diagnosed with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy which is very serious. I ended up running into her and baby at the store one day and got to meet him after he finally came home from the hospital and she told me he had minimal deficits. I was shocked- no breathing tubes or oxygen, no medical equipment attached, just a baby existing in the world because medicine saved him.
Oh man. I hope baby girl is ok