Dearest mamas,
I was sent a link recently about the homebirth/freebirth advocate, Janet Fraser, (that many of you may have engaged with on-line, or at least know of her site joyous birth) who lost her baby during a recent birth. The birth was just a few days before mine, and so the story has touched me very deeply. I feel so sorry for her and her family. And I’m sure it must be really difficult to get through this sad time, especially when the story is so public. The personal is political, sure, and there are quite a few of us who share our personal on the internet to try and effect change. But OH! how awful, when the personal turns tragic and all the world is the stage. I wanted to do a comic about how I felt when I heard the news, but I want to be careful not to dwell in someone else’s sadness, not to capitalize. It’s a fine line. But, here I have a link to an blog post that sums up the two different takes on this story: Home birth advocate’s baby dies during free birth, prompts questions by Amy Gates. Including a quote from Laura Shanley:
In the end, it’s a personal decision. And just as the death of a hospital-born baby doesn’t mean that no baby should ever be born in the hospital, the same should be said for babies born at home. Regardless of the outcome of this case, I will continue to speak out about unassisted childbirth as I believe that in most cases it’s the safest and most satisfying way to give birth.
I feel better, thank you Laura.
This past week, this article was in Time Magazine: Doctors Versus Midwives: The Birth Wars Rage On By JEFFREY KLUGER
For a society as technologically far along as the U.S., we do a surprisingly poor job of looking after our tiniest members. About 99% of all births in the U.S. take place in hospitals, yet we rank 29th in the world in infant mortality — below Hungary and tied with Slovakia and Poland — with 6.71 deaths per 1,000 live births. That compares to a rate of about 3.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in Far Eastern and Scandinavian countries such as Singapore, Japan, Norway and Sweden.
And that’s enough about that.
My mother and father just went back home after a week’s visit, and I think that’s all the relatives for a while (we’ve had grandparents visiting for a month straight!) and I hope to get some more time to cartoon…you know, in between staring into Ean’s eyes and doing the laundry, shopping, and cooking. Oh man! The dishes!
Love,
Heather
Dear Heather,
I think you have the wrong url under ‘joyous birth’ as the site you are linking to is for sale and not very informative. Maybe this is the link? http://www.joyousbirth.info/
Thank you for linking to that article it was very iinteresting and moving. I feel for Janet Fraser completely and saddened that her family’s tradegy has become so mediaised and political.
I really do home she’s not made an example of for an establishment wanting to impose it’s ideas on how women should give birth.
Joxy.
Wow. My heart aches for Janet and her family. I think that Ms. Amy Gates has a very valid point on this whole sad situation: infant deaths occur in hospitals as well.
Yes the dot info link is correct. Been googling, no “updates” from the media after the ominous “whether the baby was a still birth or not will be looked into” line. They all managed to “report” the “Story” for it’s sensationalism but that’s all! I truly feel saddened for my american sisters still stuck over in the states, we are currently stationed in europe and MAN is it ever different over here! (pun intended) to think Australia could end up like the u.s. medical system is like watching a car wreck happening! I remember my first christmas party as a parent happened this past winter & WOW all the birth stories were about who had the most risk in their pregnancy, who’s baby was taken early but not too early to prevent them from going home when mom checked out? Doctors that made moms “wait” til nature wanted to have the baby were viewed as “Abusive” whereas those that offered elective inductions when the mother got “sick” of being pregnant were viewed as good? huh? I must be missing something here? Over seas my baby was not expected til the month AFTER my edd, but my family expected it the month before? wow! that’s a big difference. I’m certain Janet and her supporters did everything possible to ENSURE a successful delivery, but it doesn’t always happen, anytime anywhere any circumstances, and taking the “birth is as safe as life gets” attitude just seems to peeve docs off more, because their job is to save us from ourselves? am I missing something here, sure feels like I am, but please excuse me if I finish having my family overseas, where they can be born safer, whatever situation I choose to bring them into the world in!
Yet again I’m in complete confusion over how so many people, Doctors, midwives, journalists, parents, can get the facts sooo so muddled.
IF homebirth or ‘unassisted by a trained midwife/OB/Dr’ birth (after-all, she did have her partner/husband AND a female friend present so was not totally alone) is so unsafe, how do these people figure how humans did not die out thousands of years ago?
Or any other creature for that matter.
How is a home birth, or ‘unassisted birth’ (unassisted apart from one or more compus mentus adult(s) who have attended or given birth themselves – as a bonus)’more risky’ than in a hospital, for the majority of women who have straight-forward pregnancies etc etc? It’s crazy logic. As others have said, babies die in hospitals too. Quicker access to re-suscitation equipment and so on may save a few, but ultimately where-ever you birth and who-ever is with you, it has it’s risks. Unfortunately the media & Drs seem to enjoy hyping it up.
In one article I found this comment ridiculous “He said obstetricians and the health system had to take some responsibility and try to attract women back to the hospital system.” (about a Dr in Australia) Attract women back?! Hospital births have only become the norm in the last 50 or so years, and most women still have hospital births.
I could be here all night. The lunacy, scaremongering an injustice of it all is so immense.
My heart goes out to Janet and her family.
Oh, and I know personally of a woman in her 40s or 50s who got pregnant in her teens, completely hid the pegnancy, had no medical care, and gave birth in her bathroom, attended only by her younger sister. The baby was born healthy and grew up fine, no brain damge or whatever.
I’ve also read several articles in the last few years from women whose baby has come too quickly and therefore they gave birth alone on toilets or bathrooms or bedrooms, or in cars or driveways or carparks only assisted by friends, relatives, or passers-by, untrained in obstetrics or childbirth.
No one condemns them as reckless, selfish, or stupid.
“No one condemns them as reckless, selfish, or stupid.”
To be fair, from the point of view of those who would disparage homebirth, there is a big difference between accidentally giving birth too precipitously to get to the hospital, and intentionally choosing not to go at all. So it does make sense that they would not marginalize “oops” deliveries. Those stories, in the news,s are usually accompanied by comments about how “lucky” she was that the birth was so easy, and how dangerous the situation was, and how scary, and how brave everyone was to keep calm in such a horrible, dangerous situation. So it’s nothing new, really.
The whole situation is just horrible – whether the birth took place at home or not is irrelevant. There was still a life lost. My heart ACHES for that family.
I try to imagine the panic, the sheer horror of losing my child in an unassisted homebirth & my heart just cries for this mother. I do not condemn her choice of birthing place & I wish for healing, love & support from those closest to her. A grieving mother is not a criminal, it’s the mothers who intentionally hurt or kill their children that deserve investigation, evaluation &, if need be, punishment.
I read about this a while back, and it is such a tragedy.
I think what many people fear with homebirth is the responsibility. If something goes wrong in a hospital, they have someone else to blame it on, and everyone will say “It wasn’t your fault”. If something goes wrong at home, everyone will say (or at least think) that it was the mother’s fault for not having more “help” available. I think many women fear having control over their own births, because then they will also inevitably be blamed by others and possibly even blame themselves. Hospitals and doctors provide a scapegoat.
Of course, many of us *here* see things differently, but I think the mainstream prefers to let the doctors take the fall.
and that explains why malpractice insurance is so sky-high.
Rachele, interesting observation. I hadn’t looked at hospital birth as avoiding ownership of the situation.
I too send sympathy to the family. So sorry.
On a related note, but not at all directed toward the previous subject. I was reading the NY Times yesterday, saw an article about Tanzania’s birthing situation and thought of you all. The quote “Most of the deaths are preventable with basic obstetrical care.” makes sense to me, I guess, but there are parts of the article that caught my critical eye and made me wonder if trying to do too much with so little is making things worse than they would be if births were treated differently.. more naturally. Even left alone in many situations. Anyone else read the article?
My condolences to Ms. Fraser and her family. The loss of a child is awful no matter how it happens, and for the media to assign blame to the family for making the choices they did is not helpful.
@Julie: I also read the NY times on birthing in Tanzania. What struck me was all those women giving birth on their backs, lying on their backs with IV’s attached, etc.
At the same time, there’s such a thing as too little medical care, for sure! We’re very fortunate here (at least until home birth gets outlawed.. sigh.. ) to be able to choose everything from unattended with no medical prenatal care through induce ‘em and take ‘em early by c-section, and few of us are further than an hour from a hospital if we decide mid-labor that we want it.
I don’t know how you fix the situation in Tanzania, but it seems to me that it ought to include /both/ better hospital access /and/ more education of women and/or local birth attendants to identify the (small) fraction of cases that really might be better off in a hospital.
To “fix” issues in Tanzania – instead of using IV lines and other high price items – distribute iron and calcium rich foods to pregnant women. Give “prenatal” care w/ a prooven track record eg. Dr. Odent’s music/song gatherings.
Keep in mind most “diseases of pregnancy” pre-eclampsia, high blood pressure, retained placenta, excessive bleeding are just symptoms of and underlying nutritional deficency.
The article on Tanzania births was very interesting. First, I was just reading an interesting article about volunteerism here http://www.swaraj.org/illich_hell.htm which I’m thinking about as I write how I would ‘fix’ the situation there. As Lori and others said, it’s all about the nutrition. I’m also sitting down to read Small is Beautiful and so am thinking that the answer would be many many midwives 2 or more in every village, rather than 1 big hospital many miles away. And for pete’s sake, what’s with the pulling on the cord? Both of the deaths in the story sounded like extreme over management of the 2 stage of labor, delivering the placenta, which really doesn’t need anybody to pull anything. Of course I am armchair quarterbacking here, but seems like midwifery would be the answer.
Love,
Heather
My heart breaks for Janet. To lose her baby, and then to have the world rub her face in it like a bad dog who pooped on the carpet. It made me want to throw up to hear everyone chanting smugly, “See! See! We toooold you so! So NOW are you going to admit you were wrong?” Disgusting. The death of her baby is going to haunt her the rest of her life. I’d say that’s punishment enough without the public flagellation.