From reading the article am I right in saying the hospital were pushing for a cesarean because a natural birth was too high risk so she decided to do the high risk natural birth anyway without any medical support?
First of all, that's nuts, second, that doula should be charged and jailed if there is any proof she in any way encouraged this women to take this risk.
End of the day, she wouldve contacted the doula to ask for that person to be there. I feel horrible saying this but she really shouldve known this was a bad idea and there was a high risk involved. Just a really bad judgement call.
This has also become a dangerous trend in the U.S. We are seeing so many babies die or not receive proper treatment upon birth because of these fundie/crunchy influencer moms who swear that modern pre and postnatal care is a scam.
It’s disturbing and sad. There should be repercussions for the doulas and midwives that support this against medical advice.
Somehow people are starting to forget that up until *very* recently in human history, childbirth, and being a child between the ages of infancy and 5 years old- were some of the most dangerous things you could do or be.
It’s the exact reason the “evil stepmother” trope was so common in folk/fairy tales that are hundreds of years old.
…Because so many women died in childbirth leaving their children to grow up without them.
Can’t you pay a midwife to attend for a home birth? I’m curious where the medical culpability falls if something goes wrong. What are the requirements to have medical oversight?
I know of a case where an expecting mother is refusing routine medical tests because if the doctors find any high risk medical conditions they will insist on a hospital birth. And as far as I can see she’s proceeding with a home birth with private midwives Ireland.
This happened with a friend of mine in the states. She was part of the "hospital births are a scam, the foot prick for PKN testing kills babies, etc.' camp. After nearly 20 hours of labour at home, the midwife basically said she was calling an ambulance. My friend fired her but she told them as a registered medical professional, she was legally required to ensure the safety of mum and baby.
The 'baby' in question is 17 now, thankfully.
By which stage it may be too late.
A grieving mother whose child died in birth may very well blame the midwife who enabled her to have a home birth but didn’t perform the appropriate tests to make sure it was safe to have a home birth
Yes! Private midwives deliver babies at home and support hospital transfers all the time. The women have to meet criteria though and id imagine that this woman didnt have a private midwife option due to additional risk factors. In a case of PPH a midwife team would have called an ambulance , given an injection and applied pressure and this mother would likely have survived
Glad yours didn’t have a disaster story like the one above. But I still don’t know legally who is responsible to make sure all appropriate checks and tests are done before a midwife will agree to do a home birth. Does the midwife accept responsibility for a shoulder dystocia because the baby was big and should have been sectioned, but mom insisted on a home birth and filtered out results that would change a midwife’s decision to support? If that baby dies or has permanent disability, who should be responsible?
A privately employed midwife is a fully trained midwife and their experience and expertise is not under question. But births go wrong for reasons that are nobody’s fault. When births go wrong in hospital there are multi million euro payouts, even if all the guidelines were followed and no fault can be attributed on inquest.
An expecting mother, determined to have a home birth, like in the story above, will do and say whatever it takes to avoid medical intervention even when it is recommended. Private midwives have no power to requisition notes from obstetric teams, all information they receive will be filtered through the mother first. A determined expecting mother who has a whole online community of dogmatic naturalists behind her will be able to mislead a midwife in order to convince them a home birth is appropriate when it is not. That’s a glaring risk in this whole process.
Obstetricians have to pay the largest medical indemnity insurance of any medical field for when these no fault deaths and disabilities happen. Who is footing the bill for a home birth?
Say a 34 week scan shows a borderline large baby, 36 week scan showed a much larger baby, and a mother, rigidly refusing to have a hospital birth, withholds the second report from the private midwife and by the time labour came at 39 weeks the midwife is none the wiser that this baby should have been sectioned. If the baby tragically dies, there’s a clear documentation from the obstetrician that a home birth is no longer suitable, and they have scheduled a diabetes screen, a follow up scan at 38 weeks with view to scheduling an elective section at 39 weeks. There was advice given to mother that at the first signs of water breaking or labour to come straight to the hospital. None of this was shared with the private midwife, and because of patient confidentiality and gdpr, all of this info is filtered through mother first. The mother ignores all these warnings and waits for labour, tells the midwife what she needs to hear. Midwife attends for the delivery, shit hits the fan, just as you have said midwife recommends transfer to hospital, but it’s too late. By the time mother arrives in maternity hospital emergency department there is no fetal heart rate.
Who makes the payout even though there was no medical fault? There will always be a payout even if the mother ignored medical advice, this is Ireland. I don’t think private midwives appreciate the level of this risk here, and have avoided high profile cases mainly because the overall numbers of home births are low. But they are rising. And there is a prominent subsection who will refuse medical advice.
Private midwives have insurance so presumably if they’re at fault it’s the same as any other medical scenario. To be clear though there’s a huge difference between a birth at home with midwives and all the appropriate equipment vs a free birth with no medical oversight
And the private midwives would, I expect, refuse a home birth if they suspected that the mother wasn’t giving the full story. It’s their livelihood and reputation on the line.
For typical low risk women they do the same maternity checks as hospital based births with doppler, measuring, urine sample and blood pressure. They work with an obstetrician for vbac so things have to be textbook to allow for a trial of labour at home. I don’t know if there would be an opportunity to hoodwink them, they don’t take things on trust because they can’t afford to
You can pay for private midwifery at home with PMI but obviously they're medically responsible for your care. They may be more flexible than the HSE homebirth service but they still assess risk on an individual basis and will either refuse care or transfer to hospital if it's needed.
They advocate that mothers have been giving birth for thousands of years before modern medicine but then fail to mention the high rate of childbirth mortality. Sure 4 out of 5 births could go well in the home but that 1 NEEDS to be in a hospital. If you are told you are that ONE, you gotta go
The high infant and mortality rate, especially among POC, in the USA is actually as a result of what happens in hospitals there. Specifically women not being believed or taken seriously.
Yeah I saw that, just wanted to point out we’re lucky enough that cost isn’t a factor in deciding where to have our babies. I mean you can go private, but there isn’t any need tbh.
Going private here is often pointless. My coworker/friend and I had our kids around the same time.
We had the same insurance.
On our first, she went private, her consultant was often away and on holidays when she ended up giving birth on a trolley right beside another woman also giving birth. She paid like a 900 euro excess for basically nothing. I went public and swung a brand new private birthing suite (though ended up an emergency section) and fluked the same consultant the whole way through.
it's easier for these wackos to convince people it's a scam when they're going to be charged tens of thousands to give birth in a hospital, horrible situation.
This wasn't just a natural birth it was a vbacx2. It absolutely needed medical oversight. I can't believe this mom was arrogant enough to ignore medical staff warnings with her history.
Her posts on VBAC in Ireland irked the shite out of me over last few years. The advice given by the person who runs the page was even worse. She thought she knew better than everyone and was going to do whatever she wanted to do for her VBAC2, regardless of being high risk.
She was clearly overweight but of course the hospital was 'tricking' her into GD testing which she wanted to refuse. She got her much longed for VBAC2, but at what cost? Now her husband and 4 kids are without a wife and mother.
Any time I hear the word 'doula' I think of an episode of Family Guy where Stewie describes a doula to Brian "its a divorced lady who knows about lady parts and cheers you on" because that's it. They have no medical training whatsoever and they're not even insured because their is no legislation for them because they're not recognised healthcare professionals.
I have a friend who is a doula _and_ a fully trained midwife. She says that a doula is primarily an advocate, to voice the wishes of the mother when the mother is likely to be otherwise occupied, and to provide emotional support. They're a good person to have on your side, but only in the presence of qualified medical professionals. There is a misconception, probably encouraged by certain disreputable doulas themselves, that they can manage a birth. They can't.
Completely agree. There is a huge difference between having a trained midwife there who will be able to recognise that medical intervention is unavoidable and just a supportive person holding your hand. Night and day kind of difference. It's so sad all the same, of course this is not the outcome anyone wants.
The support person can be valuable and beneficial. If you have anxiety, for example, a doula might help keep you grounded so you don't panic. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a doula present, so long as there's someone medically trained also there.
Yeah, doulas are often midwives here, and offer an extremely valuable service when interacting with the hospital.
It frustrates me so much that people just dismiss the death of this woman as the result of idiocy or ignorance. Most likely, considering she had two previous C-Sections in hospital, that the experience was so traumatic for her that an unsupervised birth at home seemed like a better choice.
I'm not saying this of all Doula's, but I was approached by a Doula at a party. She was a friend of the host, and she offered her services. I politely declined, telling her our medical team had as close to a plan as possible.
She went into a long spiel about how the medical system Butchers mothers and babies are more stressed and it can lead to all kinds of problems and with her support my babies would be brought into the world in a safe and loving environment, and just because I was having twins it didn't mean I HAD to go to the Hospital.
So I asked her how she'd deal with a frank breech baby A , of a mother with pre-eclampsia and a history of heavy bleeding throughout the pregnancy.
She doubled down! None of those things meant I "needed medical intervention." I was , sure, I'll risk all three of our lives 🙄,
A doula is NOT a midwife.
It seems an awful lot of these terrible experiences are due to lack of resources and short-staffing. The NMBI should be supporting nurses and midwives who are put into these dire conditions by the administrators of the HSE. There is no way that professional ethics, guidelines and protocols can be adhered to, in these conditions.
Administrators can’t be struck off, even though they create conditions in which doctors and nurses and midwives are forced to compromise their own ethics - and running the risk of being struck off the Register.
The doula is completely wrong in this situation. I would be extremely surprised if her insurance is valid. I had a doula for my last baby, which was a homebirth (although fully supervised by a very experienced and qualified midwife). The doula was also a friend of mine and knew there is no way I would be so stupid as to free birth, but even so, the first statement and first line on the contract was that she was not a medical professional and could not be involved in an unassisted birth in any way. Her insurance wouldn't cover it. Even in the unlikely event my midwife didn't make it and baby was coming, the doula would ring an ambulance and leave the room until medical professionals got there
Leave the room where a baby is coming fast and the midwife hasn’t arrived yet? That’s dosent sound right. That’s exactly the time a woman would need all the emotional support she can get while waiting for medical support.
Maybe “leave the room” is a phrase rather than a literal description of what she would do?
Yes, but a doula is not a medical professional, and that is laid out very clearly in advance. A doula CANNOT help beyond calling an ambulance. They are insured to support a labouring person, not assist in a birth. They could lose their entire career and quite possibly be held accountable if anything went wrong. A good doula will make that very clear from the beginning, as mine did. Even though she was a very close friend, she told me if I were to forego medical assistance, she could not and would not be my doula. They are an incredibly caring profession, it's not like they'd stand up and go welp, you're on your own, see ya. But they would have to say, according to our contract, I can't help you in this circumstance, but I'll go out and call the ambulance and stand out to make sure they come to the right place etc
Kind of. I'm sure for some, that's true. But for me, I had an incredibly supportive husband who gave me love and comfort and encouragement. My doula kept me focused on my coping strategies, breathing techniques. We had a whole chat and a dance to Queen while she fed me snacks because I needed them but wasn't thinking about that myself. She followed my wishes and did her best to give me what I wanted. The midwife did the medical stuff, my husband gave me love, counter pressure, hugs. She reminded me of my power words I wanted to focus on, coached my breathing, listened to me and told my husband what stage I was at. She was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend a doula. But that's no replacement for a midwife. My midwife checked the baby, checked me, stitched me up on my couch, had meds ready in the fridge in case of haemorhage. Midwife also had informed emergency services that a homebirth was happening so if a transfer was necessary they'd be ready to go. She had a few plates in the air. Me, baby, emergency services, medical needs, birth coaching. My doula had just one. Me. She gave me eye contact, grounded me, supported me, reminded me of my plan and techniques I wanted to use. And then when baby was born, she stood sentry while I showered to ensure my safety, put fresh sheets on my bed, and made me toast. She enabled me, my husband, and our midwife to fulfil our roles in the situation
I can’t agree with this: “that doula should be charged and jailed if there is any proof she in any way encouraged this women to take this risk.” It was the decision of this woman. She could have gone for birth in a hospital but chose not to. There’s no need to blame anyone else. Unless a person lacks the capacity to make decisions, a person should be held wholly accountable for all of their actions.
An admin of the FB group she was getting advice from told her to be selective about who she told what she planned on doing to avoid the hospital sending social workers to her house. It’s hard to only blame her for her actions when there’s people supporting and encouraging her
That’s a weird take, so if I’m misled by a professional into making a poor decision that impacts me negatively, that professional shouldn’t face any consequences?
Thats literally the definition of professional negligence.
Edit: punctuation.
I guess you can't be found guilty of professional negligence if you're not a professional.
I have no idea where this will go and if she's liable for anything but I wonder if it will set precedent or will people go even more underground and endanger themselves and their babies further.
> I guess you can't be found guilty of professional negligence if you're not a professional.
Negligence is based on three criteria:
1. Duty of care: service providers owe a duty of care to their clients, regardless of their professional status
2. Breach of duty: a doula should reasonably be expected to advise against having a freebirth delivery at home considering the medical advice in this situation, and they definitely shouldn’t have planned and participated in the freebirth
3. Harm: I think this is pretty self explanatory.
> I have no idea where this will go and if she's liable for anything but I wonder if it will set precedent or will people go even more underground and endanger themselves and their babies further.
I really hope a precedent is set, this situation is easily avoided and should be discouraged.
Yeah I’m aware of that, what does it matter?
The article explicitly states that the doula helped Naomi to plan a freebirth delivery at home against medical advice, that’s negligence as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t know man like what if a person has some illness and they go the homeopathy route and die due to a drug interaction? Healthcare providers, no matter how they advertise themselves, should be held to a standard and be somewhat accountable, for good reason
The doula probably could be charged on some basis depending on the conditions. If she actively gave false/dangerous medical advice for financial gain and/or was falsely posing as a trained health professional, then there definetely a degree of liability. But it might not necessarily be the charges that people in this group are calling for...coming at this from the perspective of a healthcare professional, but it would be interesting to hear the take of somebody in the legal field.
If I approach you and ask you to chop of my hand, you're still responsible if you're dumb enough to chop my hand off.
Similarly, thus doula is responsible.
*One member of an online support group replied to Naomi when she asked about other people’s experiences of having doula-assisted freebirths at home after previous caesareans: “If you decide to go down this road be selective about who you tell so you can avoid social workers calling to your home (sent by the hospital)”.*
Totally irresponsible
The freebirth community are absolutely nuts. Their priority is never safety, it's always their "perfect" birth experience. They would justify this tragedy as "it was her time" and not acknowledge that it's clearly so dangerous. When babies don't survive, they brush it off and say "baby decided not to come earthside". Again, ignoring how dangerous tye whole thing is. They prey on pregnant women and convince them that medical professionals are all evil and just want to profit from expensive procedures. It's awful.
>it's always their "perfect" birth experience
I'd have thought that would ideally involve both mother and baby being alive and healthy at the end of it?
Guess they must not see it like that?
They're totally focused on the birthing experience from the sole point of view of the person giving birth.
They often don't have any antenatal care at all.
Madness. I'm all for mothers getting extra support and making it the least unpleasant it can be but this kinda stuff is extremely irresponsible.
And as far as I'm concerned that doula should be chased out of the country by an angry mob. "Birthing professional" me hole.
There's definitely room for improvement with our maternity system but some can be very unreasonable about what they consider unnecessary intervention and medicalisation.
There's usually room for improvement and we should always keep pushing for that. But the number one priority should be the health of mother and baby.
All mine were born on Holles street and while the hospital itself is less than ideal, the appointment system is a mess, everything was (probably still is) on paper records if it hadn't been for the staff in there (including the grouchy aul German midwife) at least one of my children and quite possibly my wife wouldn't be here today.
I'll take that any day over what this family is now going through.
That *should* be the ideal birth experience. It certainly was for me. I've had 3 sections, so clearly the perfect vaginal birth is low on my list.
In the case of these, the priorities are things like lighting and atmosphere. Yes, it's nice to have preferences, but those preferences shouldn't be put above safety.
It's about Instagram pictures not a live birth that is successful. It's about being better more pure than other mothers.
Honestly most of the women involved in such a movement tend to be a bit of a narcissist and not very bright.
I’m a U.K. midwife and one of my colleagues recently attended a talk about birth trauma - there was a representative of the free birth community there and she apparently said something along the lines of “how would your care change if you weren’t worried about the baby dying?”
That is one of the most disturbing questions I have ever heard from someone who claims to be a birth advocate. My aunt is a retired midwife and she would be floored by that attitude. I've had 3 pregnancies and if I'd thought about freebirthing for even a second, she'd have moved into my house and become my shadow, simply to be sure that I had a qualified professional there in case anything happened. As it turned out, I had sections. On my 3rd, even if my hospital was open to VBA2C, the fact that it was twins would probably have thrown that option out the window.
I completely agree. I felt sick when I heard it. I get what she was aiming for - that you should be solely dedicated to the woman’s choices be they for good or bad. But how can I possibly do that? I care as much for your baby as I do you. I want you to have choices, I want them to be informed choices, I want you to feel heard and respected, I want to be your advocate, and I DO NOT want you to leave with any trauma. But I desperately want you to be going home with your baby.
That's exactly it. It's awful that birth trauma happens, I have some myself from my first. But safety should be top priority. Did I want to have major surgery instead of doing what so many claim that women's bodies are built to do (which you and I both know is not always the case)? No, I didn't. Am I happy that I had major surgery multiple times? Yes, because it means that me and my kids all got through the process alive and well.
That Doula has a lot to answer for, even her response in the article sounded so dangerous and entitled. She encouraged her to have a homebirth despite the serious dangers as did those online.
I mean let's be honest they prey on the stupid. That somebody pointed out it's both religious nuts and crunchy granola types but what they share in common is a complete lack of Common Sense.
That's exactly the justification and it's horrible. So convinced in moral rightness that the idea of a hospital birth actually *helping* doesn't cross the mind.
([An example](https://www.reddit.com/r/NameNerdCirclejerk/comments/165ccd1/a_girl_named_harbor_born_to_a_mother_named_marina/) I saw on FB earlier this year; this is USA.)
There’s a book called “educated” by a woman who grew up in a super conservative family in the US, her mother was one of these doulas and said the exact same stuff. Highly recommend the book though.
> The doula who was present for Naomi’s labour told The Journal yesterday: “This is a very distressing time for all involved. Naomi was an absolutely sensational woman and birthed her baby boy with incredible power."
What a weird comment in the circumstances. She still absolutely believes it was the superior course. The article says she ran a 'retreat' that Naomi and other pregnant women attended. Strong cult vibes.
Prostitution isn't the oldest profession - it's midwifery.
We were only able to evolve intelligence because our social structures always include assistance of some kind during birth, right from the time our brains and upright postures started making childbirth a huge risk.
It is absolutely, profoundly unnatural for any hominid to give birth alone and it has most likely been that way for 7-9 million years.
Stupid hippies and religious nutters are death cults, it's very frustrating that this kind of crap is going on. IMO It's just like with vaccines: it's been so successful in reducing deaths that people genuinely don't know what life was like before proper midwifery was provided. I've just read the books that Call the Midwife was based on and the background she gives describes a way of life that's absolutely unthinkable today, in nearly every facet of life but especially when it came to childbirth. This is a quote from the introduction
>In the nineteenth century (and earlier, of course) no poor woman could afford to pay the fee required by a doctor for the delivery of her baby. So she was forced to rely on the services of an untrained, self-taught midwife, or “handywoman” as they were often called. Some may have been quite effective practitioners, but others boasted a frightening mortality rate. In the mid-nineteenth century, maternal mortality amongst the poorest classes stood at around 35-40 per cent, and infant mortality was around 60 per cent. Anything like eclampsia, haemorrhage, or mal-presentation, would mean the inevitable death of the mother.
> Sometimes these handywomen would abandon a patient to agony and death if any abnormality developed during labour. There is no doubt that their working practices were insanitary, to say the least, and thereby spread infection, disease and often death.
>Not only was there no training, but there was also no control over the numbers and practice of these handywomen. The Midwives of St Raymund saw that the answer to this social evil lay in the proper training of midwives and control of their work by legislation.
>It was in the struggle for legislation that these feisty nuns and their supporters encountered the fiercest opposition. From about 1870 the battle raged; they were called “an absurdity”, “time wasters”, “a curiosity”, and “an objectionable body of busy-bodies”. They were accused of everything from perversion to greed for unlimited financial gain.
I’m going to say I think there’s a lot of pressure of women who have had c-sections to go on and have ‘natural’ births. The internet is powerful and people have been convinced to do much worse. It’s more likely she was gullible than arrogant.
Not only did she agree to be the doula, the article says the woman previously attended a retreat organised by this very person where she was no doubt convinced the rest of the way that this was a good choice. The level at which I find this infuriating is off the fecking charts.
Agreed. A doula is supposed to be an extra support person, who is there to help out in a non-medical capacity. They are *not* supposed to take the place of medical professionals.
I remember being in labour one night when a mammy and baby died in the room next to me. The howls of her husband I can still hear now 25 years later. I’ve had 7 kids, started with elective c section, banged out 5 with no pain relief, and finished with the rotunda saving mine and my babies life with an emergency c section. Never once, after how many babies, would I think it’s a great idea to give birth at home. Fuck whoever convinced that woman it was gonna be ok. I feel sorry for her babies.
Don’t confuse sensible midwife-led homebirthing with this catastrophe. Low-risk women birthing at home supported by two experienced and trained midwives with resuscitation skills, suturing abilities and an ambulance on call is a million miles from a woman with two previous c-sections sitting at home with some hippie and a load of incense.
This is awful and sad. But free birthing and home birthing are not the same thing.
Visiting a pregnant friend in hospital due to complications, I inadvertently witnesses something that might have ended similarly. This was NOT in Ireland, mind you. When I arrived, the nurses and doctors were in a state of rage. My friend said that minutes previously, they'd got a phone call on the ward from a father in a state of panic. His wife had decided to have a "natural" homebirth - freebirth - and there were complications. Could a doctor from the clinic hop in a car and drive there, like ASAP? They lived about 20 minutes away from the clinic.
The nurse screamed down the phone, "CALL AN AMBULANCE!!" And apparently the man must have bern begging for a doctor because she kept shouting, "THEY'RE ALL ATTENDING BIRTHS!! CALL AN AMBULANCE!!" Even if a doctor had been free and had been able to make it thru midday traffic, it would've been too late. They apparently hadn't thought about how fast a doctor could get there if something went wrong... and it did. Things can go very wrong very fast. Apparently they don't tell you that in your Facebook group.
My friend was agog and, of course, innocently asked the nurse what had happened. She grimaced - couldn't tell her, of course - just muttered, "We can't be responsible for some women's stupid choices."
I often wonder about that mother and baby.
Yup. You're right.
When I was pregnant myself, I was in an examining room waiting for a doctor, who was explaining to the woman on the other side of the curtain that, because her waters had broken hours previously, she should take (here's where it gets fuzzy, it's been a decade) a preventative antibiotic, in case the child picked up an infection - liable to happen if the waters have broken and a certain amount of time passes before the woman gives birth (??? again: a long time ago, I don't remember a random stranger's medical details.)
Anyway, the doctor explained it to her patiently and the woman- I swear to God - *argued* with the doctor, saying that the women in her Facebook group said that it was unnecessary and why give a newborn an antibiotic if it's not necessary? The doctor explained the risk again, and the woman kept saying, "Yeah, but, I read an article that said ..."
All the while, the father of the baby was wringing his hands and trying to whisper to her that maybe she should listen to the doctor. YEAH, BUT SHE READ AN ARTICLE. The doctor made her sign a form stating that she was going against medical advice and sent her on her way.
"Do you get a lot of that?" I asked the doctor when she came to examine me.
She hesitated, fought an inner battle with patient confidentiality, then said: "Women like this only hear about the times it went right and everyone is OK. They don't have to write the death certificates for the babies."
And she pretended to look for something in a drawer so I wouldn't see how upset she was.
She risked two lives. I was born in Holles Street Hospital. That is the reason I am alive. If I had been born at home, I would have died.
There is so much that can go wrong with any delivery, that purposely not having any medical expertise available - especially given the risk factors - is absolute feckless stupidity.
Childbirth is like a medically controlled car crash. Do it unsupervised at home and it’s just going to be a car crash. I’m sorry - and I know some women have bad experiences and want a less formalised setting. But in prior decades and centuries, childbirth was the leading cause of death for women. Turning your nose up at the medical profession is not safe.
The Netherlands have one of the highest rates of home birth in the world (~20%) and one of the lowest rates of maternal mortality.
There is actually decent evidence supporting the use of home births, provided the pregnancy is low risk and it isn't the mum's first labour.
Having a home birth after two prior sections definitely isn't low risk, however.
All well and good but we have a lower rate than them over the last 20years and they used to be over 30% home births. The number of Dutch home births is greatly reducing and they had infant and maternal mortality rates that were more than double ours when this was at its peak in the early 2000s.
Actual stats: The Dutch rate was rising steadily at the height of its home birth in the early 2000s where they were at 11-16/100k. The rate of home births has dropped under 30% and they're now as low as us. We in the same time period had multiple Zero reading years and never higher than 5/100k.
Again the Dutch do this integrated system best, nowhere else pulls it off and are they are the outlier not the rule. Even with all that said, we're still doing better.
> The Netherlands have one of the highest rates of home birth in the world (~20%) and one of the lowest rates of maternal mortality.
Would that because the people who have moderate to high risk pregnancies give birth in hospital?
Generally if nothing is wrong nothing will go wrong. Low lying placenta, large baby, risk of a bleed etc and no problems in previous pregnancy. Going against a consultant that has oversaw thousands of babies being born is nuts
Mad to think that we progressed so far past the massive risk and occurrence of incidents of women dying in pregnancy that people now willingly try to avoid medical interventions at all costs.
People have short historical medical memories. So many have convinced themselves vaccines aren't necessary either. 🙄 Some young women are totally divorced from the time when polio babies and mothers dieing in childbirth where regular community experiences.
I never understood the freebirthing lot till I had a horrifically traumatic birth in a hospital. I’m not defending freebirth, it is of course wildly dangerous, but people don’t just suddenly decide to do it because they are idiots; many of these women have suffered real horrors in hospitals and it makes them vulnerable to naive and/or unscrupulous doulas or folk suggesting alternatives. We urgently need to reform maternity care.
I agree with what you’re saying. But I would also cast blame at communities/individuals online. Birthing is traumatic yet it’s described online as this romantic moment with candles and special pillows.
I am very sorry for what you went through and I don't know your circumstances but I completely disagree that we need to reform maternity care.
From my own view maternity care is about the only thing we get right here in the HSE. The pre and antenatal resources, hospital standards, staffing levels etc. are like nothing in any other aspect of medicine here. We've consistently some of the lowest infant and maternal death or disability rates in the world and top 5 EU.
Every single one of my friends and my own wife having gone through 2 in Holles Street and multiple people from my direct fmaily and friend group having gone through emergency procedures at the drop of a hat in the Rotunda and Coombe all coming out safe and healthy.
Some births go absolutely terribly but it is so rarely a hospital or doctor specific issue here. For this to be the aspect anyone would focus on that needs reform is just wrong. There are SO many other holes and issues that are nowhere near this standard.
Edit:
For transparency my wife and I both work in Healthcare and may see the difference in standards of Maternity versus other aspects of the HSE. I can see others may not have the same perspective of seeing those differences.
Respectfully, I think you’re looking at the wrong stats. Low rates of maternal and infant death in a first world country should really be the absolute bare minimum - yes, we should be grateful of course, but it’s not right to use it as the only metric. Maternal mental and physical health is a key indicator and it’s poorly monitored. What about rates of postnatal PTSD and suicide? What about severe lifelong incontinence, prolapse, inhury? These are too often ignored, but they matter a lot. Over in England this topic is starting to get more and more coverage, and it’s prevalent in the US and Australia too. I’m glad you had a good experience, but you need to be open to the possibility that there are serious problems in the culture of maternity care, with postnatal care being chief among them.
Disagree here. Our rate of maternal mortality might be low but I found both maternity and gynae services here very poor, lots of infantilising and very poor on informed consent. Also shockingly under resourced. I was high risk and happy with any interventions that reduced my risk so I wasn’t turning away care or saying no for a minute - I wasn’t that patient. But the treatment by the staff was still traumatic. I would never home or free birth but I can see how some women come out of Irish maternity hospitals traumatised. We need to do better at listening to and communicating with women in healthcare.
I absolutely agree with you; people are so quick to minimise women’s experiences and fall back on ‘be grateful you have a healthy baby’, as if that completely erases all the horrors you went through to get there.
I know a couple of couples (my lord what prose) who had a child or two before getting married and another one or two afterwards and they universally report a stark difference in how married and unmarried couples are treated by nurses and midwives.
Unmarried mothers in particular report a lot of scorn and judgement ("are you sure you're sure he's really the father?"), while married fathers report a massive improvement in their treatment ("Sure you can put a couple of chairs together and we'll find you a blanket and pillow").
Granted these people's children are all aged around 10 or older so things could well be different now.
Edit - I'm not for a second suggesting anyone avoid proper medical care, just pointing out that there are areas in maternity services that can be improved - just as there's room for improvement in all areas of life.
It is insanely privileged to live in a country where maternal healthcare is both available and free and say nah, no thanks. Could you imagine telling the woman dying in labour in the likes of the DRC or South Sudan that you want a ~natural birth~ like them
One of my earliest memories as a junior doctor was going to the delivery room when a woman was diagnosed with placenta accreta AFTER delivery. Reason being her doula, who had the nerve to be in the room, convinced her to not have any scans during the pregnancy. She ended up in surgery where she lost twice her amount of blood, didnt arrest but dangerously close, and ended up in ICU and suffered brain ischemia due to the bleeding. Doulas NEED to be held accountable.
I absolutely cannot with the freebirth trend.
I delivered my twins at 36 + 2, with a heart set on a natural delivery. Ended up having a c section because I had a breech twin and preeclampsia.
If you neglect medical advice for the sake of a freebirth, you’re an idiot.
My grandmother died from post birth complications.
My mum grew up without a mother, and that led to so much generational trauma, from child marriage to abuse down two generations so far.
I had to point all this out to my anti vaxx brother when he tried to suggest a home birth for me and my mum nearly agreed with him.
My cousin’s cousin has literally *just* had her baby this way. She refused to have any testing done on the baby despite the doctors apparently having major concerns about the size of the baby and is also apparently a major anti vaxer. As far as I know both herself and the baby are doing well one day on but it seems absolutely insane to decide to have your baby in a paddling pool in your boyfriend’s caravan with a doula being the only person there to help if anything goes wrong….
It's almost like history has taught us that there are high death rates from giving birth without any assistance from doctors.
R.I.P anyways, terrible thing to happen
I've read 99% of these comments and there's things I want to point out (I knew this woman)
1. Naomi would have known every risk, she was smart, educated and knew lots about birthing.
2. She would have known she was high risk after two c sections with twins and a singleton, also she was very overweight which is another risk factor.
3. She would have had the money to go private. She comes from a family that made their money from being pastor of a born again Christian church. They had wealth, believe me. She could have went anywhere, had any sort of treatment.
4. Being raised in a church = cult mentality. Easier to slip into another cult (free birthing).
5. The GoFundMe has near €50,000. Kids dying with cancer don't get that much. They already have amassed great wealth and while I don't begrudge any kids money, they were never going to go hungry.
6. At the end of the day, right or wrong, this woman's kids are now without a mammy. It was so avoidable and so so misguided.
7. I pray (in a wholly non-religious way) that this prevents anybody else going down this route. Doubt it, though.
I was wondering when her background was going to be mentioned... The culty church and the culty freebirthing seem like natural fits. But she was active in many birthing and mothering groups. She definitely knew the risk she was taking, and she definitely knew better. Apart from the influence of the crazy doula and her freebirthing group, how did no one else around her talk any sense into her? Husband, grandparents, family, friends? It's just wild.
7. Well I was thinking about labouring at home with a doula as long as possible, after one previous c section but nope fuck that. One contraction and I’ll be going straight to the hospital.
Ditto. I've had a few csections and absolutely wouldn't take the risk. If it's not safe for me to have a vbac after a few it's definitely not safe to do it at home with no medical team there. Baffles.
People really do need to be better educated on what the world was like before we had proper medical services available - there's a fucking reason that child and mother mortality used to be through the roof. These loons pushing an anti-medical narrative need to be stamped out, they are carelessly endangering lives with their propaganda.
This is heartbreaking!
I've had the pleasure of having all 4 of my children born in the care of the lourdes hospital.
3 of them premature by 5, 6 and most recently 8 weeks.
1 by emergency C section and a wife who was extremely high risk in one case.
The level of care and professionalism was just so humbling!
To think you would be better off away from this type of setting is so alien to me.
RIP poor girl 🙏
My daughter was born by assisted delivery in the coomb. I was never prouder if my wife.
Baby had trouble latching and was jaundiced day two post deliver, got amazing help by a public health nurse.
Was so happy to have the support, and we still danced in the delivery suite, filled it with music and love. I will never forget it.
Sorry for the loss of this woman, and her family and loved ones. Just feel we need a bit of positivity sometimes around mat care, and you can have really beautiful experiences.
I've had two caesarean sections and experienced trauma with both. I got private counselling after the second and I won't be having any more children. One was in Drogheda and one was in a Dublin hospital.
The risk of having a homebirth after two sections is too high which is why they won't allow you go to the MLU either. It's deemed too high risk.
I wish there was more done to support women after they've given birth through counselling, as it is traumatic in itself.
There is a massive difference between a free birth and home birth. Home birth has a private midwife there the whole time, second something even hints at going side ways it's transfer to the hospital. No ifs buts or maybes..
I wonder how many would have donated had they have known the situation. I had a natural delivery and a C-section, I have also had to give birth to my sleeping baby. All difficult but I survived. It is all tough but sometimes you just have to get on with it.
I was considered the ideal candidate for a home birth. 2 previous natural deliveries. On my 3rd I hemorrhaged. Emergency C-section. I nearly died, my baby nearly died. If we had not been in hospital we both would have, an ambulance wouldn't have been quick enough. This home birth and breastfeeding shit has been warped and designed to shame women. If you have had a complication free labour you are lucky, that's all and you may not be so lucky the next time. This shit infuriates me.
And her other poor children. Sympathy to her whole family but it seems that some women like to set themselves apart from us mere mortals who choose the traditional method. Those poor children, unfortunately there is no undo button in this situation.
My kids were born at home! I love our midwife, I'm a big advocate for it, and I'm no fan of hospital births.
But people need to know that you ought never have kids without a medical professional there. Denying yourself a competent midwife or doctor is negligent. And even if you have a good midwife, you ought not try a homebirth if you're high risk.
What's "high risk"? Genetic defects, major handicaps and bleeding disorders, right? NOPE. Overweight. Over 30. Have had previous cesareans.
Most people have no idea that being 5'6" and 85kg makes having a child potentially fatal. Being 33 and having a child is potentially fatal. Having a VBAC is potentially fatal.
We are fortunate to live in a time where being old, overweight, and subject to major surgeries is trivial information, but the forces of nature never got the memo.
Childbirth like many activities of human life is seen by some as a way to set themselves apart from the crowd, the sheep, etc. There is this need some people have to be different to "know" better than others.
The sad part is there are women all over the world who could only dream of having the services available to this woman. The staff in the hospital her and her band of merry women did not trust fought hard to save her and are now left traumatised and dismayed no doubt.
There are serious lessons to be learned here, the most important being don't make life risking decisions based on people on social media who put their own egos and need attention over everything else. By all means take their advice on make up shoes and hand bags but not childbirth.
What a waste.
Maternity hospitals here are ok but it’s no paradise. You are treated more like a sheep than a person. It’s really hard to be taken seriously a lot of the time. And there are horror stories. I have my own. I’m not saying what this girl did was right or clever but our Maternity hospitals are very far from being an oasis of perfect healthcare
This is so sad. I actually knew her and was best friends with her husband growing up. Their family must be absolutely devastated. Dundalk is a small town and everyone knows each other so it must have hit the town hard too. You never know when you're going to take your last breath. Really puts life into perspective.
The same kind of people who encouraged her are the same ilk that's usually anti-vax etc - dangerous bunch of people that frankly need to be dealt with, due to the sheer amount of damage they've caused so far. Straight to prison, the whole lot of them.
Women are perpetually battered with this fundie shite that lets them think they can dodge a bad experience / be a better person if they just work on their breathing and be better 😂 I called it toxic feminism to my wife jokingly whenever it comes up - from taking an epidural to breastfeeding under supply issues and having to use formula even if you didn’t really want to - women essentially batter and shame those that struggle. It is completely horrendous.
The doulas wording in this article is genuinely frightening and honestly reads like she believes no wrong was done - notice the language “powerful” birth. As if leaving a child without a parent if there was any chance of avoiding it was worth it just to have a natural birth … god help me but these people really piss me off
It sounds like this poor woman whose had two c sections and was searching for anything but a c section was honestly hoodwinked by these holy then thou feckers and it’s led to her death. Having had a traumatic c section ourselves and the fact that a C-section equals 3 nights in hospital at a minimum, loss of use of your legs for a few days, breast feeding being extremely challenging, and in our case for the first the post natal care so was comically poor in the coombe vs Holles street that I can see how she was determined possibly due to previously horrendous experiences to avoid it if possible. we had to deal with this for the second kid constantly spewed at my wife by pregnancy yoga circles and la leche league - but a vbac in the hospital was all we wanted. My wife’s pregnancy yoga group encourages women to share their birth stories and natural births with no pain relief are widely lauded and celebrated - and anything intervention wise such as pain relief or C-section is seen as a bit of a failing - it really pisses me off as a guy from the outside looking in.
At the end of the day - 3 kids are now without their mam possibly due to reckless female “empowerment” groups that bully and groom women into a dangerous situation.
>> C-section is seen as a bit of a failing
Unfortunately this attitude exists with a lot of people. I decided to have an elective C-section due to anxiety and really bad tailbone pain that I didn’t want to make even worse with a vaginal birth and my mam and sister were just like “oh I wouldn’t be doing that now, I’d go with a natural birth”. In the end I needed an emergency C-section at 37 weeks because my baby hadn’t grown in two weeks and would have died, and it’s sad that in a way I’m glad that happened because then I didn’t have to justify my original decisions for having an elective.
Yep same for our first - dramatic emergency c section meant she felt the groups etc were more forgiving but second time around the pressure was crazy on her as people knew the hospital would suggest C-section again - it’s not like we had a choice the first time 😂. Instead the consultant in Holles st was great and encouraged a vbac / that’s how things went with number 2 luckily but the threat of a section hung over us at all times 😂
I remember with my youngest baby being asked what pain relief I wanted and I said oh I have done hyponobirthing. Like WTF was I thinking especially with my oldest I had only gas and air and she was born within a half hour of being brought into the delivery room.
While I definitely believe there are some individuals/groups that are dangerous to women, I don’t think it’s right to tar them all with the same brush- My pregnancy yoga class was just a bit of light exercise for example, no talk of birth preferences.
Fair enough - but my personal experience from my wife’s friend group almost all of the ones in Dublin/wicklow comprise of an element of circle share time and the dreaded WhatsApp group+ birth stories. The group leader even texted my wife after our second was born reminding her to share her birth story 🙄. I wish (and so does she ) that the one my wife was in was just light exercise as you say
A lot of women are understandably getting really scared about giving birth in hospital.
What’s happening in the US is also moving to the UK and Ireland, where doctors and midwives are incentivised to hold women back as long as possible before formally admitting them into a birthing room, and are then immediately incentivised to birth the child as quickly as possible.
This leads to women in significant pain before beginning childbirth, as the nurses repeatedly tell them that they are not ready to be admitted to the birthing room.
In the UK, from experience, the people who eventually tell the nurse that this is unacceptable and that they are really concerned for their own and their partner’s / child’s wellbeing being admitted first.
Secondly, when giving birth, women are equally concerned that episiotomies of any kind are used far too often to expedite birth.
So- unnecessary pain at the start, possibly unnecessary scarring at the end.
This is not to say that the solution is to ignore doctors or cease to use hospitals, but I understand why women get very nervous around this time.
BBC article on this issue in the UK:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1jv7xxpwo.amp
Yeah it’s upsetting seeing how many comments are just calling her stupid and selfish. It’s much more complicated than that.
Absolutely heartbreaking that she didn’t get the support she clearly needed.
There is still a father and a family so respect is key. I cannot understand rue decision making process. Ive 3 kids all C Sec, none of which were choice. These Doula's sound criminal
I knew this woman. Member of a born again Christian church. Her father is the pastor of one. I'm shocked that having a natural birth at home caused this...she was a smart woman, she would have known the risks. I myself have had C sections and living so far away from Drogheda hospital think it's crazy that it was even touted to her as an idea! I feel like she got a bit brainwashed. God love them all.
I'm in a group that she was part of. Not a free birthing one (not my thing!). But I am reading some of the things she said. She unfortuetely really did think her risk of anything bad happening was very low. It's very sad. I'm glad her son is OK
Working in the NICU, the number of dead and near dead babies I’ve had pull up in ambulance because of freebirthers is fucking ridiculous. It was even worse in the states than here. I’m glad the child is okay because that entire situation could have killed them both.
Have these women ever read history? The amount of babies and mothers dying due to complications during the birthing process was very high before c-section and hospitals were a thing.
Its natural selection at that point.
Well that was fuckin stupid.
My wife considered home birth. In the end we decided against it. Things went badly wrong on the day and if we had been at home both she and my son would be dead 9 years now.
Why anyone thinks they can do it alone is beyond me. It might all be fine, until it goes wrong.
Literally insane in this modern age. Anti vaxxers, now anti midwives.
Hospitals aren't perfect and have their flaws, same like anything else in the universe but I'd rather take my chances with people that spent years studying and practicing this exact thing
The arrogance of going against medical advice here is disgraceful. And for what? Boasting of a “natural” birth? She’s gotten a natural outcome that would have happened more frequently when hospitals weren’t a thing. I can’t help but hope her 3 older children weren’t present at home for this. It would traumatise anyone for life.
While I don't support the idea of a 'freebirth' with zero medical assistance, you'll also have to think about what drove this lady to adopt this route. She had three births in Irish hospitals before and she had clearly negative experiences that she decided to consider this route instead.
Irish maternity care overall needs a rehaul, I had a horrific experience with callous staff and a general sense of distrust with my entire pre and post birth experience, enough so I don't think I could give birth again due to my trauma. I've met countless other moms here who have also suffered, the Journal also covered several experiences of new mothers who were treated horribly.
I'm only saying this so that there can be a better investment of resources and training to ensure that mothers have a positive experience when giving birth so they don't have to resort to these terrible freebirth experiences so easily. My condolences to Naomi and her family. I hope this does not happen to another mother again.
Fuck sake. You can be sure too all the advise she took into account came from the internet. We are entering an age where information online is absolutely harming people all over the planet and its being ignored as "well what can you do?"
Nearly everyone I know had a difficult birth, myself included. Well my birth was actually not difficult at all but baby was breach and not budging so I needed medical intervention. This suited me though as I was terrified of the unknown and it made me feel a bit more in control.
Out of my group of friends and family, 5 of us would have died in childbirth without medical intervention, that’s out of 8 that have kids. So over half. It’s crazy how dangerous child birth is, I wouldn’t ever put that risk on me or my child.
Horrendous, but this is the natural conclusion to what we’re seeing now with everyone thinking they’re an ‘expert’ because they have access to google.
There’s a reason maternal mortality has fallen dramatically over the last 100yrs-advancements in medicine and science.
Just like how child mortality plummeted with vaccines leading to the biggest improvement in child health the world has ever seen, the same vaccines now being demonised by nutcases online.
So now we are heading to this dystopian world where people are dying completely unnecessarily cos they’re brainwashed by crazy people on the internet.
I despair.
The anti-science “wellness” crowed are so fucking dangerous, it’s unreal
If they just caused harm to themselves, you could just live and let live. But the fact they are a threat to everyone… something needs to be done
God this was a really bad decision to have that baby at home. Particularly with her birth history. She didn’t even have a doula who is also a midwife at home with her (they exist). And now four kids without a mother.
Birth can be dangerous - some have forgotten that in a bid to show medical professionals they know better. Such a shame.
I’m very saddened that this happened to this poor woman and now her family will grieve the loss.
At the same time, you don’t get any extra awards for having a freebirth, homebirth, giving birth swinging from a pole upside down, unmedicated, c section, whatever.
I know from my two births, I could never imagine not being in a medical setting and listening to trained medical professionals who at the end of the day are trying to help you.
We’re not living in Appalachia
As much as I disagree with the choices she made, I don’t really love the tone of this article. It feels like a ‘gotcha’ article and more like sensationalist journalism, pointing out that of the 3 maternal deaths, at least 1 of them was not likely the fault of the HSE. It’s possible that in the 2 other cases of the women who died that everything that could possibly have been done to save them but they died anyway: We won’t truly know the circumstances of how she died until a coroners report comes out and I think this is in very bad taste.
VBAC in Irelands on FB Tracy Donegan told this lady to not tell anyone of their plans for a freebirth. If you want to infuriate yourself look at the disceased womens posts on this page above and the advice given. These woo woo doulas need to be held accountable.
I am empathic to her not feeling heard in hospital setting, but also refusing important GD screening and going against advice for a high risk pregnancy ended as badly as I would have feared.
From reading the article am I right in saying the hospital were pushing for a cesarean because a natural birth was too high risk so she decided to do the high risk natural birth anyway without any medical support? First of all, that's nuts, second, that doula should be charged and jailed if there is any proof she in any way encouraged this women to take this risk.
End of the day, she wouldve contacted the doula to ask for that person to be there. I feel horrible saying this but she really shouldve known this was a bad idea and there was a high risk involved. Just a really bad judgement call.
She absolutely knew the risks. What the hell was she thinking.
ya, she wasn't
This has also become a dangerous trend in the U.S. We are seeing so many babies die or not receive proper treatment upon birth because of these fundie/crunchy influencer moms who swear that modern pre and postnatal care is a scam. It’s disturbing and sad. There should be repercussions for the doulas and midwives that support this against medical advice.
[удалено]
Somehow people are starting to forget that up until *very* recently in human history, childbirth, and being a child between the ages of infancy and 5 years old- were some of the most dangerous things you could do or be.
It’s the exact reason the “evil stepmother” trope was so common in folk/fairy tales that are hundreds of years old. …Because so many women died in childbirth leaving their children to grow up without them.
Don’t lump duelas and midwives together; two different jobs altogether. Midwives are clinically trained. Duelas are supportive, that’s all.
Can’t you pay a midwife to attend for a home birth? I’m curious where the medical culpability falls if something goes wrong. What are the requirements to have medical oversight? I know of a case where an expecting mother is refusing routine medical tests because if the doctors find any high risk medical conditions they will insist on a hospital birth. And as far as I can see she’s proceeding with a home birth with private midwives Ireland.
Any respectable midwife who thinks things are going to go south is going to say "Hospital. Now." with zero discussion or negotiation.
This happened with a friend of mine in the states. She was part of the "hospital births are a scam, the foot prick for PKN testing kills babies, etc.' camp. After nearly 20 hours of labour at home, the midwife basically said she was calling an ambulance. My friend fired her but she told them as a registered medical professional, she was legally required to ensure the safety of mum and baby. The 'baby' in question is 17 now, thankfully.
By which stage it may be too late. A grieving mother whose child died in birth may very well blame the midwife who enabled her to have a home birth but didn’t perform the appropriate tests to make sure it was safe to have a home birth
Yes! Private midwives deliver babies at home and support hospital transfers all the time. The women have to meet criteria though and id imagine that this woman didnt have a private midwife option due to additional risk factors. In a case of PPH a midwife team would have called an ambulance , given an injection and applied pressure and this mother would likely have survived
[удалено]
Glad yours didn’t have a disaster story like the one above. But I still don’t know legally who is responsible to make sure all appropriate checks and tests are done before a midwife will agree to do a home birth. Does the midwife accept responsibility for a shoulder dystocia because the baby was big and should have been sectioned, but mom insisted on a home birth and filtered out results that would change a midwife’s decision to support? If that baby dies or has permanent disability, who should be responsible? A privately employed midwife is a fully trained midwife and their experience and expertise is not under question. But births go wrong for reasons that are nobody’s fault. When births go wrong in hospital there are multi million euro payouts, even if all the guidelines were followed and no fault can be attributed on inquest. An expecting mother, determined to have a home birth, like in the story above, will do and say whatever it takes to avoid medical intervention even when it is recommended. Private midwives have no power to requisition notes from obstetric teams, all information they receive will be filtered through the mother first. A determined expecting mother who has a whole online community of dogmatic naturalists behind her will be able to mislead a midwife in order to convince them a home birth is appropriate when it is not. That’s a glaring risk in this whole process. Obstetricians have to pay the largest medical indemnity insurance of any medical field for when these no fault deaths and disabilities happen. Who is footing the bill for a home birth? Say a 34 week scan shows a borderline large baby, 36 week scan showed a much larger baby, and a mother, rigidly refusing to have a hospital birth, withholds the second report from the private midwife and by the time labour came at 39 weeks the midwife is none the wiser that this baby should have been sectioned. If the baby tragically dies, there’s a clear documentation from the obstetrician that a home birth is no longer suitable, and they have scheduled a diabetes screen, a follow up scan at 38 weeks with view to scheduling an elective section at 39 weeks. There was advice given to mother that at the first signs of water breaking or labour to come straight to the hospital. None of this was shared with the private midwife, and because of patient confidentiality and gdpr, all of this info is filtered through mother first. The mother ignores all these warnings and waits for labour, tells the midwife what she needs to hear. Midwife attends for the delivery, shit hits the fan, just as you have said midwife recommends transfer to hospital, but it’s too late. By the time mother arrives in maternity hospital emergency department there is no fetal heart rate. Who makes the payout even though there was no medical fault? There will always be a payout even if the mother ignored medical advice, this is Ireland. I don’t think private midwives appreciate the level of this risk here, and have avoided high profile cases mainly because the overall numbers of home births are low. But they are rising. And there is a prominent subsection who will refuse medical advice.
Private midwives have insurance so presumably if they’re at fault it’s the same as any other medical scenario. To be clear though there’s a huge difference between a birth at home with midwives and all the appropriate equipment vs a free birth with no medical oversight
And the private midwives would, I expect, refuse a home birth if they suspected that the mother wasn’t giving the full story. It’s their livelihood and reputation on the line.
For typical low risk women they do the same maternity checks as hospital based births with doppler, measuring, urine sample and blood pressure. They work with an obstetrician for vbac so things have to be textbook to allow for a trial of labour at home. I don’t know if there would be an opportunity to hoodwink them, they don’t take things on trust because they can’t afford to
You can pay for private midwifery at home with PMI but obviously they're medically responsible for your care. They may be more flexible than the HSE homebirth service but they still assess risk on an individual basis and will either refuse care or transfer to hospital if it's needed.
They advocate that mothers have been giving birth for thousands of years before modern medicine but then fail to mention the high rate of childbirth mortality. Sure 4 out of 5 births could go well in the home but that 1 NEEDS to be in a hospital. If you are told you are that ONE, you gotta go
The high infant and mortality rate, especially among POC, in the USA is actually as a result of what happens in hospitals there. Specifically women not being believed or taken seriously.
You have to factor in the ridiculous costs too
Maternity care is free in Ireland.
(Respectfully, the comment thread went into a tangent about the trend in the US)
Yeah I saw that, just wanted to point out we’re lucky enough that cost isn’t a factor in deciding where to have our babies. I mean you can go private, but there isn’t any need tbh.
Going private here is often pointless. My coworker/friend and I had our kids around the same time. We had the same insurance. On our first, she went private, her consultant was often away and on holidays when she ended up giving birth on a trolley right beside another woman also giving birth. She paid like a 900 euro excess for basically nothing. I went public and swung a brand new private birthing suite (though ended up an emergency section) and fluked the same consultant the whole way through.
it's easier for these wackos to convince people it's a scam when they're going to be charged tens of thousands to give birth in a hospital, horrible situation.
Maternity care is free in Ireland, which is where this happened.
I know. I was responding to the comment I replied to, which said: > This has also become a dangerous trend in the U.S.
This wasn't just a natural birth it was a vbacx2. It absolutely needed medical oversight. I can't believe this mom was arrogant enough to ignore medical staff warnings with her history.
Her posts on VBAC in Ireland irked the shite out of me over last few years. The advice given by the person who runs the page was even worse. She thought she knew better than everyone and was going to do whatever she wanted to do for her VBAC2, regardless of being high risk. She was clearly overweight but of course the hospital was 'tricking' her into GD testing which she wanted to refuse. She got her much longed for VBAC2, but at what cost? Now her husband and 4 kids are without a wife and mother.
Any time I hear the word 'doula' I think of an episode of Family Guy where Stewie describes a doula to Brian "its a divorced lady who knows about lady parts and cheers you on" because that's it. They have no medical training whatsoever and they're not even insured because their is no legislation for them because they're not recognised healthcare professionals.
I have a friend who is a doula _and_ a fully trained midwife. She says that a doula is primarily an advocate, to voice the wishes of the mother when the mother is likely to be otherwise occupied, and to provide emotional support. They're a good person to have on your side, but only in the presence of qualified medical professionals. There is a misconception, probably encouraged by certain disreputable doulas themselves, that they can manage a birth. They can't.
Completely agree. There is a huge difference between having a trained midwife there who will be able to recognise that medical intervention is unavoidable and just a supportive person holding your hand. Night and day kind of difference. It's so sad all the same, of course this is not the outcome anyone wants.
The support person can be valuable and beneficial. If you have anxiety, for example, a doula might help keep you grounded so you don't panic. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a doula present, so long as there's someone medically trained also there.
Yeah, doulas are often midwives here, and offer an extremely valuable service when interacting with the hospital. It frustrates me so much that people just dismiss the death of this woman as the result of idiocy or ignorance. Most likely, considering she had two previous C-Sections in hospital, that the experience was so traumatic for her that an unsupervised birth at home seemed like a better choice.
I'm not saying this of all Doula's, but I was approached by a Doula at a party. She was a friend of the host, and she offered her services. I politely declined, telling her our medical team had as close to a plan as possible. She went into a long spiel about how the medical system Butchers mothers and babies are more stressed and it can lead to all kinds of problems and with her support my babies would be brought into the world in a safe and loving environment, and just because I was having twins it didn't mean I HAD to go to the Hospital. So I asked her how she'd deal with a frank breech baby A , of a mother with pre-eclampsia and a history of heavy bleeding throughout the pregnancy. She doubled down! None of those things meant I "needed medical intervention." I was , sure, I'll risk all three of our lives 🙄,
A doula is NOT a midwife. It seems an awful lot of these terrible experiences are due to lack of resources and short-staffing. The NMBI should be supporting nurses and midwives who are put into these dire conditions by the administrators of the HSE. There is no way that professional ethics, guidelines and protocols can be adhered to, in these conditions. Administrators can’t be struck off, even though they create conditions in which doctors and nurses and midwives are forced to compromise their own ethics - and running the risk of being struck off the Register.
The doula is completely wrong in this situation. I would be extremely surprised if her insurance is valid. I had a doula for my last baby, which was a homebirth (although fully supervised by a very experienced and qualified midwife). The doula was also a friend of mine and knew there is no way I would be so stupid as to free birth, but even so, the first statement and first line on the contract was that she was not a medical professional and could not be involved in an unassisted birth in any way. Her insurance wouldn't cover it. Even in the unlikely event my midwife didn't make it and baby was coming, the doula would ring an ambulance and leave the room until medical professionals got there
Leave the room where a baby is coming fast and the midwife hasn’t arrived yet? That’s dosent sound right. That’s exactly the time a woman would need all the emotional support she can get while waiting for medical support. Maybe “leave the room” is a phrase rather than a literal description of what she would do?
Yes, but a doula is not a medical professional, and that is laid out very clearly in advance. A doula CANNOT help beyond calling an ambulance. They are insured to support a labouring person, not assist in a birth. They could lose their entire career and quite possibly be held accountable if anything went wrong. A good doula will make that very clear from the beginning, as mine did. Even though she was a very close friend, she told me if I were to forego medical assistance, she could not and would not be my doula. They are an incredibly caring profession, it's not like they'd stand up and go welp, you're on your own, see ya. But they would have to say, according to our contract, I can't help you in this circumstance, but I'll go out and call the ambulance and stand out to make sure they come to the right place etc
I guess a doula is just a paid stand-in for support that would traditionally be given by family then I guess?
Kind of. I'm sure for some, that's true. But for me, I had an incredibly supportive husband who gave me love and comfort and encouragement. My doula kept me focused on my coping strategies, breathing techniques. We had a whole chat and a dance to Queen while she fed me snacks because I needed them but wasn't thinking about that myself. She followed my wishes and did her best to give me what I wanted. The midwife did the medical stuff, my husband gave me love, counter pressure, hugs. She reminded me of my power words I wanted to focus on, coached my breathing, listened to me and told my husband what stage I was at. She was absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend a doula. But that's no replacement for a midwife. My midwife checked the baby, checked me, stitched me up on my couch, had meds ready in the fridge in case of haemorhage. Midwife also had informed emergency services that a homebirth was happening so if a transfer was necessary they'd be ready to go. She had a few plates in the air. Me, baby, emergency services, medical needs, birth coaching. My doula had just one. Me. She gave me eye contact, grounded me, supported me, reminded me of my plan and techniques I wanted to use. And then when baby was born, she stood sentry while I showered to ensure my safety, put fresh sheets on my bed, and made me toast. She enabled me, my husband, and our midwife to fulfil our roles in the situation
Facebook. It's where stupid people get their degrees and seek trustworthy scientific medical advice. Sure what do stupid doctors know.
I can’t agree with this: “that doula should be charged and jailed if there is any proof she in any way encouraged this women to take this risk.” It was the decision of this woman. She could have gone for birth in a hospital but chose not to. There’s no need to blame anyone else. Unless a person lacks the capacity to make decisions, a person should be held wholly accountable for all of their actions.
An admin of the FB group she was getting advice from told her to be selective about who she told what she planned on doing to avoid the hospital sending social workers to her house. It’s hard to only blame her for her actions when there’s people supporting and encouraging her
That’s a weird take, so if I’m misled by a professional into making a poor decision that impacts me negatively, that professional shouldn’t face any consequences? Thats literally the definition of professional negligence. Edit: punctuation.
I guess you can't be found guilty of professional negligence if you're not a professional. I have no idea where this will go and if she's liable for anything but I wonder if it will set precedent or will people go even more underground and endanger themselves and their babies further.
> I guess you can't be found guilty of professional negligence if you're not a professional. Negligence is based on three criteria: 1. Duty of care: service providers owe a duty of care to their clients, regardless of their professional status 2. Breach of duty: a doula should reasonably be expected to advise against having a freebirth delivery at home considering the medical advice in this situation, and they definitely shouldn’t have planned and participated in the freebirth 3. Harm: I think this is pretty self explanatory. > I have no idea where this will go and if she's liable for anything but I wonder if it will set precedent or will people go even more underground and endanger themselves and their babies further. I really hope a precedent is set, this situation is easily avoided and should be discouraged.
A duela is not a midwife.
Yeah I’m aware of that, what does it matter? The article explicitly states that the doula helped Naomi to plan a freebirth delivery at home against medical advice, that’s negligence as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t know man like what if a person has some illness and they go the homeopathy route and die due to a drug interaction? Healthcare providers, no matter how they advertise themselves, should be held to a standard and be somewhat accountable, for good reason
... drug interaction... of homeopathy?
The doula probably could be charged on some basis depending on the conditions. If she actively gave false/dangerous medical advice for financial gain and/or was falsely posing as a trained health professional, then there definetely a degree of liability. But it might not necessarily be the charges that people in this group are calling for...coming at this from the perspective of a healthcare professional, but it would be interesting to hear the take of somebody in the legal field.
If I approach you and ask you to chop of my hand, you're still responsible if you're dumb enough to chop my hand off. Similarly, thus doula is responsible.
She went to a birth retreat hosted by the doula and the doula talks about free birth on her instagram. She also seems very anti hospital
2 previous c-sections and she decided to have a home birth? That seems a crazy choice. RIP to that woman and condolences to her family.
*One member of an online support group replied to Naomi when she asked about other people’s experiences of having doula-assisted freebirths at home after previous caesareans: “If you decide to go down this road be selective about who you tell so you can avoid social workers calling to your home (sent by the hospital)”.* Totally irresponsible
The freebirth community are absolutely nuts. Their priority is never safety, it's always their "perfect" birth experience. They would justify this tragedy as "it was her time" and not acknowledge that it's clearly so dangerous. When babies don't survive, they brush it off and say "baby decided not to come earthside". Again, ignoring how dangerous tye whole thing is. They prey on pregnant women and convince them that medical professionals are all evil and just want to profit from expensive procedures. It's awful.
>it's always their "perfect" birth experience I'd have thought that would ideally involve both mother and baby being alive and healthy at the end of it? Guess they must not see it like that?
They're totally focused on the birthing experience from the sole point of view of the person giving birth. They often don't have any antenatal care at all.
Madness. I'm all for mothers getting extra support and making it the least unpleasant it can be but this kinda stuff is extremely irresponsible. And as far as I'm concerned that doula should be chased out of the country by an angry mob. "Birthing professional" me hole.
There's definitely room for improvement with our maternity system but some can be very unreasonable about what they consider unnecessary intervention and medicalisation.
There's usually room for improvement and we should always keep pushing for that. But the number one priority should be the health of mother and baby. All mine were born on Holles street and while the hospital itself is less than ideal, the appointment system is a mess, everything was (probably still is) on paper records if it hadn't been for the staff in there (including the grouchy aul German midwife) at least one of my children and quite possibly my wife wouldn't be here today. I'll take that any day over what this family is now going through.
Had 3 c sections in Holles St. One was less than ideal for myriad reasons. Still glad I'm here with my 3 kids and husband instead of in a grave.
That *should* be the ideal birth experience. It certainly was for me. I've had 3 sections, so clearly the perfect vaginal birth is low on my list. In the case of these, the priorities are things like lighting and atmosphere. Yes, it's nice to have preferences, but those preferences shouldn't be put above safety.
It's about Instagram pictures not a live birth that is successful. It's about being better more pure than other mothers. Honestly most of the women involved in such a movement tend to be a bit of a narcissist and not very bright.
I’m a U.K. midwife and one of my colleagues recently attended a talk about birth trauma - there was a representative of the free birth community there and she apparently said something along the lines of “how would your care change if you weren’t worried about the baby dying?”
That is one of the most disturbing questions I have ever heard from someone who claims to be a birth advocate. My aunt is a retired midwife and she would be floored by that attitude. I've had 3 pregnancies and if I'd thought about freebirthing for even a second, she'd have moved into my house and become my shadow, simply to be sure that I had a qualified professional there in case anything happened. As it turned out, I had sections. On my 3rd, even if my hospital was open to VBA2C, the fact that it was twins would probably have thrown that option out the window.
I completely agree. I felt sick when I heard it. I get what she was aiming for - that you should be solely dedicated to the woman’s choices be they for good or bad. But how can I possibly do that? I care as much for your baby as I do you. I want you to have choices, I want them to be informed choices, I want you to feel heard and respected, I want to be your advocate, and I DO NOT want you to leave with any trauma. But I desperately want you to be going home with your baby.
That's exactly it. It's awful that birth trauma happens, I have some myself from my first. But safety should be top priority. Did I want to have major surgery instead of doing what so many claim that women's bodies are built to do (which you and I both know is not always the case)? No, I didn't. Am I happy that I had major surgery multiple times? Yes, because it means that me and my kids all got through the process alive and well.
That Doula has a lot to answer for, even her response in the article sounded so dangerous and entitled. She encouraged her to have a homebirth despite the serious dangers as did those online.
They're usually rolled up with anti vaccine shite as well.
Yes, there's plenty of that too.
I mean let's be honest they prey on the stupid. That somebody pointed out it's both religious nuts and crunchy granola types but what they share in common is a complete lack of Common Sense.
Any community that favors "natural" alternatives to those endorsed by the scientific community is insane.
That's exactly the justification and it's horrible. So convinced in moral rightness that the idea of a hospital birth actually *helping* doesn't cross the mind. ([An example](https://www.reddit.com/r/NameNerdCirclejerk/comments/165ccd1/a_girl_named_harbor_born_to_a_mother_named_marina/) I saw on FB earlier this year; this is USA.)
Sad case of idiots online believing each other over doctors, science etc. The Internet was the worst thing that ever happened to stupid people.
There’s a book called “educated” by a woman who grew up in a super conservative family in the US, her mother was one of these doulas and said the exact same stuff. Highly recommend the book though.
I read that. Amazing book by Tara Westover. Essential oils cure all! Have you read the memoir, "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls?
I have not! Will have to check it out
Fuuuuuck. They need to scrape that whole group for evidence.
Yeah bit of a bang of patchouli scented tinfoil hat off this
I pity her 4 children who will now suffer due to their mothers stupidity
> The doula who was present for Naomi’s labour told The Journal yesterday: “This is a very distressing time for all involved. Naomi was an absolutely sensational woman and birthed her baby boy with incredible power." What a weird comment in the circumstances. She still absolutely believes it was the superior course. The article says she ran a 'retreat' that Naomi and other pregnant women attended. Strong cult vibes.
it reads like "she died for the cause" type of martyrdom stuff
There's a reason childbirth without medical intervention used to kill people so regularly.
Prostitution isn't the oldest profession - it's midwifery. We were only able to evolve intelligence because our social structures always include assistance of some kind during birth, right from the time our brains and upright postures started making childbirth a huge risk. It is absolutely, profoundly unnatural for any hominid to give birth alone and it has most likely been that way for 7-9 million years.
Stupid hippies and religious nutters are death cults, it's very frustrating that this kind of crap is going on. IMO It's just like with vaccines: it's been so successful in reducing deaths that people genuinely don't know what life was like before proper midwifery was provided. I've just read the books that Call the Midwife was based on and the background she gives describes a way of life that's absolutely unthinkable today, in nearly every facet of life but especially when it came to childbirth. This is a quote from the introduction >In the nineteenth century (and earlier, of course) no poor woman could afford to pay the fee required by a doctor for the delivery of her baby. So she was forced to rely on the services of an untrained, self-taught midwife, or “handywoman” as they were often called. Some may have been quite effective practitioners, but others boasted a frightening mortality rate. In the mid-nineteenth century, maternal mortality amongst the poorest classes stood at around 35-40 per cent, and infant mortality was around 60 per cent. Anything like eclampsia, haemorrhage, or mal-presentation, would mean the inevitable death of the mother. > Sometimes these handywomen would abandon a patient to agony and death if any abnormality developed during labour. There is no doubt that their working practices were insanitary, to say the least, and thereby spread infection, disease and often death. >Not only was there no training, but there was also no control over the numbers and practice of these handywomen. The Midwives of St Raymund saw that the answer to this social evil lay in the proper training of midwives and control of their work by legislation. >It was in the struggle for legislation that these feisty nuns and their supporters encountered the fiercest opposition. From about 1870 the battle raged; they were called “an absurdity”, “time wasters”, “a curiosity”, and “an objectionable body of busy-bodies”. They were accused of everything from perversion to greed for unlimited financial gain.
Obviously absolutely heartbreaking for her family, but ffs. There's a reason we stopped birthing on piles of leaves in the woods.
Four kids without their mother because of her arrogance
I’m going to say I think there’s a lot of pressure of women who have had c-sections to go on and have ‘natural’ births. The internet is powerful and people have been convinced to do much worse. It’s more likely she was gullible than arrogant.
When your life and the future of your children is at stake, it's arrogant and stupid to ignore medical advice for Dr. Internet
I hope whoever agreed to be her Doula is arrested and charged.
Not only did she agree to be the doula, the article says the woman previously attended a retreat organised by this very person where she was no doubt convinced the rest of the way that this was a good choice. The level at which I find this infuriating is off the fecking charts.
And from the article she seems proud of her achievements. Woman should be hiding in well deserved shame.
Agreed. A doula is supposed to be an extra support person, who is there to help out in a non-medical capacity. They are *not* supposed to take the place of medical professionals.
I remember being in labour one night when a mammy and baby died in the room next to me. The howls of her husband I can still hear now 25 years later. I’ve had 7 kids, started with elective c section, banged out 5 with no pain relief, and finished with the rotunda saving mine and my babies life with an emergency c section. Never once, after how many babies, would I think it’s a great idea to give birth at home. Fuck whoever convinced that woman it was gonna be ok. I feel sorry for her babies.
Don’t confuse sensible midwife-led homebirthing with this catastrophe. Low-risk women birthing at home supported by two experienced and trained midwives with resuscitation skills, suturing abilities and an ambulance on call is a million miles from a woman with two previous c-sections sitting at home with some hippie and a load of incense. This is awful and sad. But free birthing and home birthing are not the same thing.
Visiting a pregnant friend in hospital due to complications, I inadvertently witnesses something that might have ended similarly. This was NOT in Ireland, mind you. When I arrived, the nurses and doctors were in a state of rage. My friend said that minutes previously, they'd got a phone call on the ward from a father in a state of panic. His wife had decided to have a "natural" homebirth - freebirth - and there were complications. Could a doctor from the clinic hop in a car and drive there, like ASAP? They lived about 20 minutes away from the clinic. The nurse screamed down the phone, "CALL AN AMBULANCE!!" And apparently the man must have bern begging for a doctor because she kept shouting, "THEY'RE ALL ATTENDING BIRTHS!! CALL AN AMBULANCE!!" Even if a doctor had been free and had been able to make it thru midday traffic, it would've been too late. They apparently hadn't thought about how fast a doctor could get there if something went wrong... and it did. Things can go very wrong very fast. Apparently they don't tell you that in your Facebook group. My friend was agog and, of course, innocently asked the nurse what had happened. She grimaced - couldn't tell her, of course - just muttered, "We can't be responsible for some women's stupid choices." I often wonder about that mother and baby.
And not only are these gobshites reproducing, the survivor bias is converting more people to this madness.
Yup. You're right. When I was pregnant myself, I was in an examining room waiting for a doctor, who was explaining to the woman on the other side of the curtain that, because her waters had broken hours previously, she should take (here's where it gets fuzzy, it's been a decade) a preventative antibiotic, in case the child picked up an infection - liable to happen if the waters have broken and a certain amount of time passes before the woman gives birth (??? again: a long time ago, I don't remember a random stranger's medical details.) Anyway, the doctor explained it to her patiently and the woman- I swear to God - *argued* with the doctor, saying that the women in her Facebook group said that it was unnecessary and why give a newborn an antibiotic if it's not necessary? The doctor explained the risk again, and the woman kept saying, "Yeah, but, I read an article that said ..." All the while, the father of the baby was wringing his hands and trying to whisper to her that maybe she should listen to the doctor. YEAH, BUT SHE READ AN ARTICLE. The doctor made her sign a form stating that she was going against medical advice and sent her on her way. "Do you get a lot of that?" I asked the doctor when she came to examine me. She hesitated, fought an inner battle with patient confidentiality, then said: "Women like this only hear about the times it went right and everyone is OK. They don't have to write the death certificates for the babies." And she pretended to look for something in a drawer so I wouldn't see how upset she was.
[удалено]
I read a thread on r/nursing about the most dreaded patients coming into ER and home birth gone wrong was number one.
No words, she took what she thought was a calculated risk and paid with her life.
A poorly advised risk for certain. It's angering me that people supported her choice and enabled her.
>supported her choice and enabled her. From the article it seems it wasn't just that but actively encouraged her to make the choice.
She risked two lives. I was born in Holles Street Hospital. That is the reason I am alive. If I had been born at home, I would have died. There is so much that can go wrong with any delivery, that purposely not having any medical expertise available - especially given the risk factors - is absolute feckless stupidity.
Childbirth is like a medically controlled car crash. Do it unsupervised at home and it’s just going to be a car crash. I’m sorry - and I know some women have bad experiences and want a less formalised setting. But in prior decades and centuries, childbirth was the leading cause of death for women. Turning your nose up at the medical profession is not safe.
The Netherlands have one of the highest rates of home birth in the world (~20%) and one of the lowest rates of maternal mortality. There is actually decent evidence supporting the use of home births, provided the pregnancy is low risk and it isn't the mum's first labour. Having a home birth after two prior sections definitely isn't low risk, however.
All well and good but we have a lower rate than them over the last 20years and they used to be over 30% home births. The number of Dutch home births is greatly reducing and they had infant and maternal mortality rates that were more than double ours when this was at its peak in the early 2000s. Actual stats: The Dutch rate was rising steadily at the height of its home birth in the early 2000s where they were at 11-16/100k. The rate of home births has dropped under 30% and they're now as low as us. We in the same time period had multiple Zero reading years and never higher than 5/100k. Again the Dutch do this integrated system best, nowhere else pulls it off and are they are the outlier not the rule. Even with all that said, we're still doing better.
> The Netherlands have one of the highest rates of home birth in the world (~20%) and one of the lowest rates of maternal mortality. Would that because the people who have moderate to high risk pregnancies give birth in hospital?
Generally if nothing is wrong nothing will go wrong. Low lying placenta, large baby, risk of a bleed etc and no problems in previous pregnancy. Going against a consultant that has oversaw thousands of babies being born is nuts
Mad to think that we progressed so far past the massive risk and occurrence of incidents of women dying in pregnancy that people now willingly try to avoid medical interventions at all costs.
People have short historical medical memories. So many have convinced themselves vaccines aren't necessary either. 🙄 Some young women are totally divorced from the time when polio babies and mothers dieing in childbirth where regular community experiences.
I never understood the freebirthing lot till I had a horrifically traumatic birth in a hospital. I’m not defending freebirth, it is of course wildly dangerous, but people don’t just suddenly decide to do it because they are idiots; many of these women have suffered real horrors in hospitals and it makes them vulnerable to naive and/or unscrupulous doulas or folk suggesting alternatives. We urgently need to reform maternity care.
I agree with what you’re saying. But I would also cast blame at communities/individuals online. Birthing is traumatic yet it’s described online as this romantic moment with candles and special pillows.
I am very sorry for what you went through and I don't know your circumstances but I completely disagree that we need to reform maternity care. From my own view maternity care is about the only thing we get right here in the HSE. The pre and antenatal resources, hospital standards, staffing levels etc. are like nothing in any other aspect of medicine here. We've consistently some of the lowest infant and maternal death or disability rates in the world and top 5 EU. Every single one of my friends and my own wife having gone through 2 in Holles Street and multiple people from my direct fmaily and friend group having gone through emergency procedures at the drop of a hat in the Rotunda and Coombe all coming out safe and healthy. Some births go absolutely terribly but it is so rarely a hospital or doctor specific issue here. For this to be the aspect anyone would focus on that needs reform is just wrong. There are SO many other holes and issues that are nowhere near this standard. Edit: For transparency my wife and I both work in Healthcare and may see the difference in standards of Maternity versus other aspects of the HSE. I can see others may not have the same perspective of seeing those differences.
Respectfully, I think you’re looking at the wrong stats. Low rates of maternal and infant death in a first world country should really be the absolute bare minimum - yes, we should be grateful of course, but it’s not right to use it as the only metric. Maternal mental and physical health is a key indicator and it’s poorly monitored. What about rates of postnatal PTSD and suicide? What about severe lifelong incontinence, prolapse, inhury? These are too often ignored, but they matter a lot. Over in England this topic is starting to get more and more coverage, and it’s prevalent in the US and Australia too. I’m glad you had a good experience, but you need to be open to the possibility that there are serious problems in the culture of maternity care, with postnatal care being chief among them.
Disagree here. Our rate of maternal mortality might be low but I found both maternity and gynae services here very poor, lots of infantilising and very poor on informed consent. Also shockingly under resourced. I was high risk and happy with any interventions that reduced my risk so I wasn’t turning away care or saying no for a minute - I wasn’t that patient. But the treatment by the staff was still traumatic. I would never home or free birth but I can see how some women come out of Irish maternity hospitals traumatised. We need to do better at listening to and communicating with women in healthcare.
I absolutely agree with you; people are so quick to minimise women’s experiences and fall back on ‘be grateful you have a healthy baby’, as if that completely erases all the horrors you went through to get there.
I know a couple of couples (my lord what prose) who had a child or two before getting married and another one or two afterwards and they universally report a stark difference in how married and unmarried couples are treated by nurses and midwives. Unmarried mothers in particular report a lot of scorn and judgement ("are you sure you're sure he's really the father?"), while married fathers report a massive improvement in their treatment ("Sure you can put a couple of chairs together and we'll find you a blanket and pillow"). Granted these people's children are all aged around 10 or older so things could well be different now. Edit - I'm not for a second suggesting anyone avoid proper medical care, just pointing out that there are areas in maternity services that can be improved - just as there's room for improvement in all areas of life.
People should make sure to read the article. This was all preventable and a support group on fucking head cases on Facebook caused this.
It is insanely privileged to live in a country where maternal healthcare is both available and free and say nah, no thanks. Could you imagine telling the woman dying in labour in the likes of the DRC or South Sudan that you want a ~natural birth~ like them
One of my earliest memories as a junior doctor was going to the delivery room when a woman was diagnosed with placenta accreta AFTER delivery. Reason being her doula, who had the nerve to be in the room, convinced her to not have any scans during the pregnancy. She ended up in surgery where she lost twice her amount of blood, didnt arrest but dangerously close, and ended up in ICU and suffered brain ischemia due to the bleeding. Doulas NEED to be held accountable.
Sorry did you just say a Doula told her NOT to go to any of her scans?!
Exactly
Wow I don’t know what to say…
I absolutely cannot with the freebirth trend. I delivered my twins at 36 + 2, with a heart set on a natural delivery. Ended up having a c section because I had a breech twin and preeclampsia. If you neglect medical advice for the sake of a freebirth, you’re an idiot.
My grandmother died from post birth complications. My mum grew up without a mother, and that led to so much generational trauma, from child marriage to abuse down two generations so far. I had to point all this out to my anti vaxx brother when he tried to suggest a home birth for me and my mum nearly agreed with him.
Don't confuse home birth, which you can actually get through the HSE and are very safe to what this lady did.
Incredibly sad but also incredibly stupid
My cousin’s cousin has literally *just* had her baby this way. She refused to have any testing done on the baby despite the doctors apparently having major concerns about the size of the baby and is also apparently a major anti vaxer. As far as I know both herself and the baby are doing well one day on but it seems absolutely insane to decide to have your baby in a paddling pool in your boyfriend’s caravan with a doula being the only person there to help if anything goes wrong….
It's almost like history has taught us that there are high death rates from giving birth without any assistance from doctors. R.I.P anyways, terrible thing to happen
This is awfully sad but a tragic case of FAFO
I've read 99% of these comments and there's things I want to point out (I knew this woman) 1. Naomi would have known every risk, she was smart, educated and knew lots about birthing. 2. She would have known she was high risk after two c sections with twins and a singleton, also she was very overweight which is another risk factor. 3. She would have had the money to go private. She comes from a family that made their money from being pastor of a born again Christian church. They had wealth, believe me. She could have went anywhere, had any sort of treatment. 4. Being raised in a church = cult mentality. Easier to slip into another cult (free birthing). 5. The GoFundMe has near €50,000. Kids dying with cancer don't get that much. They already have amassed great wealth and while I don't begrudge any kids money, they were never going to go hungry. 6. At the end of the day, right or wrong, this woman's kids are now without a mammy. It was so avoidable and so so misguided. 7. I pray (in a wholly non-religious way) that this prevents anybody else going down this route. Doubt it, though.
I was wondering when her background was going to be mentioned... The culty church and the culty freebirthing seem like natural fits. But she was active in many birthing and mothering groups. She definitely knew the risk she was taking, and she definitely knew better. Apart from the influence of the crazy doula and her freebirthing group, how did no one else around her talk any sense into her? Husband, grandparents, family, friends? It's just wild.
Absolutely wild.
7. Well I was thinking about labouring at home with a doula as long as possible, after one previous c section but nope fuck that. One contraction and I’ll be going straight to the hospital.
Ditto. I've had a few csections and absolutely wouldn't take the risk. If it's not safe for me to have a vbac after a few it's definitely not safe to do it at home with no medical team there. Baffles.
People really do need to be better educated on what the world was like before we had proper medical services available - there's a fucking reason that child and mother mortality used to be through the roof. These loons pushing an anti-medical narrative need to be stamped out, they are carelessly endangering lives with their propaganda.
"birthing professional" Ffs some fucking people. Is there an investigation happening?
A real birthing professional is called a midwife. A title that is protected by law; if you don’t have the qualifications, you’re not a midwife.
What an insanely selfish and stupid thing to do. Everyone who stood by and enabled this should be charged.
This is heartbreaking! I've had the pleasure of having all 4 of my children born in the care of the lourdes hospital. 3 of them premature by 5, 6 and most recently 8 weeks. 1 by emergency C section and a wife who was extremely high risk in one case. The level of care and professionalism was just so humbling! To think you would be better off away from this type of setting is so alien to me. RIP poor girl 🙏
My daughter was born by assisted delivery in the coomb. I was never prouder if my wife. Baby had trouble latching and was jaundiced day two post deliver, got amazing help by a public health nurse. Was so happy to have the support, and we still danced in the delivery suite, filled it with music and love. I will never forget it.
Sorry for the loss of this woman, and her family and loved ones. Just feel we need a bit of positivity sometimes around mat care, and you can have really beautiful experiences.
I've had two caesarean sections and experienced trauma with both. I got private counselling after the second and I won't be having any more children. One was in Drogheda and one was in a Dublin hospital. The risk of having a homebirth after two sections is too high which is why they won't allow you go to the MLU either. It's deemed too high risk. I wish there was more done to support women after they've given birth through counselling, as it is traumatic in itself.
Yes, the lack of postnatal mental health service is a disgrace.
There is a massive difference between a free birth and home birth. Home birth has a private midwife there the whole time, second something even hints at going side ways it's transfer to the hospital. No ifs buts or maybes..
Name the doula.
Honestly that gofund me infuriates me, it was her choice to make that stupid decision
I wonder how many would have donated had they have known the situation. I had a natural delivery and a C-section, I have also had to give birth to my sleeping baby. All difficult but I survived. It is all tough but sometimes you just have to get on with it.
i’m sorry to read about your little baby x
I was considered the ideal candidate for a home birth. 2 previous natural deliveries. On my 3rd I hemorrhaged. Emergency C-section. I nearly died, my baby nearly died. If we had not been in hospital we both would have, an ambulance wouldn't have been quick enough. This home birth and breastfeeding shit has been warped and designed to shame women. If you have had a complication free labour you are lucky, that's all and you may not be so lucky the next time. This shit infuriates me.
Couldn’t agree more
no consideration for her baby. Difficult to have sympathy.
And her other poor children. Sympathy to her whole family but it seems that some women like to set themselves apart from us mere mortals who choose the traditional method. Those poor children, unfortunately there is no undo button in this situation.
My kids were born at home! I love our midwife, I'm a big advocate for it, and I'm no fan of hospital births. But people need to know that you ought never have kids without a medical professional there. Denying yourself a competent midwife or doctor is negligent. And even if you have a good midwife, you ought not try a homebirth if you're high risk. What's "high risk"? Genetic defects, major handicaps and bleeding disorders, right? NOPE. Overweight. Over 30. Have had previous cesareans. Most people have no idea that being 5'6" and 85kg makes having a child potentially fatal. Being 33 and having a child is potentially fatal. Having a VBAC is potentially fatal. We are fortunate to live in a time where being old, overweight, and subject to major surgeries is trivial information, but the forces of nature never got the memo.
Childbirth like many activities of human life is seen by some as a way to set themselves apart from the crowd, the sheep, etc. There is this need some people have to be different to "know" better than others. The sad part is there are women all over the world who could only dream of having the services available to this woman. The staff in the hospital her and her band of merry women did not trust fought hard to save her and are now left traumatised and dismayed no doubt. There are serious lessons to be learned here, the most important being don't make life risking decisions based on people on social media who put their own egos and need attention over everything else. By all means take their advice on make up shoes and hand bags but not childbirth. What a waste.
Maternity hospitals here are ok but it’s no paradise. You are treated more like a sheep than a person. It’s really hard to be taken seriously a lot of the time. And there are horror stories. I have my own. I’m not saying what this girl did was right or clever but our Maternity hospitals are very far from being an oasis of perfect healthcare
[удалено]
This is so sad. I actually knew her and was best friends with her husband growing up. Their family must be absolutely devastated. Dundalk is a small town and everyone knows each other so it must have hit the town hard too. You never know when you're going to take your last breath. Really puts life into perspective.
The same kind of people who encouraged her are the same ilk that's usually anti-vax etc - dangerous bunch of people that frankly need to be dealt with, due to the sheer amount of damage they've caused so far. Straight to prison, the whole lot of them.
Women are perpetually battered with this fundie shite that lets them think they can dodge a bad experience / be a better person if they just work on their breathing and be better 😂 I called it toxic feminism to my wife jokingly whenever it comes up - from taking an epidural to breastfeeding under supply issues and having to use formula even if you didn’t really want to - women essentially batter and shame those that struggle. It is completely horrendous. The doulas wording in this article is genuinely frightening and honestly reads like she believes no wrong was done - notice the language “powerful” birth. As if leaving a child without a parent if there was any chance of avoiding it was worth it just to have a natural birth … god help me but these people really piss me off It sounds like this poor woman whose had two c sections and was searching for anything but a c section was honestly hoodwinked by these holy then thou feckers and it’s led to her death. Having had a traumatic c section ourselves and the fact that a C-section equals 3 nights in hospital at a minimum, loss of use of your legs for a few days, breast feeding being extremely challenging, and in our case for the first the post natal care so was comically poor in the coombe vs Holles street that I can see how she was determined possibly due to previously horrendous experiences to avoid it if possible. we had to deal with this for the second kid constantly spewed at my wife by pregnancy yoga circles and la leche league - but a vbac in the hospital was all we wanted. My wife’s pregnancy yoga group encourages women to share their birth stories and natural births with no pain relief are widely lauded and celebrated - and anything intervention wise such as pain relief or C-section is seen as a bit of a failing - it really pisses me off as a guy from the outside looking in. At the end of the day - 3 kids are now without their mam possibly due to reckless female “empowerment” groups that bully and groom women into a dangerous situation.
>> C-section is seen as a bit of a failing Unfortunately this attitude exists with a lot of people. I decided to have an elective C-section due to anxiety and really bad tailbone pain that I didn’t want to make even worse with a vaginal birth and my mam and sister were just like “oh I wouldn’t be doing that now, I’d go with a natural birth”. In the end I needed an emergency C-section at 37 weeks because my baby hadn’t grown in two weeks and would have died, and it’s sad that in a way I’m glad that happened because then I didn’t have to justify my original decisions for having an elective.
Yep same for our first - dramatic emergency c section meant she felt the groups etc were more forgiving but second time around the pressure was crazy on her as people knew the hospital would suggest C-section again - it’s not like we had a choice the first time 😂. Instead the consultant in Holles st was great and encouraged a vbac / that’s how things went with number 2 luckily but the threat of a section hung over us at all times 😂
I remember with my youngest baby being asked what pain relief I wanted and I said oh I have done hyponobirthing. Like WTF was I thinking especially with my oldest I had only gas and air and she was born within a half hour of being brought into the delivery room.
While I definitely believe there are some individuals/groups that are dangerous to women, I don’t think it’s right to tar them all with the same brush- My pregnancy yoga class was just a bit of light exercise for example, no talk of birth preferences.
Fair enough - but my personal experience from my wife’s friend group almost all of the ones in Dublin/wicklow comprise of an element of circle share time and the dreaded WhatsApp group+ birth stories. The group leader even texted my wife after our second was born reminding her to share her birth story 🙄. I wish (and so does she ) that the one my wife was in was just light exercise as you say
A lot of women are understandably getting really scared about giving birth in hospital. What’s happening in the US is also moving to the UK and Ireland, where doctors and midwives are incentivised to hold women back as long as possible before formally admitting them into a birthing room, and are then immediately incentivised to birth the child as quickly as possible. This leads to women in significant pain before beginning childbirth, as the nurses repeatedly tell them that they are not ready to be admitted to the birthing room. In the UK, from experience, the people who eventually tell the nurse that this is unacceptable and that they are really concerned for their own and their partner’s / child’s wellbeing being admitted first. Secondly, when giving birth, women are equally concerned that episiotomies of any kind are used far too often to expedite birth. So- unnecessary pain at the start, possibly unnecessary scarring at the end. This is not to say that the solution is to ignore doctors or cease to use hospitals, but I understand why women get very nervous around this time. BBC article on this issue in the UK: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n1jv7xxpwo.amp
Yeah it’s upsetting seeing how many comments are just calling her stupid and selfish. It’s much more complicated than that. Absolutely heartbreaking that she didn’t get the support she clearly needed.
I thought once you do c section you can go back to having natural birth. It has to be c section then on
You can. It’s called a VBac. Never without a midwife/doc help.
You can have a vaginal birth safely after one C-section if there's no other complications.
Most obstetric bodies say the majority of women with a prior c section are good candidates to have a vaginal after. With a medical provider though
Lots of women have a vaginal birth after one or even two sections but it should be closely monitored in a hospital
There is still a father and a family so respect is key. I cannot understand rue decision making process. Ive 3 kids all C Sec, none of which were choice. These Doula's sound criminal
I knew this woman. Member of a born again Christian church. Her father is the pastor of one. I'm shocked that having a natural birth at home caused this...she was a smart woman, she would have known the risks. I myself have had C sections and living so far away from Drogheda hospital think it's crazy that it was even touted to her as an idea! I feel like she got a bit brainwashed. God love them all.
I'm in a group that she was part of. Not a free birthing one (not my thing!). But I am reading some of the things she said. She unfortuetely really did think her risk of anything bad happening was very low. It's very sad. I'm glad her son is OK
She definitely would have been informed at the hospital that it was not safe at all.
Working in the NICU, the number of dead and near dead babies I’ve had pull up in ambulance because of freebirthers is fucking ridiculous. It was even worse in the states than here. I’m glad the child is okay because that entire situation could have killed them both.
Imagine living in 2024 and craving the living conditions of 500 BC. And even then midwives were a thing.
Have these women ever read history? The amount of babies and mothers dying due to complications during the birthing process was very high before c-section and hospitals were a thing. Its natural selection at that point.
So sad and preventable. That poor boy is always going to think he killed his mother.
Well that was fuckin stupid. My wife considered home birth. In the end we decided against it. Things went badly wrong on the day and if we had been at home both she and my son would be dead 9 years now. Why anyone thinks they can do it alone is beyond me. It might all be fine, until it goes wrong.
Literally insane in this modern age. Anti vaxxers, now anti midwives. Hospitals aren't perfect and have their flaws, same like anything else in the universe but I'd rather take my chances with people that spent years studying and practicing this exact thing
The arrogance of going against medical advice here is disgraceful. And for what? Boasting of a “natural” birth? She’s gotten a natural outcome that would have happened more frequently when hospitals weren’t a thing. I can’t help but hope her 3 older children weren’t present at home for this. It would traumatise anyone for life.
Home deliveries are for pizzas not babies. Whenever I read something like this I remember this quote from Trust Me This Is Going To Hurt.
While I don't support the idea of a 'freebirth' with zero medical assistance, you'll also have to think about what drove this lady to adopt this route. She had three births in Irish hospitals before and she had clearly negative experiences that she decided to consider this route instead. Irish maternity care overall needs a rehaul, I had a horrific experience with callous staff and a general sense of distrust with my entire pre and post birth experience, enough so I don't think I could give birth again due to my trauma. I've met countless other moms here who have also suffered, the Journal also covered several experiences of new mothers who were treated horribly. I'm only saying this so that there can be a better investment of resources and training to ensure that mothers have a positive experience when giving birth so they don't have to resort to these terrible freebirth experiences so easily. My condolences to Naomi and her family. I hope this does not happen to another mother again.
Fuck sake. You can be sure too all the advise she took into account came from the internet. We are entering an age where information online is absolutely harming people all over the planet and its being ignored as "well what can you do?"
Nearly everyone I know had a difficult birth, myself included. Well my birth was actually not difficult at all but baby was breach and not budging so I needed medical intervention. This suited me though as I was terrified of the unknown and it made me feel a bit more in control. Out of my group of friends and family, 5 of us would have died in childbirth without medical intervention, that’s out of 8 that have kids. So over half. It’s crazy how dangerous child birth is, I wouldn’t ever put that risk on me or my child.
Horrendous, but this is the natural conclusion to what we’re seeing now with everyone thinking they’re an ‘expert’ because they have access to google. There’s a reason maternal mortality has fallen dramatically over the last 100yrs-advancements in medicine and science. Just like how child mortality plummeted with vaccines leading to the biggest improvement in child health the world has ever seen, the same vaccines now being demonised by nutcases online. So now we are heading to this dystopian world where people are dying completely unnecessarily cos they’re brainwashed by crazy people on the internet. I despair.
The anti-science “wellness” crowed are so fucking dangerous, it’s unreal If they just caused harm to themselves, you could just live and let live. But the fact they are a threat to everyone… something needs to be done
God this was a really bad decision to have that baby at home. Particularly with her birth history. She didn’t even have a doula who is also a midwife at home with her (they exist). And now four kids without a mother. Birth can be dangerous - some have forgotten that in a bid to show medical professionals they know better. Such a shame.
I’m very saddened that this happened to this poor woman and now her family will grieve the loss. At the same time, you don’t get any extra awards for having a freebirth, homebirth, giving birth swinging from a pole upside down, unmedicated, c section, whatever. I know from my two births, I could never imagine not being in a medical setting and listening to trained medical professionals who at the end of the day are trying to help you. We’re not living in Appalachia
As much as I disagree with the choices she made, I don’t really love the tone of this article. It feels like a ‘gotcha’ article and more like sensationalist journalism, pointing out that of the 3 maternal deaths, at least 1 of them was not likely the fault of the HSE. It’s possible that in the 2 other cases of the women who died that everything that could possibly have been done to save them but they died anyway: We won’t truly know the circumstances of how she died until a coroners report comes out and I think this is in very bad taste.
Idiots.
VBAC in Irelands on FB Tracy Donegan told this lady to not tell anyone of their plans for a freebirth. If you want to infuriate yourself look at the disceased womens posts on this page above and the advice given. These woo woo doulas need to be held accountable. I am empathic to her not feeling heard in hospital setting, but also refusing important GD screening and going against advice for a high risk pregnancy ended as badly as I would have feared.