"Freebirth" - Dangerous Movement is Placing Expectant Mothers and Their Babies in Danger

[FullGlass]

This morning, I read with disbelief an article about "freebirthing," a movement for women to have babies with absolutely no medical professional present. While home birth has been around for a long time, this movement goes even further, claiming that even the presence of Midwife is bad. They encourage women to even go give birth in the wilderness.

Below are 2 links to articles about women who did this, and lost their babies:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no-doctors-online-groups-convinced-her-it-n1140096

https://www.thedailybeast.com/she-wanted-a-freebirth-at-home-when-the-baby-died-the-attacks-began

Safe options for women who desire a less "institutional" approach to childbirth include:

• At home birth with a Certified Nurse Midwife
• Birth center - many of these are lovely and have excellent safety and quality
• "Baby friendly" hospitals that have wings set up like a birth center and encourage use of "natural" methods as much as is safe

It is chilling and infuriating that social media is leading to rise of this sort of dangerous practice.

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

18 hours ago, Queen Tiye said:

The United States has a higher infant mortality rate than other nations who are more “hands off” when in comes to birth. I read a few years that most women in France give birth at home (or are encouraged to give birth at home) because hospitals are germ laden and pose greater risks to mother and baby — interventions are available as needed.

Just because the birth outcomes are quite good in other countries doesn't mean that they will necessarily be good in the US. In fact, in the US, infant mortality in home births is three times higher than in hospital births if attended by a licensed midwife, and four times higher if attended by an unlicensed midwife; by comparison, in European countries the infant mortality outcomes at home vs. in hospital are equal.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-homebirths-newborn-mortality/hospital-births-far-safer-for-u-s-newborns-than-home-births-idUSKBN20N0R0

There are a lot of reasons that home births are less safe than hospital births in the US (at least under our current system). Our population is less healthy on the whole, meaning that our moms are more likely to have comorbidities. A lot of places in the US have very poor access to healthcare, meaning that a ton of kids don't get the prenatal care that they should. Therefore, our babies are born with a higher likelihood to require intervention (like oxygen, PPV, IV fluids) than most countries.

Those European countries also have home midwifery built into their healthcare systems; they have an adequate number of trained, well-equipped midwifes to actually attend home deliveries and recognize the early signs that something is going wrong. In the US, many home births are attended by unlicensed lay-midwives who legally aren't allowed to deliver babies and don't know to give effective CPR if the baby is born blue/limp/shell-shocked.

Maybe the US could eventually have safe home births, but it would require a lot of major structural and behavioral changes.

Either way, this 'free birth' seems super-dangerous. Even in small, indigenous communities in developing countries, births are generally attended by a community midwife or at least a family member who has helped deliver several babies.

[adventure_rn, MSN, NP]

1 hour ago, adventure_rn said:

Those European countries also have home midwifery built into their healthcare systems; they have an adequate number of trained, well-equipped midwifes to actually attend home deliveries and recognize the early signs that something is going wrong. In the US, many home births are attended by unlicensed lay-midwives who legally aren't allowed to deliver babies and don't know to give effective CPR if the baby is born blue/limp/shell-shocked.

Even more frightening, the highest-risk home births are most likely to be attended by an unlicensed midwife with no medical background (in my personal experience).

If a pregnancy is high-risk (I.e. twins, LGA, maternal commodities, etc.), most licensed personnel (like CNMs) will refuse to participate in a home birth since they recognize that it's too dangerous. When those super-high-risk moms are insistent that they must have a home birth (against medical advice), they turn to unlicensed personnel.

As a NICU nurse, I have seen far too many babies whose mothers knew they were high risk and were explicitly told by their OB/CNM that needed to deliver in a hospital, but decided to deliver at home with an unlicensed midwife anyway. Unfortunately, almost all of those deliveries ended in profound hypoxic brain injury and ultimately brain death. It's incredibly frustrating and heartbreaking because their deaths could have been entirely avoidable if those women had listened to their CNMs/OBs.

One awful case that will always haunt me. Mom with a history of gestational diabetes, LGA babies, and her first two babies had shoulder dystocia in the hospital. OB/CNMs refused a home birth, so she found an unlicensed midwife. As expected, this baby was a shoulder dystocia, got stuck, suffered horrible brain damage and a bleed. Arrived to the unit via EMS with a pH of 6.8. We were never able to stop her seizures from the moment she arrived to the moment she died. When they arrived, mom and dad were under the impression that she was going to be totally fine; within the first day she herniated and died. If she'd been born in a hospital, with the capacity to immediately deal with the dystocia and initial resuscitation, she may well have been a perfectly healthy baby. It makes me sick to my stomach.

[maggie0, BSN, RN]

Most of the time, unattended births go just fine. But is it really worth the risk of having one that doesn't? Before modern health care, a huge percentage of mothers and babies died in childbirth. It was a horrible time of dead women and babies filling cemeteries. There's no benefit in going back.

[Guest1142305]

Yeah, neither I nor my wife have a steady enough knife hand for that. ? Ceserean x 4.

Transient tachypenia is also really hard to treat in the woods with no oxygen or cpap.

WOW!! this is a dumbfounding movement.

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

My grandmother once told me that back in the day her mother was pushing two mules across a wheat field "When she felt them pains come on. She was alone out there and It being a long walk back to the house she just laid down and had me right there. Now that field wasn't gonna get plowed by itself so after a brief rest she put me (my Grandmother) to the breast tied her apron tight and just got on with the work." Guess they were just tougher back in those days. My grandmother was a tough old bird and given to telling great stories and yes I know lots of women and babies in the late 19th century died in childbirth especially in rural areas.

Hppy

[NurseBlaq]

I would never.....

Darwinism is very real!