Unassisted birth on GMA this morning!?

Editorial Team / Admin · Jan 8, 2008

I saw this.

Here's the link to the story:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/TurningPoints/story?id=4098198&page=1

And, to the actual GMA video report:

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4101994

ladylabor · Jan 9, 2008

I watched the story from the link provided. Interesting. I don't know how educated the mother of the singelton was but the only thing about her story that suprised me was that she was a vbac did anyone eles catch that? I know the risk for vbac is low but I don't know if I would personally take that risk, Then the twin lady, I work in a big teaching hospital and we do vag deliveries of twins all the time. We have even done breech extractions on the second baby. So for someone to force her to have a section is unfair. I think in her situation I would have consulted a differant dr. But these are just my thoughts

byrd262, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2008

OMG...I don't know where to start. First let me say...I am an aspiring CNM who will be starting nursing school this year. I work as a maternal-child health case manager and have been involved in my own personal self-study of birthing options. I am not a RN, MD, DO, or mother.

I am appalled by what the featured physician said in this piece (summary, not direct quote).. All unborn children have the right to a c-section and any mother opposed to that option is irresponsible. I can't believe he would say that. I HOPE I MISUNDERSTOOD THE CONTEXT...maybe he MEANT in emergency situations only. I really hope I misunderstood him. Not trying to create controversy here, I am giving him the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise it sounds like he thinks that all unborn children should be delievered by c-section. I wish he were more clear considering that this is a national broadcast that reaches millions. Watching for the second time, I caught that he did use the word "immediate," but honestly I think it can get lost in translation.

Also, he said that the first few hours of labor are "the most dangerous time during the entire lifetime of that child." Where is the data to support this? What peer-reviewed journal did he find that in? Otherwise he needs to stipulate that this is an opinion. I am choosing to react to this personally right now...I get the impression that that physician is trying to use fear to create submission with this statement. This piece would have been much better and more well-rounded if they would have featured both a certified nurse midwife and a lay mife/certified professional midwife. How can you can the piece be called, Unassisted Home Delivery: No Hospital, No Doctor, No Midwife and not include a midwife and/or nurse-midwife? ...Interesting

Personally, I think that every woman has the right to make decisions for her and her familiy. Did anyone catch the end when Robin made the point that the recommended alternative is ONLY hospital-based and her guest skewed over it saying that the best of both worlds is to labor with a CNM in the HOSPITAL.

I have said it before and I will say it again..Obstetrics is so political. I didn't believe it when I was first told, but I believe it now. Due to medical malpractice insurance and the lack doctors pulling their "back-up" support for homebirths, I see myself working in a hospital in the future. However, I see nothing wrong with laboring unassisted. That's a personal choice that every woman has the right to make for herself. I would love to see a follow-up piece on the phase-out of non-nurse midwives by the legal and medical powers that be which has created surges in unassisted births. If these positions/professions were "accepted" then women would have greater access to quality, homebirth care be midwives of varying types (CPM, LMW) who bring ample knowledge to the birthing field.

I wonder when people forgot that births have been going on way before "doctor's/traditional medicine" realized that "bloodletting" was killing patients not helping them.

I hope that this all came out right and that no one was offended.

CNM2B · Jan 10, 2008

My impression was that the MD meant that the baby has the right to an immediate C-Section in an emergency situation. I've seen a few of those occur as an RN and they are super scary. Just racing the Mom down the hall to the OR seems to take forever.

I'm biased, but I think a UC is a bad idea. Things like shoulder dystocia, although rare, do occur and require a professional to intervene quickly.

njmcavoy · Mar 31, 2008

I guess that I am in the minority of people who think that this is insane. I am a labor and delivery nurse in a very busy hospital. Yes, I see a lot of high risk pregnancies and labors, but I also adhere to my patients' birth plans as I am allowed. In a lot of cases, I think that these women would be better off giving birth at home; but with SOMEONE in attendance!!! There are CNM's that do home births. What would these women do with a shoulder distocia? With a surprise breech? With a postpartum hemorrhage. I have had deliveries that have been completely uneventful..........with a resulting postpartum hemorrhage; big enough to require blood transfusion. You can't say that that resulted because of something that WE in the hospital did to her! what the doctor in the video said---was that it was irresponsible for a woman, and that an unborn baby had the right to have ACCESS to a c/section room if they should need it. I agree. Even birthing centers have a backup plan. Where I work, we do not do things at the provider's convenience....there is no "5PM dinner." They are there in the hospital whether anything is going on with their patients or not.

We know that some of the things that we require may not really be necessary. but its' because of some of the same controlling type of people that we have to do things that way. The enormous amount of lawsuits MAKES us do things the way that we do them. If something went wrong, those people with the 4 page birth plan, prohibiting IV sites, fetal monitoring and any of the other things that we do in hospitals----would sue just like anyone else, saying that we breeched our duty to them and their child to keep them safe.

I know that I am going to be the unpopular here............but I just wanted to share my opinion..

HeritageRN · Mar 31, 2008

I believe that a woman should be able to give birth the way she feels is right for her and her child. Although, I also believe that most women would choose to have someone there with her if she knew that person would support her in whatever she needed.

The doctor on GMA really did nothing but frighten to be mothers and families. This is the type of response that makes woman want something different. I also disagree with the guest that the only way to have a safe birth is in the hospital. There are many birth centers and midwives that attend birth at home that provide a very safe environment for a child to be born. More attention needs to be brought to these options so women do not feel the only way to have the birth she wants is to go it alone.

rn/writer, RN · Mar 31, 2008

I believe that a woman should be able to give birth the way she feels is right for her and her child.

Feelings alone are not a good basis for making such an important decision. Childbirth doesn't have to be a tug of war between two extremes. As with most topics that matter, the best decisions result from finding a balance between wants and needs.

To give birth completely unassisted when there are all kinds of lower-intervention alternatives is foolhardy. You are betting your own life and that of your child that nothing serious will go wrong. You are making the assumption that you will be able to recognize problems and have time to call for and receive help.

Had my husband and I followed this line of thinking, we would have lost our second child. She developed a collapsed lung within hours after delivery. Astute nurses caught the diminished breath sounds and arranged to have her transported to a hospital with a NICU. The thing is that she appeared to be fine up till the very moment that she coded and turned blue. Fortunately, this occurred in the ambulance with a neonatologist and a nurse to resuscitate her. Had this happened in our home, she would have died before help could have arrived. I never would have forgiven myself that something so treatable had been allowed to take her life because we weren't equipped to assess and care for her properly.

I'm all for having as natural an experience as possible, but keep in mind that some of the "unnatural" interventions are the result of the fact that nature in its rawest form would take the lives (or the health) of some of these babies and their mothers, too.

HeritageRN · Mar 31, 2008

I am not saying if it is right or wrong, I do think that it IS better for women to have a knowledgeable skilled care giver with her during birth. If you read the second part of that I also said that I felt that most woman would choose to have someone (meaning care giver) with them if they felt supported in the way they wanted to be. And at the end I said that more attention needs to be know about alternatives so women do not feel like they need to go it alone.

I am a nurse and I know things can go wrong. I have no problems when medical intervention when it is needed as in the case of your little one, I am sorry that happened how scary! I do not feel that having an unassisted birth is a good idea but again woman have the right to give birth the way she feels is best. I do feel strongly that there are safe options out of the hospital and hope women will look into those before choosing to do an unassisted birth.

justme1972 · Apr 1, 2008

Women are n-u-t-s for doing that.

Too many things can go wrong and I really think that a woman who chooses that option should be charged with criminal child neglect if a baby dies/injured due to total absence of medical care during a birth....just like they do with these teenagers that birth babies at home...I see no difference.

These women, if they don't care anything about whether they live or die, then so be it...but they shouldn't put their baby's life at risk just so they can have bragging rights later.

Things like this make me SO angry!!!! :angryfire:angryfire:angryfire

When women choose crazy birthing options like that...it's not about the baby, it's about their ego....which needs to be checked at the door.

ruralnurs · Apr 1, 2008

I may be a bit off here but I think that women, those that are having babies need to take some responsibility for how "bad" birth is going with the mean, paternalistic OB doc intimidating her into his demands. I work in a rural hospital and we don't do a lot of births but we get a variety.

So the woman smokes during pregnancy despite what she is told, we find THC in her urine every time we check, she either doesn't eat enough to keep a rat alive (gotta keep that figure) or is a non-compliant gestational diabetic, misses several prenatal appointments, doesn't come to the childbirth classes that I teach (free might I ad with lots of giveaways and food), complains constantly about how she hurts and is miserable and needs lortab to make it through the day, and then walks into the ER when she has had 2 contractions and demands and epidural and IV fentanyl until the CRNA can get there! (And asks if her family can wheel her out side to smoke because the epidual has her legs numb!)

So people wonder why we want to monitor that baby every second and be ready to do whatever we have to.

You can't have it both ways, be self centered, not put any work into it, expect NO discomforts and have a "natural" birth. I have 6 children, 5 born with no meds, naturally (even had ruptured membranes for 9 days prior to going into natural labor with my doctor's full agreement) and then on my last I had every problem in the book, and so did baby and an emergency c-sec (and a blood transfusion for me) saved us both.

I live in the middle of now where Montana and I found a doctor that had my same ideals. Don't tell me in the big cities that a woman can't find a CNM or doc (often FPs are more holistic than OBs) that has a similar outlook on birth.

We had a perfect baby born here, first time young parents. The baby was a bit dusky at birth, and a sharp RN noticed that at 10 hours of age he was still a bit blue. She alerted the doc, we did an ultrasound and discovered transposition of the great vessels. He was shipped off for heart surgery and it saved his life. If he had been born at home and brought in later he may not have lived.

Yes, things are going south in many ways, but it is not all the medical profession. I hate when I hear "those doctors and nurses". Almost every nurse that I know that is in L&D do it because they love to help women, and they want to support that woman in the most natural way possible. It is often the whiney, "It's not supposed to hurt", "but I want my baby born while grandma is here", "but I'm 2 days over due", "but I need to go out and have a cigarette, this labor has me all stressed out", "but I need lortab to sleep, if I am not sleeping it will be bad for the baby", "I smoke pot so I will eat enough for the baby and it helps me with morning sickness", "Its OK I did some meth with the last one and she is just a little bit bipolar and ADHD".........

Let's wake up and take some responsibility.

kythe, LPN · Apr 1, 2008

Women are n-u-t-s for doing that.
Too many things can go wrong and I really think that a woman who chooses that option should be charged with criminal child neglect if a baby dies/injured due to total absence of medical care during a birth....just like they do with these teenagers that birth babies at home...I see no difference.
These women, if they don't care anything about whether they live or die, then so be it...but they shouldn't put their baby's life at risk just so they can have bragging rights later.
Things like this make me SO angry!!!! :angryfire:angryfire:angryfire
When women choose crazy birthing options like that...it's not about the baby, it's about their ego....which needs to be checked at the door.

I also see some serious potential problems with unassisted birth, but I don't want to paint all UC'ers with the same brush. People's motivations for choosing UC vary greatly, and some are very educated and put more research into their unassisted birth than others do into which hospital they will go to. Some keep emergency equipment on hand (such as for the possibility of rescussitating the baby). It's not unheard of for women to recieve full prenatal care with a doctor, then "accidentally" have a fast birth where they didn't make it to the hospital on time.

Although I personally would not do this, I also wouldn't consider it justified to involved social services in every such case. I also don't assume it to be a selfish decision on the part of the mother. Some women have had negative experiences with practitioners and feel "driven" toward UC because of lack of trust in their providers.

Unfortunately, many UC'ers aren't as responsible and it can give all homebirthers a bad name. I once met a woman who had all three of her babies at home, 1-2 months early each. She doesn't know their exact gestation since she recieved no prenatal care. She believes it was okay that her babies were early since that must be how her body works. She took each baby to the hospital after birth when she realized that they were unable to nurse since they weren't breathing well enough. Her firstborn had a two-week stay, yet she made the same mistake of giving birth prematurely at home to each of her others as well! One would think that most women would learn the first time and seek medical care in the future, but she had read a work of fiction that idealized "natural" childbirth, and she continued to see no problem with giving birth prematurely without medical intervention.

I'm sure this woman is one of the ones you are referring to that more than needed intervention from social services. However, it is stil unfair to assume all or even most UC'ers are this. Many UC'ers are more educated and prepared, and have more constructive reasons for making the choices they do.